HW30: Citizenship and Responsibility

Today there was another presentation that was a part of the citizenship symposium week. A man named Tom Lantos came to speak about our nation and his life experiences, the name of his presentation was Citizenship and Responsibility. It started out with his daughter Katrina introducing him and telling the audience about a little of their background. She informed us that her father is and will be the only survivor of the Holocaust serving in congress. She mentioned that he had nothing when he came to America except for $5.00, and he wanted to make something of himself. In 1980, he ran for congress and then introduced his first act, which was to introduce legislation. Her speech came to an end and her father entered the stage. He started by telling us that he had just met the new French President yesterday, and was speaking with him. Furthermore, he spoke about how America's reputation appears to be horrific all over the world. He stated all of the negatives and positives from each side. It bothered him that historical politicians stated that all men are created equal, when they betrayed their own statement and owned private slaves. Tom said that they should have made the statement all men and women are created equal instead of just men. Since he came over here at the age of 19 with nothing to offer he wanted to make a positive difference to America. Something does need to be done about this, because the image of the U.S. globally is at an all time low. He wanted to portray a positive image of the U.S. and said "America did not teach men the idea of freedom, she taught them how to practice it". Leading examples of this are that the United States indeed has helped many of countries improve over the years. The U.S.A. saved Germany from Hitler and they also saved them from two generations of the Soviet Union, and the rate of Anti-American Germans is increasing rapidly. Countries like these ignore the fact that America has helped them, and overlook it as what is happening globally now.But, France's point of view is changing. Concretely in detail he said that Americans have helped them significantly and whenever he hears about an American soldier dying he feels like a member of his family is dying because of what they have done for them. The most interesting thing that I learned was that Europe or the U.S. have had the most infrastructure globally since the 1700's. People are glad that the U.S. is there to help whether they admit it or not (maybe not in Iraq). Especially Africa, because we have donated $15 billion to aids over there. Some people are starting to have more of a positive outlook on the U.S. and of course their are still millions of people who have the opposite of that!