I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of the people I know.

The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious.

Society becomes how you behave.

To love country means to rise above I am because I am. It is to recognize that I am because we are.

As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don't have to do much. Very little is asked of us.

Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights.

What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want?