BRATTLEBORO — The importance of civic responsibility is paramount to the success of a democracy. By engaging in civic responsibility, we, the citizens of the United States, ensure and uphold the democratic values written in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Those values or duties include justice, freedom, equality, diversity, authority, privacy, due process, property, participation, truth, patriotism, human rights, rule of law, tolerance, mutual assistance, self-restraint, and self-respect.
The goal of the Constitution is to encourage citizens to act responsibly and be active participants in our communities and government. Its most important words are “We, the people.”
As citizens, we have two very important jobs. First, we need to take care of ourselves and our families. Then, we have the duty to participate in our community and our government to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
This is known as civic responsibility. Even if we have never taken the oath or served in uniform, we have still this duty as citizens.
Freedom is not free.
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Why is this important now?
It seems that the balance between individualism and communitarianism (not Communism) has shifted too far. Our representatives in Washington - elected to represent “We, the people” - seem more concerned with preserving their individual power than they are in doing their jobs.
Their job is to do what's best for all the people and the whole country. That seems hard to discern these days when partisanship supersedes citizenship.
Our job as citizens is to take care of ourselves and one another.
That means paying our taxes. Most of us pay our fair share, but it seems that the people who most benefit from our system of government are more interested in preserving their individual wealth.
In my lifetime, I have paid between 20 and 30 percent of my gross income as tax. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others have paid less than 10 percent - and some, even none.
It's time for them to do their jobs and support the country that has enriched them. Or, as Winston Churchill once said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.”
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As citizens, we need to act in a balanced way to protect ourselves and one another. We adhere to social norms every day. We drive on the right side of the road and obey other traffic regulations. We put out our garbage on designated days.
Does wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, and keeping social distance seem like an invasion of our personal freedom or as an act of civic responsibility to ourselves and one another?
In 1775, here in New England, individual farmers took up arms at great personal risk to defend themselves and their communities against an army of occupation. We are now being occupied by an invasion of microbes, no less deadly than an armed invader.
Yet we argue over who has the right to tell us what to do?
We have the duty to preserve, protect, and defend ourselves and our communities from this viral invasion. We need to do our jobs because we are the people charged with these responsibilities by choosing to live in these United States.
We have chosen to delegate some of them, but the fundamental responsibilities and duties of living and working together successfully in a democracy our still ours.
John Adams once said, “To be good and do good is all we have to do.”
Let's do our jobs.