Earlier this week the National Defense University hosted a public conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, moderated by Frank Sesno, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

Secretaries Clinton and Panetta are two of America’s most thoughtful, effective, and accomplished public servants. Having them together in a town hall environment — talking about foreign policy, national security, budgets, and the issues of the day — is a special treat worth sharing:

I have always believed that time spent studying history should be a required stop on the road to forming an opinion, so I was particularly drawn to Secretary Clinton’s historical reference:

“One of my favorite predecessors is George Marshall, who held both Leon’s position and my position, most uniquely in our history. At the end of World War II, President Truman and George Marshall looked around the world and said, ‘You know what’s in America’s long-term interests? Rebuilding our enemies, creating stable democracies, creating free-market economies.’

“It was a hard sell. It didn’t happen automatically. Truman, Marshall, and others went across the country making that case, and we invested those dollars — $13 billion in four years, which would be about $150 billion in our own currency right now. And we helped to make the world stable and safe and open for all the post-war decades.”

I think it’s important that everyone, Americans and non-Americans alike, remember that history and recognize what it produced. And, of course, I very much agree with Secretary Clinton and with my grandfather — whom I remember making the point many times as I was growing up — that the healthiest and most productive outlook is certainly not to know the cost of everything yet the value of nothing.

Today Secretary Clinton delivered a powerful speech on the critical issue of internet freedom. Before an audience of students at George Washington University in Washington, DC, she emphasized the fundamental importance of building, maintaining, and protecting an open, vibrant, global online commons. She also addressed head-on the spurious arguments made by some that objecting to the theft of confidential documents is incompatible with advocating internet freedom.

Rather than paraphrase or summarize the Secretary’s points, I thought I’d just step back and let her speak directly:

The Secretary’s conclusion particularly resonated with me:

“As we look ahead, let us remember that internet freedom isn’t about any one particular activity online. It’s about ensuring that the internet remains a space where activities of all kinds can take place — from grand, ground-breaking, historic campaigns to the small, ordinary acts that people engage in every day …

“Internet freedom is about defending the space in which all these things occur so that it remains not just for the students here today, but for your successors and all who come after you. This is one of the grand challenges of our time. We are engaged in a vigorous effort against those whom we have always stood against — those who wish to stifle and repress, who come forward with their version of reality and accept none other.

“We enlist your help on behalf of this struggle. It’s a struggle for human rights. It’s a struggle for human freedom. And it’s a struggle for human dignity.”