Resistance to expanded public service programs

Gary Hart
Author, Wirth Chair professor at the University of Colorado
Posted February 25, 2009 02:05 PM (EST)

Last night President Obama awakened "a renewed spirit of national service." The American Republic must now respond.
Almost 2500 years ago, Pericles, in his ageless funeral oration, praised men who were worthy of the city and declared those "useless" who took no interest in the well-being of Athens. Many of my generation consider John Kennedy's call to "ask what you can do for your country" to have been the origin of the ideal of public service. Instead, the notion of dedication, participation, and service is as old as the Republic itself.

Resistance to expanded public service programs can be expected from the ideologically sclerotic, those who occupy the negative ground between government as the problem and government as our enemy. These are clearly people unfamiliar with Pericles of even for that matter Thomas Jefferson.
To be a true republican is to recognize the role of civic virtue, participation in the public affairs of the community, and to be among the men and women of whom future generations of Americans will say, they were worthy of their city and their nation.