Reply #49: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

[TahitiNut]

That was the politics of abundance. That was the clarion call to create an abundance of support, service, and appreciation for others - i.e. a 'nation.' It was assassinated.

"I have a dream" ... was assassinated.

The "resolution" to the Viet Nam war was to treat it as self-interest. Deactivate the draft (as soon as the majority of the affluent elite lost their privilege). So, the issue was framed as "how few can we have carry the burden?" That's when the current 30-year widening of the gulf between the have's and the have-not's began ... and the inequities in this nation have continued unabated since then. Sadly, too few have the perspective of age and experience - and are the "know it alls" who don't respect such a perspective and select only those who pander to narrow self-interest for 'guidance.'

We COULD regard the draft as "us" engaged in an equitable system of sharing the burden of service. Instead, it's framed as "them" conscripting "me" or "mine." In the very choice of framing it this way people CHOOSE to surrender their sovereignty and abdicate self-governance. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy ... we make it more so by accepting that very framing.

We have become a people seeking advantage, not equity.