What does it mean to be a citizen? The American Heritage Dictionary defines “Citizen” as: “A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.” Dictionary.com Unabridged defines it as: “a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection (distinguished from alien).”
This first thing we have to approach is “Loyalty”. What is loyalty? It is defined as “faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, etc.” Okay then. If it is a adherence which is define as: “Faithful attachment; devotion: “Adherence to the rule of law . . . is a very important principle” (William H. Webster).” then we must look at what that actually means. So to be a citizen you must have a loyalty to state or nation. Does this mean that you follow blindly and do exactly what the state says. No it didn’t say that but you would hold up the points and structure of the nation that you claim citizenship to.
There is an exchange factor here for your loyalty as well. For being loyal to the original structure of your country and it’s constitution you are entitled to protection from interior as well as exterior threats.
In the United States this use to be well practiced. Unfortunately the people have forgotten that they run the country. They have forgotten their rights. One of which is the right to vote. What happens when you have two politicians that neither one of them will do a good job in the position that they are running for? The practice has been to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. Or to not vote at all. During the 1970’s we saw a dramatic drop off in voters in elections. This has persisted to the present time. Voters forget that they have the right to vote a person in who is not running and who is right for the job. They forget that there is the right of “the write in vote”. We all have heard of people writing in Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson as their write in vote and because of that there is the thought that write in votes don’t work.
What would happen if we all wrote in “None of the above”? That would throw a kink in the works wouldn’t it. If we did that wouldn’t there have to be a new election? Would those officials have to put up someone that the majority of us would feel would do the job well or at least good enough that they held up what we voted them in for.
Currently the people have been “led by the nose” by the media and other sources into thinking that there are only two parties and those two parties are the only ones that matter. Our founding fathers are turning over in the graves with this. This right of voting allows all of us to vote for what is the best way to lead our nation. Thinking roboticly and just voting for one party or the other only leads to more chaos and not order.
This is one of the major rights of a Citizen and when we give up this right we give up our right to be a citizen and we become prisoners of the system and those masters that wish to control us and enslave us. Giving this right to non-citizen also destroys the right and takes the control of the country out of our hands.
In my next update I will continue the rights of being a citizen. What other rights do we have?
