Why "We The People?"
I admit that I'm a political junkie. My father was a journalist, news director and news anchor on TV in Atlanta while I was growing up in the 60's. He covered elections, the Civil Rights Movement, assassinations and scandals in Atlanta, the Southeast, and even nationally for NBC News. I was a frequent visitor to the WSB-TV newsroom, with its clacking newswires, ringing phones, rows of TVs showing WSB and its competition "live," and the hustle of "faces" that everyone in town "knew." Only later did I learn that my father was interviewing people who were making history and defining our age - Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, Robert Frost, Jimmy Carter and many, many others.
Election nights were special. In the 70's, as I got old enough to understand what was going on, my father brought me to the station to watch live coverage of election returns from a seat right behind the camera. I met Newt Gingrich when he was "just" a college professor taking on a white-haired, cigar-chompin' good 'ol boy who had been in Congress since Lincoln was President (or so it seemed). In school, I was fascinated by the history of our country, especially its founding, and - like most boys - our wars. I was an avid reader about World War II.
Our family vacations included historical trips to Philadelphia, Washington, DC, New York and states up and down the East Coast. When we took a trip out West my senior year, we visited Mount Rushmore, Little Big Horn, and saw the first glider flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. I developed a true appreciation for the size, beauty and majesty of our country and its people.
Later still, when I got to college, I took Political Science and more History, and - taking a break from college - I was able to work in the Georgia Legislature and then write speeches for the Governor.
Since then, every job I've had, every degree I've earned, and every place I've visited has helped me understand more about how unique our country is - the vision, violence and wisdom of our founding; the forces that have always tried to pull us apart or improve us; and - always - the people who have made America what we are: the home of the free and the brave.
I love our country. I love our freedoms, which I find to be unique among world governments, and which include the freedom to destroy what we have.
My greatest fear is that we will do just that - we will destroy this wonderful gift. We will be the last generation of free Americans - a foolish, self-centered generation that gave up our liberty because we did not understand it and, therefore, could not cherish it, defend it, and offer it to others. Our founders used their God-given blood, wits and courage to create the most amazing nation in the history of the world. Over the last two centuries, leaders have come forward when we needed them to protect us from our own worst instincts and dangers within and without. Always, the people of this country have followed, and then they have led - first our country and then our world - to a better day.
Now, our nation faces another series of threats. I choose to see these threats as being connected: symbiotic evils. Define them however you will - a global economy that is the result of bad policy, worse laws and a leadership vacuum; murderous terrorists without borders or morals; and a well-financed, organized and vocal core that appears to me to be traitorous and unwise in the extreme - attempting to redefine our most basic values, to rewrite our history, and even to change our Constitution and laws in ways that may be irreparable.
Therefore, to combat these threats, I choose to exercise my God-given and Constitutionally-protected right of free speech to identify these evils, to comment on them and entertain your comments, and to engage in that most healthy of American pastimes - debate. As I said in my first post on this We The People blog, all of us must acknowledge that truth and falsehood and right and wrong exist in this world. I have the freedom to choose what gets posted here, but I assure you this blog won't just be about what I think or care about. We The People is a site where all manner of opinions are stated and debated in our search as a people for what is true and what is right.
--Russ Moore