What exactly is a CITIZEN?

[AviatorTom]

In the US, there is a lot of discussion about illegal aliens, undocumented individuals, people with green cards, legal residents, foreigners with visas, etc. compared to citizens.

So, what exactly is a citizen?

It's interesting that the word citizen is not defined in the US Constitution. In fact, the word rarely appears in it, and nowhere is it defined or described.

Cornell Law School defines it like this...

citizen
A citizen is a person who, by place of birth, nationality of one or both parents, or naturalization is granted full rights and responsibilities as a member of a nation or political community.

Even more interesting is that the only US citizens who have specific proof of their citizenship are those who have been naturalized. They each receive a certificate when they complete their naturalization ceremony.

What do you think a citizen is? How do you define it?

[Syntosi]

Technically, that is not what a citizen is. A citizen is simply what the country of USA considers to be a citizen of itself. Having someone be a citizen of USA without USA recognizing them is sort of an oxymoron. The whole "place of birth" or "naturalization" is just the standard that USA itself set out for what they claim would qualify someone to be a citizen in their eyes, not the actual process or what it means.

Yes, that also means these are not strict rules and USA can remove citizenship or grant citizenship to whoever it wants and for whatever reason on a technical basis.

[OneViewpoint]

You have created a convoluted argument denying the Cornell Law School definition is right and then finally agreeing with it verbatim. Thank god they had people smart enough to write the definition in one short sentence.

[Syntosi]

@OneViewpoint Convoluted? Not really. Basic logic dictates that it is the countries themselves that decides who is or is not a citizen of their country. There is no world legal court that can do it and I am sure you would laugh if Mexico independently started to hand out American citizenship to every immigrant that wanted to cross the US border.

Likewise there is no rules for when a country has to give you citizenship or when they can't take it away. Most countries claims to have rules for when you gain citizenship such as being born in that country with native parents. These are simply self-imposed rules that they made up themselves and nobody will enforce on them if they decide that they no longer wants to follow them.

Cornell Law School is not necessarily wrong, they are just operating on the assumption that the country will keep to their word along the lines that is most common around the world. Its a simplification that works in everyday conversation without having to dig into how the world fundamentally works.

[OneViewpoint]

@Syntosi,

And another convoluted answer. You need to work on being concise.

[Syntosi]

@OneViewpoint Alright. Let me be concise.

Countries decides who is citizens of their countries and no one else can contradict them.

[Massageman]

Your definition works for me. My ancestors came over via Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia. My grandfather had a shade and drapery shop, but during the Depression started selling greeting cards and penny candy to make ends meet. (People would postpone re-dos on their homes, and even buying birthday gifts, but a greeting card would substitute quite well.).

[FreyaRed]

US golem is a mold of clays of different often culturally and intellectually incompatible nations. Your government thinks they just need to stir long enough to get homogeneous mix but instead they stir nitroglycerin together.
In my perception as European a passport alone doesn't make someone a full citizen. Of course ostracism and hostile subversion is justified to any non native nation to encourage them to go somewhere else. This how Europe works since 4 millennia.

[purplepoppy]

It's whatever the current government of the day defines it as, there have been lots of cases in the UK where people have had their citizenship status removed. An example was when people left to fight for ISIS.

We've also got "settled status" which pretty much grants you the same rights but muddys the waters as to what a citizen is.

I would define it as someone who has full legal rights and privileges as a member of that nation.

[katiesmuff]

A 100% citizen is a person born here or one who legally arrived from another country and in front of a judge after some very easy classes swears allegiance to the United States. Visa's, green cards are for those temporally allowed to legally be here for a certain period of time which might be work related, schooling, or simply a vacation.

[NathanDavis]

no idea... I was born a Texan...

first and foremost

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Starship Troopers had the best:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EBxgrr0wL8M

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

A citizen is willing to fight and kill and die for his nation. He does not mind if he doesn't agree with the majority. He fights to protect their lives and above all else, his family. That is a true citizen.

[Syntosi]

I mean, its funny. But you do realize that its a parody that is making fun of this kind of society right?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi Yep, and Verhoeven made the whole movie sarcastically. But I kinda dig it! It makes a lot of sense.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi I kinda like fascism in a way. I'm not talking Hitler ethnocentric kind. That was just dumb. But take Ancient Rome, for example, because it overly expanded and lost control of itself. Not so bad, no? Arguably the Renaissance was just resurrecting mostly was ancient Greeks and Romans already knew.

So I kinda dig the original kind of fascism. The nice one. Like you and me, brothers in arms. Shields locked together. We fight as brothers: unity is our strength, not diversity.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

[...] [before, sorry!] it overly expanded and lost control of itself. [...]
[...] Arguably the Renaissance was just resurrecting mostly [what, OMG] ancient Greeks and Romans already knew. [..]

[Syntosi]

If you look at Roman history then you will see that it was inherently unstable. Even during Pax Romana or the "Roman Peace" it was still full of wars, civil wars and social uprisings. Our view of history tends to be with rose tinted glasses, this included.

And this is sort of my opinion of fascism as a whole. Its a nice fantasy, but does not actually work in reality.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi Yeah, the problem I always butt into is scale. I think we're communal creatures. We thrive when we're in a little community and feel like all of our collective well-being is at stake with everything we do. Then I suspect we care about each other much more than living in some skyrise apartment where we barely remember the names of our neighbors.

But I think in terms of scale, unity is the closest approximation of scale. When people are united on a shared vision by a good leader, they accomplish great work -- like a film directed by Robert Eggers. When people are divided and they end up getting having to get a second or third director involved, it becomes a mess.

And that scale issue has always been at the heart of the problem for me. I want to find a system that scales really well.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi I really like the Servant Leadership Model in business, and beyond business. That's a nice leader in my estimate: someone who trains others in leadership to make themselves replaceable, as a good parent teaches their child to outgrow them and become parents of their own.

It's not really about political or economic systems to me. More about how can we human beings organize and do something really great, world-changing? And it's hard when I don't even remember my neighbor's name.

[Syntosi]

While I agree that community is important for humans, I actually feel the opposite about pretty much everything else. I think that a society works the best if improvements start at the bottom and then work their way up society. Especially in a democracy where the power do still rest with the voters.

It does not really matter what sort of amazing leader you have if you dont get the voters or when you leave power the people just defaults back to how things used to work. A single man is just like a flash in the pan, gone in an instant and does not really change much. You need a steady and durable movement to carry you forward.

We have managed to do this in many other aspects of our live such as technological development and such. It was not a single explosive event but a large boulder that steadily gained speed over the years until it becomes an unstoppable force today.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi I might be the polar opposite! I really think about things from top-down. I love hierarchies, but my favorites are governed by empathetic ones -- like Captain Picard in Star Trek: TNG, who always listened to everyone before making an executive decision.

And when he went with Geordi La Forge's idea and said, "Make it so," while he said, "I'm not sure if this plan is gonna work, he wasn't saying, "It's your responsibility." He was saying, "It's mine now."

I think we need that throughout our lives when we disagree with each other. You need someone to say, "Okay okay. I've listened to everyone. And I've decided we're gonna do this." And that's so important because we'll never get anything done, at least in my field, without that leader.

I'm not even a leader in my field but I don't trust us to do anything without a firm one. I just see chaos. We'll all go in sixteen different directions without one.

So I'm really starting to dig competent leadership and unity. It's a bit more top-down but not micromanaged. Leaders produce leaders who produce leaders -- a deep hierarchy if you will.

[Syntosi]

Well, lets take USA as an example. Even if you have good leaders, for the sake of argument lets say the president. Even if you unify a vision for people to work towards, that is not going to be the same vision as the next leader has.. or the next.. or the next.. Instead of going in 16 different directions at once, you will go towards sixteen different directions one after the other. If the term of a leader is 4-8 years then you are not going to get anything done. Especially if you bounce from one party with their own vision to another which has the opposite view on most things.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi For sure. There's that problem with human fallibility against scale. But I think that's a scale problem. If we shrink things and not have to govern 350+ million people over a geography almost the size of the entire European continent, maybe we'll find decent enough leaders in our community. Or not -- and it would wreck out community! But they'd be governing at such a small scale that they aren't likely to stick around for long.

It's all a matter of scale and organization to me. I like erring towards the smaller scales when possible: smaller teams, more like-minded -- better products.

[Syntosi]

I dont think that would result in better products personally. Larger scale means we can do things more efficient. The issue has simply been that the people who do things at larger scales, capitalists, value profitability over quality.

That said, I dont think smaller groups of people could for example put a man on the moon.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi Yeah, or cure cancer! I like these large-scale projects too. It's like juggling two things at once. As human beings, I think we're kinda communal creatures as communists would have it (Marx would have been a way better psychologist than economist in my estimate). But we're now gonna develop interstellar travel or a cure for cancer from some dinky village. It's a tough one to reconcile for me.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

*not, sorry, not now.
I can't see shit anymore. It happened almost as soon as I hit 40s. I was near-sighted since my teens so I needed glasses or contacts to see far away.

But WTF, 40s happened and now I can't see anything up close. It sucks so bad. I think I'm gonna have to get some reading glasses and carry two pairs of glasses: one to see far away and another to see up close.

[Syntosi]

Look to see if you can get corrective eye surgery. Might be expensive but hopefully its at least a sort of permanent solution. Also quite frankly, everything involving glasses and whatnot is expensive as it is.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@Syntosi I tried to look into those laser options but apparently it can make presbyopia (my condition) even worse. I can see stuff far away still but I can't see shit up close.

That really sucks. I want my cybernetic eyeballs already. I figure it's gonna hurt like hell if they have to surgically remove my eyeballs from my optic nerve and get new ones, cause my worst headaches around my eyeballs. But I think totally worth it.

[Syntosi]

Well, I dont know when the last time you checked but I would give it like 5 years or so since then and check again. These things are becoming quite common these days and as with medical procedures that is done regularly the process is refined and improved upon.

Personally I am more in the camp of wanting genetic editing and biological replacements compared to true cybernetics but both are honestly kinda cool. Either way, cameras has long since surpassed the Mk. I eyeball so I guess that is hardly the worst first choice of whats gotta go.

[Anonymous]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/american-doctor-receives-email-immigration-134538135.html

Doesn't matter what a citizen is when they are being told to leave now too

[exitseven]

We have to be limited to thr legal definition but there is a big difference between being FROM someplace and being OF someplace..

[David318578]

A citizen is a legal status that means you are a member of a nation that grants you rights, duties, protections, and benefits.

[DryGermanGuy]

„A citizen accepts personal responsibility for the safety and the body politic defending it with his life. A civilian does not.“

- Johnny Rico, Starship Troopers

[sage2021]

I know that you already know the answer to your question.

[AviatorTom]

@sage2021 You do? Interesting, because I really don't.

[sage2021]

@AviatorTom
I don't think that you questioned this for your entire life until Biden opened up the border.
Is it really THAT important for us to have to take a class and learn about citizenship in the United States?
I'm not going to spend any of my time with this subject. Let the interested parties figure it out.
I'm a United States citizen and have been my whole life and that's all I have time for.

[genericname85]

i would say a good laymans definition would be: someone who has the legal right to stay within a certain region, typically the afforded by the governing bodies of the particular region.

[Anonymous]

A citizen is generally defined as a person who legally belongs to a particular country and has
the rights and protection of that country.

[winstanley2]

hot girl asking simple questions loool. typical.

[Dongie]

That one is sufficient.

[chrissykerdock]

if your a democrate anybody from anywhere

[Anonymous]

I agree with the Cornell definition.

[DrPepper12]

Cornells definition is just fine

[jimmy2]

Deportation of everyone that not a US citizen