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America at 250: Freedom has to be fought, defended

National Columnists

Success often sows the seeds of future failure. That's the danger America faces now. America is a great and powerful country. But this shouldn't blind us to an obvious historical reality. Great empires rise – and fall. Just look at the history of the Roman Empire. Or the Babylonian Empire. Or the Mongol Empire. Success often comes with a temptation – to abandon the things that made you successful. Think about an athlete who's spent a decade training for six hours a day, six days a week. He makes it to the pros and signs a big contract. Suddenly, he's a ...

America at 250: US greatest country in world

National Columnists

If you want to find out why our country has been so successful, you should study the people who built it. America is about to turn 250 years old. It should be easy to celebrate America. Aside from the healthy patriotic pride anyone should feel, we are the greatest country in the history of the world. We enjoy freedoms most people could only dream about. We have the strongest military in the history of the world. We have the most dynamic economy. We put men on the moon. For those born after the end of the Cold War, it's easy to take this for granted. It can feel like America ...

Trusting God in time like this

National Columnists

As I have begun my summer three-mile power-walking workouts on a commercial street, I noticed two large billboard signs taking aim at President Donald Trump and the economy. Both signs depict Trump in a petulant manner, with one asking why our vacations are so expensive this year. The other asks why grocery prices are so high. These questions are aimed at the mostly working-class population in this area that lives in nearby apartment complexes, and it's pretty obvious that the sponsors of these messages are not Trump supporters. I think one point of agreement most people would ...

General time is undefeated in battle

National Columnists

I am on a mudslide toward death. Well, we all are, really, when you think about it, but sometimes it just seems you're slipping down the side of the mountain faster than at other times. Like, for example, when you're approaching a birthday that starts with a "fif" and ends with crying in the car because the clouds are moving too quickly overhead. It's not as silly as it sounds – though it is, admittedly, fairly silly. I had dropped off the kids at camp and was driving back to the house when I got to a stoplight. I looked up and saw shocking blue, scattered white puffballs ...

Trump ties name to dubious diplomacy

National Columnists

Donald Trump has been the greatest, most clear-eyed and most transformative foreign policy president of my lifetime. But Trump is also the famed businessman who wrote "The Art of the Deal" four decades ago. There has therefore always been the risk that the president's novel and often unorthodox approach to foreign policy could be subsumed by a greater dealmaking imperative. Because of his dealmaking background, Trump – despite all his foreign policy successes – was always uniquely vulnerable to confusion of means and ends, prioritizing a deal itself above any end that a deal might ...

Trump not following Polk’s example in war

National Columnists

A president orders the onset of hostilities without authorization of Congress and without much in the way of making a case with the public. His troops win important victories and decapitate large parts of the government of the enemy. But in the enemy capital, no one surrenders or will even negotiate seriously. That leaves the president with the unhappy choice of launching a new military attack on the central focus of the enemy, one riskier and less certain of success than those before, or of declaring an incomplete victory, well short of his essential objective, and just getting the ...