As a nation, the United States of America was established upon a set of principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the equality of human beings and their possession of certain “inalienable rights.” At its founding, these principles were unique to the United States. More than anything else, it was they that separated its government from those of its contemporaries. Far from hindering the United States, ideals like the universal right to life, liberty, an

A few weeks ago, I took an Uber from a student journalism event at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda to Claremont. Right as I got in the car, the driver struck me, and my editor, as…interesting. He was wearing a t-shirt reading “Trump 2020” across the front. He asked us if we were college students, and when we answered affirmatively, he laughed. “I bet you don’t like Trump then, huh?” I told him that, while I hadn’t been old enough to vote in the 2016 e

On this day, the anniversary of our nation’s independence, invariably there arises a debate over the concept of American exceptionalism. About thirty percent of Americans believe that the United States stands alone as the greatest country in the world; decisive majorities declare that we are one among several of the greatest nations. But many of my friends and acquaintances, typically those who are well-educated and identify with the political left, reject the idea that Ameri

When I played soccer growing up, the coin toss was the most important part of the game. The coin toss determined which team shot on which goal during the first half, and my teammates and I knew that this was a critical factor in determining who would emerge victorious at the end of our sixty-minute game: the field we played on was heavily slanted so that one goal was downhill relative to the other goal, and was therefore much easier to score on. Soccer is a low-scoring game,