\u2018We have a population of people who know what is at stake\u2019<\/p>\n
In response to Ritter\u2019s question, \u201cWhy [is it] that our political regime has been so stable for so long,\u201d Hanssen recalled America\u2019s first immigrants. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first thing that makes America exceptional, and its political regime exceptional, is the fact that America was first populated by people who fled the rise of the modern nation state and totalitarianism \u2026 and so we have a population of people who know what is at stake in political liberty,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u02bcve seen what happened to their ancestors,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey remember the stories. And America has been blessed in its political constitution with the regime of liberty, which has made possible the flourishing of subsidiary communities and societies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanssen said we should not take for granted today that we still \u201chave a free people.” <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to listen to our latest immigrants \u2026 those who have fled Venezuela, those who have fled Iran, like my uncle, a Persian Jew, who refuses to call himself Iranian because he associates modern Iran with the regime of the Ayatollah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Get married, have children, raise them well\u2019<\/p>\n
Sanford said that though we are a nation of immigrants, \u201cthere won\u2019t be enough to pull in to make up for\u201d the continuing demographic decline.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet married, have children, raise them well,\u201d he said to chuckles from a receptive audience, which was mostly composed of college students.<\/p>\n
He encouraged the students not to focus on \u201cone big step,\u201d but rather, to take smaller steps: \u201cGet up early. Pray. Exercise. Go through the day in an ordered fashion, give Caesar what is Caesar\u02bcs, and God what is God\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo the little things thousands and thousands of times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to exercise liberty properly,\u201d he continued, one has to ask, “How should I live my life?\u201d and then rely on the institutions that \u201chelp you do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called the family the \u201cfoundational institution\u201d of America. \u201cRecover the family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition, \u201cwe need to see those institutions that mediate the virtues \u2014 schools, universities \u2014 that embrace fully the idea of what [the virtues] are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horn also encouraged students to focus on family relationships, telling them \u201cget off the phones and the internet. They\u2019re killing all of us. They\u2019re rewiring our brains.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Cloudinary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7433252538933848189_ctjqrq.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Trent Horn (left), an apologist at Catholic Answers, and University of Dallas President Jonathan Sanford participate in a panel on American exceptionalism at the University of Dallas on March 4, 2026. | Credit: Courtesy of University of Dallas Young Americans for Freedom Chapter<\/p>\n
Of people currently in their 20s in America, “one in three will never have children,\u201d he lamented, implying too much technology use is partly to blame.<\/p>\n
The Catholic Answers apologist pointed out, however, that though the Second Industrial Revolution \u201cbroke the family\u201d by encouraging workers to move away from their homes and families to pursue careers, the internet \u201cpost-Covid,\u201d in the age of \u201cZoom and telecommuting \u2026 might be good\u201d because many people no longer have to choose between a job and staying near their extended families.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe tech can help build up family networks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018The greatest outpouring of economic development\u2019 in history<\/p>\n
Ritter told EWTN news that he chose speakers who could address \u201cthe wonderful things the U.S. has contributed\u201d to the world because \u201ca lot of young people don\u2019t have appropriate gratitude for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ritter asked Folsom, a historian who focuses on economics and industrial affairs, about what the professor believes the U.S. has contributed to world economics and world innovations.<\/p>\n
Folsom said that the generation after the Civil War, from 1865 to 1905, was responsible for \u201cthe greatest outpouring of economic development \u2026 in world history\u201d and \u201cgave us the rise of an America that became a world power\u201d by World War I.<\/p>\n
He listed inventions that facilitated the rapid development of industry and infrastructure in the country during the Second Industrial Revolution, including the typewriter, the telephone, adding machines, the light bulb, electricity, factory-produced cars, and recording devices for music and movies, among other innovations.<\/p>\n
Through the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, \u201cthe founders gave us the freedom\u201d to develop these technologies, he said. \u201cWe had amazing infrastructure that allowed people to produce, and not have government get in their way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The professor said the post-Civil War period could be eclipsed in the present day \u201cbecause with artificial intelligence, this generation may yet be able to come up with more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A responsibility for this political regime of freedom\u2019<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of the panel discussion, Hanssen called the feeling in the room \u201celectric, it\u2019s teeming with patriotism. This isn\u2019t a normal college campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referring to Sanford\u2019s earlier admonition to \u201dget married and have kids,\u201d she said: \u201cI agree, be fruitful and multiply \u2026 Preach the Gospel, and baptize in the name of Jesus, but also, go into politics!\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n
She encouraged the students to develop \u201cthe ability to love something so much that you would die for it: God, family, country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRecognize what is at stake. We have a responsibility for this political regime of freedom, to the immigrants who come here \u2026 to our children\u2026 to preserve the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n
She concluded to loud applause: \u201cSo family; yes! Faith; yes, but to the barricades, ladies and gentlemen!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a standing-room-only event, college students lined the walls of a large room at the University of Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77281,35972,102,104,103,8815],"class_list":["post-194892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-american-youth","tag-catholic-news","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-university-of-dallas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}