Back to basics: in Overview of America, John Birch Society President John F. McManus clears away the cobwebs that obscure the facts about politics and economics.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, few, if any, have done more than John F. McManus to remind the American people of their unique and important political and economic heritage. Over the years, McManus has delivered a presentation that he developed in which he describes in clear terms the basic precepts upon which America was founded and then describes in similar, clear, but moving, terms the challenges and dangers the nation faces. Now, in an exclusive direct-to-home video DVD entitled Overview of America, McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, brings part of his presentation to the home audience. Even though the 32-minute production is only one part of the longer presentation that he has given for years, this release contains such a clear and compelling description of the fundamental tenets of our nation's founding political ideals as to make it required viewing for all citizens.

Freedom and Greatness

In this presentation McManus begins with a fundamental question: "Why is America great?" Is it because we were a nation of hardworking immigrants? Is it because of the country's vast natural resources? Is it because our government carefully planned and orchestrated the nation's success? Some have pointed to these as factors in the past, but McManus says that these interpretations are wrong. America is great, he notes, because government is prevented from interfering with the lives and freedoms of its citizens. "What set America apart from other lands was freedom for the individual--freedom to work, to produce, to succeed, and especially to keep the fruits of one's labors," McManus points out. "America became great precisely because the stifling effect of too much government had been prevented."

Freedom, history shows, allows a people to prosper. This was true in ancient Greece just as it was true in ancient Rome. Adam Smith, at great length, proved it to be true in England in the late 18th century. At the same time, the American Founding Fathers knew it to be true as well. They took pains to ensure that their newly formed government would be constituted in such a manner that it would be prevented from stifling both the God-given freedoms of the people and the progress that inevitably results from the exercise of those freedoms.

Unfortunately, since the turn of the 20th century, there has been a precipitous decline in the political and economic understanding of the American people, allowing demagogues and charlatans to confuse and obscure. To see that this is true, consider the word democracy. The Founding Fathers abhorred this form of government, thinking it unstable and dangerous. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was one of democracy's harshest critics. In The Federalist Papers, Madison warned of its dangers. "Democracies," Madison wrote, "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they ...