A number of Americans from time to time have suggested the need for a national purpose as if somehow we are drifting aimlessly without purpose.

Perhaps their very suggestion is a measure of how far we've drifted from what has been our national purpose for 200 years. Their suggestion creates an image of a determined people marching in ranks dedicated to the completion of some program or project. But wasn't and isn't our national purpose the original cause which created us as a nation? We brought forth a social structure to guarantee for the first time to each individual his right to control his own destiny. Our nation exists for one purpose only - to assure each one of us the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order. God meant America to be free because God intended each man to have the dignity of freedom. - Ronald Reagan, to Dr. Kenneth Wells, President of the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge, Circa 1967-68

Liberty Letters comment: Take note: "the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order," a thing which true liberty requires. On the other hand, anarchy, or the rule of the jungle, or building a political future on the shifting sand relativistic morality of humanism, is not the path to, or in any way, liberty … nor has it ever been.

And take note again: "God intended each man to have the dignity of freedom," that is, our rights come from God. Be reminded, however, that a right intended is not always a right earned and a right retained. Liberty must be earned or won again and again, thru education, wise forms (e.g. our written Constitution with its checks and balances, divisions of powers, and Bill of Rights), religious conviction, moral action, and eternal vigilance. Many states, e.g. Mexico, early 1930's Germany, 1917 and 1990's Russia, 2006 Palestine embraced a more democratic form but failed to deliver a free and just state. Our own nation, by rejecting its early heritage, and looking back to Europe for guidance (whence we fled), moves ever closer to a totalitarian regime under a fasciist or socialistic model on a grand international scale.

Which takes us back to that "national purpose" idea. The trouble is, we have one now, and it seems to be inspired by socialism (or any one of its forms), and busy body internationalism.

But were we to return, and stay home, protect our own citizens rights consistent with law and order (Reagan would say: consistent with the Judeo-Christian ethic), and as a result set America up as a "city on a hill," or that inspires the world via "a model" rather than as a pompous imperialistic master, we'd be better off.

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