In yesterday’s blog, I linked to historian Victor Davis Hanson’s essay on Cracked Icons of the Left. Today I am posting on his message from Hillsdale College on his new course on The Decline of American Citizenship:
I wish to invite you to enroll in a
seven-lecture course that I prepared with the help and under the auspices of
Hillsdale College. It is called “American Citizenship and Its Decline,”
and the online course is based on my latest book, the recently released The Dying Citizen.
The class describes the origins and
history of citizenship in the West, reminding us that it is a rare phenomenon
both in the past and the present—given the enormous responsibility placed on
citizens to create and control their own government.
Citizenship then requires a large
and self-reliant middle class—currently shrinking under enormous economic
strains. Clearly defined and enforced borders are also essential to ensure a
civic space in which citizens can nurture common customs, sustain traditions,
and honor their own shared past.
Yet borders are now increasingly
fluid as mere residence and citizenship seem often indistinguishable.
Pre-civilizational tribalism—identifying by superficial appearance rather than
through shared culture and values—is returning to America as so often the salad
bowl replaces the melting pot.
These organic, bottom-up challenges
are often matched by top-down stresses such as the growth of a huge permanent,
but unelected, government of bureaucrats and administrators who combine
judicial, executive, and legislative powers that overwhelm the citizen.
In addition, revisionists in law,
the media, and politics seek to change the Constitution, long-held customs of
governance, and political traditions for short-term partisan agendas, on the
theory that a new changing and fluid Constitution must match an always evolving
human nature.
Globalism is an ancient challenge
to the sovereignty of the nation-state. But in the age of instant
communications and unprecedented concentrations of globalized wealth, so often
elites seek to supplant American laws and independence with international
organizations and often without the consent of the legislative branch or the
assent of the governed.
The course ends, however, on an
optimistic note that citizens still have it within their power to restore our
traditions of empowered citizenship and return government to the control of
citizens.
“American Citizenship and Its
Decline” is free to enroll in, and you can begin the course today by
clicking on the secure link below.
https://online.hillsdale.edu/landing/american-citizenship-and-its-decline
Like most of Dr. Hanson’s messages, his summary is helpful
on its own.
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