July 4, 2026

CREATED:

July 4, 2026

Who Is God in the Declaration?: He’s far more than the Supreme Secular Rationalist. (Matthew Spalding, April 27, 2026, Modern Age)

God appears several times in the Declaration. Indeed, the first character introduced in the Declaration’s narrative, before “the present King of Great Britain,” is God. We noted earlier that God exercises legislative power (the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God), executive power (as Creator and divine Providence), and judicial power (Supreme Judge of the world) without being a tyrant. All that is true and makes an important point about the danger of unified power in human hands. But this is a view that considers God in primarily human, political terms.

A more sublime view becomes clear when we consider the appearances of God as they develop throughout the whole document. God first appears by virtue of man’s unaided reason—a traditional understanding of the Laws of Nature—in the form of the general revelation of the natural order. This is the God who makes laws for all things, including men and all peoples. Then God appears as the Creator, not just of nature in general but of man in particular. This is the God whose work “we hold” to be self-evident, and who endows man with certain unalienable rights. God then appears as the Supreme Judge of the world, specifically the judge of man—the only rational being on earth. This God is all-knowing and sees the deepest intentions of each person. And God appears finally as divine Providence. This God doesn’t merely create the world and then leave it alone but continues to intervene in the affairs of men and sometimes changes the course of human events.

And notice the parallel: how the human actors become more personal and particular (moving from “one people,” to a corporate “we” who holds truths, to the specific “Representatives of the united States of America,” to the particular “we” who are the signers) at the same time that the references to the deity become more personal and intimate. The theological references move from a general, distant, and unknown God to the creator and endower of man as a species, to a personal God who knows the lives and innermost thoughts of each man, to the benevolent God who intervenes to protect those who rely on divine providence.

Long War

CHILDREN OF HUME VS DESCARTES’S GET:

July 4, 2026

Revolutions Worlds Apart: Why America Chose Liberty and France Chose Terror: Both the American and French Revolutions promised “power to the people.” One delivered it; the other descended into bloodshed and chaos. Why? (Lawrence W. Reed, July 1, 2026, Daily Economy)

[I]n the decades leading up to 1776, the American colonies were steeped in the moral and religious currents of the Great Awakening, a Christian revival that emphasized self-examination, personal responsibility, and restraint.

Protestant values of self-improvement through hard work, private enterprise, and thrift helped shape early American development. In France, by contrast, the Revolution elevated men who sought power for the purpose of remaking society itself. That self-indulgent impulse to reshape others at any cost did not take root in early America as it did in France. The United States did not empower men with the apparatus of concentrated, legalized force and then expect them to behave modestly with it. Early America did not entertain the notion that society could be perfected through coercion.

Blessedly, after Hume, the Anglosphere could never be seduced by the false god, Reason.

End of History

THE NEXT PRESIDENT HAS SUCH A REAGANESQUE OPPORTUNITY:

July 4, 2026

The United States at 250: Renewal Is the Real American Tradition (Roy Swan, 07/03/26, NY Observer)

At 250 years old, the United States of America is the most ambitious brand ever conceived. Like every great institution, it lives or dies by how well it practices what it preaches.

Fifteen years ago, leadership scholars Doug Ready and Emily Truelove called the animating spirit of powerful brands “collective ambition” in a seminal Harvard Business Review article. They captured how great leaders inspire divided people to unify for the common good through a seven-element model that stands the test of time: purpose, vision, promise, values, targets, priorities and the daily behavior of the people who carry the name. What makes great companies great can make great nations greater. Alignment endures. Misalignment rots.

Two hundred and fifty years ago in Philadelphia, imperfect men drafted the blueprint for a more perfect Union. They named a promise: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They invoked Nature’s God. They committed to values worth dying for. They admitted the nation was imperfect on day one, yet expected it to achieve the perfection they could not deliver.

Perfecting is a verb, not an adjective. The Founders trusted us to keep building.

The tragedy of Joe Biden was that he did not have much quarrel with most of Trumpism: Identitarianism, protectionism, state capitalism, etc.

Our next president can renew the promise of the nation by undoing the damage.

Soccer

THE GOAT:

July 4, 2026

Shep Messing and the 1972 Olympic soccer adventure that turned into tragedy (Michael Lewis, 6 Oct 2015, The Guardian)

A non-conformist who spoke his mind, Messing walked to the beat of his own drum, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

“I had no money, so I hitch-hiked from New York to St Louis,” he said. “I was not told anything by the coaches. I had scrounged up the money for a flight to get back, but I had not money for a hotel room. I was literally sleeping at the airport at the gate. I woke up and picked up a Sunday newspaper and saw that I had made the team.

“From zero to a hundred and then it’s off to qualifying. Concacaf was not really not that much different then, in terms of how difficult it is to play in Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador. Those way games were probably just as difficult as they are today. That qualifying process was long and tough. We had no expectations.”

There was no grand master plan in US soccer back then.

“It is so hard to compare eras and generations for US soccer,” Messing said. “You’re not talking about guys who were playing in a stable, professional league. This was really amateurs. So to go to play at Azteca against Mexico and to Jamaica and Trinidad and the Central American countries, we did not have that body of experience. Our experience was, in my case, Harvard-Yale or Harvard against Columbia. We had no preparation, nothing to prepare. It was brutal. But we didn’t have any pressure. We were a bunch of college bandits.”

CREATED:

CHILDREN OF HUME VS DESCARTES’S GET:

THE NEXT PRESIDENT HAS SUCH A REAGANESQUE OPPORTUNITY:

THE GOAT:

You Missed

CONSERVATISM IS NOT TRUMPIST:

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES:

PHILADELPHIA:

WELCOME: