The thesis looks into the sacrifices of first responders and veterans and how the differences between these people of service are transcended by said sacrifices, allowing them to better empathize and understand what one another had gone through. The thesis also looks at this understanding of sacrifices among people of service, and how such an understanding can be used by the public to better understand issues that affect veterans and first responders after and during their service.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are diseases that still pose a threat to all parts of the world, particularly in less economically developed regions. However, it continues to be a problem in many high-income countries. The epidemiological picture in Spain offers an interesting case study for analysis to answer whether local interventions to confront HIV transmission, morbidity, and mortality are more effective than solely national or international efforts to reduce the effects of the disease. In this thesis, I rely on qualitative data in the form of key informant interviews and field notes collected in Barcelona, Spain, to demonstrate the significant role that grassroots organizations play in combating HIV in the Spanish context. CheckPoint Barcelona and ACATHI are two organizations in Barcelona, Spain that seek to improve such outcomes by directly providing support for communities at risk of poor outcomes after a late diagnosis of HIV and of contracting HIV in general. I find that local, non-governmental organizations are the driving force in combating HIV in Spain through three approaches: biomedical interventions, education and prevention initiatives, and social support for affected communities. Collectively, these findings suggest that non-governmental organizations, like ACATHI and CheckPoint should be supported to continue achieving desired HIV objectives.

When former President Donald Trump declared that the “American Dream is dead” during his campaign launch in June 2015, for many Americans, that was simply the case. Somehow, a multi-billionaire intuited a truth that the American elite had ignored for decades: certain places had flourished, giving their next generation ample opportunity to succeed and community life to flourish, while certain places had collapsed, leaving their next generation hollowed out neighborhoods, broken families, and despair. As civil society and community declined in the United States after a high in the mid-20th century, a new lower class began to form. This new lower class is deprived of the institutions of civil society which form people as self-governing creatures, leaving fewer and fewer mediating layers between man and state. This stratification of social capital along class lines and the social isolation it has wrought are among the chief threats to human flourishing in the United States in the twenty-first century, depriving people of authentic freedom and supplanting it with a base understanding of liberty-as-license. The alienation facing tens of millions of Americans, and impacting our entire society, was not caused by a singular economic, social, political, or technological innovation (though plenty of these changes have accelerated and accentuated this phenomena). At the base of community’s decline is a mismanaged individualism -- a term first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville -- which has warped our politics, and simultaneously empowered radical self-centeredness and government centralization. This thesis builds on a large body of work surrounding Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the role of civil society in America, and the stratification of community over the last half-century, drawing on the thought of Robert Putnam, Tim Carney, Yuval Levin, Patrick Deneen, Charles Murray, and Robert Nisbet -- among others -- to build an outline of the state of civil society and meaningful community in America today. It also charts a path forward for conceptualizing the American Dream in such a way that empowers rather than demotes the role of community in human life, arguing for a conscientious communitarianism. This revised definition of the American Dream relies upon a new concept -- authentic freedom -- that contradicts freedom-as-license. Analyzing diagnoses of our current situation and proposed solutions from the aforementioned thinkers, this thesis posits that Americans must organize and reinvigorate community on a local scale in order to confront these challenges. Ultimately, while community can only be formed productively at the local, human-scale, the long-term restoration of community and civil society in the United States will rely on political reform, framed after Yuval Levin’s modernized ethic of subsidiarity and Robert Nisbet’s conception of a new kind of state. The framework for renewal presented is not simply advocacy for a greater number of voluntary associations, but the formation and maintenance of particular sorts of associations: those which are purposeful about moral formation, the inculcation of the habits and mores necessary for a free people to flourish, and ultimately the proliferation of authentic freedom. While the conscientious communitarian advocates for a politics that prizes civil society broadly, they advocate for, create, and join institutions of this particular character. This is both an argument for a more robust and diverse civil society, and an affirmative case for particular institutions of civil society which form people towards authentic freedom.

This thesis explores the role of religion in politics, specifically focusing on the Christian Right movement in the United States. Through an analysis of the Christian Coalition, Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Alliance Defending Freedom, this research examines how these organizations use religion to influence political policy and mobilize voters. The findings suggest that the Christian Right is not using religion in the way the Founding Fathers intended, which raises concerns about the erosion of democratic values and the loss of trust in government. Ultimately, this study highlights the need to reexamine the relationship between religion and politics in the United States.