Who better to spend Valentine’s Day with than Ralph Nader?

The consumer advocate, former presidential candidate and author of “Unsafe at Any Speed” spoke last night to students and community members in Kresge Auditorium as part of the ASSU Speakers Bureau.

“You’ve got about 15,000 days before you turn 65,” Nader began. “Time will go faster and faster.”

Nader’s speech focused on how he believes Stanford students — who he said are “uniquely entitled and equipped to fill the democracy gap” — can make the best use of that time.

“You will climb escalators while others will climb ladders or cliffs,” he said.

But he argued that it is more important to address America’s pressing societal challenges — problems that he contends very few people are doing anything about.

“The misallocation of human resources is insane,” Nader said. “Slap yourself around. Shake yourself up. It’s easy to do difficult things if you’re prepared to expect difficult things.”

In an interview before his speech, Nader told The Daily that his goal at Stanford was to “give students a new view of the utility of a higher education that they might not be aware of and what kind of content should be in higher education if they’re going to prepare themselves for making the most out of a functioning democracy and defending it against its erosions.”

Students expressed mixed reactions to Nader’s goal.

“Honestly, I felt like he was lecturing us,” said Carlee Brown ‘09, who was one of the first attendees to leave Kresge. “It was the same ‘you-have-the-power’ speech most of us have been hearing since childhood.”

Ling Shao ‘09 said Nader’s talk was stimulating.

“I think we need a refresher once in a while,” he said, “from someone who’s really idealistic.”

Alan Morrison, a senior lecturer at the Law School, introduced Nader before the speech, describing him as “a man of tireless energy, great vision and refusal to accept injustice.”

Morrison called Nader “a civic person,” a label Nader says he is proud to hold.

“By building more civic institutions, such as the Center for Civic Leadership at Princeton, we’re starting a pattern that can be emulated by alumni groups all over the country,” Nader told The Daily. “The Haas Center at Stanford is trying to do the same thing.”

Justin Liu ‘07, director of the ASSU Speakers Bureau, said he believes Nader’s speech and ideals can give new life, not just to public service at Stanford, but also to the campus as a whole.

“Though Ralph Nader is a name that elicits mixed feelings, his history in politics and his outspoken advocacy of environmental issues and consumer rights is profoundly relevant to much of the Stanford community,” Liu said.

Continuing the civic tradition, Nader believes, is one of the most important goals for America today. But he said there is one major obstacle.

“We’re not prepared to do that because we don’t learn civic skills in school,” Nader said. “We spend too much time looking at screens and not enough looking at each other.”

“If I asked you to write a 1,000-word essay on your civic skills,” Nader continued, “you’re entitled to ask, ‘What are they?’”

Nader said he hopes the students he addressed in Kresge last night will lead the world in solving its most serious problems, and he issued a call to action at the end of his speech.

“Do you have any idea of the talent in this room?” he asked a hushed audience. “Can you even imagine the open doors, the closed doors you’ll open?”