Whither Citizenship?

Citizenship is not something people think about, until its underlying attitudes are lost to the culture. Its notable that in socialist paradises like Canada and the U.K., governments are having to teach active citizenship in the schools to combat the natural lesson of socialism--citizenship is about entitlement.

Nowadays we discuss democracy in terms of elections, but its power lies in the the personal sense of ownership, the individual's sense of responsibility towards the community. The famous tale of Thermopylae in which three hundred Spartans defended their country against thousands of invading Persians is really a demonstration of the relative power of citizens over royal subjects. The Persians were willing to kill for their emperor, but the Spartans, Thespians and Thebans were willing to die to defend their communities, Moreover, the Greeks elevated their sacrifice to a supreme expression of democratic virtue. The citizen had transcended the ancient tribal paradigm. A man would naturally give his life to protect his family, but the Greeks sense of family was transformed--their countrymen were now their family.

The Romans understood the power of this concept and incorporated it into a symbol of the Roman Republic--the Fasces. Its symbolism is obvious--strength through unity. The Romans forged a durable empire less through conquest (which of course every transient empire had done until then...), then by extending Roman citizenship to conquered people. The concept was so powerful, it has been copied universally, although imperfectly every since. American national symbolism is replete with fasces (the arrows in the eagles claw, the pillar's of Lincoln's throne within his monument, 'E Pluribus Unum" on our money...)

Yet symbols are only reminders of abstract facts. When the facts disappear, the symbol becomes meaningless--or worse, available for hijacking. The Swaztika used to be a good luck charm and was used on maps to mark temples, but its modern meaning is altogether different these days.

This is a long, but necessary prelude to understand something Dallas News columnist Rod Dreher wrote.

Dave was hot. And Dave was pretty much right on the money. We talked for a while longer about Bernie Madoff, AIG, the government bailouts, how the responsible are going to have to bear the burdens for the irresponsible – and how those most to blame for this catastrophe are likely to get away with it.

"My dad, he's in his 80s now," Dave said. "He's only got a fourth-grade education and has been a working man all his life. Even now, he can't wait to get up in the morning and get out to work on appliances. I talk to him every night, and we talk a lot about this economic mess. Sometimes he'll get to crying, saying he doesn't know where this country is going, and it scares him."

My wife came outside with a check. Dave put it in his overalls pocket, picked up his toolbox and went to his next job. I thought about him all day long. Dave is just one ordinary working stiff, but he was onto something, and he was onto something big.

What happens when people like him become convinced that the system is set up to reward lobbyists, lawyers, rent-seekers, developers, corporate interests, special-pleaders and sundry freeloaders lining up to nuzzle the ever-expanding government teat – all at their expense? What happens when the repairman loses faith in the institutions of government, of commerce, of civil society? When the kind of man who makes up America's backbone concludes that nobody else seems to believe in the common good anymore, so why should he?

I fear we're going to find out before too much longer. And we're not going to like it.

We may find three hundred men to stand in the breech to defend their countrymen with their lives, but we will consider them suckers rather than heroes. AIG employees, many of them no longer with the company, received "retention" bonuses, and for all the grandstanding by Barney Franks etal, the Democrats knew about it, in fact, they engineered it. Rome was looted by its "citizens" long before Alaric and his Visigoths appeared at the gates, and so it is with this country as well. The top to bottom corruption of our democratic institutions has destroyed the real source of our power--our unity.