How We’re Changing America for the Better
Up With America is committed to the philosophy that government – at ANY level – should only do for “We The People” those things which cannot be done better, more effectively or more efficiently by individuals and private enterprise. We insist on using that principle … and the United States Constitution … as the bedrock foundation of American liberty. Although political parties can and perhaps should be a valuable asset to America by encouraging like-minded individuals to band together, their continued success has become more important to special interests and elected officials than the people they were created to lead. Today’s political parties are a BIG part of the problem. We are committed to remaining strictly non-partisan in American politics, favoring instead to root our efforts in reviving the spirit, honor and principles of the Founders. To achieve real reform, we engage individuals and the private sector beginning at the most local levels to force elected officials to finally make the changes that move us toward a new era of American Liberty … and encourage a new generation to run for office to make these changes.
INFORM. Thomas Jefferson said “Enlighten the people generally & tyranny & oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” Until & unless Americans become educated as to the brilliance, simplicity & functionality of our Constitution, America will continue its slide down the path to socialism & tyranny. We partner with organizations focused on teaching American history & philosophy & offer educational programs online as well as through our seminars & events.
INSPIRE. Throughout civilization, all the major breakthroughs in science, art and government came about by inspired thinking – and by inspiring others. Using modern technology to bring history back to life, we exist to inspire a new generation of American Patriots to cherish our past by insuring our future.
CELEBRATE. To make a difference, to embrace the best of the past to help mold the future of of this great nation, we must use all these tools to ignite the flames of change – and we must celebrate the achievements of those Americans who have willingly taken the baton and in their private lives or public forums, created new opportunities for American pride.
COMMIT. Throughout history, mankind most often judges the character of a nation (or a man) by the consistency with which it keeps its word. Whether promising a lifetime of services & honor to the men & women who enlist in the armed forces to defend & protect us, or pledging either action or inaction against any rival nations who threaten our interests, in the end, America is only as good as her word. That’s why our #1 Goal is to make our veterans whole again with no exceptions & no excuses.
INNOVATE. Some suggest that the liberties granted to us by God & guaranteed to us by the Constitution are out of date today. They would alter the very principles which created this nation and kept it on course for almost 250 years. The Constitution isn’t perfect, but our Founders knew that & allowed for modifications – changes not based on fad or fashion, but on human rights & liberty. We promote change, but only within the framework of Constitutional law.
COMMUNICATE. Although it may be said that the first half-century of mass communications offered a less than enlightening perspective on the affairs of man, favoring instead to be content with exploring the medium itself, we embrace modern communications technology to expand awareness & to inform, inspire & motivate new patriots with only the facts … the truth.
Take the test: Are you a true Patriot?
There is something that every American Patriot is required to do.
Read and sign The Pledge of Allegiance, including the words “Under God.”
Did you know, this is part of The Oath of Citizenship that is required of every immigrant? So if you were born here in America, you’ve probably never taken it and may not even know it exists. Frankly, it’s pretty powerful stuff!
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
Again, if you were born here, you’ve never had to take that oath. So the question is, could you and would you place your left hand on a Bible and swear to these things? Your country asks very little of you but on these basic things, we can have no disagreement!
Take the Pledge!
Join UpWithAmerica in our pursuit to restore America in our traditional values!
Once you’ve read The Pledge and taken The Oath, just fill out the very brief member information form so we know who and where you are and something of your interests. Every day that we grow, there is more for you to do in your home town… so stay connected!
Of course, it does take money to operate UpWithAmerica. If you are able to offer a donation of ANY amount, we would be ever grateful for your help!
Frankly, we’d much prefer to have ten million $5 contributions than five, $10 Million contributions. We believe it’s unhealthy to even appear “beholden” to anyone – that’s a huge part of what’s wrong in Washington.
Who We Are is Who We Were
Speaking eloquently in his closing argument before the US Supreme Court at the close of the famous slavery trial pitting the United States against the Amistad Africans, John Quincy Adams said:
“We have come to understand that who we are is who we were.”
UpWithAmerica is dedicated to ensuring that an informed citizenry that understands that we are a nation built on Constitutional law, not the whimsy of men or issues along the way.
UpWithAmerica is all about you! At its best, it is your own grass roots organization of new American Patriots working together to renew the spirit, honor & principles that made this nation the greatest on earth. Joining together with other individuals and groups in your community, you’ll be helping to inform, inspire and motivate your family, friends, neighbors and associates to participate in the American dream!
We provide the resources, tool & access to experts in every area of the American Experience. In addition to frequently updating this website with facts, figures, ideas and information you can use to help return America to her founding principles. UpWithAmerica will show you how to hold special events from neighborhood picnics to weekend-long rallies. We’ll present a schedule of Weekend Rallies and online Webinars featuring experts on the issues, spiritual leaders, political experts, seminars, entertainment and an Audio-Video presentation designed to inform, inspire and celebrate Americans that are making a difference. UpWithAmerica Rallies have been designed to be fun, exciting, educational and inspirational for the entire family.
Empower the cause of ensuring liberty. Join the cause today!
This Is Up With America
Deciding on the subject of my very first Blog Post here on the ever-changing, ever-improving home of Up With America was surprisingly easy: All I had to do was to remember with pride my late father … a beautiful man in every way, but to me and many others, the very symbol of America’s Greatest Generation. A humble but successful husband, father, businessman, community servant and man of great Faith, Don P. Herron had a drawer full of hidden treasures – all the medals he had earned as a Hump Pilot flying across the dangerous Himalayas in WWII. My father defined the typical American Veteran, as Major Pete Hegseth said: “You don’t fight because you hate what’s in front of you, you fight because you love what’s behind you!”
The organizers and members of Up With America believe the time for talking is over. It’s time to DO SOMETHING! And while you’ll find (and are invited to add to) dozens of Smart Solutions for America’s Economy, Government and Society, nothing is more important than developing and executing Smart Solutions for our Veterans … problems that threaten the health and lives of our most honored citizens. The failure of the Veterans Administration and many of its facilities to care for our Vets is tragic – but not surprising for an organization steeped in bureaucracy. The failure of our President and Congress to solve this problem quickly, effectively and efficiently is unforgivable. Within 24 hours after the VA Nightmare became public two years ago, we published and began promoting an immediate Solution: Up With America urged Congress to write and pass a simple bill that would permit, even encourage, any veteran needing medical attention to visit the doctor, clinic or hospital of their choice without worry about ability to pay, distance to drive or available appointments. UNCLE SAM should pay all bills for ALL veterans for the next 24 months – or for as long as it takes to clean up the VA disaster. PLEASE CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS AND TELL THEM: NO MORE EXCUSES. HELP OUR VETERANS TODAY!
Thank you so much. Please take your time to look around our website and visit our Facebook page and then, if you’re as excited as we are about celebrating what’s GREAT about America, please sign up for our newsletter and perhaps consider a donation at some level.
Please help us restore the principles and honor of our Founders by creating Smart Solutions for Rebuilding America.
The Great Experiment Endures
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…” The Declaration of Independence ~ July 4th, 1776
Americans have always been pioneers. We are far from perfect – but we seek perfection. We work together to correct our mistakes, errors, omissions. Our Constitution is not a living document – it is the secure foundation on which we have built a nation of laws, not men. Casting off the shackles of aristocracy and the evils of tyrants and dictators, our founders created a government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” as President Abraham Lincoln said in 1863. And the result?
No nation in history has done more for the individual. No nation has done more to advance the cause of freedom or equal rights. No nation has done more to defend the weak, heal the sick, feed the hungry and shelter the poor. Regardless of our divergent political ideologies, all have consistently worked to prevent what President John F. Kennedy called “the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed.”
In the process – and in spite of those who would today denigrate our achievements – Americans built and have sustained a quality of life never before imagined, much less achieved. All the Pharaohs and all the Kings and all the Caesars who built remarkable monuments to their own egos on the backs of second-class citizens, could not and cannot compete with America for promising and delivering such a lifestyle. Even today, rocked by out of control spending and a dangerous pattern of excess in government and business, the American standard of living is unmatched. Dubai is a temporary monument to greed and power. America is a testament to love, to hard work, to self-sacrifice.
This didn’t happen by the grace of the federal government. It happened by the grace of God. It happened because of the determination, hard work and sacrifice of those who have fought to pass along the torch of liberty and opportunity generation after generation. It happened because when America is at her best, her strength is derived from individuals and families rooted in faith and committed to building a better life for their children, their neighbors, their towns, states and country.
As we approached 1976, my father submitted what I have always believed to be the perfect theme for America’s Bicentennial Celebration: “The Great American Experiment Endures” – Don Pershing Herron (1918-1999). The question is will we be able to say that just ten short years from today?
UpWithAmerica.org exists to serve a central source of accurate information, genuine inspiration and well-deserved celebration; a place for the vibrant exchange of experiences, ideas and solutions from a new generation of patriots.
We are committed to reinvigorating that great American spirit – one person, one family, one street, one neighborhood, one town, one city and one state at a time. We have set the goal of July 4th 2026 to have achieved our Smart Solutions for Rebuilding America so that we can stand together with pride and say:
“The Great American Experiment Endures!”
Lessons Learned/ or Only Identified?
Whenever I remember September 11th, two questions always spring to mind. Did we really learn our lessons? And do we still deserve our freedom? It’s easy enough to answer both questions with a resounding “yes.” You could reasonably point to the quantum growth of the nation’s intelligence establishment, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and, most of all, the sacrifices of our soldiers and veterans in the endless wars of 9/11.
But as we mark the 15th year since our great national tragedy, it increasingly seems like it must have happened in a different time to a different people, possibly in a much different country. Even worse, we seldom recognize that our future freedom is increasingly doubtful.
Why that pessimism? As an NBC News military analyst, I not only reported the events on both sides of 9/11 but confidently predicted to the television audience that our Second Pearl Harbor would swiftly result in a declaration of war. Surely now, with three thousand of our countrymen dead and every reason to fear even worse attacks, the American people would be called to the colors and mobilized for war. Of course, none of my self-assured predictions came true.
Instead we embraced the National Sidestep that has bedeviled us ever since. We reorganized our intelligence community – but never fired anyone for failing to sound the alarm as threats grew worse. We reorganized our homeland security establishment but the only significant effect of 9/11 became longer waiting lines at airports. The reason: our government found intrusive screening a more politically correct solution than accurate profiling driven by better intelligence. And instead of mobilizing for war, Americans quickly returned to business as usual, instead drafting the Reserves. Together with our small, professional military composed of Other People’s Kids, we sent our over-stretched soldiers and Marines to the combat zones three and four times. Want to know the root cause of PTSD? Then try looking in the mirror because fewer than one percent of Americans now serve in uniform.
It is no wonder that the other 99% of us ignore the steady erosion of our own security until it’s too late. (You never miss oxygen either until it’s suddenly not there.) We pay far more attention to insuring the rights of transgender soldiers than to the more urgent question of whether we have adequate numbers of soldiers, gay or straight. Regardless of their gender or sexual preference, will there be enough of them to protect us should push come to shove? Think I’m kidding? Our Army today is at its lowest level since before World War II while our Air Force is smaller and older than it has ever been.
Given our recent track record, which of our enemies now have reason to fear American military might? While we console ourselves with the selective assassination of our drone strikes, have you noticed that enemies from Russia to Iran and from China to North Korea are becoming bolder and bolder? That they are buzzing our ships, harassing our aircraft and signaling in many ways a single unmistakable message: Hey, we can take these guys!
You can hardly blame them for drawing such potentially fateful assessments. President Obama cannot even bring himself to utter the dread words “Islamic extremism.” Hillary Clinton skates away from an indictment for treasonous carelessness with our most precious national security secrets. Colin Kaepernick, biracial child of white privilege and second-string quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, won’t even stand up for the National Anthem. But rather than being slimed as a woefully ungrateful hypocrite, he is lionized by many, including the aforementioned President Obama. Does anyone even remember that this flag and that Anthem inspired Union troops as they fought the Civil War, paying a fearful price in blood to free the forebears of Messrs. Obama and Kaepernick?
A profound knowledge of his own culture allowed Spanish philosopher George Santayana to warn that “Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.” Knowing precisely what had prompted their rise from an obscure Italian city-state, the Romans had a similar belief-system: Si vis pacem, para bellum. “If you would have peace, then prepare for war.” Ponder those timeless insights on September 11th – but remember them in early November as well.
Colonel Kenneth Allard, Military & Homeland Security Advisor to Up With America, originally wrote and published this important column at FamilySecurityMatters.org on 9/09/16. Allard is a widely known commentator on foreign policy and security issues. For more than a decade, he was a featured military analyst on NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. That experience provided the backdrop for his most recent book, Warheads: Cable News and the Fog of War.