Continuing Thoughts On the Concept of Virtue and the State's Role in Promoting It

If you reread my "initial thoughts", you will discover that I did not actually talk that much about the concept of virtue or the state's role in promoting it. But I believe that I laid the foundation to continue a discussion. The point I was trying to make was that independence is the central American virtue and not work ethic, although up until recently America has been associated with a hard work ethic because their commitment to independence didn't provide them their basic needs very easily in the hard wasteland of the New World. In other words, if they were going to stay committed to independence, they had to fend for themselves, and that created a strong work ethic. The lack of work ethic in our slacker Generation x/y/whatever, is apparent, I think that it means that work ethic was a mythical virtue all along. The real virtue we held so dear and still do is independence. They apparently are more like apples and oranges than love and marriage. This explains the dissolution of work ethic in our culture. Some conservatives who pine for the old days seem to think that the answer is simpler. They seem to believe that the lack of work ethic in our culture is a direct result of an irreligious, and secular society, as if the Christian worldview itself was the motivating factor for the founders to work hard. Although this is probably true to a degree. A strong protestant ethic is part of the fabric that makes us (America) who we are, it's not the entire makeup of an idyllic golden day of the 17th and 18th century. It's more complicated and mixed up than that. So a general discussion about what makes our culture the way it is in order. I don't presume to be as able to talk about these sort of things in the expert manner of the men with Phd's who've written a myriad of books on exactly this. But it is something I have thought about, and feel obliged and glad to talk about.
In short, along the way we have lost certain virtues as a culture. Most notably , the work ethic that established this country. But ironically we have refused to give up one virtue throughout it all; independence. We can now have independence at a bargain price, and so like all good capitalists, we take it. But it will also cost us our independence eventually, I think, and thus our culture.
I am now going to introduce a topic that is sure to twist the issue in a different direction. Some of you will think that the topic ought not be a twist. But I aim to compel you that it will. Because what this topic will question is whether or not independence is a even an admirable ideal. That topic is Christianity.