What it Takes to be a Citizen of a Republic

If you watch FOX News or read National Review, you surely know the name Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth is a frequent contributor on the FOX News channel, he’s also a military veteran and author. His newest book is called “In the Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America.” He discussed the book with Frank Gaffney on Secure Freedom Radio this week.

The title of Hegseth’s book comes from a famous quote by President Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Hegseth explained his interest in the quote:

“I carried that quote with me in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, it always motivated me to make sure I was doing everything I could to be in the arena, fighting for worthy causes, striving valiantly. And then, when I got back from Afghanistan, I read the entire speech and the speech is called citizenship in a republic, given by Roosevelt in 1910 and the book is not about me, nor is it about Roosevelt necessarily, I’m a conservative and I come at Roosevelt with clear eyes about his descent into the founder of the Progressive Party and his Bull Moose candidacy and all of that, this is just about the speech and the speech is sort of… it’s an un-PC speech before there even was PC.”

Hesgeth goes on to explain that the speech addresses what kinds of people are needed to perpetuate core American ideas like freedom and patriotism. He also suggests that the speech embraces the idea of a strong America which acts as a leader in the world rather than a citizen of it.

Gaffney made the excellent point that these ideas seem foreign in the age of Obama and asked if we, as Americans, still have that spirit in us as citizens of this country. Hesgeth responded:

“The heroic virtues of the battlefield, the leadership on the world stage, you can’t sustain those over time without the civic or more homely or marshal virtues here at home that we are failing to instill in the next generation.”

Hesgeth goes on at length about the virtues of self-reliance and the rejection of government dependence which are needed for America to prosper. He suggests rightly that Americans need to be people of strong character in order to sustain our place in the world and points to the current situation in Western Europe as an example of failure.

“You can’t govern yourselves in a free society unless people have inside some sort of a moral compass that they adhere to as opposed to depending on Big Brother to establish and enforce a moral code.”