We tend to think of history as something chronicled in dusty tomes tucked away in library stacks, and recited by professors in dry monotones in the ivy halls of academia. We do not, as a general rule, think of history as something we are actively engaged in making. The truth is, history is only ever the summation of the actions taken by people who lived before us. We are living the history our children and grandchildren will study. The kind of world they live in when they study it depends entirely on us.

During the formation of the United States, the founders were profoundly aware that they stood at a momentous time, and the choices they made defined the history of the time they lived in. Their language, their actions, their correspondence all demonstrated they knew and understood this. While we don't all live at such a pivotal crossroad of historical importance, it is safe to say that we will come to important crossroads in the course of our lives. A brief look at history shows that few generations escape the onus of historical importance falling upon them.

In the last century we have seen the advent of Civil Rights, the War on Terror, the rise and defeat of fascism and communism, and the Great Depression, to name just a few. History happens, momentous occasions arise, and the character of the people called on to face those challenges determine how history unfolds.

We live in an age where wit is considered more relevant than wisdom, and cleverness more admirable than kindness. Nobility is derided, and celebrity scandal is celebrated. We live in an age where Boy Scouts are considered bigots, and are reviled. We mistake charisma for character, eloquence for truth, and education for intelligence. Morality is forgotten, and religion has been supplanted by an ambiguous and ambivalent "spirituality," a counterfeit of real religious conviction and the morality that comes with it. This is not the first time in human history where these mistakes have been made, but it is important to recognize that in every past age, these misjudgments have preceded the collapse of great societies, whose greatness depended upon the earlier embracing of the qualities we ourselves now reject.

We stand on the precipice, and as Abraham Lincoln so prophetically observed, we will endure for all time or die by suicide. The revolver is at our head, the hammer cocked. All that remains now is to see if we will pull the trigger, or set the gun down and choose to remain a great nation, a great people. It is our history to write, and I believe there are enough of us still left who are good, and moral, and religious; who know what character is, and what truth, and intelligence are ; who can and will distinguish between right and wrong, but we have to do it now, because the hand that is now on the gun will pull the trigger, and the fact is, as it has always been, that the only thing evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

Now is the time to write the history our children will read about, and may God help us to write a history they can read about in a free nation.