Initial Thoughts on the Concept of Virtue and the State's Role in Promoting It

I should start these "thoughts" by relaying the observation that led me to them. I was watching what was from my point of view a good father. And this is (from my point of view) the exception in our State, and not the rule. He is to state it perfectly an exceptional father. We were at a cafe. It doesn't matter what I was doing. The father was there with his two children who presumably just finished school for the day, and were hanging out with dad, doing homework while he finished up some of his own paperwork. The older daughter did nothing noteworthy. She was silent the entire time and did her math problems. The younger boy was slightly more reluctant, and tried to pull the typical stunts to get out of doing his homework, as if he believed that his father was still a juvenile or never was a juvenile and should reasonably believe that the teacher would not assign any homework. This is a situation which is common in parenthood, but the way that most parents address this issue is quite inferior to this father's method, in my opinion. Most parents seem to either ignore the situation, flip out, or try to manipulate the child either by offering rewards or beatings, or loss of privileges. But in an adult tone this father looked at his child and in a matter of fact manner queried quietly, but authoritatively, with a slight smile, "Your teacher assigned no homework?" Of course the child picked up the sarcasm in his father's tone and smiled caught, and replied, "well I have some history to study."
"No spelling words to study?"
"A few"
"No math problems"
"No"
"Let's do some math problems."
"Why?"
"Because skill comes from practice, and being your best is what you always ought to do."
The boy said nothing and willingly went to doing his math problems.
What struck me was how he treated his children differently than how I see most people treat their children. He treated them like they were real people with fully functioning brains, with a propensity for placing value on moral actions, and the ability to do what is right. Most people seem to treat their children like their subhumans with subhuman capabilities towards ethical living. True, kids psyches' must be shaped to an extent, but they are not computers that their parents program, they are more like extremely intelligent dogs that need to be trained, except they are not dogs. They are human children. And he talked to them like people. And he believed that they should be good people, and could be good people, that the responsibility to teach them how to be good people fell on him, but that the responsibility to make them good people was theirs. And that's respecting basic human dignity, which seems to be lost on the last couple of generations. It seemed to me that this father's motive for insisting that his boy do his homework was for his boys' moral benefit, not for garnering future capitalistic virtues. In other words it wasn't pragmatic, and certainly it wasn't just to get them out of his hair. His desire was that his child be a decent human being, and no one can fault that.
I remember vividly one thing that he said to his daughter.
"There are two kinds of people. People who suck everything out of life while they have it, and people who get through. I suppose there is nothing wrong with just getting through, but if you only have such a short time, why not get the most out of it. I want you to be the first kind of person."
Without dissecting that statement to the infinitesimal depths that it can go, let me just say that there is no way that anyone can say this man's advice is bad advice. That is not to say that it cannot be criticized, or be considered false, but it must not be considered non-virtuous.
And what is the virtue that is being propagated? In both cases it is work ethic. And it is that working, doing your best, regardless of monetary reward is good for the soul and makes a person good. I feel like this is American. I feel like this is American because every person I know (the overwhelming majority being American)over the age of 45, has a great work ethic and complains of my generation's lack of a work ethic, and when I see how many 27 year old's I know who are in a fledgling band, without a job and live with their parents, and spend most of their time watching something, or drinking something, I think, What does it mean to be American? When I read history books I find that self-sufficiency was among the most highly valued American virtues, now I find that we often mistake self-sufficiency for the right to live off someone else, which really is the opposite. How did this happen? How was there such a degree of turn in our cultural identity? I propose, and regrettably so, that our slacker culture is not the herald of a competing secular philosophy that defeated a more religious philosophy, or the representative of a major epistemological shift in the last 50 years, but an unexpected branch from the same root that supports the American cultural tree. If you read de Tocqueville, the virtual American prophet, you'll find that it was at least expected by one person. I do not think that a strong work ethic was the thing that made American distinct. A strong work ethic was the result of an attitude combined with an agricultural society that made it necessary, but the prevailing American attitude has always been individual independence, and when there was no one to hand you anything you had to go get it yourself. Now it's another time, a time after the industrial revolution, a time in the middle of the technological revolution, and independence does not have to be earned, and all the while, in true American style it is expected, and as long as government can provide people the money to be able to live the way that they want our culture will be this way, but all the while without us realizing we're becoming (gasp) dependent in order to be independent. Which brings us to the last major question: Can the state make a virtuous state? Answer: No. Morality just cannot be legislated, or executed. It can only be taught and practiced. It can be passed on to our children. Let us not be proud to be Americans, unless by American we mean,ambitious, hard working, honest, equal respecters of all persons. But I fear that what it means to be American is to value independence so much that we're willing to sacrifice true independence for a cheap imitation that gives us the guise of independence while in the long run providing us the opposite. The path back to independence now looks like recognizing that our state is in the process of handing it over, and refusing to do the same by teaching our children that even if the teacher doesn't give you math problems, do some math problems, because only your best is ever good enough.
Final thought: Virtue has no Republic. It is only represented in a virtuous monarchy with a king named Jesus.