We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. Such civility is not a tactic or a sentiment, Bush explained. Instead, it is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.
Individual responsibility is just as important as anything government accomplishes.
None of us can singlehandedly solve all the world's problems. Bush said the most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone. Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. It's the same spirit which has guided us from the beginning. The soldiers who stood by Washington in the Revolutionary War answered when their call of conscience came.