As far back as elementary school, I remember teachers telling kids that we, as citizens of the United States, had responsibilities to ourselves and the country. I know that a lot of people would prefer to avoid politics and political topics altogether. I get it. Politics is frustrating, angering, annoying, and at times boring (ever try to read a policy proposal? I highly recommend them if you have insomnia and don’t want to take any drugs). But we as adult citizens have a responsibility to keep this country running as well as possible, oppose bad policies, and most importantly, we have a responsibility to pay attention so that we are fully aware of what is going on with our politicians and institutions. It’s our responsibility to pay attention and stop them from going off the rails.
I don’t care that you don’t want to pay attention to politics. YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO DO SO. Especially if you want everything to become or remain “normal.”
I will discuss equality of opportunity versus equity of outcomes in a future post. That is not the topic for today.
Responsibilities of citizenship go beyond simply turning up to vote every couple of years. Although that is one of the most important activities you can do. HOWEVER, if you are an uninformed voter, you are not helping anyone. Uninformed voters simply go along to get along and vote as they’re told or as they always have without regard to any changes in party platforms, policies, candidates, funding sources, anything. All of those things should inform you, the voter, as to whether or not your preferred party is engaging in business as usual or has changed course. Or no longer matches your values and preferred outcomes.
You as a citizen have a responsibility to find all necessary information for making a good decision. Nobody else, especially not the media, is going to give you the objective information you’re expecting. These days, the mainstream media, as has been shown again and again, is in the tank for the progressive, left candidates and ideas. That means you have a responsibility to read/watch sources OTHER THAN your usual sources. Sure, keep watching CNN, MSNBC, and the networks (if you can stomach that), read the NYT, WaPo, etc.. BUT you also need to be reading/watching RedState, Rantburg, Instapundit, The Washington Examiner, Daily Mail (yes, the Daily Mail), the Epoch Times, stay on X so that you’re exposed to different opinions. You NEED to know what the opposition is thinking and saying with regard to those policies and politicians you support. You need to know why others object to what you support. And you need to not dismiss all objections as racist, sexist, and fascist. That’s unthinking and lazy.
Failure to take alternative sources and viewpoints into account is a failure of your responsibilities as a functional citizen of the U.S.
Why is this so important now? Well, it’s always important, but in the last eight years, the evidence has been publicly piling up showing the collusion between the traditional media sources (e.g. the NY Times, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC) and popular social media platforms, and the Democratic Party.
Yes, collusion. Failure to report the entire story for just about everything they cover, proof that comments, actions, etc. have been taken out of context again and again to show that conservatives, and Trump in particular, are evil fascists bent on destroying the country. (I’m going to pause here and ask, if you’re so worried about Trump ushering in a fascist government… why didn’t that happen between 2016 and 2020? Please list what you found to be fascist in Trump’s first term?)
Mark Zuckerburg testified before Congress that the Biden-Harris Administration had officially requested that Meta platforms repress and censor any and all negative or disputed comments, information, and discussions regarding COVID, the border, funding for anything, Biden’s health, etc. Anything that reflected negatively on the Biden-Harris Administration was to be suppressed. And Meta did that. That is government censorship at work. That should make you angry even if you loved all government policies surrounding any issue.
All of the institutions of the federal government are corrupted in one way or another and to one degree or another. It is your responsibility as a citizen to recognize that and support the cleaning out of corruption. In 2020, I saw many friends screaming against electoral system audits. Another question those of you who objected to electoral audits: If you’re so certain as to the infallibility of the electoral system, why are you objecting so strenuously to an audit? Auditing a clean institution or system will find that everything is working as it’s supposed to. Do you object to proving the system is functioning as designed? If so, why?
Your responsibilities as a citizen include requiring the government to prove that its institutions are functioning as designed and that any and all corruption, when discovered, is sanctioned and cleared out. Corruption includes a failure to do the job simply because they dislike the president. You also have a responsibility to require Congress, within its responsibilities of institutional oversight, do its job and conduct periodic audits of every single institution in the bureaucracy.
Your responsibilities as a citizen also require that you ignore the politicians, celebrities and others who tell you they know what’s good for you (which is entirely different than a candidate saying they understand what you’re upset about) and that you’re not to worry your pretty little head about the complicated government, because they’ll take care of all of it for you. You just be a good little peon and vote like they tell you too. Ignore that b.s. You know what’s good for your family and their future, not some politician living and working 3,000 miles away, or even 100 miles away.
Ignore those who call you racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other shaming term they can come up with simply because you dared to disagree with them. They’re bullies and giving in to bullies never works out for anybody.
For God’s sake, stand up for what you believe in! You have a spine… use it!
You have a responsibility to know what your rights are. And to know what isn’t a right (free gender reassignment surgery is NOT a right). As I’ve mentioned several times in other posts, as U.S. citizens, we have inalienable rights – free speech, freedom of religion, the right to assemble and peacefully petition the government for a redress of wrongs, the right to bear arms, and everything else in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and every other Amendment (this was put in not because the founders feared each other, but because they feared what the government could become and/or do).
Every single right listed in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the other Amendments, is an inherent right. You enjoy them because you are human. If a government truly tries to suppress your rights, you have a responsibility to stop that from happening. But you can’t be effective in that endeavor if you are not fully informed.
Learn and memorize your rights, exercise them, and protect them every single day.
If you truly want politics and government to leave you alone to live your life in peace, you have to pay attention. That is your ultimate responsibility.
Very well said!