Thanks for the ping!
Something has to define the community and bring people together into a common enterprise that is worthy of the sacrifices necessary to defend it. In the United States, “liberty” has always been one of the concepts that defined the community. The word “liberty” has a noble ring to it because it implies the people who have it are just, moral, virtuous and upright. It implies an admixture of duty, honor and responsibility. But when we divorce these concepts from it, as we are doing today, the word loses its dignity and depreciates down to mere “license.”
Which bears this fruit...
In the long run, people will never rally around something so empty as the mere concept of “license.” Rome learned this the hard way. When Rome was sacked by the vandals, few came to its defense because by that point in time there was nothing left of “civil society” deemed worthy of being saved. There was no longer any binding commonality of objectives, morals, or vision of destiny. The free bread and circuses weren’t enough to rally the people in a life-threatening defense of their country since the heart and soul of their country had long since vanished.
And the playbook:
Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter in the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.
The forces set against us are legion and one is obliged to ponder whether or not Americans any longer have the will to fight this evil. Exacerbating the problem is something I frequently see here on FR, that is, there are many "conservatives" on this very forum who mock, ridicule and belittle religious faith and principles generally. Outright antagonism to religious principles is not at all uncommon here. If for no other reason, religious principles should be embraced by all conservatives, even non-believers, for its stabilizing effect on society and cohesiveness of the culture.