So well said. Thank you. Best of luck in your run for governor.
IGNORANCE. Ignorance is the biggest threat to our country. Ignorance of self, ignorance of history and ignorance of survival.
This ignorance has led to Americans becoming spoiled, bored and narcissistic at epidemic levels. This ignorance has created a blind spot in our humanity that (unfortunately) will only be corrected through pain.
(Fortunately) pain for ignorant Americans means inconvenience and having to be self-reliant.
Lastly, is part of the plan to fast track illegal immigrants mean that they don’t have to pass the same American knowledge exam as legal immigrants? Encourage less assimilation and more divide and control?🤔 Thus fostering more IGNORANCE.
Some immigrants come here knowing more about the Declaration and the US Constitutions than people who families have been here for generations. Other immigrants from different cultures who are hostile to inalienable rights and believe that their duty is to destroy America and replace it with a theocracy. Mexicans, for example, have values homofluous with core American values of inalienable rights, like the Irish, Jews, Italians, Armenians, etc. who want to work hard to provide for their families and contribute to society. Many Islamists, however, come here committed to Death to America. Only fools permit declared murderers into their homes.
Thank you so much for this timely piece. You have succinctly given us a prescription for restoring greatness to our nation. May we pray for a spiritual revival that will empower the principles that once made us great. Thank you and have a most blessed independence Day.
Excellent essay. One thing I feel is left out was the monolithic very powerful hard left leaning teachers unions. They are the biggest obstacle to getting a better education in the United States.
Great essay. I think gratitude, appreciation, and humility are the way forward, individually and collectively.
Marxists aren't grateful, appreciative, or humble because they build nothing and take everything. They're consumed by negativity centered on what they don't have, and often can't get, because all they know is destruction, not creation.
Gratitude doesn't mean turning a blind eye to shortcomings (after all, we want to establish a *more* perfect union), but focusing solely on shortcomings - even to the point of embellishment - is certainly a path to doom.
Because they come here with totally different values from our core values and they are indoctrinated with a theology that requires destruction of all Jewish and Christian countries so that their Islamist vision of the world can spread. Not all Muslim share the fanaticism, but to many of us Americans are so foolish that we have let some of them to be elected to political office where advance their racist ideology that America is inherently sinful and must be destroyed. While people have free speech, we also have the right to react to what they say and kick them out of the country, but not in the ignorant racist manner in which Trump behaves.
If it's all right, could I quickly make another point? Why does the issue of the historical influence of racism always have to be argued between those who believe America is irredeemably racist and those who believe that America is not racist at all? Can it be so that America is racist, but redeemably so, and great labor and much prayer must be given to her staying on God's path towards redemption?
One comment. Very recently, I have come to think that it is misleading to say that the Funding Father's favored a "small government." I do not recall smallness being a virtue nor likely to be a virtue.
(1) The Declaration of Independence made the size of the government legitimacy based on whether it protected individual inalienable rights. If a government is too small and hence too weak it protect inalienable rights it is per se illegitimate.
(2) The Articles of Confederation were inadequate because that government was too small to function as a central government. The central government had to be large to protect citizens from abuses by private factions and from government at all levels -- central, state, and local. For example, enforcing the Bill of Rights and civil rights laws requires federal courts, federal prosecutors, and federal enforcement agencies.
(3) In Federalist No. 70, Hamilton championed an "energetic Executive" and a government powerful enough to protect property, enforce laws, and defend the nation. To Hamilton, a government that was too small to function would inevitably lead to anarchy or tyranny.
The size of government is a non-analytical basis to judge a government. The test of a legitimate government is whether protects individual inalienable rights. Both the Conservatives with there concentration of power under the Unitary Executive Theory and the Woke group rights DEI trample on inalienable rights. One of the worst offenders is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
An outstanding piece for FBT by the great Kendall Qualls! 👏👏👏 Happy 250th birthday to a truly remarkable nation! 🇺🇸❤️🤍💙🎇🎆🎉🎂🥳 The United States of America has accomplished so much in the two hundred and fifty years it has existed on this planet. The founding fathers if they were alive today would be blown away at what America has become and all it has achieved! Black Americans and other minorities for the most part are thriving! Black Americans are the most successful and privileged group of people of African descent on the planet. Black people here in the United States are better off here in this country than black peoples anywhere else in the world including the nations of Africa. Black America has come a long way since the days of slavery and Jim Crow! Work remains to be done but overall black America is rising and will continue to rise to new heights! I can name an infinite number of black people who have succeeded in America based on their own hard work. Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Tim Scott, Allen West, Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Carol Swain, Armstrong Williams, Deroy Murdock, Kim Klacik, Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Smokey Robinson, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Chris Gardner, Carol Joynt, Earl Graves Sr., Reginald Lewis, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, Tony Dungy, Tiger Woods, Phil Ivey, Barry Bonds, Shaquille O’Neal, Jalen Hurts, Shonda Rhimes, Robert Johnson, Berry Gordy, Forest Whitaker, Viola Davis, Will Smith, The Wayans Brothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Chris Rock, John Amos, Sherman Helmsley, Ving Rhames, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, LeBron James, Darius Rucker, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Mos Def, Dr. Ben Carson, James Avery, Cicely Tyson, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Victor Scott, Mignon Francois, Daymond John, Muhammad Ali, Don Cheadle, Christopher Gray, Michael B. Jordan, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Mary J. Blige, The Harlem Globetrotters, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, George Foreman, and many, many more.
But there are some very troubling things going on in this country right now that could undermine and ultimately destroy all we have built and achieved. The American family is broken. Birth rates and marriage rates are too low. Divorce rates are too high. The percentage of children born out of wedlock in America is crazy. Anti-natalism and anti-family sentiment are running amok. Woke indoctrination plagues our K-12 and college education systems. Gen Z is the most unpatriotic generation ever and too few Americans would fight for this country. Way too many by contrast would leave if they could. Many of the people of this country are like rich, spoiled brats who live off their parent’s dime while cursing them and giving them the bird every chance they get. Many of them are complacent, lazy, materialistic, and selfish. Our public school system is broken and performs very poorly. Are children and young people are taught only the worst parts of American history without learning about the many more glorious parts of it. They are taught to hate not appreciate America, warts and all. Yes, slavery, Jim Crow, women being denied the vote, Jewish refugees being denied refugee during the Holocaust, Eugenics, the forced dispossession of the Native Americans, the consequent of Hawaii from its native people, American imperialism, the Japanese internment camps, and discrimination against gays and lesbians are all parts of our history. But there are also many more episodes in our history I would argue we should be proud of. The American Revolution and the birth of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Andrew Jackson and his ragtag multicultural army defeating the British in New Orleans in the climatic battle of the War of 1812, the Union victory in the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, women receiving the right to vote in 1920, the courageous settlers and immigrants who went westward and braved the wilderness and the elements to build homes and start anew in America, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the construction of the Panama Canal, a man stepping on the moon for the first time ever in 1969, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the invention of electric lights, the telegraph, the telephone, and the personal computer, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Dr. King giving his 1963 I Have A Dream speech on the National Mall, America emerging victorious and as a world power after the Spanish-American War in 1898, America’s doughboys helping British and France defeat the Germans and making the world safe for democracy in 1917-18, the economic boom of the Roaring 20s, the liberation of Europe and Asia during World War II, the heroic American GIs liberating concentration camps and putting an end to the Holocaust, liberating South Korea from Communist North Korea in 1950, our boys in Vietnam holding Communism in Southeast Asia for nearly a decade, the toppling of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, America and our coalition allies pushing Ba’athist Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, our brave men and women in uniform who toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and ended his reign of bloodlust and terror, the Navy SEALS killing the mastermind of 9/11 Osama Bin Laden, our troops holding off the Taliban in Afghanistan for twenty years. The legalization of Same-Sex Marriage by the Supreme Court in 2015, the bombing and ultimate destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, and the capture of Venezuelan dictator and cartel boss Nicolas Maduro by the heroes in U.S. Delta Force among many others.
To save this country, we need to return to our founding principles and the Judeo-Christian values they are rooted in. We must bring up birth and marriages rates up, bring out divorce rates down and restore the nuclear family, the institution of marriage and monogamy. We must reform the broken public school system and institute school choice nationwide so parents again can decide what’s best for their children. We must purge woke indoctrination from our schools and teach colorblindness and universalism. We must teach American history warts and all in our schools and institute vigorous citizenship tests at each of the three crucial junctures in a student’s educational career that Dr. Qualls spoke of. Organized religion needs to make a huge comeback. We must sow up the torn fabric of this nation and reunify and depolarize it. Only when we do these things, will it be assured that America can have an even more amazing next 250 years! The future belongs to us, but we need to choose wisely what we will do with. Remember as Benjamin Franklin said, this is a republic but only if we can keep it! God bless America this blessed 250th birthday of our nation! I’m so glad we have men like Kendall Qualls around who have the foresight and the courage to call out what’s wrong with America so we can go about setting it right and reminding us of all that is good about it! I’m very proud to be an American and this day is incredibly meaningful to me. Dr. Qualls understands what made this day possible and we ensure that America rather than decline and fall, can have another 250 year run just as incredible if not more so, than the first! He understands that faith, family, freedom, a strong work ethic, and limited government are the values that made America the exceptional nation that it is. We can only continue to be exceptional if we continue to embrace those values! The founding generation including our black founding fathers and mothers are looking down on us from Heaven watching intently what are next move as a nation will be, let us not disappoint them!
While there is much validity to what you have said Mr. Qualls, there is much that leaves me uneasy.
First of all, I believe that it is erroneous to presume that the adoption of "conservative" ideas and values is certain to provide a better way than "progressive" ideas and values. I see so called progressive thinking as as anti-thetical to human flourishing, due to its frequent affinity towards atheistic thinking, radical expressive individualism, and failure to face the horrible legacies of Marxist philosophy (notwithstanding the valid protests of some progressives that Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, and the like were massively perverted departures from what Marx believed.)
Mr Qualls, I have some very deep reservations about conservative thinking, especially as relating to the claim of America being the greatest nation on Earth. Apparently this claim about America's unique greatness is based on the criteria of America's unique prosperity and power. I've been led to believe by the likes of The Imaginative Conservative website that conservative thinking is supposed to be somehow supportive of faith and a life set on higher things of the spirit. Why then is material prosperity so highly valued by conservatives as a criteria for judging a nation's greatness? Is it not so that material prosperity can be as dangerous to the living out of one's faith as the seeking of fulfillment according to the ideas of radical expressive individualism.
So well said. Thank you. Best of luck in your run for governor.
IGNORANCE. Ignorance is the biggest threat to our country. Ignorance of self, ignorance of history and ignorance of survival.
This ignorance has led to Americans becoming spoiled, bored and narcissistic at epidemic levels. This ignorance has created a blind spot in our humanity that (unfortunately) will only be corrected through pain.
(Fortunately) pain for ignorant Americans means inconvenience and having to be self-reliant.
Lastly, is part of the plan to fast track illegal immigrants mean that they don’t have to pass the same American knowledge exam as legal immigrants? Encourage less assimilation and more divide and control?🤔 Thus fostering more IGNORANCE.
Some immigrants come here knowing more about the Declaration and the US Constitutions than people who families have been here for generations. Other immigrants from different cultures who are hostile to inalienable rights and believe that their duty is to destroy America and replace it with a theocracy. Mexicans, for example, have values homofluous with core American values of inalienable rights, like the Irish, Jews, Italians, Armenians, etc. who want to work hard to provide for their families and contribute to society. Many Islamists, however, come here committed to Death to America. Only fools permit declared murderers into their homes.
Thank you so much for this timely piece. You have succinctly given us a prescription for restoring greatness to our nation. May we pray for a spiritual revival that will empower the principles that once made us great. Thank you and have a most blessed independence Day.
Excellent essay. One thing I feel is left out was the monolithic very powerful hard left leaning teachers unions. They are the biggest obstacle to getting a better education in the United States.
Great essay. I think gratitude, appreciation, and humility are the way forward, individually and collectively.
Marxists aren't grateful, appreciative, or humble because they build nothing and take everything. They're consumed by negativity centered on what they don't have, and often can't get, because all they know is destruction, not creation.
Gratitude doesn't mean turning a blind eye to shortcomings (after all, we want to establish a *more* perfect union), but focusing solely on shortcomings - even to the point of embellishment - is certainly a path to doom.
Excellent essay. Clear, to the point, and irrefutable.
We have to wonder why anyone would try to wreck this country.
Because they come here with totally different values from our core values and they are indoctrinated with a theology that requires destruction of all Jewish and Christian countries so that their Islamist vision of the world can spread. Not all Muslim share the fanaticism, but to many of us Americans are so foolish that we have let some of them to be elected to political office where advance their racist ideology that America is inherently sinful and must be destroyed. While people have free speech, we also have the right to react to what they say and kick them out of the country, but not in the ignorant racist manner in which Trump behaves.
If it's all right, could I quickly make another point? Why does the issue of the historical influence of racism always have to be argued between those who believe America is irredeemably racist and those who believe that America is not racist at all? Can it be so that America is racist, but redeemably so, and great labor and much prayer must be given to her staying on God's path towards redemption?
One comment. Very recently, I have come to think that it is misleading to say that the Funding Father's favored a "small government." I do not recall smallness being a virtue nor likely to be a virtue.
(1) The Declaration of Independence made the size of the government legitimacy based on whether it protected individual inalienable rights. If a government is too small and hence too weak it protect inalienable rights it is per se illegitimate.
(2) The Articles of Confederation were inadequate because that government was too small to function as a central government. The central government had to be large to protect citizens from abuses by private factions and from government at all levels -- central, state, and local. For example, enforcing the Bill of Rights and civil rights laws requires federal courts, federal prosecutors, and federal enforcement agencies.
(3) In Federalist No. 70, Hamilton championed an "energetic Executive" and a government powerful enough to protect property, enforce laws, and defend the nation. To Hamilton, a government that was too small to function would inevitably lead to anarchy or tyranny.
The size of government is a non-analytical basis to judge a government. The test of a legitimate government is whether protects individual inalienable rights. Both the Conservatives with there concentration of power under the Unitary Executive Theory and the Woke group rights DEI trample on inalienable rights. One of the worst offenders is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
An outstanding piece for FBT by the great Kendall Qualls! 👏👏👏 Happy 250th birthday to a truly remarkable nation! 🇺🇸❤️🤍💙🎇🎆🎉🎂🥳 The United States of America has accomplished so much in the two hundred and fifty years it has existed on this planet. The founding fathers if they were alive today would be blown away at what America has become and all it has achieved! Black Americans and other minorities for the most part are thriving! Black Americans are the most successful and privileged group of people of African descent on the planet. Black people here in the United States are better off here in this country than black peoples anywhere else in the world including the nations of Africa. Black America has come a long way since the days of slavery and Jim Crow! Work remains to be done but overall black America is rising and will continue to rise to new heights! I can name an infinite number of black people who have succeeded in America based on their own hard work. Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Tim Scott, Allen West, Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Carol Swain, Armstrong Williams, Deroy Murdock, Kim Klacik, Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Smokey Robinson, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Chris Gardner, Carol Joynt, Earl Graves Sr., Reginald Lewis, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, Tony Dungy, Tiger Woods, Phil Ivey, Barry Bonds, Shaquille O’Neal, Jalen Hurts, Shonda Rhimes, Robert Johnson, Berry Gordy, Forest Whitaker, Viola Davis, Will Smith, The Wayans Brothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Chris Rock, John Amos, Sherman Helmsley, Ving Rhames, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, LeBron James, Darius Rucker, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Mos Def, Dr. Ben Carson, James Avery, Cicely Tyson, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Victor Scott, Mignon Francois, Daymond John, Muhammad Ali, Don Cheadle, Christopher Gray, Michael B. Jordan, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Mary J. Blige, The Harlem Globetrotters, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, George Foreman, and many, many more.
But there are some very troubling things going on in this country right now that could undermine and ultimately destroy all we have built and achieved. The American family is broken. Birth rates and marriage rates are too low. Divorce rates are too high. The percentage of children born out of wedlock in America is crazy. Anti-natalism and anti-family sentiment are running amok. Woke indoctrination plagues our K-12 and college education systems. Gen Z is the most unpatriotic generation ever and too few Americans would fight for this country. Way too many by contrast would leave if they could. Many of the people of this country are like rich, spoiled brats who live off their parent’s dime while cursing them and giving them the bird every chance they get. Many of them are complacent, lazy, materialistic, and selfish. Our public school system is broken and performs very poorly. Are children and young people are taught only the worst parts of American history without learning about the many more glorious parts of it. They are taught to hate not appreciate America, warts and all. Yes, slavery, Jim Crow, women being denied the vote, Jewish refugees being denied refugee during the Holocaust, Eugenics, the forced dispossession of the Native Americans, the consequent of Hawaii from its native people, American imperialism, the Japanese internment camps, and discrimination against gays and lesbians are all parts of our history. But there are also many more episodes in our history I would argue we should be proud of. The American Revolution and the birth of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Andrew Jackson and his ragtag multicultural army defeating the British in New Orleans in the climatic battle of the War of 1812, the Union victory in the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, women receiving the right to vote in 1920, the courageous settlers and immigrants who went westward and braved the wilderness and the elements to build homes and start anew in America, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the construction of the Panama Canal, a man stepping on the moon for the first time ever in 1969, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the invention of electric lights, the telegraph, the telephone, and the personal computer, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Dr. King giving his 1963 I Have A Dream speech on the National Mall, America emerging victorious and as a world power after the Spanish-American War in 1898, America’s doughboys helping British and France defeat the Germans and making the world safe for democracy in 1917-18, the economic boom of the Roaring 20s, the liberation of Europe and Asia during World War II, the heroic American GIs liberating concentration camps and putting an end to the Holocaust, liberating South Korea from Communist North Korea in 1950, our boys in Vietnam holding Communism in Southeast Asia for nearly a decade, the toppling of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, America and our coalition allies pushing Ba’athist Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, our brave men and women in uniform who toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and ended his reign of bloodlust and terror, the Navy SEALS killing the mastermind of 9/11 Osama Bin Laden, our troops holding off the Taliban in Afghanistan for twenty years. The legalization of Same-Sex Marriage by the Supreme Court in 2015, the bombing and ultimate destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, and the capture of Venezuelan dictator and cartel boss Nicolas Maduro by the heroes in U.S. Delta Force among many others.
To save this country, we need to return to our founding principles and the Judeo-Christian values they are rooted in. We must bring up birth and marriages rates up, bring out divorce rates down and restore the nuclear family, the institution of marriage and monogamy. We must reform the broken public school system and institute school choice nationwide so parents again can decide what’s best for their children. We must purge woke indoctrination from our schools and teach colorblindness and universalism. We must teach American history warts and all in our schools and institute vigorous citizenship tests at each of the three crucial junctures in a student’s educational career that Dr. Qualls spoke of. Organized religion needs to make a huge comeback. We must sow up the torn fabric of this nation and reunify and depolarize it. Only when we do these things, will it be assured that America can have an even more amazing next 250 years! The future belongs to us, but we need to choose wisely what we will do with. Remember as Benjamin Franklin said, this is a republic but only if we can keep it! God bless America this blessed 250th birthday of our nation! I’m so glad we have men like Kendall Qualls around who have the foresight and the courage to call out what’s wrong with America so we can go about setting it right and reminding us of all that is good about it! I’m very proud to be an American and this day is incredibly meaningful to me. Dr. Qualls understands what made this day possible and we ensure that America rather than decline and fall, can have another 250 year run just as incredible if not more so, than the first! He understands that faith, family, freedom, a strong work ethic, and limited government are the values that made America the exceptional nation that it is. We can only continue to be exceptional if we continue to embrace those values! The founding generation including our black founding fathers and mothers are looking down on us from Heaven watching intently what are next move as a nation will be, let us not disappoint them!
While there is much validity to what you have said Mr. Qualls, there is much that leaves me uneasy.
First of all, I believe that it is erroneous to presume that the adoption of "conservative" ideas and values is certain to provide a better way than "progressive" ideas and values. I see so called progressive thinking as as anti-thetical to human flourishing, due to its frequent affinity towards atheistic thinking, radical expressive individualism, and failure to face the horrible legacies of Marxist philosophy (notwithstanding the valid protests of some progressives that Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, and the like were massively perverted departures from what Marx believed.)
Mr Qualls, I have some very deep reservations about conservative thinking, especially as relating to the claim of America being the greatest nation on Earth. Apparently this claim about America's unique greatness is based on the criteria of America's unique prosperity and power. I've been led to believe by the likes of The Imaginative Conservative website that conservative thinking is supposed to be somehow supportive of faith and a life set on higher things of the spirit. Why then is material prosperity so highly valued by conservatives as a criteria for judging a nation's greatness? Is it not so that material prosperity can be as dangerous to the living out of one's faith as the seeking of fulfillment according to the ideas of radical expressive individualism.
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