This has been America’s great gift to the world. It was a gift that was hauled along by two factors in particular: the industrial revolution and the fact that the social hierarchies of older societies didn’t restrain America. These two factors created conditions by which every American citizen felt he could succeed. Of course, the opportunities that the industrial revolution provided were not unique to America. The fact that America nonetheless views such opportunity as its defining characteristic, speaks to a certain cultural spirit which fueled this country’s progress.

It is this uniquely American spirit which has primed the pump of this country’s success and fueled the triumph of democracy and modernity over feudal disunity. We should feel pride, not guilt, for this success. Yes, our foreign policy has rightly engendered criticism. But we should never feel guilty for standing up for ourselves, or for rooting out groups of people who sit around and plot ways to murder as many Americans as possible. At the end of the day, there is no doubt that the unique spirit embodied by this country has worked, not just to make the world safer, but to make it better.