The problem with a powerful central government in the US is that it is a big place with many localities with highly-varying viewpoints on life and values. With all of our immigration and home-grown subcultures, and with divisive politics, the US has few shared values or foundational attitudes.
All we have is a bedraggled Constitution, and most Americans don't know what it says.
Thus the average American sees himself as a citizen of the US in the abstract, on national holidays, and in time of war, but lives life primarily as a citizen of a community, or communities, of some sorts.
As a New England Yankee myself of original heritage and thus with minimal respect and instinctive distrust for government, politicians, amd government power, I was led to this subject by the post about David Leff. He is a fellow who seems to be a pillar of his community.
Every community requires such people who jump in and participate in a positive way, with no personal advantage expected other than the rewards of positive involvement. It's been the American Way since de Toqueville described it so well. Other than the Founders, that Frenchie explained American Exceptionalism better than any American ever had.
I have written about the "Circles of Community" in which we all live, and their importance to a good life. Except for hermits, humans need that for pleasure and life enrichment if not for support and survival. Venn diagrams, circling around, with family circles, social circles, neighborhood circles, athletic circles, professional circles, club circles, civic circles, political circles, church circles, hobby circles, etc. Most circles end up overlapping. Much of life consists of these circles, but they do not happen by themselves. Somebody made them happen just as somebody organized the barn-raisings. Government did not do that.
However, I am just focusing on local community here. Big cities have local communities just as Mr. Leff has his little Collinsville.
JFK's famous inaugural line about "Ask not..." (who wrote that line for him?) can be better applied to one's local community and to one's circles of community than it can to this huge nation.
All localities, like all "circles," have energetic contributors, minor contributors, benign passive recipients, parasites, exploiters, and damagers of the social fabrics. It's probably a bell curve like everything else. Just paying your taxes does not count, nor does holding down an honest job or making some effort to obey the laws because those are the minimal expectations of residency anywhere.
What does count? Cub Scout Mom, Bible study, book club, Kiwanis, town meeting attendance or being on town committees, club committees, volunteering for virtuous or charitable purposes or at the library, organizing a block party or book club or softball games. It doesn't have to be big like being on the board of your local hospital or president of your country club, but if you are not engaged in positive ways without personal advantage, you are no capital "C" American Citizen in my book because you are a free-rider. A resident, not a Citizen.
We all ask ourselves daily how we wish to live, what example we wish to set, how we wish to be known, and how we wish to be remembered. Every human has a gift or gifts to offer and it is sinful to withhold them.
