I have been pondering lately what it means to be a good American citizen. You see, our nation is very different from the rest of the world in that our nation was founded in the principle of dissent and being what amounted to a rotten citizen of Great Britain. Essentially, when a tyrant was oppressing our founding fathers and their fellow citizens of England, they decided to cancel their membership in British society and forge out on their own.
These days I am wondering, now that our country is well established, what it means for an American citizen to be a good citizen. You see, given our very different history and given that our nation has never been under the rule of a despot, as power has so far always changed hands peacefully, I am wondering if the normal definition of citizenship is different for Americans.
In Great Britain, for example, I suspect that being a good British citizen involves declaring undying loyalty to whoever happens to be sitting on the throne, even if the title is only ceremonial. I am sure that the Queen herself hold considerable power over the elites and many of her subject. She just appears to not use her authority as Queen to take care of the various muddy political affairs. And honestly, I do not blame her for not doing so. If I were suddenly made king of a sovereign nation, I think I would hide out in a remote location somewhere, issuing edicts every once and a while but otherwise leaving people to their own devices.
I believe that one major factor of being a good American citizen is a very healthy level of skepticism. That is, you must question everything that is reported or told to you, no matter who authoritative the source may be. If a story is reported by the press, you must question it. If a scientist offers a new discovery, you may want to study up on it a bit and see if he or she has followed the correct guidelines. Most importantly, if our leaders say something, you must always take it with a grain of salt. This is because mankind’s natural inclination is to sin. In the sense of politics, this means that they will be willing to lie, cheat, and steal in order to gain power. After all, everyone is capable of murder, circumstances notwithstanding.
Incidentally. I think this why libertarian ideals are never prominent in any kind of election. Libertarian-minded individuals rarely have a desire to rule over other people, even if they are elected by them. We tend to see people as individuals with their own free will and many of us have strong desire to not tamper with it. This is probably why it is so rare for us to seek office as we always wish to look out for ourselves first and foremost.
The main problem I have with most American citizens these days is that many of them only wish to remain obedient to the state. This goes for both progressives and conservatives, both of whom seem content to obey the law, even if it is unconstitutional. I know that seems to be oxymoronic, but if you sat down and discussed things like the constitutionality of NASA with either of them, you would never hear them tell us that such an organization is constitutional (it is not because it is not used for military purposes). Conservatives often cite the “rule of law” but they never seem to grasp that the Constitution is the rule of law and that when the Supreme Court misinterprets it, that is not lawful. The very notion that the Nine have the final say on constitutional matter is in and of itself unconstitutional.
These days, I wonder if we have confused obedience with good citizenship. Such a thought worries me because it opens the door for serious tyranny, like the struggle we see in Honduras where a would-be dictator had to be deposed by the military in order to preserve freedom. And still many citizens would rather be ruled by a tyrant than experience true freedom. Freedom, you see, expects a lot from citizens and many people would rather be children than mature adults. And there are plenty of would-be tyrants out there who would be all too happy to play the part of parent for us.
(On a side note, I define anything as unconstitutional as not being explicitly written in the constitution. That pretty much means that the vast majority of what Congress, the President, and the Nine do is unconstitutional, no matter how you try to spin and stretch it.)