For many years people "quoted" Alexis de Tocqueville saying:

"America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good she will cease to be great."

Scholars have shown that this quote appears nowhere in Tocqueville's writings. Which can only mean one thing: someone else is just as smart as Tocqueville. This quote, whoever said it, is true and profound.

Note that "good" has at least two major meanings: 1) moral, and 2) competent. The Greeks differentiated between these two meanings with their concept of private virtue (morality) and public virtue (self-sacrificing citizenship). America became great because America was made up of truly competent citizens, and unless it has such citizens it will lose its greatness.

Competent citizens do a lot more than vote. They use initiative to build the nation and take care of most of the problems without turning to government help. They write and maintain a good constitution which empowers the government to do all it should, and do it well, while limiting it from doing anything else. They watch the government closely and ensure that it stays within its constitutional bounds.