So long as our economic system of market capitalism continues to offer promise for the majority, there'll be little reason for that majority to question the hollowness of our republic. But when the inevitable "market correction" occurs, when many are cast aside by new technologies, when chips replace living women and men, when corruption becomes too blatant to ignore, then the nation will call for the restoration of the ideal of the republic. And we must be there.
According to that ideal, the price of rights must replace "the price is right" in politics. According to that ideal, citizen participation must fill the void now occupied by the special interests. According to that ideal, duty and honor must replace cynicism and apathy. And according to that ideal, we all must become accountable for the public legacy we leave our children.
The ideal of the republic--the authentic republic, the true republic--is both empowering and ennobling. It empowers those who count their public duties as important as their private ones. It ennobles those who sacrifice a degree of personal acquisitiveness for the common good and the commonwealth. That ideal empowers and ennobles all those women and men who place the interests and the health of the society on at least as high a plane as they do their private interests.
To the founders of the republic, citizenship was a public office to be held by all. It was, indeed, the highest public office. They didn't hold for an elite of leaders and a mass of followers. They didn't countenance the delegation of the responsibilities of governance to professional politicians. They wouldn't tolerate the citizens of a democracy permitting their society to be corrupted--without objection or resistance--before their very eyes. For them, the original democratic republicans, to abandon civic virtue-the duties of citizenship-was to abandon public life itself to the tyrants and the barbarians.
But that's precisely what we early 21st century Americans--to our great shame--have done. We've sold our political birthright to the money-changers in the temple of the republic. We've permitted lobbyists--paid for with the dues of the very organizations to which we belong--to dominate and control the lives and decisions of the very politicians we've elected with--or without--our votes.
Why do the two political parties seem so bland, so similar, so conventional? Have all the great causes been resolved? Have all the great challenges been overcome? Where are the nation's prophets? Where are our warriors for justice? Where are our leaders who speak for the conscience of the nation? I do not know. But I do know this. They are not a few blocks down the street tonight attending the cocktail parties of the rich and famous. They are not going from reception to dinner to "tribute" collecting money from the special interests.
This is the legacy we leave our children. A nation so preoccupied with its private ambitions that it can't be troubled even to vote. A society so entranced with its private amusement and acquisitiveness that it permits a fifth of its children to languish in poverty. A country so tolerant of political corruption that it will sacrifice the values of the United States of America-and the republic for which it stands.
It's the basic duty of citizens of a republic to vote, to pay taxes, and to defend the homeland. Half of us don't vote. Increasing numbers resist paying taxes or lobby for special interest loopholes. And the ranks of military volunteers are thinning.
But beyond even these minimal duties, there's something called the common good and the common wealth. These are all the public assets we own and should care for together--our schools, our parks and public lands, our recreation areas and rivers, streams, and waterways, our forests and mineral wealth, our natural heritage, our environment, our public libraries, our transportation facilities, our broadcast airwaves, our research laboratories, vast array of public services available to all, and most of all our democratic rights.
This common wealth, these aggregate resources, belong to us all. But in a true sense, in an ethical sense, we're just borrowing them from our children. When we consider our civic duties, our responsibilities to the republic, our obligations to the common good, we're really talking about our moral duty to future generations.
The poverty we neglect today is poverty we bequeath to our children. The environment we destroy today is destruction left to our children. The corruption we tolerate today is corruption that taints our legacy to our children. We may think, by the neglect of our public responsibilities, that we are avoiding these problems. But we're not. We're simply willing them to our children.
Civic virtue means the duty to participate in the great issues of our day. And it's a serious and sometimes hazardous duty. The price of involvement in the public arena is sometimes high. Concern for the unemployed and the working poor, defense of the environment, the battle against political corruption, all require a price. To fight for one's beliefs, to hold up a standard of principle, to treasure high ideals, to believe in the end that things can be better, all require the price of participation, of struggle, of acceptance of defeat, knowing that someday, somehow, we must win.
But nobility triumphs over ridicule. Idealism triumphs over cynicism. And the courage required for engagement is its own greatest reward.
No woman or man who enters the arena carrying the banner of the public good can ever be defeated. Because she or he fights for what's right. They fight for their children. They fight for a better future. They fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.
This cynical age measures winning only in dollar terms. It rewards the compromiser and deal-maker and the power-broker. But the cause of social justice and political reform is judged on a different scale. It persists. It abides. Its time will come.
In the true republic of America, the computer chip does not have to replace the worker's soul. In the true republic of America, our water, air, and soil need not be sacrificed for profit. In the true republic of America, the lives of real human beings do not have to be subordinated to the bond traders, the mergers and acquisitions specialists, and the political manipulators. In the true republic of America--founded on the mass democratic participation in the political process--the people will be sovereign. And the government will work--for us.
The ideal of the true democratic republic has not perished from the earth. Its sacred fire burns in the minds of those who seek a nobler course, in the souls of those who bear the secret that our greatest hour is yet to come, and in the hearts of those idealistic young people who share a dream of a better and brighter nation.
For those of us who share the pledge to redeem the promise of America, we await a better day. When the people of our country wish to rid themselves of the power-brokers, special-interest lobbyists, and image-managers, we'll be there. When our countrymen and women remember the dream of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, we'll be there. When our fellow citizens can no longer accept a systemic caste of poverty, we'll be there. When young women and men are ready to demand the restoration of the ideal of the true republic--the democratic republic of civic virtue, duty, honor and participation--we will be there.
It's enough for now that the torch of the ideal of the true republic remains lit. It's enough for today that some remember a nobler time and a greater vision. It's enough for us that we keep alive the hope and promise of a better tomorrow. For we know the shape and texture and beauty of the authentic republic of our dreams. And we are dedicated to restore it once again.
That true republic will prevail.
Faced with certain defeat, the great Scottish patriot Montrose believed this: No great cause is ever lost or ever won. The battle must always be renewed and the creed restated, and the old formulas, once so potent a revelation, become only dim antiquarian echoes. But some things are universal, catholic, and undying-the souls of which such formulas are the broken gleams. These do not age or pass out of fashion, for they symbolize eternal things. They are the guardians of the freedom of the human spirit, the proof of what our mortal frailty can achieve.
Gary Hart
Speech at the "2000 Shadow Convention"
Los Angeles, August 13, 2000