Vivek on citizenship (and religion)

"Maybe citizenship is actually about obligation. Maybe citizenship is actually about duty. Maybe that's... what the whole thing is about in the first place." This is how the video clip below begins—with Vivek Ramaswamy beating the drum for one of his signal ideas: that you owe something to your country, and it's not just that you should sit back passively, your hand out like a beggar, while you petulantly wait for the country to take care of you. It's a Kennedy-esque way of thinking: Ask not...

I've expressed similar thoughts on this blog, but not in the context of US citizenship. In my case, I was talking about the debt of gratitude that an expat in Korea owes to Korea, and how to begin repaying that debt, i.e., by taking an active interest in the country and the culture, by learning enough of the language to be able to navigate comfortably (learning language is learning culture, after all), by showing appreciation for where you are and for the people around you. Not enough expats, in my view, evince any sense of obligation to the country that feeds, clothes, houses, and pays them. If it weren't for Korea, these people wouldn't be alive, and that sentiment is, of course, true anywhere one lives. One should always be constantly mindful and thankful—yes, even when the host culture is driving one crazy, and God knows I have a long litany of complaints after two decades of life here.

The Tim Pool video below (I found it on Ramaswamy's own YouTube channel, and Pool himself is conspicuously absent) hits on some interesting topics, e.g., the idea that rights are a product of duties, and not vice versa. Vivek also does his spiel about religion—the same one you saw in my previous post. I gather he's been asked about his Hinduism a lot, so he's had a chance to hone his answers, and while this feels a bit like a comedian who does the same routine in front of different interviewers, I guess this sort of honing-and-practice is inevitable when you're on the campaign trail. It's a short video, with plenty to enjoy and to chew on. Vivek makes you think. And while I'm not quite the enemy of "mean tweets" that some lily-livered conservatives are, I do appreciate Vivek's simultaneous adherence to his principles and his unwavering politeness. He would bring a lot more integrity and a lot less crazy to the Oval Office, I think. Politics doesn't have to be constantly dialed up to 11.