Why Are Civic Skills and Constructive Arguments Essential for Freedom?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the importance of developing civic skills and practicing constructive arguments. There is a great division in the United States between liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans. Some people have cut relationship strings, and most people in this group are liberal.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of polities at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute. He authored an article, published at Deseret News, and titled “Opinion: After 250 years, has America forgotten how to argue with itself? and subtitled “A country that cannot argue with itself is a country that has stopped governing itself.” 

A country that cannot argue with itself is a country that has stopped governing itself. As America approaches its 250^th birthday, the question that should hang over the celebrations is not whether we can throw a good party. It is whether we still know how to live together when the party is over.

The honest answer is that we are no longer sure. A generation now arrives at college unable to disagree without escalation and unable to draw on a shared body of knowledge that might make such exchanges worthwhile. They can speak, but they cannot really reason. They can express, but they cannot persuade. The Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, in its sober April report, conceded that universities have helped erode public trust of formation that did or did not happen long before. By 18, the habits are set. The college classroom is the place where the bill comes due, not the place where the work gets done.

That work is formation. A free society depends not merely on information but on formation: the slow apprenticeship by which a child becomes a citizen capable of inhabiting the republic she has inherited. This is the predictable result of decades of decisions that hollowed out that apprenticeship while pretending that something else – sentiment and self-expression – could carry the load. The diagnosis is finally widely shared. The harder news is that the cure requires two forms of formation at once, and we have been attempting one without the other for 30 years.

The civic skills the next generation is lacking.

The first thing we owe the next generation is the explicit cultivation of civic skills.

Disagreement, deliberation, listening, weighing evidence, changing one’s mind – these are not personality traits. They are skills, in exactly the same sense that addition and reading are skills. They have to be taught, practiced, modeled and reinforced, year over year, from the earliest grades. They corrode when replaced by therapeutic substitutes that treat every conflict as a wound to be soothed rather than a question to be reasoned through….

I have written about one K-12 school, the Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan, that has stopped treating constructive dialogue as an assembly theme and started building it into a developmental arc: a year-by-year curriculum that walks children, beginning in the lower grades, through the actual mechanics of disagreement with trust, compassion and evidence.

The fast-growing network of classical charter schools across Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and the Mountain West is doing related work from a different starting point: pairing rigorous instruction in the founding documents with a structured culture of recitation, argument and Socratic exchange. The two models look almost nothing alike. They are converging on the same insight: a citizen is formed, not born. The work belongs to childhood, not commencement.

I see the absence of this formation every term in my own classroom. Last semester, I asked a seminar of bright, motivated juniors to argue the strongest version of a position they personally rejected….

They had not been trained to argue. They had reached 21 without the apprenticeship that should have begun at 7….

The importance of constructive arguments.

The Jewish tradition I was raised in has a name for what these students had been deprived of: machloket l’shem shamayim, argument for the sake of Heaven – the Talmudic ideal in which Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai disagree across generations because they share a sacred text and a discipline of reasoning.

Christian readers will recognize the same instinct in the medieval disputatio and in the line that runs from Augustine through Aquinas to the great pulpits of the American Founding. Lay traditions of communal teaching and self-governance – the ward council, the volunteer lesson refined among neighbors – carry that wisdom in a different idiom.

Communities of faith have long understood, even when secular institutions forget, that learning to argue well is itself a form of neighborliness and a discipline of humility before truth. They have understood that formation is not optional. It is what a community owes its young.

Tocqueville understood this in 1830s America. He admired Americans not because they agreed with one another – they did not – but because their associations, town meetings and churches had developed habits of mutual address that led argument function as the connective tissue of self-government. Those habits were formed in childhood, in congregations and one-room schoolhouses and family debate around the table, and they were carried into adult life as second nature. That tissue has thinned. It can be rebuilt, but only deliberately, and only in the years when human beings are actually being formed.

The importance of shared knowledge.

Yet civic skills alone are not enough, and this is where most of the current dialogue work falls short. You can run all the trainings, workshops and summits you want. If the participants do not share a baseline body of knowledge about the country they are arguing over – its founding documents, its religious and philosophical inheritances, its great books and great failures – the dialogue risks becoming more therapeutic than civic. It becomes an exchange of feelings about a country no one in the room actually knows. The conversation may be civil. It will not be civic.

This is the second form of formation we owe the next generation, and I have argued elsewhere that it is the precondition for everything else: a genuine inheritance, transmitted in K-12 and again in higher education. Not a checklist of requirements in which medieval political philosophy and contemporary television satisfy the same box. A real common foundation – basic historical literacy, the development of the American constitutional tradition, the religious and philosophical sources of Western civic life, the texts that shaped how the founders thought and how their critics still think. The point is not indoctrination. The point is exposure. The point is to admit the next generation into a conversation that began before them and will continue after them, so that they enter adult citizenship with something to argue from rather than only feelings to argue with.

When 10% of the room has read the Federalist and the rest have not, the room is not really having a debate about federalism. It is staging an asymmetry: Some students are arguing from a tradition, while others are left to argue from fragments. When students do not know what the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, the classical tradition and the Enlightenment each contributed to the American settlement, they cannot tell the difference between a critique of the country and a caricature of it. A shared inheritance is what makes serious disagreement possible. Without it, you are not having a conversation. You are having a collision.

 

What are the Articles of Faith?

I am aware that there are numerous bits of information flying around on the internet about what Latter-day Saints believe. Therefore, I feel prompted to start a weekly series about the basic beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. The most basic list of LDS beliefs is found in a document known as the Articles of Faith, located in the Pearl of Great Price.

Historical Context

Joseph Smith, the prophet through whom Jesus Christ restored His gospel and organized His Church – even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – was asked by a newspaper editor named John Wentworth what the early Saints believed. Joseph answered the question in a letter to Wentworth, which is simply known as the Wentworth letter. A summary of the basic beliefs of the Latter-day Saints accompanied the letter. The Articles of Faith were first published on March 1, 1842, in the Times and Seasons newspaper.

Content and Significance

The Articles of Faith are contained in thirteen concise statements, each of which clearly states a fundamental Latter-day Saint belief. They are a summary of the doctrines, principles, and ordinances of the Church of Jesus Christ. They are also an excellent introduction to interested friends of the Church. Each Article of Faith except one begins with the words “We believe,” and the exception begins with the words “We claim.”

Development and Publication

Joseph Smith authored the Articles of Faith, which were published in 1842. However, four other Church leaders had previously written similar summaries. It is likely that Joseph drew from their outlines. In 1880, they were canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price, one of the standard works of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

The Articles of Faith are not considered to be a formal creed, but they are a vital resource to members of the Church. They are a summary of the teachings and principles of the Church.

I will include the Articles of Faith in this essay, but I plan to expound more on each article in later essays. 

1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Why Is America the Great Nation That It Is Today?

This week being the week of Memorial Day, I thought that I would share some ideas presented by Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. He gives numbers of Americans who died for the United States of America and encourages us to teach this information to our children, teens, and young adults as well as people who have legally immigrated into America. 

This Monday was Memorial Day. It commemorated all the Americans who died on behalf of the United States from its beginning to the present. It started out as Decoration Day. It was a phenomenon that grew out of the horrific Civil War in which 650,000 to 700,000 Americans, North and South, died.

And people in that postwar era felt that their graves should be commemorated. And once people started to decorate the graves or put flowers on them or flags, that custom spread to the North, and each state then started to commemorate it. And it was finally federalized as an official holiday not until 1971….

How many people have died fighting for America? About 1.2 million, and that includes 20,000 to 25,000 in the Revolutionary War if we count disease as well, maybe 20,000 in the War of 1812.

The Mexican War, 1848, there were probably 5,000…. 650,000 to 700,000 in the Civil War….

And then, of course, there was the Spanish-American War, World War I, where 117,000 died….

And then, of course, World War II, where somewhere between 405,000 to 450,000 died, depending on how we count those who were sick, whether it was battle-related or whether they were in the United States or overseas….

And then, of course, Korea with another 35,000, and then we had 58,000 in Vietnam and 7,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan and on, and on.

The singularity, though, we commemorate or are depressed by or awed by the numbers in two wars, the 430,000 that died in World War II and the 650,000 or 700,000 – that is almost a million Americans who died….

We are now a country – we have never been on this frontier before in terms of percentages or the actual numbers of foreign-born. We have about 53 million Americans who were not born in the United States, and that is about 16.2% of the current population.

That is a huge number. And unfortunately, those large influxes occur at a time when we have lost confidence in the American system or experiment because we do not have civic education anymore. We do not have classes from K-12, much less in university, where people know about the iconic events, what the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is, what caused the Civil War, what was Iwo Jima, what was Pearl Harbor.

Nobody seems to have any reference, any knowledge of that. And so, what we need to do is to – one of the ways, the best way, I think, to assimilate legal immigrants is to remind them that they wanted to come to this country. We did not force them to come. In most cases, we did not invite them to come.

They chose to come here because they felt, in terms of security, personal freedom, and economic viability, they would be better off than they were in their home countries.

So, when they arrived in this fully developed 250^th year of America this year, they should ask themselves, and we should help them understand why this was such a prosperous, great nation, why it is the oldest constitutional republic in the world today, and why it has been so successful.

And the answer is that from time to time in its 250-year history, it has called on young people 18, 19, 20 [years old] to go far overseas in almost every case except the Civil War, the Revolutionary, and the War of 1812, and fight enemies, whether they were German militarists or Austro-Hungarian militarists or Nazism in Germany or fascism in Italy or Japanese militarism or during the Cold War in Korea to stop communist aggression in Vietnam, same thing.

But they were uprooted from a very comfortable existence, and they gave their lives so that the United States today would be what it is. And if we do not tell people that, there is no appreciation that they came late to a country in which 1.2 million people had died to make it the attractive nation that enticed them to come in the first place.

And it is not just legal immigrants that need to relearn the lesson of American sacrifice, it is our own youth. They grow up with iPhones, they grow up with sophisticated automobiles, they grow up as beneficiaries of 21^st-century medicine. All of that is a result, a dividend, of the sacrifice of people that we do not even know anymore.

And sometimes we do not even know the places or the circumstances in which they gave their fullest and their last sacrifice. And they were all young, and they never had a chance, as the rest of us did, to mature. So, on Memorial Day, think of the dead and what they did for us, and try to commemorate it.

Did You Lose a Friend or Loved One While in Military Uniform?

 My VIPs for this week are the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for America, those in military uniforms who died while fighting or preparing to fight for this nation. Memorial Day is a day to commemorate their sacrifice.

I cannot think of any relative or friend who died while in military uniform – not a son or daughter, spouse, parent or grandparent, uncle, aunt, or cousin, or even a friend or classmate. I consider myself to be well blessed, especially since I know many who served in World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, recent wars, or are currently serving. I recognize that the families of all who serve sacrifice much whether a loved one dies or not.

Memorial Day 2026 is winding down as I draft this essay, so I want to share information from an opinion piece written by the editorial board at the Deseret News. 

Exact figures are elusive, but a variety of sources put the number of people who have given their lives in American military conflicts from the beginning of the revolution until the most recent fighting in Iran at more than 1.2 million.

That includes those who died in direct combat and those who died in accidents, by diseases or in any other way related to military service. The distinction really doesn’t matter. All gave their lives while serving their country.

That is a staggering number to contemplate as the nation prepares to observe its 250^th birthday in July. It becomes more staggering when one considers that the largest single share of those, 620,000, died in the Civil War. Noteworthy is also the cost of war in other countries, including the Soviet Union, with losses during World War II that reached tens of millions of soldiers and civilians.

Passionate patriots

Americans have always been passionate about defining freedom and amending laws in order to reflect an ideal definition of it. Unfortunately, sometimes they will come to blows over these definitions, as in the Civil War.

The nation’s Founders did a remarkable job of crafting a Constitution that keeps power in check while protecting basic freedoms and liberties, and yet the execution of those ideals has often been less than perfect. It is a testament to the beauty and inspired nature of that document that it endures and Americans continue to try to uphold its standards to this day.

Monday is Memorial Day. People sometimes joke it is the only holiday on the calendar that is not profitable to greeting card companies. That doesn’t mean it has been above trivialization. Many view it as the unofficial first day of summer; a time for barbecues and family gatherings. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and yet it is important to devote at least part of the day toward the memory of those who have passed, and the debt a free and prosperous nation owes to their sacrifice. It is especially important that some of this time is devoted toward teaching these things to children, and toward teaching them that war is a last resort that all too often becomes necessary.

Born in Battle

This day should be a fitting prelude to the 250^th birthday celebration. It is not meant to be relentlessly sad or tragic. It is, however, a time to contemplate how the nation was born in battle, and how the hearts of many American men and women have always prized liberty enough to die for it.

 

Should Babies Born to Illegal Aliens Be Granted U.S. Citizenship?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is birthright citizenship. As a reminder, President Donald Trump, just hours after taking his oath of office on January 20, 2025, signed 26 executive orders. One of those orders was written to end birthright citizenship as it is currently known. That order prompted immediate worldwide backlash because it was meant to change what is considered a right enshrined in the Constitution. The Trump administration obviously believes it is not a constitutional right for a foreigner to enter the United, have a baby, and claim U.S. citizenship for such a baby. I agree with Trump.

The first lawsuit was filed less than two hours after Trump signed the order. According to an article written by Natalia Galicza and published in the Deseret News, “attorneys general from 22 states sued to block it.” 

Opponents decry the president’s move as inhumane and in direct violation of the 14^th Amendment, which has legally granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. since 1868. Proponents say ending so-called birthright citizenship would decrease illegal immigration rates, limit “birth tourism” and protect the value of American citizenship.

Courts have interpreted birthright citizenship in the constitution to mean that those born in the United States are citizens, regardless of whether their parents are citizens. Trump’s executive order would effectively change that to mean a baby born stateside would not have American citizenship if the father is not a citizen or legal permanent resident (also known as a green card holder) and the mother is undocumented or has legal temporary status.

While it’s not the first time the principle of birthright citizenship has faced scrutiny, the current legal battle marks the most ambitious attempt yet to redefine it. “There’s been some chatter at various times about whether birthright citizenship makes sense. But no president has sought to restrict…..

At least six federal courts thus far have sided with opponents to Trump’s order….

For both sides, the stakes go beyond the ongoing immigration debate and contest to build up or break down obstacles to citizenship….

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments weeks or even months ago, and their decision on the case should come down before the end of June. According to Galicza:

… it would affect anyone born on or after 1 February 2025. A key factor that differentiates this moment from past challenges is that it isn’t just targeting immigrants living in the country illegally. The executive order would also deny citizenship to some children of “temporary legal residents.” That includes parents with student, work, family, tourist and humanitarian visas. People who have opted for legal pathways…

State-issued birth certificates would no longer count as final proof of citizenship. Instead, citizenship could only be proven by verifying the parents’ immigration status at the time of the child’s birth. With about 10,000 children born nationwide every day – or more than 3.6 million – the shift would require hospital and state workers to take on screening new parents about their citizenship status, requiring proof of immigration status or their own birth certificates and naturalization documents – would cost immigrant parents $600 per child in government fees and anywhere from $600 to $1,000 in associated legal fees….

Supporters of the executive order contend that children of immigrants living in the country illegally cannot express allegiance or take an oath to renounce foreign ties, and that heritage tied to other countries implies they owe allegiance abroad. In other words, they would not be subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States….

Who or What Do You Choose to Serve?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to the book of Joshua in the Old Testament and a lesson titled “Be Strong and of a Good Courage.” The following information introduced the lesson. 

It had taken several generations, but the Lord’s promise was about to be fulfilled: the children of Israel were finally going to inherit the promised land. But in their way stood the Jordan River, the walls of Jericho, and a mighty people who had rejected the Lord (see 1 Nephi 17:35). And they would have to face all of that without their beloved leader Moses. The situation may have made some Israelites feel weak and fearful, but the Lord said, “Be strong and of a good courage.” What reason did they have to be courageous.” What reason did they have to be courageous? It wasn’t because of their own strength – or even Moses’s or Joshua’s – but because “the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9). When we have our own rivers to cross and walls to bring down, wonderful things can happen in our lives because “the Lord will do wonders among [us]” (Joshua 3:5).

This scripture block teaches the following principles: (1) God will be with me as I strive to be faithful to Him; (2) The word of God can make my way prosperous (Joshua 1:8); (3) Both faith and works are necessary for salvation (Joshua 2); (4) With faith in Jesus Christ, I can experience God’s “wonders” (Joshua 3-4); (5) Obedience invites God’s power into my life (Joshua 6-8);

(6) “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 23-24).

I feel prompted to discuss the last principle about the wise use of agency, the choice to choose to serve God. Joshua’s teachings are contained in twenty-four chapters, and the first twenty-two chapters exhort the Israelites to “be courageous, keep the commandments, love the Lord, and neither marry among nor cleave unto the remnants of the Canaanites who remain in the land.”

The final two chapters (23-24) teach important warnings, counsel, and promised blessings. Joshua’s final words include the following verses.

14 ¶ Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.

15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods;

Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke on the topic of “Choose You This Day” in the October 2018 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He taught the following important concept. 

Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors.

But God is not interested in His children just becoming trained and obedient “pets” who will not chew on His slippers in the celestial living room. No, God wants His children to grow up spiritually and join Him in the family business.

How Will You Commemorate Memorial Day?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when individuals commemorate Memorial Day. It is commemorated by visiting cemeteries, memorials, participating in parades, and gathering with family members. It is a federal holiday that unofficially marks the first day of summer.

According to this site, Memorial Day was established to celebrate and honor the men and women who lost their lives during combat while serving in the United States military. Once held on May 30 every year, since 1971 it has been held on the last Monday of May annually. 

Memorial Day is a federal holiday that celebrates and honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Observed every year on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day in a nod to the tradition of placing flowers, or other decorative displays at gravesites.

The origins of Memorial Day date back to the Civil War, which claimed the lives of some 620,000 soldiers. In the aftermath, devastated communities sought to honor its dead. The commemoration caught on across the nation, eventually expanding to honor fallen soldiers from all wars, but it wasn’t until 1971 that Memorial Day became a federal holiday….

Whereas Memorial Day commemorates deceased U.S. soldiers, Veterans Day honors all former members of the military with an emphasis on living veterans. [Armed Forces Day honors all men and women currently serving in the military.] ….

The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

It is unclear exactly where this tradition originated; numerous different communities might have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. Some records show that a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina, organized one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. A year earlier, three women in Pennsylvania had decorated soldiers’ graves in their town.

Nevertheless, in 1966, the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo – which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866 – was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.