Length: 487 Words Reading Time: 2 Minutes

I define American gumption as the willingness to stand up for American beliefs and values and to try always to do the right thing.  Gumption, in my thinking, equates to resourcefulness, courage, and common sense.

I will answer my question: I believe it is.  But American gumption is most apparent in the heartland of America, not in the big cities on the East and West Coasts.  Citizens in the big cities seem to have lost touch with the magic and majesty of America.  I genuinely wish it were otherwise.

America is unique because we have always tried to demonstrate to the world that we stood for equality of all men and women; for the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; for the consent of the governed; for limited government; and for justice and order.  We haven’t always been successful in promoting these ideas, but we have done far better than any other country in my lifetime.

We have had our serious challenges over the last 230 years, some of our own making, but in many cases caused by others.  We were often drawn into problems because of our naivete.  For the fact-checkers, please note the following: I count my years (230) from the year (1789). That was the year that America became the United States of America, and when President Washington took office and the Congress of the United States was seated.

We have been able to refine our political thinking as we moved from a pure republic to a democracy.  The latter term meant that every citizen in the country had the right to vote.  That transition took many years to complete, and we are still feeling its consequences even to this day.

We continue to evolve as a nation. However, it is clear to me that there are tectonic shifts evident today in the understanding and acceptance of the grandest experiment in republican government the world has ever seen.  The challenges today and over the next several decades are formidable, to say the least.  The most extraordinary tectonic shifts occurred in the 20th Century and, over the last 20 years, the rate of change that we are experiencing borders on the overwhelming. 

America has had an amazing history in its relatively short life.  In my opinion, America has done far more good than harm in spite of the flawed leadership that led us into wars and conflicts that were not in our nation’s best interests.  We fought those wars and conflicts with the best of intentions, but I do not believe our leaders fully realized what our involvement meant and what our strategic objectives were.

Can America continue to thrive in the world that is coming at us?  That is a much more difficult question to answer than the one in my post title.  I believe we can, but only if we can create an American Renaissance, politically, spiritually, and culturally.