Reclaiming America's soul - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Reclaiming America's soul - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Liberty. Equality. Natural rights. Consent of the governed. Religious freedom. Private property. The rule of law. Constitutionalism. Self-governance. Independence.

Despite a decades-long onslaught, these are the truths that an upbeat Matthew Spalding fervently believes we as a society continue to hold dear.

But as the dust jacket of his new book, 'We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles,' reminds, 'Before we can rededicate our country to the core principles that made America the most prosperous, the strongest and the freest nation in history, we must rediscover them ourselves.

'They must become again, as Thomas Jefferson said, 'an expression of the American mind.''

First, however, it's important to learn how America began to lose its mind and lose touch with its Founding 10 truths.

And Mr. Spalding, who directs the American studies program at The Heritage Foundation, lays the blame squarely on the Progressives' assault of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

'After the Civil War, a lot of these intellectuals did what intellectuals normally do -- they went to Europe to try to find better ideas about how to govern ourselves and they studied with the Fabian socialists (in Britain) and the Germans,' Spalding said in a telephone interview Wednesday last.

'They learned all these ideas about centralization and bureaucracy and they learned relativism -- there is no truth.'"