I’ve discovered as a lawyer a high correlation between poverty and being a generally shitty human being. It’s not really something that makes me happy to think about, nor do I announce it in polite company, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t the case. Poor people ARE a problem for the rest of society, but generally it isn’t due to their economic poverty, but rather a poverty of character. This of course isn’t universally true, but again, there’s a very high correlation.[/quote]
Couldn’t it go both ways?
Poverty of character may lead to economic poverty.
Economic poverty may also lead to poverty of character.
Unless you believe that people have a fixed moral/ethical outlook. Which I don’t. I believe a person is very much influenced by what they experience in life.
[quote]magick wrote:
Look at how many people actively attempt to avoid some of the responsibilities of living in our society today- a really easy example being jury duty.
The ideal citizen carries a huge amount of burden and responsibilities.[/quote]
I’d like to touch on jury duty for a second. If you skip jury duty without a legitimately good reason, you’re a fuck.
I live in a small college town as a defense and family law attorney. The last trial I did was a battery by a college kid against a meter maid. The jury had ZERO college kids because they all found an excuse to get out. I NEEDED college kids on that jury because they were aware of the behavior of campus meter maids. Instead my client had a jury of sensitive house wives and retired people. Not exactly a jury of his peers. I got the acquittal, but I’m still damn annoyed over it. [/quote]
I’ve been called to jury duty many times and sat on a jury once. I (and my fellow jurors) felt woefully unqualified to make a decision on the case given what we were exposed to in the courtroom. We were left to make a decision based on little or no understanding of the law, with half the facts. That is not justice.
I think professional jurors with legal backgrounds would be a much better system, than a bunch of inexperienced college kids, a few retired folk and some working folk who have a thousand other responsibilities, all of which have little or no understanding of the law or the legal system beyond what they have seen in entertainment media.
I’ve discovered as a lawyer a high correlation between poverty and being a generally shitty human being. It’s not really something that makes me happy to think about, nor do I announce it in polite company, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t the case. Poor people ARE a problem for the rest of society, but generally it isn’t due to their economic poverty, but rather a poverty of character. This of course isn’t universally true, but again, there’s a very high correlation.[/quote]
Couldn’t it go both ways?
Poverty of character may lead to economic poverty.
Economic poverty may also lead to poverty of character.
Unless you believe that people have a fixed moral/ethical outlook. Which I don’t. I believe a person is very much influenced by what they experience in life.[/quote]
I think we have a fixed moral/ethical outlook. But I think that can be influenced by what what they experience in life, haha. But yeah, for many it can cut both ways.
I fall back on the 2 related rules that were drilled into me as a youngster in the Marine Corps, which is the reason why the Marine Corps is still, arguably, one of the finest fighting forces in the world (responsibility to ones fellow Marines, unit and the Corps):
Always leave things better than you found them.
If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
A good citizen must do his part to make the society a better place, or expect the government to make everything better, which we know has been impossible for any government of any type in the history of the human race.
Societies decline when everybody cares about nothing but themselves (a democracy/representative republic fails when the people realize they can elect people who will give them stuff).
I’ve discovered as a lawyer a high correlation between poverty and being a generally shitty human being. It’s not really something that makes me happy to think about, nor do I announce it in polite company, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t the case. Poor people ARE a problem for the rest of society, but generally it isn’t due to their economic poverty, but rather a poverty of character. This of course isn’t universally true, but again, there’s a very high correlation.[/quote]
Couldn’t it go both ways?
Poverty of character may lead to economic poverty.
Economic poverty may also lead to poverty of character.
Unless you believe that people have a fixed moral/ethical outlook. Which I don’t. I believe a person is very much influenced by what they experience in life.[/quote]
This is an important and ongoing debate currently in society, but one interesting additive to that debate is that years ago when people were materially poorer, they generally had less “poverty of character” (observationally). The first thing that comes to mind are comparative marriage rates and out-of-wedlock children, then and now.
But I don’t disagree that economic poverty can help cause poverty of character.
[quote]magick wrote:
Look at how many people actively attempt to avoid some of the responsibilities of living in our society today- a really easy example being jury duty.
The ideal citizen carries a huge amount of burden and responsibilities.[/quote]
I’d like to touch on jury duty for a second. If you skip jury duty without a legitimately good reason, you’re a fuck.
I live in a small college town as a defense and family law attorney. The last trial I did was a battery by a college kid against a meter maid. The jury had ZERO college kids because they all found an excuse to get out. I NEEDED college kids on that jury because they were aware of the behavior of campus meter maids. Instead my client had a jury of sensitive house wives and retired people. Not exactly a jury of his peers. I got the acquittal, but I’m still damn annoyed over it. [/quote]
I’ve been called to jury duty many times and sat on a jury once. I (and my fellow jurors) felt woefully unqualified to make a decision on the case given what we were exposed to in the courtroom. We were left to make a decision based on little or no understanding of the law, with half the facts. That is not justice.
I think professional jurors with legal backgrounds would be a much better system, than a bunch of inexperienced college kids, a few retired folk and some working folk who have a thousand other responsibilities, all of which have little or no understanding of the law or the legal system beyond what they have seen in entertainment media.[/quote]
Please tell me there was a “Not guilty” verdict, or at least a mistrial/hung jury.
Additional: Professional juries would eliminate trial by a jury of the accused’s peers. If we were to have professional juries, we may as well eliminate the jury altogether and allow the judge to decide the verdict.
But I don’t disagree that economic poverty can help cause poverty of character.
[/quote]
I believe poverty, like war, doesn’t [i] cause[/i] poverty of character, but rather [i]exposes[/i] it.[/quote]
I agree with that generally, but I also think poverty can grind good people down and erode their good habits, customs, etc. Desperation makes otherwise good people cut corners, sometimes.
That being said, your qualifications are simply insufficient. Your qualifications would exclude any and all political participation. While the idea of the active vs. passive citizen has to do with property ownership and not actual activity within the political sphere, in this case you are advocating what would essentially be beyond passive: apathetic.
Your definition would not mandate any sort of political participation whatsoever. So while your ideal citizen may be respectful of the rights of others, he will soon be dominated by those who gain power because he did nothing but lay back and wait for the violations of his rights to occur. [/quote]
How can you have freedom when you mandate political participation?
[/quote]
Looks to me as though you’re taking the verb “mandate” out of context. The context above looks to me like it is suggesting that political participation should be a mandatory part of the definition of a good or ideal citizen; not legally mandated to keep the rights of a citizen.
Not currently saying whether I entirely agree or not; just pointing out the difference in what seems to be meant by “mandate” as per the context.
The ideal citizen doesn’t question anything his State says or tells him to do. The ideal citizen, whether asked to turn in his neighbor for smoking pot or for being Jewish, understands why it needs to be done. The ideal citizen agrees.
I’m not saying that political participation should be mandated at all. I’m saying that the ideal citizen participates in the political process and exercises civic virtue. The definition you provided does not mandate, meaning it does not require, citizens to actually participate in the political process whatsoever.
I’m not saying that political participation should be required of all citizens; I am saying that the definition of an ideal citizen, in my opinion, requires that the citizen be an active participant in the political process.
I’ve chosen to bump this thread because I think it bears extra relevance right now. Suffice it to say that Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders supporters are the antithesis of the ideal citizen.
Good thought. The ideal citizen is supposed to be educated (but not exclusively through formal means) and therefore resistant to the efforts of demagogues. The Founders worried about this problem in setting up a republic - if given the power to select the leaders, would the people have enough wisdom and virtue to resists the charms and inflammations of the demagogues?
The Jeffersonians expressly wanted to combat this concern through the expansion of public education. The idea is to create as many ideal citizens as possible through public effort.
But here we are in the 21st century, it’s obviously we’ve failed to rally to that standard. The demagogue is alive and well.
In addition the rise of Trump - the ultimate example of the failure of our country to cultivate ideal citizens - think of the buffoons who are simply radio-talk ciphers. Unable to think for themselves, they just parrot whatever the talk-show host barks into their ear.
Think also of the puzzle-wits who follow every email or link that says "OBAMA EXPOSED!!! and believe every claim in the material without an ounce of skepticism. (And then try to pass it off as truth even in these forums.)
We saw it on the Left during the Bush years with the idiocy of Bush Derangement Syndrome - believing every conspiracy theory as fact (Bush is conducting a racist war in the Middle East to kill brown-skinned people, while conveniently ignoring Bush’s massive efforts to reduce the AIDS epidemic in Africa).
But the Right has set new records in this space. It’s a national embarrassment, and the worst fears of the Founders are coming true regarding the wisdom and virtue of the citizenry.