Timing of America's 250th anniversary next year, 2026, couldn't be better.

It will serve as a great encounter, for too many Americans for the first time, with the founding principles of our nation.

Too many have lost touch with the principles that created the miracle called the USA, and unfortunately, increasing numbers are hostile toward their own great nation.

Consider that the USA constitutes 4% of the world's population yet produces more than 25% of the world's GDP.

Or consider that there are 420 American Nobel Prize winners, around 71% of all the Nobel prizes that have ever been awarded.

This is all the miraculous outgrowth from one magnificent sentence in our founding Declaration, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It is from free men and women that creativity and productivity pour forth.

Have there been mistakes along the way? Of course. As man exists, man sins. Like the horrible original sin of slavery. But free people take responsibility for their sins and correct them. Some of the haters may claim this hasn't happened. I beg to differ.

There is a reason why we have challenges with immigration. Those from all over the world want to come to the land of opportunity.

But I would also remind all of the observation of historian Arnold Toynbee that "An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide."

Many look around and fear, justifiably, it is happening in our own beloved nation.

Freedom means personal responsibility. But because man does have an evil inclination, it is so tempting to push that responsibility off to others.

Per a recent Cato Institute/YouGov survey, 62% of Americans 18-29 say they hold a "favorable view" of socialism, and 34% view communism favorably.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a young so-called progressive, which is politically correct talk for socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is now far and away the largest fundraiser of all incumbents in Congress. She has raised to date $15.4 million, twice what House Speaker Mike Johnson has raised.

I tuned in to YouTube to hear what she is saying and watched her use her prodigious demagogic skills at a recent event to seduce her audience by appealing to their weakest and worst instincts -- blame others.

She advocates what amounts to pure socialism, which has failed everywhere it has been tried, because it is rooted in distortions about how the world works and what brings out the best in people.

She called the recent Big Beautiful Bill one of the "ugliest, scariest pieces of legislation to pass through Congress in modern American history." This despite the left-of-center Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington noting that if the bill did not pass, about 80% of taxpayers would pay higher taxes in 2026, averaging $2,100 per household.

She called Medicaid "one of the most cost-efficient public programs in American history."

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which provides auditing and investigative services to the U.S. Congress, reported in 2024 an "estimated combined total of over $100 billion in improper payments in Medicare and Medicaid programs ($51 billion in Medicaid) in fiscal year 2023."

The New York Post ran a column by a Cato Institute scholar noting that in Ocasio-Cortez's own New York State, between 2012-2017 alone, an estimated 337,000 to 433,000 were improperly enrolled in Medicaid, with incomes above the allowed limit.

Hardline socialists have now been nominated by Democrats in mayoral races in New York City and Minneapolis.

The election of Donald Trump in 2024 amounted to American voters saying "Stop!"

But the work has just begun, and the danger is great.

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