What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.
As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level.
We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.
Perhaps we believe that everything travels by air, or magically and instantaneously like information (which is actually anchored by cables on the seabed), not by hefty ships that travel more slowly than senior citizens drive.
A massive state and federal effort, the likes of which we’ve never seen is going to be needed. We can do it for tsunami victims half a world away. We can do it for our own citizens.
As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities.
Doors have locks, citizens have guns, and countries have borders.
Women are still second-class citizens.
Happiness statistics may be most valuable in smaller, local discussions. Understanding how different sorts of programs affect the well-being of citizens would be enormously helpful to a mayor choosing between building a new bridge or offering a tax cut.
We want to free our citizens from the burden of excessive paper documents in every office. We want paperless transactions. We will set up a digital locker for every citizen to store personal documents that can be shared across departments.
Democracy doesn’t require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.
I will run an open government that speaks with honesty, seeks opinion, listens to its citizens.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 120 saints of China, 87 of whom were ethnically Chinese. My home church was incredibly excited because this was the first time the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Chinese citizens in this way.
When a profit-seeking company proposes to take citizens’ private land away for its own gain, people should stand up for their rights.
I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.
The economic, social and cultural progress of a nation depends on citizens counting for more and having more rights.
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, and I intend to continue to push my country to respect the rights of all its citizens. I will not be silenced.
After a lifetime of working, raising families, and contributing to the success of this nation in countless other ways, senior citizens deserve to retire with dignity.
Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.
Hamas is responsible for countless homicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israeli citizens. They have waged a terror war with the sole intent of murdering innocent people.
I am an honest person, transparent, that look citizens straight in their faces.
The curiosity of the human mind is essential if you want citizens who think rather than accept the first nonsense they come to.
Executive power in any nation arguably has more in common with executive power in another country than with the citizens it should serve.
Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it’s really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues.
You can’t have a competitive, egalitarian meritocracy if only some of your citizens have the opportunity for a good education.
The Republican agenda is a radical vision in which Medicaid is slashed to the bone – in which we start to balance the budget on the backs of, literally, our most vulnerable citizens.
Since my retirement, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can’t afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.
We are not a land of Islam, and if French citizens can be Muslims, it’s on the condition to submit to habits and ways of life that the Greek, Roman influence and 16 centuries of Christianity have shaped.
I extend my greetings and good wishes to all our citizens on the joyous occasion of Deepawali. The festival of lights, celebrated with gaiety and enthusiasm all over the country, signifies the victory of good over evil and is an appropriate occasion for us to resolve to follow the high ideals in life.
Our Constitution requires that the accused be presumed innocent before trial, thus granting all citizens the right to a bail hearing, where the accused has the opportunity to be represented by counsel, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses.
Very often, the judgments by ordinary citizens may be better than those by professional economists, being more rooted in reality and less narrowly focused.
Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it’s startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba’s mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world.
Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
The real truth is that the Obama administration is professional at bullying, as we have witnessed with ACORN at work during the presidential campaign. It seems to me they are sending down their bullies to create fist fights among average American citizens who don’t want a government-run health care plan forced upon them.
Citizens should never allow themselves to be silenced.
Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses, hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.
As many citizens can attest, the U.S. is a great place to get sick, but a terrible place to stay well. This requires a shift in the way both doctors and patients approach health maintenance and disease prevention.
I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.
If freedom’s best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come.
We should revoke passports from any Americans or dual citizens who are fighting with ISIS.
At the turn of the 20th century, the disparity in literacy here in the U.S. largely came down to race. Nearly half of minorities at that time – 45 percent – were illiterate, while 94 percent of white citizens were literate.
The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax us citizens for our carbon footprints.
Education, when delivered properly, can benefit a lot of people and make productive citizens out of those otherwise given no hope.
We must be an inclusive nation that respects and supports all of its citizens: a nation that doesn’t give up on anyone who hasn’t given up on themselves.
What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails. I stand by that.
And because of these programs like Medicare, Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, we now have the healthiest and wealthiest group of senior citizens that the world has ever seen. This is a continuing commitment to that.
Good citizens deserve the means to defend themselves.
We have to start thinking of ourselves as citizens of the Internet, not just passive users. I don’t see how we can bring about change in our digital lives if we don’t take responsibility.
Millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country, with ancestors who put in the painstaking work to become citizens. So we don’t like the notion that anyone might get a free pass to American citizenship.
Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land, drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrows.
Leaving Iraq without military assistance during its transition, and before it is stable enough to ensure its own citizens’ security, would pose a tremendous risk. We must complete our mission.
There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
