Berns points to, without explaining the necessity of, a particular regime devoted to protecting our “attachment to principles that are universal.” That is, we make citizens in order to defend our principles and not the reverse. The idea of the state, of its existence and our commitment to its welfare, is intrinsic to the health of those principles by which we govern ourselves. This is the reality that eludes Pierre Manent, who in a lecture given at Harvard’s Program on Constitutional Government October 18, 2002 (“Can the Distinction between Good and Evil Provide a Sound Foundation for an Effective Foreign Policy?”) teaches that 21st century Europe, having enjoyed a long and complete peace after so many wars and convulsions, and having built common institutions whose purpose is to “do good” without any clear responsibility toward a definite body politic, tends to forget not only the continuing relevance of self-defense, but also, more generally, the political nature, that is, the circumscribed or “autarchical” as well as threatened nature, of the political good. For while Manent recognizes that “where [people] live makes a difference,” he argues nonetheless that liberal principles fully developed are postmodern principles, in which “the rights of man are slowly but surely swallowing the rights of citizens.” What does this mean politically? He applies his premise to Israel—and America’s intemperate loyalty to Israel—to make the point: As soon as you have got a fatherland, you are part of a particular body politic which excludes those who do not belong to it, and thus you are deservedly under suspicion of the rights of man. I would submit that Israel has no choice but to concede something to this “religion of humanity,” which is the strongest authority on earth. It is, then, Manent’s discovery of this new civil religion (or perhaps it is better to say a new political humanism)