I’m working on my latest book ‘American Renaissance.’ It’s a working title, which will likely remain. I wanted to share the introduction with you all.
INTRODUCTION: Make America, America Again
The United States of America is the greatest nation in the history of mankind. Period. But it’s also a young nation, which makes our achievements that much more remarkable. In a span of less than 250 years a once small, newly formed Nation struggling for survival became the most prosperous and powerful Nation in the world. For perspective, the Roman Republic was established in 509 BC. Rome itself is said to have been founded in 753 BC. But Rome didn’t become the most powerful empire in the world until the 1st Century AD. In other words, America accomplished in 250 years, what took Rome more than 500. No newly formed Nation in the history of mankind has experienced a more a rapid and meteoric rise than the United States of America. But as remarkable as that achievement is, America’s collapse could come even more rapidly and will if we continue on our present course.
History is replete with accounts of Nations, which once rose to greatness and then collapsed: Rome, Egypt, France, the Ottomans and Byzantines, Spain, the Mongols, Persians, and Turks, to name just a few. Americans gaze with wide eyed wonder at the ruins that remain in Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; testaments to former glory that is no more, once great Nations, which no longer exist. We look down at the dirt floor of the Colosseum in the city of Rome from the stands above and wonder what it must have been like to take in the games; to have lived under Caesar, at the height of the Roman Empire. We tilt back our heads and stare up at the pyramids of Giza and marvel at the achievements of the ancient Egyptians, who built such impressive monuments without cranes.
We pay museum fees for the opportunity to stare into glass enclosures, which house and protect ancient relics and artifacts; broken vases, utensils, candles, armor, swords, decayed wagons, and faded papyrus. And yet everyday we drive around in automobiles, turn lights on and off with a switch, and sleep in beds in homes that are more comfortable than any king, queen, or emperor of antiquity could have ever imagined. We are fascinated by what was and unappreciative of what is and what we have. It’s only natural. How can anyone appreciate anything if its all they’ve ever known?
But many do appreciate America, because it’s not all they’ve ever known. Ask Cuban immigrants or Venezuelan or Bulgarian or Chinese, and countless others, who fled their hellhole homelands to take refuge here in America, who escaped the various isms — socialism, communism, Marxism — all synonymous with poverty, tyranny, and slavery; the very ideologies, which have become popular and mainstream in America. These immigrants choose to come here because of the unparalleled opportunity, prosperity, and freedom that America offers. No Nation in the history of mankind has produced greater innovation, unleashed greater talent, or done more to improve the lives of its own citizens, and those around the world, than the United States of America.
The ancient Egyptians may have invented the first boats, but it was the American Wright brothers, who invented the first functional airplane, and Henry Ford, who invented the assembly line that made it possible for mankind to trade in their horses for automobiles. It was the American Thomas Edison, who invented a viable lightbulb and the American Albert Marshall, who invented the first mechanical refrigerator. It was the American Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone.
The Chinese may have invented the abacus, but the Americans invented the world’s first handheld calculator. The cotton gin, mass produced muskets, condensed milk, the sky scraper, cotton candy, the electric traffic light, frozen food, the microwave, the credit card, panty hose, CD’s, personal computers, the internet, kevlar, air conditioning, the television, tractors, helicopters, post it notes, lung transplants, washing machines, mobile phones, blenders, garage door openers, and blue jeans, were all created by Americans. Can any American today imagine living in a world without any one of the aforementioned American inventions? We can’t. But we spend plenty of time romanticizing the lives of those in the past, who had none of them.
When I moved to Manhattan after graduating college in 2009, I would frequently seek refuge in the towering halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sometimes twice or three times a week I would make the trek from the confines of my small, claustrophobic, pre-war apartment located on East 62nd Street between 1st and 2nd avenues, to the the famous museum handsomely situated off of 5th Avenue on Central Park. There I would wander the halls of the MET, and lose myself amidst the thousands of artifacts collected and displayed from long lost civilizations. It was therapeutic; a temporary escape from the challenges and obstacles of the present. I was a time traveler, immersing myself in the past to avoid the present.
The irony was that I walked blindly through one of the greatest cities ever built — past skyscrapers, restaurants, dodging cars and messengers on bikes — to get there. Imagine me, staring into a glass encasement at an Egyptian scythe, with a ready made sandwich from the museum bakery in hand. What would Augustus Caesar, the once emperor of Rome, think of Madison Square Garden, the Plaza Hotel, and even Central Park? His jaw would drop. He’d get back in his time machine, return to Rome, and order every slave to get to work because the City of New York made his gleaming city look pedestrian. But New York City, unlike Rome, was built by free men, rather than Roman slaves.
For those Americans, who have vacationed in Italy, the cobble stone streets and castles, the cathedrals and the palaces cast a spell over them. To walk the streets of Florence, or Venice, or Rome is akin to time travel, itself. A tourist leaves his or her hotel room and steps into an open air museum each day. But what story do these monuments and testaments to the greatness of the Roman Empire, or the Medici, and other Italian rulers, kings, and Popes really tell? Their static beauty serves as a warning; a reminder that a Nation’s dominance, power, status, and stability is neither permanent nor guaranteed, but rather temporary and fragile.
I frequently hear Americans celebrate the antiquity of Europe and lament the novelty of America; as if America’s youth is something to be ashamed of. “Europe is better because it’s older,” claim many Americans. And yet these same Americans attack our Constitution because its old. Where is the reverence for our oldest document, which revolutionized the relationship between the Government and its citizens; the most progressive and influential document in all of human history? After all, the Constitution is still alive. It’s more relevant and meaningful today than the combined artifacts and relics from every museum in the world.
While the United States of America is a young Nation compared to ancient Nations of the past, the U.S.A. is actually one of the oldest Nations in the world at present. Many do not realize this, but the modern day Nation of Italy is younger than the United States of America. Italy didn’t become a unified country until 1861, 91 years after the creation of the United States in 1776. The modern republic of Egypt was founded in 1953. The present day United Kingdom wasn’t formed until 1801. Germany became a Nation state in 1871, Greece in 1821, and China in 1949. The United States of America may be young, but it is older than the United Kingdom, Egypt, Germany, Greece, China, and Italy. While ancient civilizations deserve credit for their achievements and contributions, so too does America deserve credit for her’s.
Just a decade ago, when I was living and working in Italy, I couldn’t get a cell phone plan. I had to buy minutes as I went. Just a decade ago, when I lived in Italy, I couldn’t pay my electric bill online. I had to go to the post office to do so in person. America has consistently led the entire world in innovation. Modern nations like Italy have consistently been a decade or more behind. But Paris has the Louvre and the nearby Palace of Versailles. Florence has the Uffizi and the Duomo, Michelangelo and Donatello. Rome has the Colosseum and St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Roman forum. These preserved monuments and ruins alike are wonders to behold, but they are celebrations of the past, not the present, or future.
Only the great Cathedrals continue to have relevance, as worshipers continue to gather under the same roof as their ancestors to pray. The rest have no bearing on modern day life. We celebrate them because they are old, not because they are relevant. And with few exceptions, it is the romanticized lives of the elite, which attract our attention. We marvel at the opulence of Monarchs and despots. We visit the castles and palaces of the rulers, not the hovels of their subjects. And yet even our American hovels offer comforts that would be the envy of every King and despot of antiquity. Even still, countless third world countries around the world don’t enjoy these comforts that even the poorest American takes for granted.
There is no greater period in history or place to be alive than in America. Neither the high standard of living nor America’s meteoric rise was the result of coincidence. Nor is our near monopoly on innovation the result of happenstance. Our unique and unparalleled exceptionalism is due to our freedom, self reliance, and capitalism; in other words abundant opportunity. America’s greatest invention wasn’t the cotton gin or the iPhone or the mass production of the automobile. It isn’t the internet, or personal computers or panty hose. America’s greatest invention is the Constitution, our revolutionary contract that limits the power of the Government, rather than the citizen; which renders the Government servant and the citizen master; which gives us freedom. America became great because the American was free.
While the United States is still presently the greatest and most prosperous nation in the history of mankind, we are currently experiencing a period of rapid decline. Our economy is contracting, our cities are decaying, our border is being invaded, our military isn’t prepared for war, our enemies plot against us, and the American dollar is worth less each day. Worse, our government is responsible for all of it. The signs of America’s imminent collapse are numerous and un-ignorable. If we don’t change course, our posterity will observe the ruins of America, as we observe the ruins of the Roman Empire. But our demise is not inevitable.
America is currently in the midst of a dark age, characterized by our own economic, intellectual, and cultural decline. This is a direct result of the abandonment of the ideals and principles set forth by our Founding fathers. Many citizens wish to exchange our successful and advanced model of government for some archaic model, which is proven to fail. America’s salvation can’t be found in the adoption of any failed political and economic theory of the past. It can only be found in the embrace of the superior political and economic theory that we already have; which we invented.
If we wish to avoid the fate of every other great Nation in the history of mankind, which rose to power, only to collapse, we must once again celebrate and embrace the very values and principles that made us great; which differentiate us from every other nation in history.
We can’t understand a world in which we don’t live in the most prosperous and powerful Nation in the history of the world anymore than the Italians or French or anyone else can understand a world in which they do live in the most prosperous and powerful Nation in the history of the world. Do you really want to live in a Nation, or for your children or grandchildren to live in one, in which we all imagine what it must have been like to have lived in a great America; to tell your children and grandchildren what it was once like to live in an America, which was free, prosperous, and proud? No sane American does. But that will be America’s future if we don’t confront those responsible for our decline; namely the Democratic Party and the diabolical regressive ideology they promote.
America doesn’t need to be reimagined, it needs to be revived. We need an American renaissance; to revive American values and principles, to fervently promote the rediscovery of American history and political philosophy, and to combat the regressive ideology of the Democratic Party, which threatens to plunge America into the abyss.
The greatest obstacle standing in the way of America and the fulfillment of our promise to create a more perfect Union is the same as it has always been: amoral men, united predominantly under the banner of the Democratic Party.