The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits Of Good Citizens
By: Richard Haass
The Bill of Obligations
Be Informed
Get Involved
Stay Open To Compromise
Remain Civil
Reject Violence
Value Norms
Promote The Common Good
Respect Government Service
Put Country First
XV Obligations -akin to what Danielle Allen calls “habits of citizenship”- are things that should happen but the law cannot require.
p. 14 Obligations are different from requirements. Americans are required to observe the law, serve on juries, and respond to a military draft. Failure to meet requirements can result in a penalty, be it a fine, imprisonment, or both. Obligations are different, involving not what citizens must do but what they should do. They are defined here as moral and political rather than legal commitments to be undertaken voluntarily.
p. 31 Now, however, every candidate or elected politician is increasingly his or her own political party, able to reach voters and sources of money directly without having to depend on parties.
p. 32 Intense minorities often overwhelm more restrained majorities in the political marketplace. Compromise and even civility tend to be seen as a sign of weakness. The center has been hollowed out.
p.41 Some two centuries later, the forty-fourth president, Barack Obama, made a similar point, arguing that “This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have an informed citizenry.” An informed citizen is someone who understands the fundamentals as to how the government and the economy and society operate, the principal challenges facing the country at home and abroad, and the contending options or policies for dealing with those challenges. An informed citizen is someone who puts himself or herself in a position to weigh what others say or write and contribute their own perspective. Ideally, this individual would also know something of the country’s history and how it came to be what it is today, as it is impossible to understand the present without an appreciation of the past.
p. 48 “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Or more recently, the head of the Associated Press made the following statement: COVID vaccines are safe. Climate change is real. There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. election. Those are not political positions; those are fact-based positions.” Or as then Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace put it, “Truth is non-negotiable. There’s no spin to truth. Truth is truth.”
p. 49 Parents have an especially important role to play: they have both the responsibility and the opportunity to encourage their children to learn about and get involved in the political process.
p. 65 I’ve put forth compromise as an obligation because it is essential to getting things done in any situation in which power is distributed among multiple sets of hands, which is the case in a democracy. Compromise is the process by which all relevant parties are incentivized to go along with an alternative arrangement. An all or nothing approach to bargaining will almost always result in the latter.
p. 76 Opponents on one issue need not become opponents on all issues, much less enemies. Civility greatly decreases the chances that disagreements will spill over into violence.
p. 80 The lack of civility also derives from the growing reality that people do not live in proximity to or regularly interact with people who hold very different views on matters on politics, race, or religion. This “sorting” of our society in which we increasingly choose to live among people we find similar in ways that matter reinforces division and intolerance and leads to incivility.
p. 94 The need to minimize political violence also requires that a premium be placed on making the political and legal system fair and responsive, that there is a level playing field. This holds especially true for those entrusted with special power, such as the police. Acceptance of legitimacy of the state and its monopoly on the use of force is predicated on its willingness to exercise restraint, to use force lawfully, and to hold anyone who is an officer of the state accountable.
p. 97 Norms are the unwritten traditions, rules, customs, conventions, codes of conduct, and practices that reduce friction and brittleness in a society. Laws provide the scaffolding of a society, but norms are what fill it and make it livable, the furniture within the building, so to speak.
p. 98 Norms are related to the spirit and intent of the law, to behaviors that for one reason or another cannot be legislated or formally required but that all the same are desirable, even essential, for a democracy to be successful. Norms play an important role in our lives. To remain civil. To look out for one’s neighbors and fellow citizens. To respect authority. To demonstrate good sportsmanship. To tell the truth. To keep our commitments.
p. 110 Then there is the reality that there are those who do not contribute what they could to society and the economy and as a result increase the financial burden of the rest of us.
p. 111 In his 1859 treatise On Liberty John Stuart Mill articulated what has become known as the Harm Principle, which argues that individuals should be free to do what they want, even if it causes harm to themselves, but not if it causes harm to others. Explicit in Mill’s writing is that government should not interfere in individuals actions except when others suffer harm as a result.
p. 115 It is baffling that opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine should be as strong as it is given the vaccine’s demonstrated effectiveness, it’s pristine safety record and the obvious risks associated with contracting COVID-19. It is also curious in the sense that mandates for various vaccines, including smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, and chicken pox, were widely accepted for decades. So why now? In many ways the answers can be found in other chapters of this book: in the spread of misinformation via social media, and at times legacy media alike; in the reality that more of us live and work and socialize only with like-minded persons; growing hostility toward and lack of familiarity with government; an increasingly widespread rejection of facts and the experts presenting them; and a declining respect for norms that have long guided individual behavior, a reduce propensity to compromise, and a near exclusive emphasis on rights when people consider their relationship with society and country.
p. 116 Again, what it underscores is what can happen if we fail to balance individual rights with obligations and our personal freedom with the public good. In such situations, everyone loses.
p. 117 Equal opportunity is not to be equated or confused with equal outcomes. To the contrary, unequal outcomes in society are inevitable, the result of what we are born with, and what is garnered from effort, experience, opportunity, luck and more. Discrimination that limits the potential of individuals must be discouraged as much as possible when it cannot be explicitly prevented by law. Fairness also requires that what might be described as the circumstances of birth are not dispositive for those born without means.
p. 138 A basic idea is that no one should be able to graduate from a high school or college or university without a meaningful exposure to civics.
p. 142 My instinct here is to suggest that the major debates, events, and developments be studied, that any single framing be avoided, and where there is disagreement, that various perspectives be presented. As a rule of thumb, the curriculum should not try to settle contentious matters of history or the present or advocate for any particular policy as much as present facts, describe significant events, and set forth what were and are the major debates over analysis and policy prescriptions.
p. 148 I speak of the obligation to put the country and American democracy before party and person. This obligation is a thread that helps bind the fabric of this society and is an essential element of patriotism.
p. 148 Virtue or character cannot be mandated or legislated. It can be encouraged on the basis that it is right and moral and ethical.
p. 153 Democracy requires entities that are not members of the party controlling a branch of government (or, in the legislative branch, that are in the minority) that question it, hold it to account, and offer policy alternatives. This is what opposition is all about. It is unavoidable and necessary and constructive by keeping the majority honest and by creating the grounds for intelligent compromise. The party in opposition has a higher loyalty to the law and to the success of the country. Opposition must be grounded in policy and principle, not politics, if the country is to succeed and democracy endure.
Conclusion
p. 155 The central argument of this book is that American democracy will endure only if obligations join rights at the core of a widely shared understanding of citizenship. By definition, obligations are behaviors that should happen but are not required as a matter of law. The motive for signing up to and practicing a set of obligations even when fulfilling them is not a direct or immediate benefit is because it will encourage behaviors, norms, relationships and arrangements that over time will buttress our democracy and prove to be benefit to ourselves, the society of which we are a member, and the country in which we are a citizen.