We can renew and revitalize America's promise of freedom and democracy. This promise empowers us to infuse our lives with meaning, fulfillment, prosperity, and happiness, but it is at a crossroads. Nearly 250 years into America's audacious experiment, the divisions that are the natural byproduct of our national soul threaten to overwhelm us. We are losing grip on our ability to understand and harness those divisions, and we are frustrated. We are angry, we are tired, and we are losing hope. We are seeking a path that will reinvigorate our constitutional, democratic republic and lead it forward as the vessel of we the people.
Our current American stalemate does not require a political or cultural revolution. What we require instead is a renewed understanding and reawakening of the power and inspiration of America's promise of freedom and democracy. We need a better, clearer understanding of the fundamental principles that empower our freedom and bolster our democracy:
- Fairness, the foundation of freedom
- Responsibility, the price of freedom
- Engagement, the inspiration for freedom
- Enterprise, the engine of freedom
- Discipline, the conscience of freedom
- Opportunity, the product of freedom
- Morality, the soul of freedom
This book explores the impact of each of these Freedom Principles on the author's life and illustrates how they can inform and guide our individual lives and help manage and support our collective relationships. These Freedom Principles are simple, but they are not easy. They have existed as long as people have sought the freedom to determine the direction and quality of their lives, and they have impacted every aspect of the author's life. The values that underlie the Freedom Principles are the values that have informed the author's family legacy and shaped his everyday life experiences, from childhood through parenthood and into middle life. They are the everyday values of ordinary Americans, and they are the bedrock of America's promise of freedom and democracy.
America has always been at its best when it embraces each of the Freedom Principles. The Freedom Principles will not resolve our differences and end our arguments; because America is what it is, those differences will always exist, and the arguments will always be passionate, intense, and even angry. But the Freedom Principles can provide a platform of common understanding and values on which we can wage these arguments, and they can help us better navigate our differences and disagreements to make them more a source of strength than a seed of disintegration and destruction. In a world that increasingly feels out of control, living our lives according to the Freedom Principles is empowering. Commitment to the Freedom Principles provides a foundation for solving problems and finding success; it enables freedom to be a way of life, not just a slogan. By embracing the Freedom Principles and following their path, we can ensure that America will continue to be the guiding light that allows future generations to be able to live and share their remarkable stories of the American dream.
With a renewed personal commitment to these Freedom Principles, we can overcome our fears, begin to heal some of our divisions, become more comfortable trusting ourselves and our fellow citizens, and work more purposefully and effectively in pursuit of our individual happiness. We can write a new chapter of the American story that recognizes freedom and democracy as our shared American value.
