Can We Still Agree On America’s Core Values? A Nation Divided On Independence Day

As we celebrate July 4, it’s important to go back a few weeks and recall what happened on June 14. On that day, we saw one portion of our country take time to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of our nation’s army, and a different portion protest what they seem to believe is a rising monarchy in our nation’s capital.

Now, there have always been differences of opinion among Americans. It’s one of the characteristics of a functional democracy. Over the past five years, however, we have experienced a fundamental division in our nation that must be confronted.

About 30 years ago, Jerry Porras and Jim Collins wrote a book called “Built to Last,” chronicling their research on organizations that thrive and survive over long periods of time. One of the most important durability-inducing elements they cite is the adherence to a small set of core values, inviolable traits that define the principles and behaviors around which the company’s founders built the organization. To reject or violate those values is to advocate for the organization’s demise.

While a country is not synonymous with a company, I am convinced that the same concept can be applied to a nation that wants to thrive and survive. I’m also convinced that a difficult conversation about America’s core values is long overdue.

It’s worth noting that core values are not the drivel that some companies produce using marketing jargon and wordsmithing to come up with a list of sugary, generic adjectives that will be palatable to just about everyone. Core values are the authentic principles that underlie the character of an organization — or a nation — over time.

For the better part of the past 50 years, the U.S. has been struggling with an increasing sense of confusion around its core values. Recently, however, that confusion has morphed into a serious and dangerous division, calling to mind Abraham Lincoln’s reference to the words of Christ, reminding Americans that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

More and more people, like me, are concerned that our country will not be able to stand if we remain so divided. We cannot continue to go forward simply agreeing to disagree, or worse, not even acknowledge our disagreements and allow ourselves to be torn apart. It’s time that we, as a nation, face and answer a few basic questions before it’s too late.

What are those questions, the ones that underlie our values? Here are the most obvious ones.

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Are we founded upon Judeo-Christian values and dependent on God’s providence, or are we a nation that is essentially agnostic, removing faith in God from public life, education, and the military? It can’t be both.

Do we believe in freedom of speech, press, and religion, or are we willing to allow elected and unelected influencers to determine what are and are not acceptable words and beliefs? Again, these are incompatible.

Do we believe in a limited central government, or do we prefer a powerful, singular federal provider of rules and services? Pick one.

In light of these questions, I see two ways to move forward.

First, we can go back and honestly embrace the core principles that the founders believed would hold us together and keep us united, and then recommit to those principles, without apology. It’s as simple, and sometimes difficult, as that.

Or, second, we can dismiss the ideals of our founders and decide, after 249 years, to create a new country. We can roll the dice and bet that we can conceive of a better model than Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson and the others did.

What we can’t do, and what we’ve been doing for too long, is avoid these questions and let our core principles, and an entire nation, die a slow death as we drift further and further apart while the media, academia, and creative judges determine what America really is. We are a democracy, still, and we must choose our own path, or it will be chosen for us.

Now, there are many differences between companies and countries, not the least of which is the inability of countries to “fire” their own citizens, or even simply facilitate their departure. An organization’s CEO, on the other hand, can say to employees who don’t want to adhere to its core values that it’s time for them to work somewhere else. A nation cannot do that, and rightly so. However, if that nation wants to survive, it also cannot overly accommodate or apologize to those who oppose its values.

It’s worth noting that this challenge we face today existed at the very beginning of our nation, though to a lesser extent. Even then, there were those who had sided with the British or who would have preferred a monarchy, perhaps one led by George Washington. They were not all forced to leave the country, but they were required to come to terms with the principles of this experimental nation if they wanted to stay.

So, if we decide to recommit to our founders’ ideals — and I’m certainly in favor of that path — then we must politely and unequivocally say to citizens who dislike the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or any foundational aspect of American life: “You don’t have to believe what we believe, practice any particular faith, or even celebrate the freedoms upon which we are founded. You don’t. But you do have to make peace with the reality of our core values and ideals, which are based on those things. Or you can make plans to live somewhere better suited to your preferences.” 

That is neither intolerant nor snarky; it is clear. And clarity is kind.

We must stop allowing people to pretend that the nation’s values are something other than they are, because there is nothing kind about that.

It’s ironic that the nations in the world today that have the most intolerant and unkind values are the ones that won’t even let people opt out and leave. Just look at North Korea and Cuba, though there are others. This is, of course, absurd.

But for a free nation like ours to bend over backward to accommodate those who hate what we stand for is equally absurd. So let’s make a decision so that we can reverse the trend toward divisiveness and disunity, and get back to rebuilding a nation around the values that have served us for 250 years.

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Patrick Lencioni is one of the founders of The Table Group and is the pioneer of the organizational health movement. He is the author of 13 books, which have sold over 10 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.