Why do so many young Americans hate their country's heritage?

 Richard D. Land, Christian Post Executive Editor

Question:  Why are so many of America’s young people apparently beguiled into despising America’s founding and heritage?

. . . "As I was writing this column, I was reminded of a deeply moving experience I had while I was speaking at a conference on Freedom in Romania, just after they had overthrown the horrifically brutal Communist dictator Ceausescu in 1989. The conference was on how Romania could now install a free and democratically self-governing society with deep respect for human rights — “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

"I was in a private, one-to-one meeting with the Romanian equivalent of the U.S. Attorney General. He pulled a book off the shelf in his office, opened it up, and started reading in English, “When in the course of human events . . .” — the American Declaration of Independence. After he had read the part, “All men are created equal,” he looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “We want what you have.”

"I realized at that moment that I had been guilty of the “sin of familiarity.” We have all heard the shibboleth “familiarity breeds contempt.” I believe far more often it just breeds “familiarity.” We become familiar, blasé if you will, about truly monumental things and fail to sufficiently appreciate just how extraordinary some things really are.

"Shame on us as Americans for far too often treating the timeless truths embodied in the Declaration of Independence familiarly when they are indeed priceless and the Revolution those truths ignited in 1776 has deeply impacted people and ignited the fire of liberty in their hearts both here and around the globe. Those founding principles are what inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to call for his fellow citizens to live up to the ideals spelled out in our founding documents — a call we continue to seek to fulfill for ever greater numbers of our people yet still today.

"So why are so many of our young adults rejecting this widely held view which is a truly glorious heritage? Of all men and women, we are most blessed to be heirs of this inspiring legacy. Well, there are two reasons, one nefarious and the other merely scandalous. " . . .