Winning the Second Civil War Progressivism's Authoritarian Threat, Where It Came from, and How to Defeat It

Political and cultural divisions today leave many wondering how America could have arrived at its present state. This book traces the source to an unlikely historical accident.The founding principles of the American Revolution—that all individuals have unalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and the fruits of their labor, and that governments should exist only to protect these rights—were a singularity in human history. The nation’s failure to secure the slaves’ equal rights to self-ownership led to a Civil War and the constitutional recognition of this vital principle. And yet, scarcely four decades later, social science faculties at the country’s top colleges and universities repudiated the country’s founding principles.The cause of this startling change was the education that hundreds of Americans received in German universities in the late 19th century. Germany’s professoriate was dominated by state socialists who taught that individuals had no natural rights, only privileges granted to them by the government. American students absorbed these illiberal beliefs and upon their return, those who had earned PhDs established this country’s first graduate-level programs and departments. Higher education was transformed, with disastrous results in the social sciences. Generation after generation of students (including those who went on to teach) were inculcated with essentially autocratic beliefs about the relationship of the individual to the state.   Over the next several decades, American politics, journalism, law, and education evolved in directions inimical to the nation’s founding principles, leaving the country increasingly fractured—not unlike the decades leading up to the first Civil War. This book will trace those changes. It will offer ways to change the trajectory of the country’s political and educational culture and how to significantly lower taxes while maintaining government revenues, all, hopefully, to restore the original promise of American life.