It was forty years ago today that man, for the first time, set foot on the soil of a world other than our own. The sheer magnitude of that event — the first footprint on the infinitely vast frontier of space — captured the attention and the awe of the entire world. For tens of thousands of years, countless people in countless cultures imagined journeying to the moon. The United States, after just 193 years as a nation, actually did it. It was proof that the founding philosophy of the nation was correct: that humanity, under the emancipating power of liberty, is capable of unimagined greatness.
It was the crowning proof of American exceptionalism. A society that discovered miraculous medicines, accelerated scientific discovery, improved the human condition the world over, spawned countless life-improving inventions and yielded a standard of living that mankind had never, ever seen before.
Since then, our country's intellectual elites (politicians, pundits and pointy-heads in ivory towers) have spent countless hours and boundless energy on trying to convince America that since we're not perfect, we're not special. They accuse us of hubris, of imperialism, of destroying the planet and raping resources. They've belittled our history, re-written textbooks to highlight our warts, pointed to the exceptions in our imperfect society and called them the rule, and invented vicious new ways to keep us constantly bickering with each other.
They've pimped guilt over what we think, what we drive, what we eat, how we pray, where we choose to live, what we wear, what we enjoy and how much we earn.
They've dictated and tinkered with virtually every aspect of a society that in their eyes — despite all evidence to the contrary — is utterly flawed. They've set new laws and regulations that fly in the face of our founding philosophy. They've made villains of doctors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, hunters, investors, preachers, builders and employers. They've dictated business practices, mandated the water flow of toilets, outlawed incandescent light bulbs, saved us from the scourge of lawn darts and realized myriad other achievements of astounding pettiness draped in false robes of consequence.
They've done all in their power to bring us back down to earth in every way.
Is it any wonder why today, our greatest achievement is nearly two generations behind us?
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Well said.
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