I prefer a scalpel over a guillotine. I prefer precision over gore, and would take an editorial guillotine to any laws written by Al or Tipper Gore, which is a separate matter altogether, as one is as cold as ice while the other is a scold who sought to put freedom of expression on ice, as both wielded a tool more destructive to democracy than any instrument with a razor’s edge: the red pencil of censorship, which deletes art or defaces it with warning labels. But I digress, because we were warned—repeatedly—about a political duo whose vices made the Gores’ seem virtuous; whose time as America’s First Family ended like it began, in a vainglorious attempt to preserve their political viability. What worked for Bill Clinton did not, thankfully, help his wife.
We can thank American Greatness for having made that possible.
Two years ago today, this journal started. That its birthday coincides with Bastille Day is ironic, since you will find no intellectual Jacobins among its ranks. You will instead find writers who sought to alarm us with sound arguments, rather than sounding the alarm about a false threat to our borders and our way of life. You will find no defenders of the indefensible, unless you think the Second Amendment is of secondary concern and the First is not of paramount importance; unless you cringe at those who cling to their guns and religion; unless you consider Christianity a sin and Judaism a form of original sin, while you celebrate Islam, not for its beliefs but your own suspension of disbelief—that what you would otherwise deem unacceptable, you continue to accept as payback against America.
I thank American Greatness for its fidelity to first principles
It does not fight to define conservatism, because the bigger fight is over the definition of Americanism itself. It is a concept that is blind to race and gender, but vigilant to what is every American’s birthright: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Happy Birthday, American Greatness.