America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great Read Online Free PDF Page A

see how our growing debt, excessive spending, and elected leaders ignoring the will of the people closely resembles the set of circumstances that precipitated the American Revolution.
W ILL W E O NCE A GAIN R EBEL
FOR P OSITIVE C HANGE?
    America got off to an auspicious start centuries ago because its citizens were unwilling to be herded like sheep by an elite group of “leaders.” They were driven instead by a desire to take ownership of their own fate and establish a nation created by them and for them. Their self-determination and celebration of freedom to control their own lives helped birth our great nation.
    Today, however, a fundamental shift has occurred in the role of our nation’s government and the role of its people, and so throughout this book, we will determine whether those seeds of independence still remain viable orwhether they have been supplanted by passivity and acceptance of the status quo. For freedom is an elusive bird, constantly on the move, progressively distancing itself from complacency. Do we value our freedom enough to pursue it, or have we lost our way without realizing it? Do we benefit from the principles that established this nation without understanding them?
    What will we as America’s citizens write in this next chapter of our history? Will we settle for being herded by our leaders’ understanding of what is best for us? Or will “we the people” once again rally together, educating ourselves as to the best possible solutions for a way forward, communicating to our leaders our collective desires, and demonstrating that we truly are a nation that rebels for positive change?

— C HAPTER 2 —

W HO A RE
“W E THE P EOPLE”?
    G ROWING UP, MY BROTHER , Curtis, and I frequently disagreed about who was responsible for the chaos in the cramped bedroom we shared. We often left our clothes strewn about and our beds unmade, and the boundary dividing our room into his half and mine shifted depending on how much of our stuff was lying around and which one of us was having friends over.
    Father was no longer at home to provide any leadership. He had left the family when Mother found out he had been living as a bigamist across town. Mother wasn’t home much, either — but for very different reasons. She was almost always out working, trying to provide for us as best she could. Consequently, we almost never had anyone around the house to referee our disputes or hound us to do our chores.
    How was Mother able to establish effective rules in such a chaotic situation? Although we got into a fair amount of trouble at home, there never were any serious incidents because we had guidelines that governed our behavior in the absence of an authority figure. Mother was smart enough to realize that if she simply imposed rules on us, we were unlikely to follow them; therefore, she involved us in the rule making. We all had a say in who would do the dishes, who would sweep the floors, who would warm the food, who would take out the garbage, and so on. We also agreed upon the punishment for not carrying out one’s duties and the rewards for doing a stellar job. This system of governance was well defined and well accepted, so there was almost no trouble. I am frequently asked why Curtis and I obeyed our mother when sometimes we didn’t see her for an entire week. The answer is quite simple — they were not just
her
rules, they were also
our
rules, for ownership of an idea makes cooperation with its tenets much more likely.
    So Curtis and I had to come to solutions ourselves regarding our room, and that is exactly what we did. In order to make things work, we simply each accepted responsibility for the entire room for a week at a time. The room was cleaner than ever because it was always clear where responsibility lay.
    We were part of the family, and Mother treated us that way. She didn’t coddle us or tell us what to do every step of the way, as if we were incapable of making decisions on our own. She