Part IV of The War: Hope

We simply cannot teach our citizens, current and future, that their country is no good and expect to have a country for very long. No country can survive on a diet of endless self-loathing. We need to teach our citizens to love and cherish their country, starting with our children. Luckily, there are many pockets of resistance bubbling up around the country. Parents are pushing back against “America is racist” curricula. The manly “don’t tread on me” remains part of the American spirit. Many Americans still salute our flag, honor our military dead, and ask God to bless America.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world…and I standing up boldly and alone…hurling defiance at [our] victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences…I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause…of the land of my life, my Liberty, and my love…But if after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our conscience…we never faltered.”

We are in a perilous moment such as the one Lincoln imagines. It is time for our leaders, without contemplating consequences, to swear eternal fidelity to the just cause of the land of our liberty, and our love, the land which remains the last best hope on Earth. If after all, we shall fail, be it so. We shall have the proud consolation of saying that in defending America, we never faltered.

Thomas Klingenstein explains why he is not without hope in the final video of The War series.