In this first episode, we look back on our history and refresh our memory of the American experience compared to other nations.  A brief review of the history of other major nations over our 243 year history allows us to see how we have fared.  We set our objective for these podcasts to consult our founders and compare our actions to how they expected citizens to act in our republic.  In this way we can begin to see whether our current generation of citizens and public officials need a new set of principles and guidance, or is any shortcoming due to operator error on our part.