What Will It Take to Unite Americans?

I think this can happen in only one possible way: we restore the Union under the same principles as it was originally founded. I'm going to describe some of my life experiences and processes that lead me to this conclusion.

I'm not what is called a scholar, historian, or philosopher, but I do have a quest for knowledge and understanding. Why? In order to live my life in a better way, I guess, would be one way of expressing that answer. I try to build my life around those things I deem right and true. I have been mostly happy with that approach. The political, economic, religious, and social culture in America has enabled that. The record of emigration to America and news accounts and other sources detailing conditions in other parts of the globe confirm that America offers the best opportunities for individuals to achieve their goals regardless of disadvantaged starting points.

So how did we get to where we are today, on the edge of losing America's Constitutional Republic? I'm convinced a prominent factor is generational cultural changes that produce values outside the range of values set forth within the Judeo-Christian values in place at the founding. How does something like this happen? I'm going to express what I think plays a big part, maybe even the main cause.

After World War I, America had a brief period of limited prosperity for many followed by a decade of despair affecting most of the country. The first official Communist government arose after the revolution in Russia. Communists were very active in America during the period before World War II. Still, the open public activity of that movement was rebuffed strongly when the war was over. We entered the period of the Cold War with Communist regimes punctuated by warlike conflict without formal war declarations. Communist Party activity went underground.

But economic prosperity was continuously rising for America with some bumps along the way. The sixties produced the most noticeable political and cultural aberrations until what we have experienced recently. And what we have experienced over the last three decades seems to have resulted from the same socialists/political forces that were at work with the Communists in the thirties.

I recall always hearing warnings about what happens when things get too easy for people. Laziness, inattention, indulgence, and incompetence appear and the productivity of the people dissipates. Our industrial and technological advances have been able to offset much of that effect, but we have reached the limits. Must we now create a period of great despair to rekindle an aspiration for achievement and productivity in the mass of people?

I was born in the Great Depression and started life with nothing but family members who cared for me. So I have a personal experience with all things from then to now in America, including the transition from hard to easy. This has been a short recounting of some of that. I won't be here, but the future vision weighs on me as I hope and pray that my posterity will have the opportunities for joy and productive lives that were gifted to me by an America I love.

How do we recover what is on the verge of being lost?