L.G. Orlando

We as a country are emerging from an election fraught with division and deep tension. In the months before the election people from all sides took great pains to encourage citizens to vote. Every effort was made to promote the exercise of this deeply held and fundamental political right. This is good and proper. However, these urgings can lead some to think that going to the polls and submitting our ballot is the end of our political obligations. This line of thinking is dangerous for any country built upon democratic-republican ideals. This attitude contributes to the whirlwind of tension during major elections and the widespread apathy at nearly all other times as well as the trepidation with which we approach, or rather avoid, political conversations. So let us outline how the average citizen might understand and act upon the whole of their political rights and obligations. 

The first and most obvious place to inquire as to what our obligations and rights in the political space are, is where our rights are clearly enumerated, that being our Constitution. It is well understood that the first amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to free expression in all forms such as speech or in writing as well as guarantee the right to freely associate and gather in protest. It is in these guaranteed rights that one may find not only what a citizen might do to further their political opinions but what they must do. 

Politics is naturally tied with what individuals and groups have determined to be good and beneficial, or bad and detrimental. When one is thinking justly, they will wish to extend what they believe is good and beneficial and limit or remove the effects of what is bad or detrimental to their fellow citizens. For example, if one does not wish for themselves to be oppressed, they should not wish for any of their fellow citizens to be oppressed, and if one wishes to be able to have free access to the justice system, they should not attempt to prohibit others from the same. It is common that once a person has thought in this way on all issues they believe to be relevant politically, they will attach a moral weight to their conclusions. From these conclusions come moral compulsions and thus the beginnings of understanding the source of obligation. If a person feels that one of these political ideals which moral quality has been attached to is being transgressed upon or may be transgressed upon by a proposed course of action against either themselves or another; one becomes obligated by reason and empathy to act against such a transgression. 

In this way we are obligated to vote, as it is a clear and present way to act upon our political moral compulsions, however it is not the only way. In the same way we are obligated to vote, we are also called to speak both privately and publicly in support of our views, to gather in political community and in protest, and to engage critically with our beliefs. But one must remember that political action must be limited to the bounds of our political and natural rights and thus our political obligations cannot be thought to go beyond them or transgress on the rights of others.

The final consideration to be contended with is that politics is not a seasonal occurrence but a persistent one as we live in a political society which requires our participation to function. Thus, these obligations of which I speak are not limited by the cycles of election but are persistent. So, one should volunteer and gather in the interests of their political ends in all seasons, to organize for and support one’s beliefs. We should find community in our body politic towards the interest of the whole and to exercise all our public rights in kind.