Ask any American who remembers what life was like 25 or more years ago, and he or she is likely to say that in the most important areas, life was significantly better.

People were free to talk and exchange ideas.

Common sense was prevalent, providing a basis for shared values and sound judgment.

Relationships, courtship, marriage, and family formation were more successful.

Culture was more positive and uplifting because it was shaped by recognition that virtues were worth upholding.

American heritage was a source of national pride.

History was worth preserving to learn from and to honor those who came before on whose shoulders we stand.

Humor was alive and well in all its varieties, particularly in prompting people to laugh at themselves.

Today, there are so many cultural crosscurrents as well as so many societal levels of demoralization and division that most cannot fathom where to begin to unravel things and correct course.

It’s a complex mess.

And that complexity is not serving us well, at all.

But getting things back is not that complicated.

It hinges on two related basics: truth and trust.

In a secularized, contemporary America, the administrative state — powerful unelected bureaucrats operating across government agencies such as the State Department, DHS, CIA, FBI, and CDC — have manipulated and controlled information and public opinion by using portals to the mainstream and social media to censor and cancel information that runs contrary to government narratives.

This, of course, constitutes a more than significant violation of our First Amendment rights.

President Joe Biden revealed himself to be the obfuscator-in-chief, with a State of the Union not reflective of “The Buck Stops Here!”

Our government, in whole or in part, has been misleading Americans about almost every important issue affecting them: the southern border and migrant crisis; the state of the economy; the alleged CO₂ emissions risk and climate change.

Our federal Leviathan has also not been entirely candid about COVID-19 and the effects of associated vaccines; the cause and status of the Ukraine war; nationwide public school curriculum pushing race, class, and gender division and confusion; Defense Department DEI programs demoralizing the U.S. military rank and file and causing dramatic military recruiting shortfalls; the war on police and law enforcement; the two-tiered justice system; and the alleged January 6 insurrection.

And let’s not forget that all of this is being accompanied by reckless government spending, which will only bring on a national debt and currency collapse within a decade.

Let this sink in: If these issues seemingly preoccupying the feds are based on lies, deceit, and half-truths, it’s axiomatically impossible to produce policy solutions.

Thus, politicians don’t need to solve the peoples’ problems when they can perpetually use those problems to raise money for election campaigns.

When legislative bills become laws that require funding, it will come in large part from deficit financing.

So, when the system does produce legislated solutions, it often constitutes a double-fleecing of taxpayers — borrowing money for wasteful programs doing more harm than good.

The way forward and first step is to stop government censorship and allow freedom of thought, as well as the competition of ideas.

Why? To reveal the truth of each problem so that policymaking can actually solve problems. Such a scenario would begin to rebuild trust.

What’s happened in the Middle East reveals just how imperative trust is.

The U.S. dollar was the unquestioned world reserve currency for nearly 50 years, from 1973 to 2021, because of the agreement with the Saudis to trade OPEC oil in U.S. dollars in exchange for the U.S. guarantee to protect Saudi Arabia’s sovereign security.

When Biden botched the military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021, causing abandonment and breach of trust with U.S. allies serving there, the Saudis also lost trust in the United States.

That led to the Saudi decision to join the BRICS nations and trade oil in multiple currencies. This is one of the more visible omens of the end of the U.S. dollar hegemony and reserve currency status.

Barring change, the dollar faces devaluation — making imports more expensive and causing domestic inflation and a diminished standard of living.

Just as trust between countries is the key to preserving alliances, it’s also the key to America’s domestic governance.

Restoring trust between the government and the people requires ending and replacing corruption in government with honesty and truth.

To achieve that, the American people need to be unwavering in their conviction to vote for law-and-order candidates at every level who are committed to the U.S. Constitution.

That foundation came out of Christianity and its recognition that man’s sinful nature requires government to be structured with multiple and layered diffusion of power to check and mitigate corruption.

The Constitution’s First Amendment is the cornerstone that facilitates governance based on liberty and truth — protecting five critical unalienable freedoms:

• Freedom of speech, which drives the discovery of truth.
• Freedom of religion, which provides the basis of morality, civility, and law.
• Freedom of press, which provides documentation of discovery of truth.
• Freedom of assembly, which protects the right of people to gather and talk freely.
• Freedom of the right for people to petition the government.

Together, these five guaranteed freedoms are what have made Americans the freest and most prosperous nation globally. These have also defined the U.S. from the beginning, fueling the fastest growth of affluence in all human history.

It turns out that freedom is what protects truth, trust, and relational integrity.

Seems simple enough, so why are we in such bad shape?

It may be that just as God allowed the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites because of sin, idolatry, and faithlessness, he’s allowing us to pass through our darkest and most corrupt period of dishonest and deceitful rule to awaken and convict the American people to seize the day and commit to restoring truth and trust — the surefire path to recovery of prosperity and happiness.