A Simple Turn of Phrase

It's simple on the surface. The difference between the placement of two phrases in a sentence exemplifies the change I see in the personality of our nation over the span of sixty years: one quarter of the time the United States has existed as a republican democracy. Can you tell the difference? "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" or "What has my country done for me lately?" I find the former enriching and encouraging. I find the latter frightful and distressing; boding ill for our future. The simple difference shows in those whom we choose as leaders and in our willingness, differing among the generations, to sacrifice for the common good. In fact, most of us no longer can find a common good; searching, rather, for our own enrichment at the exclusion of others. Let us stop acting like a third-world nation and regain our status as a nation to emulated not ridiculed.