On Citizenship:
But citizenship is not just about getting the right to vote. It is about the freedom to create and build a life. It is about a nation, and its people, who welcome you.
It is about a country that becomes home. .....
Citizen. What is it? It’s sort of like, lets discuss “being.”
According to the dictionary citizen is a member of a state who has full political privileges and protection. Citizenship is the condition of having all civil rights and duties. I guess that would be equivalent to “being” with “obligations.”
Surely, it seems to me, that full political privileges and protections, and the having of civil rights merits some duty. And that duty need not be onerous. I think that duty can be as simple as pausing, every once in a while, to treasure, think about and value this thing we call citizenship. Or it could be voting and exercising our democratic right we so often take for granted.
But among the many things encompassed by citizenship and duty are the values of respect and freedom, as partially delineated in the Constitution and the first 10 amendments....Respect for diversity, in all that means, including different opinions, lifestyles/orientations, cultures, ethnic groups and religions. Tolerance for differences and freedom to participate with each other, creating our communities. This seems to me to be a hallmark of the value of citizenship.
I think it is incumbent on all of us to, at the very least, be cognizant of the fact that our being a citizen confers rights and responsibilities that foster the free, tolerant and respectful society we live in -- and often we just take this for granted.
According to the dictionary citizen is a member of a state who has full political privileges and protection. Citizenship is the condition of having all civil rights and duties. I guess that would be equivalent to “being” with “obligations.”
Surely, it seems to me, that full political privileges and protections, and the having of civil rights merits some duty. And that duty need not be onerous. I think that duty can be as simple as pausing, every once in a while, to treasure, think about and value this thing we call citizenship. Or it could be voting and exercising our democratic right we so often take for granted.
But among the many things encompassed by citizenship and duty are the values of respect and freedom, as partially delineated in the Constitution and the first 10 amendments....Respect for diversity, in all that means, including different opinions, lifestyles/orientations, cultures, ethnic groups and religions. Tolerance for differences and freedom to participate with each other, creating our communities. This seems to me to be a hallmark of the value of citizenship.
I think it is incumbent on all of us to, at the very least, be cognizant of the fact that our being a citizen confers rights and responsibilities that foster the free, tolerant and respectful society we live in -- and often we just take this for granted.
Our citizenship, Canadian or American, has entitled us to live in, relatively speaking, free societies -- societies where our freedom and those benefits of citizenship are rarely questioned or under siege.
Perhaps we have fallen into some sort of false sense of security, no pun intended. Perhaps we ought not just make assumptions about or take for granted the value inherent in our citizenship......(from Feb 08, 2002).
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