Finals Help

[blckout20]

For my Civics final I am supposed to right a 3 page report on a given question. The only problem is the question is pretty open-ended and I really have no idea where I should go with it so I came here for some help.

The question is:

What does it mean, to you, to be an American citizen?

We are to consider things such as American History, American ideals of democracy, War, Crime, Freedom, Poverty, Responsibility, Laws, Choice, Capitalism, Corruption, Welfare, Health Insurance, Wealth, and Education.

So to all of you...what does it really mean to be an American citizen? Any ideas would help tremendously.

[Longest]

Nice. I love the irony involved here. We're telling you what civic-minded is. No wonder our damn public schools are in the toilet :laugh :-)
My view on citizenship is just that we are a voting member of this country. Period. How many of us even chose to be citizens? If you were born here, you didn't get a choice. Nothing about the ideals of democracy, any current hot-button issue, or any of that other crap affects citizenship in the slightest. If you want to point to something, a true citizen is one who supports and works for the betterment of his nation-state with no selfish gain intended for himself. Read the collected works of Plato and Aristotle (if you have time) for philosophical views on a citizen's relation to his nation-state. No one supports poverty. Most ppl agree it's terrible. But we disagree on how to fix it/solve it. Is one side of the argument citizens and the other not? No. QED

Dan

[WarriorLax22]

it's not very open-ended if you're mandated to write on certain topics. i think you should write whatever you feel like.

[blckout20]

Longest thanks for the advice....warrior the question is like what should your responsibilities as an American citizen include and such. But i think I have an idea where I'm going to go with my paper now with some of what longest said.

[Longest]

I'll be here all week. Try the brisket. If they want an answer to an open-ended question like that, just mind-dump your entire opinons onto paper. Then ***** if you get a grade you don't like because it's not like there was any real criteria anyway :-)

Dan