|
LEVEL 3: Citizenship As of April 2015, this page was still small and still used material from other topics. Please see the pages on political essays and economic essays. I wrote that material not because it is radically new but out of my efforts to be a good citizen in a plural democracy. We need a basic knowledge of political ideas and of how the economy works to be good citizens, and few voters now have that basic knowledge. (If politicians have that knowledge, it is not the base for acts and policies.) Rather than work to get our own moral view straight, understand how a modern economy works, know our political ideals, and understand how real politics work, we seize "causes" that help us and-or that make us feel justified and feel good about ourselves regardless of others and regardless of bad effects of our "causes". We need to do better. I repeat this theme often. This document is a chapter from my book "Religious Stances" about the standards of good citizenship that I use to evaluate major stances. DOC: 2015: From "Religious Stances", Chapter 02, Basic Politics for Citizenship PDF ....... HTML ....... Text DOC: 2015: Righteous Anger PDF ....... HTML ....... Text Nobody wants to be a slave to rules. Still, we need rules, and we need to respect rules. We need to know what happens when people don't respect rules and don't follow rules well enough. DOC: 2015: Following Rules PDF ......... HTML ........ Text Without intending to, often we support badness. We support badness when we assume that any religious group, ethnic group, or country can succeed in plural modern democracy without the correct background, especially without the right institutions. Our silliness on this point has cost us trillions of dollars and many thousands of lives since the American Civil War. DOC: 2015: Supporting Badness PDF ........ HTML ........ Text PAGE: Political Essays PAGE: Economic Essays
|