One way of looking at America

What is America?

Who are we as Americans?

What's the most important thing about our country?

It's a question I've been asking myself for quite some time now, and it's one I've written about in this space. What concerns me most about it is that our "republic, if you can keep it," as Ben Franklin once said, depends a great deal on an educated citizenry. That's something I'm not sure we have right now.

Once was a time -- actually just a few years ago -- when I toyed with the idea of running for Congress. My plan was to do retail campaigning, going door to door, mall to mall and shaking as many hands as I possibly could. I would run on sensible, moderate-to-liberal positions, and I would refuse to do any negative campaigning at all.

I'm a really good public speaker, and I relate well to people in small groups or individually as well. I actually thought I might have a chance if I could devote a year to it, full time.

Of course I was crazy.

I could never have won. I probably wouldn't have even gotten into double digits in an election. Any opponent would have pounded me as inexperienced (the last election I was in was in 1980 for president of my fraternity -- I won) and as someone who would be a disaster in Washington.

You see, I believe in American values.

I believe that freedom of speech is nearly absolute, that political correctness on the left and on the right is an abomination.

I believe in freedom of the press, and think that concentrated ownership of the news media is destroying the independence of the Fourth Estate.

I believe in freedom of religion, and feel strongly that even though I am Roman Catholic and accept Jesus as my savior, folks who have other faiths -- or no faith -- are every bit as American as I am.

I believe that to the extent America is a force in the world, it needs to be a force for good. That means repudiating the idea of pre-emptive wars and also of torturing prisoners.

I do not believe in laissez-faire capitalism. Every time we've done it, the rich have gotten richer and the rest of us have gotten screwed. On the other hand, managed capitalism as we did it from Roosevelt to Reagan was the most effective -- and fairest -- economic system in the modern world.

I believe a lot of other things, but mostly that American exceptionalism, a term thrown around a lot in recent years, is only valid when we behave well, both toward our own people and toward the rest of the world.

We were never meant to be an empire.

All we ever really wanted was to be special, and there's no reason we can't be that again.

Even if it means I never get elected to Congress.