There is a word for this. It’s citizenship. And we don’t always talk about this idea much these days -- citizenship -- let alone celebrate it. Sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time, a distant past, one that’s slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition above all else; a society awash in instant technology that empowers us to leverage our skills and talents like never before, but just as easily allows us to retreat from the world. And the result is that we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share as one American family.
But it’s out there, all the time, every day -- especially when we need it most. Just look at the past year. When a hurricane struck our mightiest city, and a factory exploded in a small town in Texas, we saw citizenship. When bombs went off in Boston, and when a malevolent spree of gunfire visited a movie theater, a temple, an Ohio high school, a 1st grade classroom in Connecticut, we saw citizenship. In the aftermath of darkest tragedy, we have seen the American spirit at its brightest.
We’ve seen the petty divisions of color and class and creed replaced by a united urge to help each other. We’ve seen courage and compassion, a sense of civic duty, and a recognition we are not a collection of strangers; we are bound to one another by a set of ideals and laws and commitments, and a deep devotion to this country that we love.
And that's what citizenship is. It’s at the heart of our founding -- that as Americans, we are blessed with God-given talents and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities -- to ourselves, and to one another, and to future generations. (Applause.)
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