Politics & Common Sense — Column by John Spencer
This summer, as the world gathers in the United States for FIFA soccer matches, millions of international visitors are experiencing America firsthand. They arrive with opinions shaped by news reports, social media, movies, and political commentary. Many visitors expect to find a nation consumed by division and decline.
What new visitors find are friendly people, thriving communities, remarkable generosity, and a level of personal freedom that still surprises many who come from countries where speech and individual liberties are more restricted. They see a nation that, despite its imperfections, continues to offer opportunities unlike those found almost anywhere else.
Closer to home, Idaho continues to attract thousands of new residents from across the nation. Like the foreign visitors attending FIFA matches, these newcomers are making a deliberate choice. They have compared where they live with what Idaho offers and concluded that this is where they want to build their future.
Taken together, international visitors and Idaho’s newest residents provide an invaluable outside perspective. They often recognize qualities that longtime Americans and Idahoans can easily take for granted. Their choices remind us that freedom, opportunity, safe communities, and self-government remain powerful attractions in an uncertain world.
Perhaps no idea captures that reality better than a phrase recognized in nearly every corner of the globe: the American Dream.
The world does not speak of a “British Dream,” a “French Dream,” or a “German Dream.” Those are successful and respected nations, each with its own history and achievements. Yet none has given the world an ideal that rivals the American Dream, a belief that through freedom, hard work, personal responsibility, and determination, ordinary people can build extraordinary lives. America has never promised success. It has always promised something more enduring, the opportunity to pursue it.
For nearly 250 years, people have crossed oceans not because America guaranteed wealth, but because it offered something more powerful with the freedom to build a better life. In our country, individuals could own property, start businesses, invent new products, practice their faith, educate their children, speak freely, and leave something meaningful for the next generation.
In my opinion, the American Dream is not about becoming rich. It is about having the chance to create, to build, to own, and to flourish as a free citizen and that promise continues to attract people from around the world.
The foreign visitors attending FIFA matches witness a society where individual initiative remains deeply woven into the nation’s character. Likewise, many Americans moving to the great state of Idaho are seeking communities where that same spirit of independence and personal responsibility still thrives.
When asked why they relocated, many newcomers mention public safety, lower taxes, less regulation, stronger communities, and a government that remains closer to the people. They are searching for places where neighbors still know one another, where civic involvement matters, and where individual liberty is more than a slogan.
Author Michael Savage has argued that enduring nations depend upon three essential pillars: borders, language, and culture. Whether one agrees with every policy implication or not, the broader principle deserves careful thought and respect.
A nation is more than a piece of land. Borders define sovereignty and allow citizens to determine their own future. A common language enables communication, education, and civic participation. Culture provides the shared values that bind diverse people together into a functioning society.
America has welcomed immigrants from every corner of the world throughout its history. What made that experiment successful was not the elimination of differences, but the embrace of a common civic identity built upon liberty, responsibility, and the rule of law.
Nearly two centuries ago, French observer Alexis de Tocqueville recognized something many Americans took for granted. The strength of the nation did not originate in Washington. It came from families, churches, volunteer organizations, local government, and citizens willing to solve problems together. Americans understood that freedom required participation.
I believe those same qualities remain visible throughout much of Idaho today.
Growth itself is not the challenge. New residents bring businesses, investment, skills, and fresh ideas. The real challenge is preserving the qualities that that attraction.
The concept of a free Idaho has never depended solely on geography. It depends upon citizens who value self-government, personal responsibility, strong families, civic engagement, and individual liberty. Those principles are not inherited automatically. Every generation must choose to preserve them.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson foreign visitors and Idaho newcomers can teach us.
The American Dream is one of our nation’s greatest gifts to the world. Preserving the principles that make that dream possible is one of our greatest responsibilities.
As we gather with family and friends this Fourth of July, we are celebrating far more than fireworks and parades. We are commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, when fifty-six courageous men pledged “their Lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” to establish a nation founded on liberty, self-government, and the God-given rights of every individual.
The Declaration of Independence remains the promise we celebrate, the foundation that continues to inspire people from around the world, and the priceless inheritance entrusted to every generation of Americans.
