That's the title of this essay by James Q. Wilson, former Harvard and Pepperdine professor, Southern California native and Malibu resident, political scientist and philosopher. If you set out to write what this country is all about, you could not do better than this (and neither could I). Wilson cites Alexis de Tocqueville, appropriately because Tocqueville is still the best analyst of America but appropriately also because Wilson shares his careful concern for fact, his ability to look at details and see the big picture, his cool self-possession, and, under that, his passion for ordered liberty.
One small quibble. Wilson writes that we are a "nation that never had an established church." But some states did have established churches after the adoption of the Constitution; Massachusetts and Connecticut had established Congregational churches well into the 19th century. But that just fortifies the larger point on which Wilson follows Tocqueville: Religion thrives more in America with its lack of established churches than it does in Europe, which has or used to have established churches. And you could cite Massachusetts and Connecticut as cases in point: Organized religion is weaker there than in most of the country, with even the Roman Catholic Church stripped now of much of its moral authority by the pedophile priest scandal.
But that's just one minor point. Please read Jim Wilson's sublime essay. Every American should.
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