Citizen Duties Defined Part 5: What Do States Say?

The ‘what is a good citizen?’ search criteria in the google machine returns more than the opinions of psychologists. Some states have commented on this topic.

Apparently, the Washington Secretary of State has put together a list, titled What’s a Good Citizen? It was the title of the document that got me excited. It seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Until I clicked the link.

That excitement dissipated quickly. It’s merely a list of 42 quotes about citizenship for discussion between k-12 age kids. Look for info on this topic and you’ll find a number of lesson plans and discussion guides similar to this. So far, I’ve not found any worthy discussions on the subject aimed at anyone even close to my age are interest level. That said, there are a fair number of quotes that can be distilled down to a list of actions. Here’s the list.

Thoughts:

1. Tell the truth: This virtue should probably be promoted far more and more expected of others. How can we convince and entice our leaders to tell the truth? Is not telling thee truth ever the act of good citizenship? Put another way, must I lie to be a good citizen, and if so, when? Of course, if I was a spy. But what about an ordinary citizen? Are they expected to lie for their country? And if so, how does that affect their ‘world citizenship’?
2. Be willing to risk your life in defense of the country: Is signing up for the draft enough? Is this duty gender specific? If not, should females be required to sign up for the draft?
3. Acquire knowledge that benefits the community: The benefitting the community part is interesting. Not simply bettering oneself… but for the benefit of the ‘community’.
4. Defend the constitution: This might be the most important
5. Work: It’s good to work! Certainly, good for the economy.
6. Be an active participant in democracy
7. Protect the civil rights of others
8. Fight evil: Evil definition has multiple parts including causing harm – we should fight to avoid causing harm.
9. Pursue education: Yes, but let’s be broad and inclusive and creative when we say education. Trades. Self-study. Apprentice. Learn lots of stuff. Be well rounded.
10. Be an enlightened citizen: Enlightened equals rational, modern and having a well-informed outlook.
11. Make informed opinions: Critical to be ‘informed’.
12. Defend the just laws: Loyalty and allegiance are important. But should there be qualifications attached? Is ‘blind’ loyalty a good thing?
13. Oppose unjust laws: First time I’ve seen this qualification. I think it’s critical. I also think it is just as important to oppose unjust laws as it is to follow the just ones. That said, how says what is unjust? We need to be careful about that.
14. Loyalty to the country: What exactly does this mean? Does this mean I have to agree with everything my country does, even if unjust? Does this mean I have to only root for Americans in the Olympics? Loyalty and allegiance are important, but shouldn’t there be qualifications attached? Is blind loyalty a good thing?

This list is certainly good enough to add

Given that I had to distil these down from quotes, these are a bit more ‘qualified’ – meaning they add time frames or quantities to the duties in order from someone to ascertain how much of an action is enough. Let’s also be clear, that out of 42 quotes, I chose less than half. That may be my bias at work. Then again, this entire endeavor is my bias, so it fits just fine as far as I’m concerned. Even still, I was surprised to find almost twenty quotes I found worth while. And so I clearly found the selection of quotes chosen by the Sec State fit my criteria (i.e. action oriented or related to a citizens responsibilities versus their individual rights).

I’m very surprised at how little I found from states on this subject. I expected to find multiple items per state expounding on the duties of it’s citizens, while that is true of rights, it’s far harder to pull together quality information on a citizens duties. Thus, I continue my search we will see how much I can pull together if I just keep looking.

Several items to add to my list here. My amended Citizens List of Duties has now grown to almost a page of duties.  Here’s (v 005)

My biggest takeaway from this source, is how the 50 states of arguably, the most important democracy in the world, have little to nothing to say about this topic. I expected to be swimming in articles and essays and lists and speeches and presentations – espousing what each state expects of their citizens, to help strengthen , maintain and expand democracy. I found none of that. Maybe I’m entering in all the wrong search key words. Maybe I’m looking right past it, like when I can’t find my car keys that are sitting right in front of my face. I’m open to that possibility. I’ll keep looking just in case. Until I find that treasure trove of information I’m looking for, I’m going to look into any civic groups I can find and see what they have to say about this.

Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash