In an age when politicians slide seamlessly between serving in public office and hosting cable talk shows, Thomas Jefferson might seem patently old-fashioned. Then again, given the apathy and general timidity of the American populace today, perhaps it is we who have fallen out of touch with our radical roots. Certainly, in our American family tree, there is no one more radical than Jefferson.

Born on April 13, 1743, some 267 years ago, Jefferson was a Renaissance man–a philosopher, architect, statesman and founder of the University of Virginia–whose passion for individual freedom was rivaled only by his love of country. His legacy is one that, as Abraham Lincoln recognized, will live as long as free people walk the earth.

Just imagine what the world would be like had Jefferson never lived. Not only would American history have lost one of its greatest political philosophers, both nationally and internationally, but it would also lose one of its greatest champions of individual freedom.

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By John Whitehead

Democratic government is breaking down and American society is reaching a crisis point. As “Broken Government,” a week-long primetime series that aired on CNN in February 2010 made clear, Americans generally view their government as corrupt.

That impression is only worsening as time goes on. Shortly before the House of Representatives voted to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey asking Americans to provide the one word that best describes their current impressions of Congress. The results were overwhelmingly negative. Of those offering a response, 86% said something negative (with “dysfunctional,” “corrupt” and “selfish” being the most used words).

Other national studies echo this growing pessimistic, anti-government sentiment. For example, 61% of Americans believe the country is in decline. Only a quarter of the population thinks the government can be trusted. And 56% of those questioned believe the federal government is so large and powerful that it poses an “immediate threat” to the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans.

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By John Whitehead

The First Amendment right to free speech is on life support. And with its recent refusal to review the case of Nurre v. Whitehead, the Supreme Court may have pulled the plug.

In an attempt to avoid offending anyone, America’s public schools have increasingly adopted a zero tolerance attitude towards religious expression. The courts have not helped, allowing schools the discretion to let an offended minority control a cowed majority. Such politically correct thinking has resulted in a host of inane actions, from the Easter Bunny being renamed “Peter Rabbit” to Christmas Concerts being dubbed “Winter” Concerts and some schools even outlaw the colors red and green, saying they’re Christmas colors. And now, simply because someone is offended by the title, students cannot play music which has no words and is performed with no religious intent.

What school officials and the courts fail to understand is that by sanitizing the schools of anything remotely related to religion, they are not only silencing an entire segment of the population. Instead, they are also contributing to a cultural wasteland bereft of a rich heritage of Western art, music and literature–all of which, at one time or another, has been greatly influenced by religion.

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By John Whitehead

Has America evolved to the point where the government no longer needs to know your race? It’s an interesting and timely question, given our nation’s colorful and, at times, painful history when it comes to matters of race, as well as the importance placed on race in the 2010 Census.

Certainly, we have come a long way since the days of slavery and Jim Crow laws. The election of Barack Obama as the nation’s 44th president is a sign that America is becoming more color blind. Yet we still have a long way to go before we are able to do away with racial barriers, and it doesn’t help when, instead of dispensing with race-identifying questions, the U.S. Census Bureau is requiring citizens to take a colored view of themselves.

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By John W. Whitehead

“This is Big Brother at its worst.”—Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX)

Over the past several years, I have been barraged with emails from Americans expressing their dismay over the American Community Survey, the latest census form to hit randomly selected households on a continuous basis. Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years and is now underway, the American Community Survey is taken every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And at 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), it contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person’s job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits.

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By John W. Whitehead

I have seen the new face of America, and it is troubling.

According to an expansive study by the Pew Research Center, the Millennial generation is the so-called “new face of America.” Comprised of 50 million young people between the ages of 18-29, the Millennials have been so dubbed because they are the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. However, the study, which aims to shed light on what America might be like in the future, raises some provocative questions about this up-and-coming generation of citizens and leaders and what they might mean for the future of our nation.

For example, Millennials are “less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history. Their entry into careers and first jobs has been badly set back by the Great Recession, but they are more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures as well as about the overall state of the nation.”

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