What Really Accounts for Our National Greatness?

The genesis of this nation -- what became the United States of America -- was the putting into governing practice a wonderfully startling idea: That "greatness" in a man was attached to what he (or she) made of themselves, not something dependent on their conditions at birth.

Our first President was known for his genuine nobility -- an actual character of honesty, humility and strength. Our oft-considered greatest President, Abraham Lincoln -- a man born in what today would be seen as intolerable poverty -- for his intelligence, thoughtfulness and hard-won learning. Our greatest early spokesman to the world, Benjamin Franklin, was a self-made man known for his thoughtful view of life and his original scientific thinking. -All this at a time when the commonly held idea of "nobility" -- one held throughout Europe and Asia -- was simply a "good" birth, wealth and fancy clothes with little or no thought to honor, intelligence, moral integrity or accomplishment.

And yet who are we as a people and a nation more like today? Which society?

What place has "honor" "honesty" "integrity" "intelligence" "originality" "accomplishment" in our scheme of things?

We accept as normal having candidates for public office who outright lie to the people. We hang on the words of people who have no accomplishments apart from birth, wealth, physical attractiveness and fancy belongings. We sneer at actual accomplished except in a few, narrow, fields of endeavor.

If we want to again enjoy the rich lives of our predecessors during the times of America's earlier "greatness" we must first as a people recognize what made that America great to start with. -We must strive for and emulate those things: Honor, honesty, intelligence, originality and genuine accomplishment. For some time we as a people have largely denied that such things exist or ever really existed. And some still do.

It is time for this to change.  This is another key area in which we as a nation must return to our roots.

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