A good community reflects a strong family, in which love and trust tie all of its members together. In such a family, each member feels that another member’s pain is his own pain, that another member’s loss is his own loss, and that another member’s joy is his own joy. Like the family, a good community only exists when each member of the community feels that his neighbor’s pain is his own pain, that his neighbor’s loss is his own loss, and that his neighbor’s joy is his own joy.
Only in such a community can we live a good life and fulfill our potential because only in such a community can we develop emotional, historical, and cultural bonds that give us meaning in life and that create a safety net for us to fall on as we pursue our hopes and dreams. And only in such a community can we find love and respect for our fellow man, and can we hope for goodness and the dignity of mankind to thrive.
Therefore, Man’s greatest duty is to enter civil service to help create and sustain a good community.
Today, more than ever, we must fulfill that duty. Today, violence and drugs have severed the bonds of trust and love that once tied families and communities. No longer do we trust our neighbors as they were our own family members because we fear becoming a victim of some violent crime. No longer do we feel that our neighbor’s pain is our own pain because our bodies have become numb from starvation. And no longer do we feel that our neighbor’s loss is our own loss because we ourselves have nothing of our own to lose.
Today, innocent children are starving in our own community because there are no jobs for hardworking Americans to earn enough money to pay for the most basic necessity of food. Sadly today, our children are afraid to walk and play on the streets because of the drugs and violence that have cast a dark shadow of despair over our streets and our hearts. And sadly today, our children are denied the opportunity of a good education because the schools do not have the resources to buy books and the current technology.
Only until we solve these problems can we once again have a good community in which people are tied together by love and trust that allow people to live a good life.
To solve these problems we must reclaim our streets from the shadows of violence and drugs, so that our children can play on the streets in the light without fear. We must develop the economic system by attracting good paying jobs into the community, so that hardworking Americans who want to work can work. And we must give each child an opportunity to have a good education so that he or she can fulfill his or her full potential.
Each one of these problems cannot be solved independently but must all be attacked at once because only until we have safe streets, can we attract the jobs necessary to provide for our basic necessities. And only until we have jobs that allow each person to provide for his or her basic necessities can he or she then have the opportunity to pursue a good education.
Ultimately, we can only have a good community if we create the institutional structures that allow for individual opportunity, while instilling in people a sense of social responsibility.
Thus, our goal is to develop individual independence, while instilling in people the understanding that we must be conscious of our fellow man and respect his independence and right to achieve his individual dreams. This requires us at times to make some sacrifices for the betterment of ourselves and our fellow man. This is our American history: this is the American Dream
