OATH OF ATHENIAN YOUTH

“We will never bring disgrace to this, our city, by any act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in ranks.

We will fight for the ideals and sacred things of the city, both alone and with many;

We will revere and obey the city’s laws and do our best to incite a like respect and reverence in those above us who are prone to annul or to set them at naught;

We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s sense of civic duty. Thus in all these ways we will transmit this city not less but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

I agree with your comments on our government – and I definitely worry about whether our citizens have the moral courage to stand and “resist this loss of liberty.” On the other hand, I think I tend to worry about what’s being taught to our children. There was so very little citizenship taught (let alone encouraged) that I bored my poor children to tears with dinner talks on our duties as citizens, and what should be the limits of government intrusion on our liberties.

I’ve found, that like my paternal Grandfather and maternal Grandmother, I’m angry and distressed by the degeneration of American education. It is insidiously incremental, but no less devasting in its effects – turning our contrymen into what both the left and right laughingly call “sheeple.”

Looking forward to a continuing conversation,
Steven

I would argue that the biggest failing of the Current Administration is a lack of Temperance, followed closely by their lack of Justice. Our founding fathers did a remarkable job of setting up a system that almost (it is being tested right now) guaranteed a Temperate Government. Our nation started defining Liberty as having a government only as the necessary evil required to accomplish those things that the individuals could not do themselves. That left individuals at their Liberty to do all other things not retained/controlled by the government. Being Temperate by design, the government has changed slowly but steadily to change the definition of Liberty to one where individual’s lives are managed, but not yet controlled, by our government.

My fear is that an intemperate government will rapidly push us to a state where our lives are not just managed by our government but controlled by same. This, for me, is the end of individual Liberty. I wonder if we have the Fortitude, as a nation, to resist this loss of Liberty and to return our nation to a system of government more akin to the one created in the late 18th century.

Tom