2. What Does it Mean to Live In a
Democracy?
Definition of a democracy: government by the
people, rule of the majority
3. What Does it Mean to Live in a
Democracy?
Our country is a democracy. That means it is run by
the people for the people.
Citizens in our democracy have rights
Right to speak freely
Right to practice our religion
Right to vote
Citizens in a democracy also have responsibilities
Choose our leaders
Keep informed about what is going on with our
government
Help make their community a good place to live
A democracy needs active citizens in order to work.
4. Reinventing Democracy- Shift of
Power from Corporations and
Government to Ordinary
Americans
Voter Initiative:
Problem: Citizens have few opportunities to take the idea of
bring issues to public attention
Solution: Citizens may enact or reject laws directly through the
voting booth rather than through the voting booth rather than
through elected officials
How this works: Citizens gather a specified number of
signatures on a petition. An initiative then appears on the ballot,
and is enacted or rejected by popular vote.
Why this is a good idea: Citizens can propose new laws, state
constitutional amendments, or city or county charter
amendments.
5. Reinventing Democracy- Shift of
Power from Corporations and
Government to Ordinary
Americans
Reclaim the Public Airwaves:
Problem: Private broadcasters control what is the public owns. In return
for free licenses to use taxpayer property broadcasters give us a steady
stream of increasingly coarse, redundant, superficial programming and
exclusively decide who says what on our public airwaves.
Solution: Congress should create a new broadcast vehicle, a national,
non profit, nonpartisan membership organization, Audience Network
would be granted one hour of prime time television and one hour of
drive time radio on every commercial channel each day
How this works: It would function as a separate licensee, airing diverse
programming shaped by the membership, which would be open to all
citizens over age sixteen for a nominal fee.
Why this is a good: This would redress the long standing
disenfranchisement that millions of viewers and listeners have suffered
under the current authoritarian government.
6. What is Your Role as a Citizen?
Definition of a citizen: a person owning loyalty to
and entitled by birth or naturalization to the
protection of a state or nation
Patriotic
Children
Citizen Action
7. Patriotic
Definition of patriotic: feeling,
expressing or inspiring by love
for one’s nation
• Need to know the great cause of
American and why this country
is worth fighting for
• Ask not what your country can
do for you but what you can do
for your country.
• Progress of this country is a
result of what citizens have
done when gotten together and
have created a social movement
8. Children
The right of children to
participate in society
including the right to
education, to diverse
sources of information,
and the freedoms to
associate, assemble and
to express opinions.
Children as activists
The lives of the young
people who participate in
these events were
changed forever
Every child is entitled to
participate in making their
world a better place to live
9. Citizen Action
In all that is happening in
the world today- how
involved should citizens
be in trying to actively
make a change?
Everyone’s voice matters
If we all work together on
a certain issue we can
make a difference
Good citizens obey laws
and vote at election times
What people do between
elections is what decides
weather elections are
meaningful.
10. Sources
Democratic Revolution in an Age of Autocracy
Civics Education: Patriotism or Skeptism?
Children: Toward Their Civic Skills and Civic
Involvement
Introduction to A Public Citizen’s Action
Manual
