Discuss political ideals as an assumption of an nation.

It is a shared vision of the future and the collective aspiration to have an independent political existence that distinguishes groups from nations.

Members of a nation share a vision of the kind of state they want to build. They affirm among other things a set of values and principles such as democracy, secularism and liberalism. These ideals represent the terms under which they come together and are willing to live together. It represents, in other words, their political identity as a nation.

In a democracy, it is shared commitment to a set of political values and ideals that is the most desirable basis of a political community or a nation-state. Within it, members of political community are bound by a set of obligations. These obligations arise from the recognition of the rights of each other as citizens.

A nation is strengthened when its people acknowledge and accept their obligations to their fellow members. We might even say that recognition of this framework of obligations is the strongest test of loyalty to the nation.