welcome to the shining city on the hill!

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still."---President Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address to the nation, Jan. 11, 1989

Hi! I'm Bruce, and welcome to my rookie excursion into the world of blogging. The above words, spoken by the greatest president of the 20th Century, represent a vision of the potential of our great nation. The United States could be a shining city on a hill and a beacon of hope to the world. In fact, throughout much of our history our nation has lived out the promise of President Reagan's vision. I fear, however, that as a country we are losing our way and that the beacon is growing dimmer. I'll talk more in future posts to this site about how and why we are losing our way, but let me sum it up here for the purposes of this initial posting:

The United States of America was founded as a Christian nation, built upon the principles taught by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. The republican, representative style of government we have is wholly dependent upon the people of this nation living up to those principles. When we don't, the republic falters. Friends, we have faltered.

That's enough for today, but in future posts I'll show supporting evidence for my beliefs, I'll talk about how and why we have faltered, and I'll talk about the ways in which "we the people" can set our nation back on course to becoming the "shining city on a hill" envisioned by President Reagan.