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Many of them could earn a better salary for less work in the private sector, yet they work here because they believe in service to country.
I emerge to see the mighty Capitol dome, and I wonder: If we were building the Capitol today, would we make it so bold and beautiful? Its stateliness embodied the audacity of a nation.
The timeline for a trip to Mars still stretches onward with its own uncertain horizon. Our national will has changed. We seem to find money for tax cuts for the wealthy and foreign wars, but not enough for the exploration of space.
When a nation sits atop the world order—and no nation in modern history has grown to become as powerful as the United States—that position comes with great responsibility.
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is . . . fear itself.”
The American commander, the conquering hero of World War II Douglas MacArthur, had wanted to take the war to China, but President Harry Truman disagreed. Relying on the constitutional principle of civilian control of the armed forces, Truman fired MacArthur. It is an action that has been praised by historians and legal scholars, but at the time it did not play well with large swaths of the public.
Our government is there to serve us, not the other way around.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s own equation for our journey through time and space: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, said, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”
The lesson was meant to be clear: This was our city, and by extension our state and our country. That sense of ownership came with both duty and opportunity.
Perhaps the path to what unites us could be paved with a recommitment to citizenship.
