Contentions of fact to be discussed and debated:  

(Participation Cards)

• Citizenship carries with it duties and obligations not easily maintained without practice.

• Any system which seeks to organize a complex society is dependent upon the temperament and enlightenment of the people themselves.

• If you want to live deep in the remote woods somewhere alone, “ordinary” will do just fine, but as people who interact in a large and diverse environment it requires that we move beyond our ordinary, it requires that we be remarkable.

Discuss quotations: (Suggest read full passages from Metaxas Book, If you Can Keep It)

“What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the ordinary man seeks is in others”. Confucius

“The Constitution and the men who created it put these unimaginably great and fragile things in the hands of the people. So these things - still unimaginably great and fragile- are in our hands now, this minute…”  (Metaxas p11)

“In a Republic, … each man must somehow be persuaded to submerge his personal wants into the greater good of the whole.” (50)  

“[The Founders] knew that without … [virtue and morality] … the Constitution they had written and the republican system of government which it provided could not be maintained.” (54)

“We are inescapably exceptional and therefore inescapably burdened with the responsibility to help others.” (Metaxas, P193)   

“Each of us who call ourselves Americans has a great duty to keep [the promise of freedom and democracy] – and if we don’t do our duty toward keeping that promise, our nation will soon cease to exist in any real sense.” (3)

“America would not flourish without great help from all Americans. That was the only way it would work and the only way it could work … The ordered liberties and how they were to work together required a citizenry devoted to keeping them in order” (4)

“The smaller the group the smaller the problems, the larger the group the larger the problems”

National politics is hard.

(discuss)  If we could appreciate the complexity, would we choose our leaders differently? Would we choose to prepare our citizens differently than we do today?

(Additional supporting thoughts; Citizenship is Hard- Ordinarily Doesn’t Cut It!  Suggested Handout for Homework and discussion)

(participants)

• When we are attached to our higher gifts we understand that we have an impact on those around us, and we care about the impact that we make. The opposite is true when we become detached. 

• Ordinary leaders are not capable of uniting people because they are no longer remarkable people, they therefore do not attend to virtue, they do not attend to the common good, they are not humble, and not balanced. These mindsets, and approaches to life which are disconnected from natural laws, keep us trapped in our unenlightened, unremarkable state of being. 

• To make our democracy work it will require a commitment by everyone in our society far greater than we’ve been making. It will also require our leaders to be virtuous, humble and moderate. Without daily observance we unknowingly contribute to a decaying society- democracy is that hard! 

Resources:

 If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxas - establishes responsibilities of citizenship.

5000 Year Leap, Leon Skousen - a bipartisan, non religious, look at the framework and reasoning upon which our government was established.