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Civic Duties - How Many? (Read 3046 times)
issuevoter
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Re: Civic Duties - How Many?
Reply #30 - Nov 24th, 2018 at 10:30pm
 
Bias_2012 wrote on Nov 24th, 2018 at 2:44pm:
issuevoter wrote on Nov 23rd, 2018 at 5:24pm:
I think it depends on what the individual considers to be civilised behaviour, and what a civilised society should be.



That makes sense

But it's only when it's decided how a civilized society is formed and conducted, will an individual know how to behave in a civic manner according to the type of society they live in

There are different societies, so therefore there are different behaviors

We have a modern first world type society, which implies civilized behavior, but these days we are not really being civilized. We need to learn all over again how to be civilized through knowing our civic duties and place emphasis on voluntary action. Compulsory civic "duty" is a drag, only the teaching of voluntary duty will bring back the true spirit of civic duty, starting with parents teaching children early, then schools could have a session now and then on civilized behavior and civic duty

The trouble is though, our governments are raking in fines, providing employment for more and more police, as well as asking big insurance companies to deal with government legislated compulsory insurance. Governments have a lot of interest in keeping these going. So I imagine they don't necessarily want us to be too civilized, just be civilized some of the time.

It's up to the individual to acquire a strong sense of voluntary civic duty. Our governments won't really help with that, except for a few sound bites about speeding and littering to make themselves look like they're part of the solution


Well . . . I probably don't agree with you. The matter of different societies and their different behaviours does not validate different interpretations of civilisation. In my view, civilisation is a matter of degree. Modern Western societies are products of a slow refinement of what is fair and decent. Certainly, they have a way to go, but I do not see them equal by comparison with other less developed societies.

I don't believe it is civilised for a government to have an official religion, it implies a person of that belief is correct, when this is pure conjecture, and many religions espouse the view that only by following it, can a person be fair, decent and moral.

I don't think we have to learn anything over again. No society has achieved a higher degree of civilisation than our Western, but I would agree that we need to re-examine the concept of civilisation carefully, and not attribute it to dogmatic notions of what some spurious authority has deemed it to be, just because its traditional.

The Magna Carta, the US Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights are all good starts at defining civilisation, but they are only the beginning. In the process, we cannot have people claiming they are God's chosen people, Buddhist, Jew, Hindu, Moslem, Christian must give up that claim, because it is bigotry with only superstition as a support.

I would put forward for critique, the ideal of a society where no individual or group of any description, is allowed to take advantage of another individual or group. And I am not interested in debating the meaning of advantage. We all know it, when we see it.

Further, your sense that government does not want us to be civilised so it can increase its revenue, may seem to explain bureaucratic regulation, but government is the result of democratic policy making by elected representatives, not some shadowy and homogenous, self-perpetuating entity. That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
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Bias_2012
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Re: Civic Duties - How Many?
Reply #31 - Nov 25th, 2018 at 2:09pm
 
issuevoter wrote on Nov 24th, 2018 at 10:30pm:
Further, your sense that government does not want us to be civilised so it can increase its revenue, may seem to explain bureaucratic regulation, but government is the result of democratic policy making by elected representatives, not some shadowy and homogenous, self-perpetuating entity. That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.



Take road safety for example. Our governments only go so far with their campaigns to reduce crashes and serious injury. They could go further by insisting on a second test after the initial drivers license test. A one day verbal familiarization lecture in a class room, for awareness of varying driving conditions and how to cope with them, it would be prudently beneficial. And perhaps get the drivers to demonstrate a few awkward manoeuvres at moderate speed in a training park after being shown how to perform them. This would instill more confidence in drivers who otherwise might be blasé or naturally complacent about driving skills and are accident prone

The idea of the extra training is to increase awareness and responsibility on the road, but governments seem reluctant to take the road safety issue any further than they already have, which means drivers will continue to be unattentive, crash into fences and houses, not know their brake pedal from the accelerator, text on mobiles, speed, hit and run, slam into other vehicles, play chicken with trucks, and so on and so on

The media, can think of nothing more than making a show about real learners doing driving tests, for us to giggle at from our lounge chairs

In my opinion governments are not taking road safety seriously, they are content to let insurance companies rake in $billions in premiums and those companies' profits can be taxed. There is a whole economy, social and private, built around vehicle crashes and injuries - insurance, tow trucks, police, assessors, doctors, nurses, financial institutions, contractors for rebuilding damaged property, and the replacement parts industry. It's not really in governments interests to interfere with all this employment, so what do they do? they impose fines, rather than go to the source of the problem and fix it there - that would be their authentic civic duty
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