Let's Rediscover Our Inner Republicans

In last week's column ("We Are All Republicans"), I went on the public record for my colleague, Matt Parks and David Corbin, who have written a fine little handbook of American citizenship, Keeping Our Republic: Lessons for a Political Reformation (Resource Publications, 2011).

The remedy for the current American decline, they argue, is “that we relearn how to think and how to act like republicans.” To help us in our re-education, Parks and Corbin cover our “republican principles” in six chapters that address current political points of division from the standpoint of what ought to be fundamental points of agreement taken from our founding era and founding documents. The titles of most of these chapters come as no surprise—equality, responsibility, justice, lawfulness. But two chapters—honor and prudence—signal the reader that, despite the book’s concise simplicity, this is no mere high school civics primer, though it’s useful in that role.

Read their Washington Times article, "State of the Union? Out of Touch with the Founders" (January 24, 2011).