In On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding, Michael Novak wrote:  "The founding generation moved easily between faith and practical, common-sense reasoning, indeed mounted upwards on both those wings in unison."  Novak got it just right.  If we seek to understand the founders and their generation, we need to navigate by using Novak's profound insight as our guiding star. Faith and common sense together made the founders' soaring vision of political liberty possible.  When we understand that, many things otherwise obscure are brought into sharp focus.  For one example, it helps us understand the long war on the American Idea by Americans who reject the American Idea. The Civil War is a good place to start.  In that bloody struggle, Americans who rejected the founders' vision banded together to use military force against the government the founders had...(Read Full Post)