A Return to Goodness

Some decades after the United States of America had been born as a nation, Alexis De Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, came to our country to gain a better understanding of the American people. In 1831, he began traveling our countryside to meet and talk with average folks from all facets of society, including business owners, politicians, school teachers and officials, clergy, moms, dads, farmers, and anyone else who would have a conversation with him, staying with people in their homes as he traveled.

After coming all the way from France and then spending a long period intimately examining early America, what was Tocqueville’s conclusion? He said that what made America great was an innate goodness at its grassroots level. In a later book about his travels among us, On Democracy in America, he said this: “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great”.

That is a discussion which must occur in our nation at this moment: Are we, as individuals, and as a people, seeking to be good? Are we actually investing our life energies for intelligent, honorable, and fruitful purposes? Are we doing good things?

Or, are our lives and resources being sucked away from us and diverted to be used for evil; by that, I mean really horrible, unspeakable evils? We absolutely must revolt against our forced contributions that support the twisted ambitions of those with less than noble ambitions.

If we seek the road to greatness, Tocqueville’s study of early America tells us we must get back to being good. If we are good again in a basic and generic sense, we’ll ultimately be ‘Great Again’ and, thus, fulfill our God-given mission - for the good of not only our own country but for that of people all across this planet. That’s my wish for us; that we would cleanse away the evil that surrounds us and simply strive to be good.