Simply Sunday – Citizen’s Duties and Responsibilities

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If you haven’t already, please see our previous post regarding donations to help those that have lost everything in the tornadoes of the past few days.

Starting this week we will be running a ten to twelve week discussion on the duties and responsibilities of the American citizen.  We encourage people to comment and let us know what you think about a citizen’s duty and responsibility here in the United States.

Duty and responsibility are important words.  Most of us over the age of 12 in America know what our rights are as citizens in this country.  We know we have the right to remain silent, we know we don’t have to testify against ourselves in a court of law (commonly known as pleading the 5th), we know we have to be served with a warrant for someone to search our home, we know the government can’t just come in and commandeer everything we own because it is convenient, we know we are guaranteed these protections and more by our constitution.  Our rights are spelled out specifically, and justifiably so.

But how many out there can state the six duties a citizen has to the country?  (And yes, that’s country, not government – the citizen’s duty may really be more to their fellow citizen than to the government that serves them.)  There are six specific categories of duty that a citizen has as a member of the “American Citizen Club.”  They are: 

Obeying the laws                                  Paying taxes

Defending the nation                          Serving in court

Attending school                                  Voting

Along with these six duties, there are also specific responsibilities that we as citizens are supposed to carry out and act on.  Those responsibilities include:

                         Being informed about the government and knowing your rights in order   to preserve them

                         Participating in government

                         Respecting the rights of others

                         Respecting diversity

We hope you’ll join us and chime in with your thoughts!