Occasionally, my wife muses about us buying another house. Her arguments are sound, but I’ve grown attached to our modest three-bedroom Cape Cod, where we have raised our boys and created many memories. I was a service brat growing up so the fact that we have lived in one house for 24 years is unbelievably wonderful for me.

Last week, my best friend told me that a house in our old neighborhood was listed for sale at an astronomical price. He suspected that the new owners were probably going to knock down the house and build something new and modern in its place. I have no attachment to the house across the street from where I once lived, but I winced a bit inside hearing that it may be bulldozed.

All this thinking about my home and my old neighborhood where a home may be bulldozed has me thinking about my homeland, America. I was raised to love and respect America. I know that this old home of ours has some bad memories and skeletons in the closet, but I also see many proud moments that outnumber our mistakes. I also see us growing toward a MORE PERFECT UNION. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN resonates with me, because I believe our foundation and the timbers lifting our national home are still true and strong.

Image by AI.

It saddens me that there are many in our land want to bulldoze our old home and build something resembling the humanist buildings in the old USSR or the PRC. They don’t come right out and say it, but their lack of affection for our old home and ways they play with language make me wary.

One of the things I love about our old home, for example, is the FREEDOM OF SPEECH which the architects included in our Bill of Rights. Our old home built by pioneers has inspired many inventions and great ideas. These ideas developed in liberty where exchanging ideas is expected. The rarefied air of freedom we breathe is exceptional and leads to creativity.

The socialists and Marxists among us act like termites infesting our old home through schools and colleges. They don’t like free speech. They justify their censorship talking about the need to prevent “hate speech” or to prevent “disinformation.” Their disdain for old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits is depressingly reminiscent of Mao’s mad ideas.

Delegate Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island shouted the benefits of free speech in the musical 1776 when he said, “I’ve never seen, heard, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hell, yes, I’m for debating anything!” That Yankee spirit led to the American Dream which still attracts foreigners to our country. I don’t see long lines of people trying to enter what’s left of the USSR or the PRC.

I do have to give those who want to bulldoze our old home some credit. They are dedicated, relentless, and their bulldozers are circling us right now. This must motivate those of us who love this old home of liberty and want to pass it on to our children. They march for ideas that have not worked well anywhere in practice. The ideas behind our home of liberty have created a great nation under God. God give us an inner fire to preserve this home of liberty because it deserves to be defended.

Ned Cosby, a frequent contributor to American Thinker, is a former pastor, veteran Coast Guard officer, and a retired career public high school teacher. His novel OUTCRY is a love story exposing the refusal of Christian leaders to report and discipline clergy who sexually abuse our young people. This work of fiction addresses crimes that are all too real. Cosby has also written RECOLLECTIONS FROM MY FATHER’S HOUSE, tracing his own odyssey from 1954 to the present. For more info, visit Ned Cosby.