The only thing we have to feel is that there is no substitute perfect for us, never negotiate out of fear.

We stand undivided, forever united, fighting hand in hand for the liberty we burn, for glory and honor, for our sons and daughters, ever mindful of the lessons we learn, let the torch of freedom burn.

Welcome to the intersection of faith and politics. This is Well Builders Live with David Barton, Rick Green. You can visit us online at www.wellbuilderslive.com and www.wellbuilders.com.

You can get the entire building on the American Heritage Series programs. Today, the truth of American exceptionalism. Here we are, we're going to go straight to the set for building on the American Heritage Series.

The United States of America has been the most successful nation in history, every category, whatever you want to pick. At some time, we've been number one. Wealthiest, most powerful.

Did that happen by accident, or was there a cause for the effect? Well, what you described is known as American exceptionalism. And it goes back to a book at 1831 where Lexington Talkville, writing about America, said, the position of the American is exceptional. I don't think any of the nation will attain to what they've attained to.

Now, that was some 50 years after America had been founded as an independent nation. He came from France because France is going through a revolution every few years. He said, what is the deal with America? He got here and said this is exceptional.

Now, American exceptionalism, that's the term used. Most of the folks cannot define that term today. So, very simply, American exceptionalism is the unprecedented stability, prosperity, and liberty that has resulted from institutions and policies that were produced by a unique set of ideas and philosophy.

So, it all starts with the ideas and philosophy from that gross institution's policies, which produce the stability, liberty, and prosperity that we enjoy. So, you have to go back to the beginning to the set of ideas. That's the cause. That gives us the effect.

You have to go back to the seeds that were originally planted, the philosophy of a government that was originally sitting down in our declaration, then encapsulated in the Constitution, declaration laid the foundation, Constitution built a house on the foundation, if you will, you've got to go back to that foundation.

And that's what has produced American exceptionalism. Now, that's made us different from all of the nations, but what's happened today is most folks cannot define American exceptionalism. They love it. They want it. They enjoy it. They're starting to get hungry for it. In recent elections, we had some freshmen senators to the United States Senate elected. They ran solely on the platform of American exceptionalism.

America is an exceptional nation. We're losing it. We need to get back to it. These are the ideas that produce the exceptionalism. This is what we've got to recover in government. People said, that's what I want. That's where I want to go. And so, they elected out of several diverse states, guys who ran on the platform of American exceptionalism. So, there is hunger for it.

But then there are those that also don't like it. They don't like it. They don't like it. They don't like this idea of exceptionalism. They don't like the term. Why is that?

There's exceptionalism is produced by a set of ideas. And by the way, when you go back to our founding documents, God is in the center of those ideas. Declaration of Independence lays forth five principles of government all starts with God. We start with, hey, there's a creator. The creator gives rights to us individually.

Government exists to protect the rights the creator gave us. So, there's people who don't like that, particularly the fact that it's based on God ideas.

So, it's not necessarily the exceptionalism they don't like. They're thinking about the cause. They're going back to those very things you planted. They would love to take the secular ideas that the France used and make a nation on it. Well, France dried that and they've gone through 15 consultations while we've had one. Those ideas do not produce the exceptionalism.

And this is part of the reason that most Americans cannot define American exceptionalism. And even though we're a great nation, if you ask an American named five things, America should be ashamed of and five things should be proud of. They'll start with the ashamed things.

And they'll go through them a lot faster and they'll get to about two or three over here and go. So, they know the negatives, but they don't...

They know the negatives. They don't know the positives. And for the last 60 or so years, that's the way we have taught American history. It's what's called deconstructionism and post-structuralism.

Now, those terms aren't significantly important, but once I describe what they are, then everybody's going to recognize them. But the bottom line of deconstructionism, post-structuralism, is you divide a unified nation into all sorts of groups and subsets.

So, we're not Americans. We're gay. We're youth. We're black. We're women. We're white. We're Hispanic. We're not a nation. We're all these groups that are out there.

Post-structuralism says, no, no, don't look at individuals. Look at groups. We have to divide you into groups. That's not a good approach.

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