The responsibilities of American citizenship
We are living in a period when civic duty and the responsibilities of citizenship are considered by many, particularly the young and those in academia, to be outmoded and banal. The young, that is, with the exception of our best and brightest who are standing in line to volunteer for the military, the Peace Corps, and other national service organizations.
Traditional civics instruction is now unheard of in the classrooms of our public schools. Public displays of fealty for one's country are frowned upon or prohibited. Denigration of cherished national symbols is not only condoned but applauded by one major political party and a segment of the population it represents.
And yet within each generation, young Americans respond to the call for sacrifice and service. This infusion of citizenship within our youth certainly did not arise in our schools, where American history is revised daily for diversity's sake, the Founding Fathers are disparaged, and the Pledge of Allegiance is rebuked.
Nothing new, but more hateful
Although appreciation of our heritage, way of life, love of country, and civic obligations have been under full frontal assault since the 1960s, such self-loathing has occurred throughout our nation's history, albeit without the fervor and vehemence of today or its willing facilitation in Congress, local governments, our schools, and universities.
To further compound our dilemma, we are being engulfed by an endless tide of illegal aliens, flooding across our border to the tune of more than 1.2 million per year. Regardless of why they come, be it for economic opportunity, gratis schooling and medical treatment, liberty, or to do harm, the majority do not share the common bonds of the American language or American rule of law. There is no means nor desire to exercise civic responsibility because for the majority of illegals there is no desire to undergo what lawful immigration and citizenship require.
Allegiance remains to those nations from whence they came.
On January 26, 1883, one of America's truly great citizens, Theodore Roosevelt, spoke about his personal thoughts regarding citizenship to a gathering in Buffalo, New York. This speech, delivered by the astonishingly multifaceted man, was many years before Roosevelt served as 26th President of the United States. TR, as he was and still is affectionately known, later said that this was one of his most heart-felt speeches.
Please take the time to read his words as they are presented in The Duties of American Citizenship. They are as appropriate today as they were in the 19th Century, perhaps more so.
Much later in life and in his Citizenship in a Republic speech given at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910, TR expanded upon his 1883 speech. Here is a brief excerpt from that day:
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
I will leave it to you to learn more about this amazing man, his sense of responsibility, love of country, and very long list of achievements.