Little known and rarely quoted, John Hancock’s probably produced one of the most valuable observations made by the Founding Fathers. Little businesses, or what we call small business, is an important segment of the national economy wherein people have skin in the game regarding the republic known as the United States of America. The single greatest problem in America today is that there are not enough American stakeholders with skin in the game in America.

"The more people who own little businesses of their own, the safer our country will be, and the better off its cities and towns; for the people who have a stake in their country and their community are its best citizens." ~ John Hancock

Small business owners understand and value the opportunities available in America. Another group of people who understand the value and opportunities in America are legal immigrants in America. Almost to a man, legal immigrants to America succeed in ways that natural born Americans fail to see. These immigrants know how hard the world really is where they came from and refuse to pass up the opportunities they have in the United States of America.

Natural born Americans only see the easy life they had growing up and expect their adult life to be just as easy. Shame on their parents! And shame on the “educators” in public schools. These young natural born Americans were not taught the values about the struggles of life or the struggles that made America great. They have no investment in America, no skin in the game of America, or even any knowledge about these struggles.

Every American should become a stakeholder in America in some way. A natural way to do this is to require every able-bodied American to serve America as soon as they drop out of or graduate from high school. By this I mean required government service for a minimum of two years. 

Male or female, two years of military service or service with a federal law enforcement agency and for those who are not “able-bodied,” two years of service in a federal or state civil service agency. For able-bodied men or women who wish to avoid military service, they could do four years of service with a non-military federal agency as an alternative.

The benefit for the government is plenty of people available at entry level positions for minimal pay and benefits. The benefits for young people is that they would be exposed to the real world, where they learn skills, learn discipline, be exposed to a variety of opportunities, learn a work ethic, and most important they would learn that the world is bigger than themselves. The result of such compulsory public service is that America would gain a wiser population and better educated voters with higher hopes than remaining on welfare.

After such service, many young American adults will go on to college with a much better understanding of what they want to do with their lives. Few will go to college and follow nonsensical courses of study that will be useless upon graduation. Some will choose to pursue a career in the military. Others may choose to pursue a career with civil service. Most important, I feel most people would come out of these experiences with a sense of some degree of appreciation and ownership in the America Republic, an element seriously missing in young Americans today.

Steve Rossiter——Bio and Archives

After a 55 year career as a professional pilot in the military, in law enforcement, in the private sector, and in federal civil service, I am now retired.

In many of these positions I repeatedly took an oath to defend the United States Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

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