10 Ways To Be A Great American Citizen

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It takes nothing to be a good person and citizen and many ask how can I do it and then accomplish it successfully. Being a great citizen takes thought, and it takes effort. So I’ve put some effort into a few thoughts. Here are 10 suggestions:

If you want to be taken seriously when debating a fellow citizen or addressing a problem of some kind, avoid getting personal. Try civility. Try empathy. Do not applaud anyone who engages in name-calling or ad-hominem attacks. Resist bullies.

Do not countenance politicians who lie, even if you generally agree with them on major issues. Once you look the other way, or pretend you don’t hear the lie, you normalize it, and we end up in a bad place.
This sounds self-serving (and, well, it is), but, for the sake of the country, you need to read newspapers, print or digital. At the local, state and national levels, newspapers still provide the most illumination of problems in our midst, of the actions of elected officials and government, of almost all aspects of life, foreign and domestic. It’s fine to watch cable news shows, but the talking heads provide more opinions than facts. You need a balanced menu in your news feed, not just a steady diet of chatter that keeps you comfortable with your prejudices.

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