The Quiet Crisis in America: Why We Need to Reclaim our First Principles and our History

There is a quiet crisis in America - one that is slowly causing our national suicide.  Our national survival is threatened by our failure to understand our First Principles and history.

In his Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (1838), Abraham Lincoln explained that the greatest threat to America is suicide:

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from overbroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

 Lincoln’s warning is most poignant today.  The American experiment now teeters on the brink of collapse. We have all but forgotten the exceptional nature of America.

Studies reveal that the public is ignorant of key concepts and principles of our constitutional order.  Our education system is failing to adequately educate huge swaths of our students about citizenship and history.

Most political leaders do not appear to know or understand our First Principles or history. Almost all of our current political discourse ignores our First Principles and history out of ignorance, convenience, or disdain.

Much of the mainstream media is also blissfully unaware of anything approaching history or foundational principles.

A quiet crisis has gripped America and threatens our survival. Our experiment in self-government requires a vibrant understanding of our First Principles and engagement by an informed public. Our greatest challenge is no longer a foreign nation or even terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction, but preserving our liberty despite ourselves.

The most powerful weapons against America are not guns and missiles, but ignorance, complacency, and disdain of our history and First Principles. America is dangerously close to allowing the flame of liberty to die out. Simply put, we surrender when we abandon our First Principles. Political amnesia will be our death knell.

The quiet crisis in America can only be solved if we reclaim our First Principles and history.

For more about Quiet Crisis gripping America, buy a copy of America’s Survival Guide..

 

 

More Praise for America's Survival Guide

"America's Survival Guide is a bold and insightful work that should be taken seriously by those concerned with the future of America. We ignore it at our peril."
Congressman Joe Knollenberg

“Judge Michael Warren has filled these pages with some of the best ideas emerging from our history – ideas that he argues form the very foundations of America’s political and social life.  Meant to stir us from a civic lethargy, Warren provokes as he educates.  Indeed, there is much here worth talking about, arguing over, and acting upon.  Whether you agree or disagree with him, Judge Warren has given policy makers, teachers and students a powerful picture of America’s intellectual past to guide the present as we shape the future.”  – Bob Bain, University of Michigan, Associate Professor