# Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848 "2003-08-31T19:43:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848/21 "2003-09-02T06:17:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rashak Mani \* > \*\*This was first spoken by Hitler in a rally (in german naturally) … its author is Joseph Goebbels the infamous propaganda minister of the Third Reich. \*\* I don’t find anything on Google that corroborates this claim. The closest I found was [this Goebbels quote](http://www.libertyhaven.com/theoreticalorphilosophicalissues/austrianeconomics/orgorind.html) that is vaguely similar: > [@](#): > > **"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."** If you have any credible evidence to back up this claim, please present it. Until then, I must conclude it never happened. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848/22 "2003-09-02T06:56:09Z")
At the very least, I think it means that an individual and his country are symbiotic, and in peace and general uneventfulness that relationship involves the government doing much for the individual, while in times of strife that relationship involves the individual acting subservient to the needs of the state, the state being the agent organizing against the cause of said strife (be that natural disasters or war). So long as this is a rallying cry, I salute it. When used to justify actions like conscription, I abhor it. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848/23 "2003-09-02T12:20:22Z")
The intention behind the statement is good. The problem is that the idiots of the world use similar statements to argue that the individual should serve the interests of the state. It should _always_ be the other way around: the state exists to serve the individual. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848/24 "2003-09-02T12:34:37Z")
In my high school class we were studying speeches and we saw a video of one of Hitlers rallies. My german was better back then… and he said the more or less the same words Kennedy did. Yesterday I checked some sites with Hitler Speeches and there were way too many of them. Even using search words I couldnt find this specific speech. Key words like “ask”, “country”, etc… were repeated way too often. The rally was in a stadium and I thought it was a Nuremberg rally… but I checked those speeches finding no result. Will try some more. ``` - As for the state-citizen relationship... it should be mutual. State should serve the individual and so should the individual serve the state. Treating the state as some kind of service provider that you pay fees (taxes) and expect X quantaty of service back just isnt enough. Nor do I want to be a slave of the system. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848/25 "2003-09-02T12:49:13Z")
Seraching thru some Hitler speeches… found this pearl: > [@](#): > > It is, perhaps, a magnificent effect when a statesman or a journalist stands up and in enthusiastic words announces the necessity of removing the regime of another country in the name of democracy or something similar. Practical execution of these glorious slogans, however, has quite a different aspect. [The whole speech…](http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/speeches/1939-10-06.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country/198848.md?page=1)