What matters most

Patrick Novecosky urges Americans to preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . .

There are many reasons why this year’s election is the most important in our lifetime. Religious liberty is under assault by the federal government, our national debt is out of control, our post-Christian culture is virtually unrecognizable to most people over 50 years old, and there’s more.

But in my mind, one reason sums them all up. The men who drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence — arguably the founding document of our great nation — declared that they found certain truths to be self-evident: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Here’s my reason for this election being pivotal: The current administration — and far too many in our country — no longer recognize these self-evident truths. When the foundational documents of our nation cease to be relevant to voters, we can be certain that radical change is in the air. Shortly before the 2008 election, candidate Obama declared that “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He expressed no interest in recapturing America’s glory or repairing past wrongs. He was advocating for something completely different.

But the blame for the country’s indifference to our founding principles does not rest solely on the shoulders of President Obama. Quite simply, we have failed to appreciate the values that set America apart — and we have failed to teach them to our children. The whole idea of American exceptionalism is lost on most people who have gone through public schools over the past 30-40 years.

Results from the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal that only 13% of the nation’s high school seniors showed proficiency in their knowledge of American history. The old phrase “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is coming back to haunt us.

America needs to rediscover its roots. We don’t need to transform our nation, we need to renew it. We need to embrace the principles that made America great, and then teach them to our children. Few understood and articulated these principles better than Ronald Reagan. In 1961, he said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Patrick Novecosky is the editor-in-chief of Legatus magazine.