Gregory Northrup: What made the United States so unique? (guest opinion) – Loveland Reporter-Herald

The United States is celebrating 250 years of exceptional history. America’s founders decided to break away from England as they extended their tentacles of control over their North American colonies by increasing taxes and doing other things which reduced freedom within the colonies. Enlightenment thinking was growing in Europe, which was oriented around giving more power and freedom to common citizens through democratic governments.

Enlightenment revolutions like the French were based primarily on common people stepping up and overthrowing governments controlled by elites. Changing who controlled the central government. And that approach failed dramatically.

America’s founders were generally Christian, and they understood that all men are fallen and flawed. They understood that allowing any relatively small group of people, even though initially democratically elected, would result in constant power struggles to gain power over a strong central government.

So, they created a form of government, unique in the world, with large amounts of individual freedom and a limited role for a central government. The new American government consisted of a limited central or federal government along with a variety of state and local governments. They acknowledged that citizens’ rights come from God, not from any kind of government. They made clear that government could act only with the consent of the governed. They wanted as many people as possible to be free to use their individual gifts and talents to achieve their God-given potential and provide broad based opportunities for everyone in the culture, checked by reasonable laws based on God’s truths and moral guidance.

When there is general agreement on truths, there is a basis for determining between right and wrong and a basis for ethical and moral standards.

This unique foundation enabled the U.S. to become the most successful and caring country in world history. Our citizens achieved the highest standard of living in the world. Because we loved our neighbors we shared our economic ideas with other countries, even opened our markets to them. Because of our economic success, we were able to create the strongest military force in the world. We never used that power to conquer or rule over or take anything away from other countries. We used that military power to protect ourselves and other countries from evil. Because we believe that we should even love our enemies, when we had to stop evil behavior, we helped those we defeated build new successful countries as we did with Germany and Japan after World War II.

Throughout most of our history, we gathered around these founding principles. Sadly, today a significant percentage of our people believe in the exact opposite of what John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Many people are embracing a variety of different truth claims. When truth is relative or different from person to person, there is no basis for agreeing on the difference between right and wrong and no basis for agreed upon ethical and moral behavior. The only possible outcome under these conditions is chaos and we are increasingly experiencing just that.

The U.S. isn’t perfect, as evidenced by our initial acceptance of slavery and in many other ways. But we can and have solved problems and made improvements in the past. We ended slavery when our virtuous people understood that slavery was wrong and was totally inconsistent with our founding principles. They led us through a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of white Americans died freeing Blacks from slavery. Certainly, there is more to do.

We have created an incredible “Melting Pot” of people from all races and demographic groups around the world. Let’s come together now before all is lost, helping everyone in our amazing Melting Pot thrive. And let’s come together to create a responsible immigration system that welcomes reasonable numbers of people who want to join us in this amazing country our founders enabled.

Let’s quit arguing with each other. Let’s not look to and rely on some powerful central government. Let’s commit to coming together individually to do all we can for our country and for each other.

Greg Northrup is a retired business executive who has lived and worked in Loveland for many years.