Quotes About Citizenship

People who live in private spaces contribute actively to the dilution and corrosion of the public space. In other words, they exacerbate the circumstances which drove them to retreat in the first place.

Why does this matter? Because—as the Greeks knew—participation in the way you are governed not only heightens a collective sense of responsibility for the things government does, it also keeps our rulers honest and holds authoritarian excess at bay.

Margaret Thatcher's notorious bon mot: "there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals and families".

sense of shared citizenship. This sentiment was crucial to the formation of modern states and the peaceful societies they governed.

Moreover, a social service provided by a private company does not present itself as a collective good to which all citizens have a right.

The executive secretary of the Citizens Congressional Committee was Charles W. Winegarner. A former advertising executive from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he now worked full-time promoting the cause.

In all, the United States today has five inhabited territories that contain more than 3.6 million people. Those people cannot vote for president, have no voting representatives in Congress, lack full constitutional protection, and suffer the predictable effects. All five territories are poorer, per capita, than the poorest US state.

While I support immigration regulated through a legal framework, I do not support rewarding those who broke the law to get here.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country did to you.

No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.

Why do we have 47 million people without health care? Because America has become about 'me'. What's happened to 'we' as a people? I believe in that and that resonates to most people.

It is time for us to keep in mind that it requires more to make and preserve a Republic than the mere absence of a king, and that when a Republic decays its soul is apt to die first, which its outward form may still be lasting.

The world citizenship I am talking about is of a very different sort. It is based on the realization that globalization has led to the point where there is no longer a space on earth that is outside civilization and that political consciousness can no longer be restricted to one country, culture, or religion and thus needs to address the fate of humanity as a whole.

civilized disdain has turned out to be surprisingly productive in creating human bonds of lasting value. The mental discipline required for civilized disdain may be crucial for the type of world citizenship that will allow fruitful cooperation across ideological divides.

In 1898, Puerto Rico was invaded and declared a territory of the United States. At first, the island was ruled by a military government and later by a civilian one appointed by the U.S. Congress. In 1952, Puerto Rico became a Commonwealth of the United States, with its own gubernatorial and legislative powers. Although the Jones Act had granted American citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917, those living on the island still are not allowed to vote for U.S. presidents or members of Congress.

Imagine if Reconstruction had actually honored the citizenship of four million freedpeople—provided the education, political autonomy, and economic wherewithal warranted by their and their ancestors' hundreds of years of free labor. If, instead of continually re-fighting the Civil War, we had actually moved on to rebuilding a strong, viable South, a South where poor whites, too—for they had been left out as well—could gain access to proper education. Imagine

The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship.

Black gains, it was assumed, could come only at the expense of whites.21 Not surprisingly, polls showed that as African Americans achieved greater access to their citizenship rights, white discomfort and unease mounted.

For Johnson, nearly 250 years of unpaid toil to build one of the wealthiest nations on earth did not earn citizenship.

Brandeis can be taken to have offered a conception of the social role of the idealized citizen. For such a citizen, active engagement in politics, at least some of the time, is a responsibility, not just an entitlement. If citizens are "inert," freedom itself is at risk. If

No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God. I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

We love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process.

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard.