This past Sunday marks the three year anniversary of America Restored. As we celebrate everything that has lead us here, we think back to our original purpose of these blogs. We truly do want to restore America because we love our country. But sometimes it is unclear what that love, which some refer to as patriotism or ‘public spirit’, actually looks like. As Gordon wrote in Cato’s Letter Number 35, “The love of one’s country, or publick spirit, is a phrase in every body’s mouth, but it seldom goes deeper, it is talked of with out being felt.” 

We see false patriots around us every day. They claim to love America and the freedoms it possesses, yet they act in ways that completely undermine what the founders stood for. They, in fact, are the opposite of true patriots. Those people slowly lead the masses away from what America is and act against the public’s own good in a way that could never be considered the love of one’s country. Gordon writes that the “duty of a man to himself [must] be performed subsequently to the general welfare, and consistently with it.”  There are still many who claim to have a different duty – be it protection or humanitarianism or whatever flag they wave. They use their titles to take us away from our governing document and ideals. They make wild claims or use invisible threats to make us unsteady. It is best put in letter 35:

“Those patrons therefore of dry dreams, who do mischief to the world to make it better, are the pests and distressers of mankind, and shut themselves out from all pretense to love of their country. They would force all men into an absolute certainty about absolute uncertainties and contradictions; they would ascertain ambiguities, without removing them, and plaque and punish men for having but five senses.”

We must not listen to these men. In order to defeat their false pretenses, we should strive for the truth. To love one’s country, you must understand what it stands for. What good is spirit if it is not rooted in the proper place?

So how do we show our public spirit? We strive to be true patriots and support our country as best we know how – by upholding the principles of its founders and honoring the government they created. We seek to educate the public and point out the misdeeds around us. As Gordon wrote, “we…dread to see the day, when it will be safer for one man to be a traitor, than for another man, or for a whole people, to call him so. Where-ever public spirit is found dangerous, she will soon be seen dead.” 

Thank you for being with us these three years as we work towards our goal. We would also like to apologize for our lack of consistency these past few weeks. Our lives have been moving forward and changing, but because of this we are focused on making “America Restored” do the same. We hope you will stay with us as we further pursue the noble path of our fathers before us. 

Yours truly,

Publius