CHAPTER ONE  (Draft)

For more than two hundred years the United States has stood before the world as a beacon of hope, as a source of creative energy and as an evolving expression of political freedom, social diversity, and economic vitality. People everywhere have been attracted to the vision it represents.  Yet, the extraordinary challenges confronting the American people today mark a turning point and a defining test of America’s place in history. 

We have entered a dark time.  Confronted with economic degradation, deep distrust, and growing social disorder, it can be easy to forget the unique stature of the United States and the unfolding role it has played in the progress of an ever-advancing civilization.

Our economic well-being as a nation has been weakening for decades, and the generosity of spirit for which we have long been known has dimmed.  Confidence in the future is shaken.  But this is not the end of the story.  A new beginning will be necessary to recover the vitality and resilience that have made us what we are.  It is time to rise to the next level.  There is truth in the unity of our national character—in our humanity and the dignity that has given Americans courage and self-respect.

Few have expected what we are seeing now.  Values, assumptions, expectations have all been disrupted.  Even so, America remains blessed with a constitutional order that respects the individual, seeks to protect both minorities and majorities, and makes room for diversity, innovation and creativity.  The genius of the United States Constitution lies in a simplicity that imposes minimal restraint and allows maximum freedom—all the while requiring moral responsibility and functional cooperation. 

The Constitution is a legal document, carefully crafted in structure and intentionality.  But it is far more than a simple contract.  It embodies a vision and a trust.  It was prepared by men who cared deeply about the future and about Americans as a people.  And it has been presented to us as the gift of an inheritance.  The freedom it promises is anchored in the wisdom of its legislative order, the protections it seeks for the individual, and the means with which it enables constructive change.  These are among the elements of a non-partisan civil order that provides Americans with stability and the opportunity to forge a rational future.

The unique character of the Constitution depends on moral responsibility and the basic virtues we all know about: Truthfulness, trustworthiness, fairmindedness, forbearance—and a prudence that respects the interdependence of all the virtues.  This is written into the fabric of the vision projected by the American founders. 

We are living at a pivotal moment, faced with unsettling questions and confronted with a multitude of serious crises.  Will civil order be torn apart by resentments, distrust and frustration?  Will the nation survive as the constitutional republic envisioned by its founders?  Do we have the fortitude and grit to learn the lessons that can lead to a genuine American renewal?

Are we prepared to embrace the spirit called for by the founders, which alone can lead to unity of purpose?  Or will we succumb to a rigidity born of insecurity and fear?  The correction of mistakes cannot be addressed until we answer this question.  It must be addressed in dialogue and in our hearts.  Civil disarray and social degradation will remain with us until it is.

What Do We Fear? 

A readiness to entertain differing views without altering one’s own is the measure of a mature person.  We cannot seek solutions or influence change without an accurate understanding of what other people are thinking and why.  Only when the foundations of conflict are fully understood, will it be possible to negotiate genuine security and collaboration. 

We will pay a heavy price for suspicion or defensiveness—when courage is only a step away. 

Do we believe in the American tradition of good will—the expectation that people of differing persuasions can unite around a common cause?  Do we have the patience to rebuild a national unity that transcends the differences that always exist among a free people?  Or, to put the question another way, will we do what is necessary to make the United States of America whole and to prepare it for the future we deserve?

Early in the present century Peggy Noonan, a widely read conservative columnist and one-time aide to President Ronald Reagan, addressed this question eloquently in her collection of essays, “Patriotic Grace, What It Is and Why We Need It Now”. She wrote during a season of bitter political back-biting, and political antagonism and antipathy soon worsened:

“I believe we have to assume that something bad is going to happen, someday, to us.  Maybe it will be ten years from now, but maybe not, maybe sooner, much sooner.  We have to assume, I think, that it will be a 9/11 times ten, or a hundred, or more, and that it will have a deeply destabilizing effect on our country; that it will test our unity and our endurance, our resourcefulness and faith.

“We all know this, I think, deep down.  I don’t know a major political figure in America to whom all this has not occurred, and often…. And yet in some deep way our politics do not reflect our knowledge.  It’s odd.  Stunning, actually.  We keep going through the same old motions in the bitter old ways.  Even our cynics are not being realistic!

“Man has never developed a weapon he didn’t ultimately use,” Ronald Reagan once said in a conversation in the Oval Office.  He spoke, in his soft voice, of the great horror of modern warfare, that civilians are now targets.  Once they weren’t.  Now they are.  It worried him.  It worries me.

“And that is only the external threat.  The domestic ones are all around us, in the air, and we know them well: Will the banks fail, is the system built on anything but faith, and will the faith hold?  Will we keep our coherence as a country, will we hold together, can we continue as a sovereign nation at peace with itself?” [1]

Like Peggy Noonan, most of us never expected to see the United States in the condition in which we find it today.  Let’s be clear: Growing disorder was apparent long before the most recent financial crises or the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Lean times and economic hardship have been dominating the lives of millions of Americans for decades.

We face a uniquely American crisis, yet one that is unfolding in the midst of an extraordinary global turning point.  An oncoming confluence of crises challenges us to rise to a new level.  Do we imagine that a superhero will rescue us?  Or will we pick ourselves up, reach out to our neighbors, and do what needs to be done? 

This is a very personal question.  Whatever one’s personality, political philosophy, or religious belief, we have a choice to make.  Not to respond, or to defer commitment, is in fact to answer the question.  Failure to rise to necessity is to accept defeat.  Either we will retreat into ourselves, accepting the world as beyond our control, or we will step forward in our local communities to engage hardship with purposeful and constructive intent.

Certainly, it will be essential that we work together, engaging and collaborating with as wide a diversity of our fellow citizens as possible.  Any purpose short of this will be playing to lose.

While the choice is personal, it comes at a time of existential crisis for America.  To hesitate would be to act as victims rather than as Americans.  It would be to choose loss over promise, helplessness over responsibility.  We may be temporarily intimidated by difficult circumstances, but we must never give in, and never lose sight of the dawn of a new day.

Without the personal courage to begin anew, we will join the slide into turmoil.

The Differences That Divide Us

The differences that divide the American people in the early decades of the twenty-first century are unquestionably the deepest we have seen since the Civil War. Our differing views are based on many things: political opinion, economic circumstances, personal experience, ethical and religious values, and our understanding of history and of one another.  We must attempt to ascertain the reality of genuine disagreements and recognize the influence of dishonest manipulation.

The vitality of the nation has always been rooted in the dynamic fertile engagement of differing ideas, often intense differences that reflect a wide range of experience and perspective.  I will not minimize our differences here, nor will I ask that you alter your values or views.  The opportunity for understanding (and influencing) one another will depend on a stable and sustainable forum for genuine engagement.  Truth will not change, but truth-seeking requires a steadfast effort to clear away unexamined assumptions.  Civility, patience, and self-control will be necessary if we are to create safe community-based venues for inquisitive dialogue.

Those who foster hostility or propose sedition will undermine the idealism and practicality of their own principles.  Their words and actions will be met with distrust.  Few Americans will respond favorably to coercive force that strikes blows against constitutional order.  A future compromised by fear or moral degradation can only fail us.  Now is the time to pull ourselves together and summon the courage to determine a constructive course of action.  A future we can respect can only be built with integrity and fortitude.

If we are concerned about the motives or intentions of our fellow citizens, it is only practical that we seek a genuine understanding of what they are thinking—the basis for their ideas and where they think they are going.  Otherwise, we are flying blind.

To those convinced that the only just solution to the present disarray is to be found in combative politics, I have a simple and straightforward response.  Whatever one’s purpose or views, a constructive future will only be possible with accurate information and understanding.  Whatever our principles, without truthfulness and effective communication we will sink in quicksand.

Influencing people and opening them to ideas and new ways of thinking requires getting at their underlying assumptions.  If this is not our purpose, then what are we doing?

Security depends on accurate knowledge, and governance depends on honest engagement free of manipulation.  Without willing consideration of differing perspectives, the effort to correct misperceptions and confused thinking can never take place.  The downward spiral will only accelerate.

It is neither practical nor civilized to go to war with one another when our principles, security, and shared needs all depend on an ability to engage in rational problem-solving.  Are we prepared to give priority to securing the safety of our communities and building a stable society?

Our differences are not new.  Americans have always been contentious.  In my view, we have no choice but to develop a vision that seeks the practical benefits of diversity, that facilitates ongoing debate and our ability to influence one another—and the future. 

We may disagree on many things.  However, if we remain open to the possibility that conflict can be understood and handled effectively, we can achieve genuine security and collaboration.

Strategy and Purpose

The first half of this book reviews the historical context of our present circumstances, and outlines ideas and principles we would do well to think about together in seeking an authentic American future.  The second half of the book offers a way forward that can actually make dialogue effective—and a course of constructive action possible.

The strategic proposal offered here assumes that Americans are willing to rise above our differences to the extent necessary to secure safety in our local communities— and to preserve shared values.  This strategy is designed to carry us through a long and potentially destructive sequence of oncoming crises, some of which will be unexpected and frightening.  This book presents a course of constructive action which calls for authentic dialogue and genuine problem-solving at the neighborhood level.  Here lies our greatest challenge.

Honest communication is essential.  The communication of which I speak has a quality and intent which is conditioned by the purpose it serves.  Superficial debate will not be useful.  Disengaged monologues are not helpful and combative language is worse.  If we have strong beliefs and genuine concerns, let’s get real: Berating and demonizing one another gets us nowhere.  It only hardens prejudices and pitches us downward toward total loss. 

Because substantial misperceptions need to be corrected, we will have to reach across the barriers that obstruct our ability to listen and understand.  I believe there to be only one place where this is possible, and only one frame of mind or “attitude” that will allow it.  This place is within interdependent, self-reliant, locally constituted communities.  Given the deepening crisis, a genuinely American future will depend on trusting relationships with dependable neighbors, whatever our views or the color of our skin. 

This concept is not to be confused with “intentional community”, which is an association of like-minded people.  Likewise, it must not be confused with partisan communities, created by like-minded people who gather together in isolation and fear.  Those who retreat from the plurality of the American Union to withdraw into self-defined partisan enclaves, will soon find themselves in a state of siege.  Such a condition undermines the fundamental principles of the American republic.

For communities to be engaged and effective, they must have a coherent basis and purpose. Constructive action must serve the needs of family and community life.  Community exists to facilitate our ability to resolve problems and meet shared needs.  This always calls for a diversity of practical inputs, including personal knowledge, experience, and learned skills.  In difficult times this becomes ever more important.

What is immediately essential is not that we agree, but that we collaborate–working together constructively to resolve pressing material problems.  In so doing, we will begin to listen and learn, to understand one another as dependable people and to enter that middle ground that ensures genuine security. 

Local neighborhoods, communities and networks of communities, organized with a constructive and inclusive attitude, will ensure that the American identity is held in trust through a long dark night and into a new day beyond. 

On the following pages I will offer the means to make this real, and will challenge my readers as thinking, caring, self-respecting adult people.  This is the American crucible and our turning point.  Do we have the will to rise above our differences, to engage with our neighbors, to resolve local problems and meet shared needs?

Community will not protect us from uncertainty.  What it can do, and will do if we are determined, is open the door to the potential we already possess—dependable neighbors, mutual assistance, food security, and economic renewal on a local scale.  It positions us to best keep our balance mentally and spiritually, thus giving us hope for a broader acceptable future.

The Choice Is Ours

As the world descends into the violence of collapse, Americans stand in a pivotal position.  Will catastrophe mean disaster for us or a unique opportunity to get things right?  History is now in our hands.  Courage and responsibility are ours to accept or deny.  It is my deeply felt conviction that the integrity of the United States as a constitutional republic must survive the encroaching darkness.  The future of the world depends on it.

Those who share these concerns are invited to read on.  America has gained its vitality from a broad diversity of perspective, productive energy, and creative imagination.  Above all, we have gained from the clash of differing opinions.  But our differences must never be permitted to subvert the unity of purpose that secures the nation.  The immense energy and vitality of the American spirit can only be productive if disciplined by civil discourse and a shared vision.  We have entered an intense period of testing in which the forces of crisis will burn away self-centered attitudes and expose dishonest intent.

We are confronted with a stark choice. Will we apply the founding principles of these United States to build a free, ethical, and prosperous future?  Will we defend and protect two hundred years of commitment, hard work, and sacrifice by generations of Americans who have given their lives to this unprecedented vision?  Or, will we give way to the emotions of uncompromising partisanship—and allow a great trust to shatter and fall away?

In the following pages I will lay out factors involved in this unique and complex moment in history, and urge that we join with one another to preserve and renew the United States as a compelling model for a free, stable, and prosperous world.  Is this really possible?  Yes, but only with steadfast patience and a readiness to see the end in the beginning. 

It will not be easy.  Responsibility never is.  With loyalty, discipline and determination, I submit to you that something far better, far nobler, something perhaps beyond our present ability to imagine, will emerge from the present turmoil.

If, however, we cannot work together effectively to build safe communities with people with whom we have differences, then we will condemn ourselves to a collapsing civilization distinguished by fear and violence.  A future in which no principles, no values, and no stable order can be realized would be a nightmare for ourselves and our children.

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[1] Peggy Noonan, Patriotic Grace, What It Is and Why We Need It Now, HarperCollins (2008), pp 36-7.