In 1976, at least 90 percent of Americans graduating from high school wore on their cap and gown some Bicentennial symbol. Meanwhile, the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage took seven different routes beginning in Washington state, Texas, Minnesota, and other locations, to converge on Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Along the way it collected Rededication scrolls with the signatures of 22 million people (more than one in 10 Americans) committing themselves to reaffirming American founding principles: “To commemorate this nation’s Bicentennial we hereby dedicate ourselves anew to the precepts of our Founding Fathers: … We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” “[W]e will continue to strive to make the lives of individual men and women in this country and on this Earth better lives…” Two million people came to Philadelphia for a five-hour parade and to hear President Gerald Ford state that “It is good to know that in our own lifetime we have taken part in the growth of freedom and in the expansion of equality which began here so long ago.” At 2:00 pm on Sunday, July 4, 1976, across the nation, bells pealed for two minutes (one for each century). (RELATED: The Missed Opportunity of the Semiquincentennial Minute) The Bicentennial was a big deal. It was, in the words of Time magazine, “an altogether fitting celebration of the 200th anniversary of America’s independence, and perhaps the best part of it was that its supreme characteristics were good will, good humor, and after a long night of paralyzing self-doubt, good feelings about the U.S.” The “long night of paralyzing self-doubt” included the fall of South Vietnam the previous year, the resignation of President Richard Nixon, a brutal economic downturn in which inflation reached 11 percent and unemployment hit 9 percent, soaring energy prices — with energy expenditures eating up over 10 percent of income (almost twice today’s share) — and a soaring homicide rate (roughly twice today’s level). Despite all these woes, the nation united to celebrate our national achievements, reaffirm our founding principles, and most importantly, rekindle our hopes for the future. We could do the same today. As Gerald Ford said in his 200th-birthday message to the nation, “In the space of two centuries, we have not been able to right every wrong, to correct every injustice, to reach every worthy goal. But for 200 years, we have tried and we will continue to strive to make the lives of individual men and women in this country and on this Earth better lives — more hopeful and happy, more prosperous and peaceful, more fulfilling and more free. This is our common dedication, and it will be our common glory as we enter the third century of the American adventure.” Today, many people of all political stripes seem to have forgotten that We the People have something in common — a “common dedication” and a “common glory.” We are collaborators in a great project, equals, allies, not enemies, gifts to one another. It’s time to remember these truths. READ MORE from Robert Whaples: Travels With Charley — and Hayek READ MORE: The Missed Opportunity of the Semiquincentennial Minute World Cup Tourists See What Too Many Americans Have Forgotten Robert Whaples is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and an economics professor at Wake Forest University. This is adapted from his forthcoming article “The Spirit of 1976: The Semiquincentennial in Light of the Bicentennial,” in The Independent Review.

The American Left’s most favorite lie is that Nazis and Fascists were conservatives. They were not; instead, they were cut from the same socialist cloth that America’s Left idolizes and increasingly personifies. The reason for the Left’s false equation of Nazis and Fascists with conservatism is that America’s Left needs it to advance their ends — and, as in the case of Democrats’ Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo, they want America to ignore the obvious. It is difficult to single out one lie from the American Left’s myriad. The one proclaiming that this time they can make socialism work — despite it failing in every other attempt and in every time in every other place — is certainly useful. The one promising that giving all power to the state will somehow make people freer comes in handy, too. However, the lie America’s Left tells with the most relish and gusto is that Nazis and Fascists come from the Right of the political spectrum rather than from within the Left’s own ranks. They say this because, in addition to needing it to be true, America’s Left so want it to be true. Of course, as with the rest of the American Left’s myriad of lies, it is not only not true but demonstrably false. It is a historical fact that Nazis and Fascists were socialists. In the case of “Nazi,” simply look at its etymological root. It is short for “Nationalsozialist,” itself short for the Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeitpartei (NSDAP), which translates to National Socialist German Workers’ Party. However, the connection is much stronger than the name alone. The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises writes in his 20th-century monograph, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis: “Marxism and National-Socialism agree in … rejecting the capitalist social order. Both desire a socialist order of society. The only difference in their programme (sic) lies in slight variations in their respective pictures of the future socialist State.” Continuing: “It is important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships.” Specifically addressing the Fascists, von Mises writes: “Fascism… was a variety of Italian socialism … Nobody could surpass Mussolini in Marxian zeal. He was the intransigent champion of the pure creed.”  And on the Nazis: “The philosophy of the Nazis, the German Nationalist Socialist Labour Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anti-capitalistic and socialist spirit of our age.” Socialism is the historical origin of both the Nazis and the Fascists, and socialism is the economic aim of both: state control of the means of production. This origin and end entail not just more power to the state, but ultimately all power to the state. If you control production and distribution of resources, what other meaningful power exists, and what meaningful counterweight exists to the power of the state? Of course, the American Left’s parry to definitive history and fact will be: “But Nazis and Fascists were only self-proclaimed socialists, not real ones.” Yet this is a strange argument against self-profession from a Left that believes that gender itself is self-professed and can be unilaterally reassigned and redefined. The contrast of the origin and goal of Nazis and Fascists with those of conservatives and conservatism is stark. After all, conservatism is primarily “conservative” when it comes to the power of the state: Conservatives want the state to have less. Today’s liberals, in contrast to the classical definition of “liberalism” (freedom of the individual), are “liberal” primarily regarding the power of the state: Liberals want the state to have more. Then why do America’s Left make the false equation of Nazism and Fascism with conservatism? Because they need an enemy that appears more evil than they are. They need a threat so great that it justifies their most extreme actions. The evidence that the American Left’s actions are becoming more extreme is demonstrated almost daily.  Antifa (a shortened version of “anti-fascist”) has long existed and espoused violent confrontation. The administration finally designated it a domestic terrorist organization last year. The American Left is also becoming more visible in embracing confrontation. The Democratic Socialists of America are openly organizing “Red Rabbit” squads for militant action. As the City Journal’s Stu Smith recently reported: “In practice, that means training cadres in tactics like armed and unarmed self-defense, blocking intersections, and fighting ‘fascists’ with umbrellas.” Such efforts are well past the American Left’s suppression of opponents through a “cancel culture.”  And they are not new. In 2020, a UAW chapter posted a 14-page “Red Rabbits National Training” agenda outlining that effort’s basic points. The American Left needs non-democratic actions and outright coercion to implement a system that is not supported by the majority of Americans. Freedom, markets, capitalism: All are organic; they are what will arise if people are left to themselves. Without a conjured enemy, socialism — the taking from individuals to give to the state under the pretext of giving to society — clearly stands as the enemy to human freedom it is. If socialism is allowed to stand in isolation and appear in its true form, it will be opposed. Socialists know this. Just as they know that they want to wield that power. They do not want to take power from any form of state, but to aggrandize it and then wield it themselves. What von Mises observed globally in the 20th century — “Dictatorship and violent oppression of all dissenters are today exclusively socialist institutions” — is no less true in today’s America. Organized, premeditated, recurring violence comes overwhelmingly from America’s Left. The American Left’s favorite lie is also at the core of their favorite ploy. They love to accuse others of being what they themselves are. Again, Graham Platner is a case in point. The Left’s Antifa run around violently proclaiming themselves against fascists; the Democrats’ Maine Senate nominee sports a Nazi tattoo, about which the Left is silent except to make excuses (months ago, Politico said it “appears similar to a Nazi symbol”) for Platner’s obvious physical display. The American Left does so because charging others with their own crimes leads to moral relativism, which serves to absolve them of their wrongs. By charging everyone with the Left’s own crimes, then all are guilty. Under such an assumption of shared guilt, we become enmeshed and lost in arguments of degrees of supposed guilt rather than focusing on the actual guilt. And the biggest beneficiaries of such semantics are those who are most guilty: America’s Left. READ MORE from J.T. Young: AI: Technology the Left Love to Hate Meet the Post-Biden Democrats: Biden’s Democrats The Left Don’t Love Leo (They Simply Hate Trump) J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.  

The only thing I dislike about capitalism is capitalists — at least those who believe that time is money. Fine, time is money, but I’d trade an afternoon of loafing around for all the gold in the world. There are people who won’t have a beer with their friends because they think it’s a waste of time, people who won’t chat about trivial things with their children because they think it’s a waste of time, and people who are incapable of standing there, mouth agape like a fish, for long minutes contemplating a beautiful landscape because they think that’s the equivalent of throwing money away. Indeed, not everything worthwhile in this life brings an economic return. Indeed, not everything worthwhile in this life brings an economic return. Or perhaps it does, depending on how you look at it: spending some time sleeping and exercising often postpones the astronomical expense of a funeral, and that’s already a victory for any self-respecting miser. They say laziness is one of the seven deadly sins, but no one has ever said that wasting time always means being lazy. One of the most fascinating things about summer is that we can devote time to doing nothing — absolutely nothing. We can look, smell, contemplate, breathe, listen, and even look at each other, smell each other, contemplate each other, and listen to each other if we’re in the company of the person we love. (RELATED: Leisure for Thought) Let no one think that my timid anti-capitalist diatribe is a tribute to communism: in communist systems, wasting time is forbidden, just like everything else that isn’t compulsory. Years ago, I had a girlfriend who seemed to stalk me every moment of the day, always looking for those rare occasions when I was enjoying my hobbies. Whether I was reading a book or watching a football match, she’d appear out of nowhere, wedge herself between me and the book or television, and say, “Now that you’re not doing anything…” The sentence was always followed by an exhortation to do something she considered useful — that is, go grocery shopping, wash the car, or take care of some household chore at her place. Later, I realized it wasn’t just her; I’ve met thousands of people who are incapable of understanding that someone might stop for a few minutes (without having just undergone an amputation or being recuperating from a heart attack) to watch a movie, listen to music, read poetry, or simply watch the sun sink below the horizon over the vast blue sea. (RELATED: At the Tip of Your Fingers) The lives of these extremists of pragmatism are hell for them, but above all, they’re hell for everyone else. If you took away the contemplation of beauty, beers with friends, my weekly hours of reading, and those seemingly unproductive moments of leisure, my own life would become unlivable. What’s more, it would turn me into a sullen, irritable man prone to depression. Even more so, I mean. One of the strangest things about this type of person is that they get bored all the time. Don’t imagine they keep themselves busy 24 hours a day because it makes them richer or more fulfilled. It’s much worse than that: they do it simply to avoid boredom. And, in many cases, to cover up their own existential emptiness with the old trick of piling layer upon layer of frantic activity on top of it. If you think about the great moments that filled your heart at some point in your life and made you truly happy, you’ll realize they weren’t pragmatic in the slightest: the moment you first held your newborn baby, the first kiss with the love of your life, that nostalgic rock concert that left you with goosebumps, or that hefty novel that pierced your heart during one long summer of youth. No, you weren’t making money. You weren’t even doing anything useful for your home, your job, or your community. You were simply enjoying life in the most human way possible — a way that robots never will, reading mechanically only to regurgitate their opinions and knowledge as if they were nothing more than ones and zeros. I’m enjoying wasting time more and more. Or at least what other people call wasting time. You know, sitting and gazing at the stars on these summer nights, throwing off my sleep schedule because a book has completely absorbed me, happily wasting hours listening to friends who are going through a rough patch, or gazing into the eyes of a beautiful woman for ages, even if I’m incapable of paying attention to what she’s saying. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m about to hit the middle of my 40s, but I believe one of life’s greatest lessons is learning how to waste time without remorse. And I confess: the more time I waste, the less guilty I feel about having wasted it. In fact, part of me would like to waste all my time from today until the day I die — but let’s keep that between you and me. I don’t want it showing up in my file when Judgment Day comes. I don’t think the Good Lord is going to condemn me for that, but there have been plenty of exceedingly pragmatic, rigid saints throughout history, and I wouldn’t want to see them in my courtroom, testifying against me. READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: Who Knew the Thermostat Was Sexist? The Classical Recipe for Persuading Without Becoming a Charlatan Selling Hair-Growth Tonics Chronicle of an Immense, Colorful, and Illustrious Hangover

Of the signers who had much to lose for supporting American independence, there was one whose voice and courage would shape its trajectory. His name was Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Born of Irish Catholic immigrants, Charles Carroll was born Sep. 19, 1737, in Annapolis, Maryland. His family had done quite well for themselves through their ventures as planters and businessmen. They were among the wealthiest families in the American colonies. Despite his family’s extensive fortune, the Carrolls faced pervasive persecution for their Catholic faith. At the time, Catholics were excluded from public life in Maryland under the colony’s 1704 act to “Prevent the Growth of Popery.” Under the law, Catholics were prohibited from holding public office and participating in law, denied the right to vote, and prevented from instructing their children in the manner of their faith. Carroll deserves profound respect from us today and should inspire future generations to preserve the values that he and his fellow signers so deeply believed in. Despite persecution at home, Charles was fortunate enough to be sent over to France and later to London to undergo his classical as well as legal education. During his time in France, Carroll learned the French language, literature, philosophy, accounting, and Roman Law. It was also during his education that he would develop his own republican ideals upon reading the works of the great minds of Aquinas, Montesquieu, Cicero, and others. In 1759, Carroll moved to London to continue his legal studies and even attended sessions of parliament, though his Catholic faith constricted his educational opportunities. While studying in Europe, Carroll’s father wrote to him about the growing perilous conditions in the colonies. As the growing persecution of Catholics was becoming a serious situation, especially during the wars between Anglican Britain and Catholic France, the British government had begun to exercise authority beyond what was allowed and was tyrannizing the citizens of the colonies. Despite persecution, Carroll would soon turn his own voice into an instrument for the cause of independence for the colonies. Upon his return home from London in 1765, Carroll would challenge Britain’s rule over the colonies. In 1772, under the pseudonym “First Citizen,” Carroll wrote anonymous letters to the Maryland Gazette questioning the authority of the British regime and defending the rights of the colonists. In his writings, he challenged the Stamp Act and the violation of freedoms of the colonists under the British government by appealing to natural law, the Anglo-Saxon common-law traditions, and the minds of Western civilization. “The British North American Colonies are thus circumstance,” he wrote in his first letter, “they have then a right to chuse [sic] a constitution for themselves, and if the choice is delayed (should the contest continue) necessity will enforce that choice — Whether it be prudent to wait till necessity shall compel these colonies to assume the forms, as well as the powers of government, shall be discussed in this paper.” The success and popularity of his letters to the Gazette would make Caroll the leading voice of independence in Maryland, winning over the minds of his fellow Marylanders. In 1774, when Boston led its famous Tea Party, merchants with British tea in the Chesapeake Bay asked Charles for advice to help spare them the same fate, to which he replied: “Gentlemen, set fire to the vessel and burn her, with her cargo, to the water’s edge.” His voice and respect from his fellow colonists eventually led to him serving the colonial cause within Maryland’s Committee of Correspondence, and then as a member of Maryland’s Provincial Congress and Committee on Public Safety in 1775. Even though he was Catholic, he was sent as an unofficial observer and advisor to the First Continental Congress. In the spring of 1776, Charles, along with Salmon Chase and Benjamin Franklin were sent by the Congress up north to convince the Canadians to join the cause of the colonists. Carroll was considered a natural choice for the mission, as his Catholic faith and ability to speak French appealed to the largely French Catholic population up north. Although Carroll’s own background appeared to be key to appealing to the French Catholics, the negotiations ended with the Canadians deciding not to join the cause. Carroll’s actions nonetheless led to his election to the Second Continental Congress as a delegate on July 4, 1776, the day of the formal approval of the Declaration of Independence. Despite not being present at the vote for independence, the 38-year-old Marylander would sign his name, “Charles Carroll of Carrollton,” on August 2, 1776, becoming the only Catholic and the wealthiest of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Using his skills, Carroll would serve the colonial cause on the War Board to assist with supplying the Continental Army until 1778. Upon his return to Maryland, Charles served on the committee to assist with drafting a constitution for Maryland. It was during this period that Charles would upend decades of persecution by enshrining religious liberty and the right to vote for Maryland’s citizens under their newly created constitution, rescinding the barriers that once prohibited individuals like himself from entering the realm of government. After the Revolution, Carroll would continue to be of service to the newly independent American nation. He remained quite active within Maryland politics, especially in its legislature. Though he was absent at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, Carroll’s work on Maryland’s constitution and his republican beliefs would help influence the convention’s framework for the structure of the U.S. federal government. His belief in a mixed regime — combining aristocracy, monarchy, and democracy — as the best way to “protect lives, Liberty, & property of its citizens” would help foster the creation of the U.S. Senate. To that end, it would later be James Madison in Federalist 63 who affirmed that the framers saw Maryland’s Senate, which Carroll had helped mold, as the model for the U.S. Senate. “The Maryland constitution is daily deriving, from the salutary operation of this part of it,” Madison wrote, “a reputation in which it will probably not be rivalled by that of any State in the Union.” It wasn’t too long before Charles would serve Maryland as its first U.S. senator, which he did until 1792. The most notable aspect of his tenure was when he served on the committee to help approve and finalize the amendments that would become the Bill of Rights. He remained a staunch Federalist during his years and continued to stay vigilant of the dangers brought on by the radical Jacobinism of his day. In his years of public service, Carroll would also take on the cause of Abolitionism. Despite being a slave owner himself, Carroll saw slavery as against the natural order and hoped to lay the foundations of its gradual abolition. In 1789, Carroll became active in pushing a bill in Maryland to gradually free its slaves as well as end the exportation of slaves from Maryland. In the end, the bill failed, as the necessary support did not materialize. Despite the bill’s failure, Carroll remained active with the cause by serving as president of the Auxiliary Colonial Society of Maryland. In his letter of April 23, 1820, regarding the Compromise of 1820, he wrote, “But why keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil; let an effectual mode of getting rid of it be pointed out, or let the question sleep forever.” On July 4, 1826, Carroll wrote a special note to his fellow Americans, reminding them of their inheritance granted by the signers and those before them. “I do hereby recommend,” he announced, “to the present and future generations the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them.” On November 14, 1832, at the ripe old age of 95, Carroll passed into eternity as the last of the surviving signers. The newspaper headlines announcing his passing spoke volumes: “A great man hath fallen in Israel.” He was hailed as “The Last of the Romans.” Charles Carroll of Carrollton had much to lose for his actions. Had the revolution failed, he would have lost everything his family acquired, not to mention the repercussions of his actions as a Catholic. Yet it was his statesmanship and firm conviction in the traditions of Western civilization that not only helped the colonies eventually secure their independence but also laid the foundations for the nation’s republican ideals and structure. Carroll deserves profound respect from us today and should inspire future generations to preserve the values that he and his fellow signers so deeply believed in. In the annals of American history, Charles Carroll of Carrollton will forever be known as America’s greatest Roman. READ MORE from Hunter Oswald: Democrats vs. Workplace Freedom A Republic, If We Can Keep It The Lee Proposal: Restoring Stewardship in America

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with the editorial board of the Washington Post, but in the case of the nuns of the Rosary Hill Home hospice in Hawthorne New York, the Post’s editorial board is right on the money in protesting the state of New York’s thuggish bullying of the good sisters who have run the establishment for 126 years; they have apparently transgressed by not using the properly correct woke pronouns in describing their patients. This is in violation of a state law. The Post editorial explains that: “The sisters have received three letters from the state’s health department, in effect, explaining that they’re not complying with provisions of a ‘Bill of Rights for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers’ that Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed in 2023.” The sisters take no money from the state or federal governments, nor have any patients complained, but that has not stopped the woke Gestapo from the administration of Governor Hochul’s health department — which killed thousands of nursing home patients during the COVID pandemic — from trying to enforce this idiotic statute. The federal Justice Department has sued the state over the issue and will eventually win, even if the case has to go to the Supreme Court. Not only are the civil rights of the nuns being violated, but the issue represents an unwarranted attack on a religious institution whose only crime is violating the sensitivities of the woke crowd in Albany. The Constitution gives great power to the states in areas that it does not claim to be in the federal purview. But states such as New York and California have abused the privilege with impunity for a number of years; they need to be reigned in. The Trump Justice Department is now doing that, and it should be congratulated for doing so, as the Post editorial noted. The “no kings” movement is nonsense, but perhaps a “no tyrants” campaign should arise against state governments that abuse their authority. In actuality, the editorial board of the Washington Post has recently expressed some remarkably common-sense views on subjects such as radical race-baiting politics and LGBTQIA+ — and whatever nonsense this ever-increasing acronym represents — perhaps this means that traditional liberals are beginning to realize that their movement is being hijacked by leftist radicals much in the manner that the Russian Revolution was stolen from the Bolsheviks in 1917. We’ll see. READ MORE from Gary Anderson: The Senate’s Gutless Republican Wonders How a War With China Should Go Toward a Post-Iran Grand Strategy Gary Anderson is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.