Should the US institute some kind of required national service....

[WCGreen]

Not necessarily the Armed Forces, but something so people would have some kind of connection to our country, some kind of stake in how things turn out.

Something that makes us feel part of something bigger than ourselves, something that we believe in.

The modern idea of being connected in this country seems to have shrunk to putting a magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of our cars and maybe voting every four years or so.

I feel that the rhetoric from the right wing is more about what's in it for me instead of what can I do to make our country stronger, better. There doesn't seem to be a connection there.

The idea of inclusion is a great starting point, but without that connection to the idea of the United States, it often devolves into carving out a separate identity that is often at odds with the whole idea of inclusion, assimilation.

This is about going forward, not longing for the past.

When I was active in politics, I would go to the various ethnic and cultural clubs. What I noticed was that everyone of these groups put their nationality in front of America as if the idea of where they came from was more important than where they are right now. It was if they couldn't yet trust America enough to identify with the US of A.

It was the Italian American club, the Polish American society, the Irish American social organization.

Look, I have nothing at all against celebrating where we all came from.

But when I was asked which nationality I was, I always said American, of Irish and Polish decent.

I think we are fractured now because of this vagueness about the idea of what is this that we call the United States.

We are, of course, a collection of nationalities and ethnic groups. But you could say that of every other national culture at one time or another.

That is what makes the idea of America so enticing, that out of the many we became one.

But if we lack a clear connection to that idea of the one, where does that leave us?

I was thinking about this as I do tax returns, that isn't it sad that paying taxes or not is one of the strongest ties that bind us as a country.

How does that prepare us to face an uncertain future when we can't really put our finger on what it truly means to be an American?



On edit. I meant institute all along, I put in instigate when I started to write this and forgot to change it...