 So this is your own book filling in for Michael Pelka today. I'll be doing this through Thursday and You know to understand what America is. I think it's valuable to understand where it came from What was the founding of America really about? Which is just a bunch of as some people would like to describe it a bunch of white guys who are fed up with a king What was the ideas that made America possible? America is an ideological revolution America at its founding is the implementation of an idea in Politics in reality It's not just You know defining a new country America is a different country than any other country that it existed before America is the first country in human history Founded on a moral principle That principle is Individual rights the idea that every one of us as an individual has a right Therefore is free To pursue our own life To live our lives as we see fit in pursuit of the rational values necessary to live And rational is important America is a country that comes at the pinnacle of the age of reason It's not an accident Reason the founders admired reason They understood that reason was our means for knowing the world That reason was our means of gaining knowledge And that if human beings were going to survive and thrive They needed to be free to use their reason in order to achieve their values But to the founders reason was at the core of what it meant to be human This country is the country of the enlightenment Of the age of reason of the idea Of science discovery knowledge reality The idea that we can know the world that we discover truth And therefore as individuals as we discover truth as individuals We must be free to express that truth We must be left alone to apply that truth to build businesses to create stuff And once you create it, it's yours because you created it It's not the states. It's not the groups. It's not the collectives. It's not societies. It's not the kings It's not the tribes. It's yours starting with your life And the things that you produce they are yours Nobody else has a claim against them That Is the genius of america The idea of individual rights the idea That individuals must use their reason freely to pursue the things necessary for them to live So when you start a business and create something new that is yours And the only way to live is by producing creating building So america Is the idea of individualism Combined with the idea that reason is our means of survival our basic means of survival is reason to think to identify truth in reality to identify The facts of reality to integrate them into new knowledge And to apply that knowledge to our lives as individuals America was the rejection of collectivism in all its different forms all its different forms From monarchy to tribalism to Even to absolute democracy where the majority gets to the site everything. That's why the founders established a constitutional republic to protect The smallest of all minorities to protect The individual So that is what america is Those are the ideas that made it great