Got home last night from an abbreviated motorcycle ride, woke up this morning, and put the flag out on the porch.<\/p>\n
A small symbol of the day, but one that started me thinking.<\/p>\n
And I realized that we make a serious mistake here in America when we talk about our ‘gifts’; the gifts of freedom, or prosperity, or security. These aren’t gifts, they are debts<\/b>. Cultural and national debts<\/b>. We owe for them. I’m big on that issue.<\/p>\n
And as a nation and a culture, we’ve been sort of bad about the debt thing. We tend to think about what we have as gifts freely given, which means we can squander them at will. But I have a feeling – a hope – that as we become more frugal and prudent financially as a nation, we also will become more aware of the greater debts that we must repay.<\/p>\n
Cultural and national debt isn’t inherently bad; it’s important and useful because it means we get to stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. I enjoy what I have today because others helped create and defend it. The issue is whether we are ready – as a nation and a culture – to acknowledge the debt we owe.<\/p>\n
And make no mistake, you and I owe…we owe to the future citizens of our nation and members of our culture to leave them something of value. Each of us can – each of us has the chance to pay that debt in our own way, with our own contributions.<\/p>\n