Liliya Reymer US Government & Politics Section: POLS-1100-005 Summer Semester 2013 Michael G.

Broschinsky The Role of Citizen On July 4, 1776 our country declared itself to be Independent. To do this, it took courage, persistence, patience and unity. Long hours were spent by our forefathers discussing how this should all come about. The ability to connect to the entire world in just a click was unheard of. People had to travel and get together in person in order to discuss important issues. This takes me to my main point. How have we as citizens taken on the role of being engaged in our government and community? Have we used the great inventions in technology to further our countrys wellbeing or has technology become so great that it has distracted us from using it as the greatest tool in uniting the people. When the Constitution of the Unites States was written in 1787, although everybody hoped and believed this would be an important document, nobody knew the extent of the power it would have in forming the way our country has become. In order for our country to have formed to what our forefathers wrote about in the constitution, this took teaching what it said, believing it, and living it out. When citizens realize the rights we they are born with, and the liberties they are given, they start to realize the responsibly they have in passing this way of life on to the future generations. However, this is not doing by doing nothing. Every person in one way or another is responsible for how our country is formed.

I believe the role of a citizen begins with understanding what our country is built on. Knowing the rights and responsibilities we have comes from reading the Constitution, amendments, and other important documents that take a great role in how our country runs. By having this information we are able to use it and apply it in our daily lives. By knowing the freedoms and rights that we have, we are able to know when they are wrongly taken away. I believe this is the most important way a person can contribute in keeping the country prospering. By doing this, people keep the government officials from straying off too far from what they are there for. This is to protect the rights of the people. How else can we keep each other, and in turn the government in check unless we the people know what responsibility we carry in holding these truths close to our heart. I believe we as people need to keep unified. Even though we all come from different backgrounds, speak different languages, and believe in different religions, what keeps us together is staying united in our differences. We need to continually remind ourselves that our country was founded on treating everybody equally and giving everybody an opportunity on succeeding. The citizens have a responsibility of knowing who represents them. By knowing the people who we elect into office can mean the world in how our local, state, and federal government operates. In order to be heard, we have to speak. This practically means going out and voting. When we as people and as a community want to be represented correctly, we have to know who we have in office. What are the issues that are going on in the current time? Where does my representative stand on these issues? By being involved in these matters keeps the voices of the people heard by those who are there to represent them.

I also believe that we as citizens need to be involved in our communities. This keeps the people in constant relationship with one another. It helps us to see where we are struggling and where we are prospering. By knowing this, it helps us to see the areas that we can work on. This allows us to continually make ourselves better. When we look at the past, we see the struggles that our previous generations faced. When they worked through them and took the appropriate steps that our constitution outlines, changes were made and we now dont face the same issues. I believe we the people, need to know our rights, be involved in our community, know who represents us, vote, and always work on staying united. 237 years have passed since our forefathers came together to write the basis of what our country stands on. Technology has extensively progressed since then. In order for people to know what was going on in the first stages of our countrys growth, they had to come together to discuss these topics. Telephones and television had not been invented yet, so any knowledge about politics had to either be read in the newspapers or talked about. In 1837 Samuel Morse, invented the telegraph, which revolutionized communications. In 1861 the United States began mail delivery by establishing the Pony Express. Television was commercially available in the late 1920s. News was first broadcasted on TV in 1930, and this was a simple 10-15 min segment. Radio also had its golden age in the 1930s. On September 4, 1951 President Harry S. Truman was the first president to give a televised speech. This brought the country together as all watched him talk about building a world where children of all nations could live together in peace. In 1936 the first freely programmable computer was created and in latter 1980s ordinary people could actually afford having a home computer. Ive listed only a few of the inventions that have helped in the way we communicate. All of these have made information about our government much more readily available to the people

then when our country first started. However, nothing has brought the ability for people to have news, information, and to speak out on what they believe like the internet. The government released control of the internet and WWW was established in 1994. This made communications light speed, something that in 1776 would have been hard to imagine. There is no doubt that Technology has brought the people of our country closer together. To have the ability to interact with each other in more ways than just in person has given people the opportunity to voice their opinions and be heard by many. This has brought about change in how the people are heard by the government, and how the people hear the government. When before in order to speak to your representative, you had to write a letter or request a meeting. Now, you can simply visit the government website, make a quick phone call, or even message him on a social website such as twitter or facebook. The technology we now have has made more ways for people to find groups and people who think alike. If one feels a certain way about what is going in on politics, he can use the internet such as google to find people who share the same passion. I believe this is much needed when one feels that if he is alone, he is not heard. Many times the government will be more likely to listen and take action when there is a large group that is strongly trying to get a point across. Because of this, factions are much more wide spread and America has become a diverse nation. I agree with James Madison, who made it clear in the federalist Paper No. 10 that in a large republic such as the United States, there would be so many different factions, held together by local, regional, and state interests that no single one of them would dominate national politics. With all this being said, It worries me to also see that technology has an enormously great ability to distract people from what is really important. I feel that for most people, if they had a choice to either spend an hour getting to know who their representative is versus playing a video

game, or just watching a movie, most people would choose the latter. Overall through the years we have used technology to benefit how we relate to our government. However, I fear that what has happened, and will continue to happen, is when we do not use technology to better familiarize ourselves with what is going in our cities, states, nation and government. The chance of the government misusing this technology is much greater. Who, if not the people are to keep the government in check when such great resources are available? We the people have the great responsibly of keeping the following four values in the highest priority, both in our lives and in the forefront of the governments agenda Order, Equality, Property, and Liberty.