Let's Find Common Ground - A New Definition of Citizenship: Rights and Obligations. Richard Haass

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

When we consider the meaning of citizenship, most Americans usually think about individual rights. In this episode, we hear a bold call for change. Our guest, Richard Haass, says that if democracy is to survive, we must re-envision citizenship and consider our obligations to one another.  He argues that the greatest threat the country faces comes not from foreign adversaries but from none other than ourselves. Finding common ground and healing bitter divides, he says, requires placing obligations on the same footing as rights. "We get the government and the country we deserve. Getting the one we need is up to us." A highly experienced diplomat and policymaker, Dr. Haass served in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House under four Presidents, Democrat and Republican alike. His new book is "The Bill of Obligations. The Ten Habits of Good Citizens". For 20 years Richard Haass was president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. Today he serves as CFR's president emeritus.

When we consider what it means to be a citizen, most Americans would probably say that involves individual rights. In this episode we hear a call for changing the meaning of citizenship. Our guest, Richard Haas, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, says if democracies to survive, we must think more about our obligations to one another. Individual rights have been raised up to a level of absolutes, and any infringement of those is rejected by a significant percentage of our society. In my view, we simply can't have a society that will function only on rights. But if these rights are seen in absolute terms, we have to be prepared to compromise. We need mechanisms for dealing with the friction. This is Let's Find Common Ground.

I'm Ashine Entite. And I'm Richard Davies. Our guest on this episode says the greatest threat to America comes not from foreign adversaries, but from ourselves Richard Haas argues that finding common ground and healing bitter divisions require placing obligations on the same footing as rights. Haas is an experienced diplomat and policymaker. He spent 20 years at the Council on Foreign Relations and served in the Pentagon, State Department and the White House under four presidents, Democrat and Republican alike.

His new book is called The Bill of Obligations, the Ten Habits of Good Citizens. I was away when this interview was recorded, so Richard, you asked the questions. Richard Haas, welcome to Let's Find Common Ground. Thanks so much for having me. America faces dangerous threats from overseas, from Russia, from China, from North Korea, for example. Many would argue that global climate change is also a severe threat. But you say that the number one threat is from within our nation and that the most urgent priority right now is to uphold our democracy. Why? Well, for two reasons, all those threats and others you mentioned are all too real. But one looks at the last 75 years, we have faced any number of serious threats, and

we've done quite okay, thank you very much, including managing a cold war, ending it on terms that even optimists didn't imagine, and we kept it cold. The first reason that what happens here domestically matters so much is it's central, it's critical to our ability to cope with the traditional list of national security challenges that you mentioned. Secondly, everything we do as a society, everything we do as an economy, everything we do as a political system assumes is predicated on the idea that we function. Just say that thesis to be true.

I spent several years, three years as the American envoy to the Northern Ireland peace talks. I then went back for another six months, for a separate round of peace talks. Well, Northern Ireland is a modern society in the middle of Europe, in the UK, and over the course of Europe, in the UK, and over the course of three decades during the so-called troubles,

suddenly doing the most mundane things became heroic. It's interesting how much depends upon basically order and a political process that people accept, the legitimacy of, and the ability to go about one's business and not fear physical threats. What just said that was no longer true in the United States. What I think we've had a glimpse of is that we shouldn't assume it will always be true. I take our political polarization and the glimmers of violence that we've had.

I take them seriously. Many people would say that January 6th is the worst example of polarization, but that tends to blame one side. When we speak of polarization, is this a problem primarily of populist Republicans, of Trump lovers, or is it much broader than that? Does it include many other forms of dysfunction and intolerance? It's a really thoughtful question.

We've entered an era of winner-take-all politics, where in the political space, in private lives, people are just less inclined to compromise. A civility has broken down. Violence is often introduced. We see it at school meetings and so forth, at Little League. So I think it's too narrow to simply pin it

on the Republican Party, but that said. And I say this, by the way, as someone who is a Republican for over 40 years. This Republican Party is different. An American democracy, while we've had it contend with third parties and outliers who represented a kind of populist dimension, I would say this is something different. We're one of the two major political parties. This has essentially been taken over by a populist, not just an individual, but a movement. That is a threat to American democracy that the founders and their successors didn't

simply didn't imagine. Do you think the threat to democracy today is so much worse than it has been in previous eras of American history? Sure, that's his, yes. It's a threat both to the functioning of our democracy, our ability to compromise, to get things done. And then, yes, I think this degree of polarization leading to violence is something qualitatively different.

So, yeah, in many ways, I'd say we probably have to go back, and it's not a happy period to the era in the mid-19th century surrounding the civil war when you had a degree of intensity and absolutism to our political discrepancy. We don't have a single issue like slavery that is so defining, but we do have an absolutism and an intolerance that is entered into our politics that anyone who's who's looking closely should be worried about. Karl Rove wrote a very interesting article recently in the Wall Street Journal. It's called America is often a nation divided. US politics today is ugly and broken.

True enough he writes, but the good news is it was worst in the past, part of his case, is that during the 1960s and 70s, we had riots, we had assassinations, and we had 2,500 domestic bombings in just 18 months in 1971 and 72. That's almost unthinkable today today so are you being too negative i read calls peace uh... i would respectfully disagree i think he's two he's to sanguine uh... yes we've had differences in the past and i grew up in the uh... in the sixties but a lot of those things were were not threats to american

democracy they were motivated by disagreements about the Vietnam War or other issues. Even the assassinations as awful as they were in presidential candidates and civil rights leaders, we're not revolutionary acts. What's so different about what we face now is that we have seen elements of a revolutionary situation where people don't want to promote simply policy outcomes, but they want to change the process. They want to change the structures, the operations of American democracy. That is fundamentally different than anything we've seen in the past.

So I do think this is both different and more worrisome. So I'm not a member of the sanguine school. I'm not a member of, ah, we've seen worse, we've seen it all before, we've gotten through it, then we'll get it through. Now, hopefully that's right, I'd love to be proven wrong here. My own sense is it won't sort itself out by itself, and we need all sorts of citizens in this society to get more involved. Talk about the media and its influence and why and how the media has changed in recent years. Well I'm looking at you, you're

looking at me as we do this podcast. We are of shall we say our generations are in the same zip code. the same zip code. So we grew up in an era of mass media and we grew up in an era of broad testing. And there were three major networks. They were truly national. You had a couple of nightly news programs. And the next day, a lot of people back in the old days when we went into offices, we had the common experience. Well, none of that is true today. We live in an era not a broadcasting, but a narrow casting. Social media is a relatively recent phenomena. So people are able to find communities in which they feel comfortable, where they often have their own views reinforced.

There's no vetting. There's no fact checking. It's not news in many cases. It's just pure opinion or it's propaganda, whatever you want to describe it, there's no quality control. So yeah, I think the media landscape is one of the drivers of where we find ourselves politically and socially. Many of the fierce debates we've been having, some of them about the Constitution, are framed as being arguments about rights. You argue in your book that we have responsibilities as citizens or obligations. Why do they matter so much

and why should they be part of the conversation we're having over rights? Look, rights are central to the American experience. When we think about American democracy, we think of words like rights, like freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, long list, and the bill of rights. So rights are central, and indeed another way to think of American history

over the period since is the greater access to rights, civil rights, the fact that people, you know, gay people can get married under the law, so many things have changed in our society. My point is simply that rights are necessary, they're central, they're everything except sufficient. Sooner or later rights come into conflict, a mother's right to choose the rights of the unborn. Well, how do you deal with that if rights are seen as absolute, or someone's right under the Second Amendment to bear arms? Well, how about the right of public safety? Can there be any conditioning or limiting of those rights either who has access to guns or what kinds of guns? We had a fierce debate, as you recall, over the last couple of years about vaccines and masks,

about rights not to get vaccinated or wear a mask and how to that conflict with the right again to public health and public safety. So it turns out democracies can't be based on a foundation of rights alone. We've lost the balance. JFK talked about S not what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country. I don't hear a lot of that anymore. It's interesting that you mentioned the recent debate

over mask wearing and vaccinations during the COVID pandemic, because in that debate, at least, there was talk about obligations, about you are obligated as a citizen to help protect the health of others. Well, we've lost that somewhere along the way. Individual rights have been raised up to a level of absolutes, and any infringement of those is rejected by a significant percentage of our society. In my view, we can't have a society that will function only on rights, but if these rights are seen in absolute terms, we have to be prepared to compromise. We need mechanisms for dealing with the friction between different interpretations of our rights. So that was essentially the genesis of this book.

Richard has speaking on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. One way to stay informed as a citizen is to learn more about our elected representatives, members of Congress, senators and governors. The Common Ground scorecard shows how much candidates campaigning for public office demonstrate a willingness to pursue common ground? The scorecard helps voters understand how much or how little candidates work across the political aisle.

And now there's a new scorecard. It features candidates who are running for president. Find out more at commongroundscorkard.org. Now back to Richard's interview with Richard Haas. What is the difference between our obligations and requirements? I've tried to parse three words, which is obligations, responsibilities of requirements. It's pretty, uh, pre-paste.

I feel like in one of those religious scholars pouring over the text, but, uh, we'll start with requirements, requirements are just that those, those are the things you have to do Right you have to pay taxes when there's a draft you have to report You have to stop at red lights these are things you have to do and if you don't you pay a Price for it could be a fine could be a imprisonment whatever but though there's no gray area that

Responsibilities and obligations are different. Those are things you should do or ought to do. Responsibilities, I see, is a little bit more personal. We try to encourage people to assume certain responsibilities. We think they're good. Obligations are more than that. They're good things in there, but also they're things we owe one another. We do them notch best for ourselves,

but we do them because we have connections to other people in this society. We do have to some extent be our brothers or sisters keeper in order to make the larger society work, but also it's in our own self-interest. In your book you list 10 applications that we have as citizens. Let's walk through at least some of them. Two, that seem fairly obvious, but perhaps aren't to many people, but it is be involved and stay informed. Those are the first two. Jefferson basically said being an informed citizen is the single most important thing for a democracy. It's the only way to hold elected and appointed officials to account.

It's the only way to know when you do walk into a voting booth, how to vote, because you've been informed. But then you've got to walk into the voting booth. That's the most fundamental form of involvement. It turns out a significant chunk of Americans are not informed for whatever reason. They don't bother, or they go to this of that social media site, which misinforms, rather than enforce.

And look at the numbers of Americans who are not involved in our political lives. The recent midterm elections were critical by any measure. We're talking about what, 10 months ago, more than half of eligible voters didn't vote. The next three obligations are stay open to compromise, remain civil, and reject violence. Pretty basic.

Pretty basic. I always feel slightly, what's the word guilty for having to include them, because you would have thought they were pretty self-evident. Alas, not. Compromise has somehow become a dirty word in our society. Somehow if you compromise or selling your unprincipled, well, no. But not everything is a sword you die on. You have to be willing to compromise a degree often in order to get things done. There may also be some legitimacy to the other point of view. Civility doesn't, it just makes conversations possible.

And just because you disagree, you and I might disagree on an issue today. One of the good things about civility is it keeps open the possibility we could agree and work together on another issue today. One of the good things about civility is it keeps open the possibility we could agree and work together on another issue tomorrow. You avoid destroying relationships that may come in handy. The case for nonviolence is obvious. First of all, nonviolence has been proven to be a pretty successful tactic. If you look at the civil rights movement, you'll look at what Gandhi accomplished, say, in in India, but also again, if a violence becomes

a staple of our politics, that's the end of politics as we know it. The next obligation is value norms. And I was interested in that. I'm not sure, or I wasn't sure, for I read your book. What it means? What's the difference between a law and a norm? Norms are things that ought to be done, as opposed to laws or things that have to be done.

We'll use Donald Trump as an example here. The fact that he did not participate in the transfer of power and the Biden inauguration. That was the violation of a norm. There's nothing about that norm that he had to do. There's nothing in it in the Constitution. There's no legal penalty that he could find or imprisoned for that to do it.

But again, it's the kind of thing you should do, because it signals that democracy is bigger than me. It signals that for all of our political differences, we both put democracy first. What a great message to the world that that communicates. The Reagan's idea that we're shining city on a hill. Well, we never shine better than when we have a peaceful transfer of power between individuals who are political opponents. The next obligation is dear to our hearts at Common Ground Committee and this podcast, let's find Common Ground, which is promote the public good, which I'm sure includes promoting

some sense of common ground. Absolutely. It goes beyond things that you have to do that would be, there might be legal requirements, but I'm saying, short of those things, we have obligations to our fellow citizens, whether they're neighbors, co-workers, what have you. Obligation number eight in your list of 10 is,

obvious maybe to some people, but I it's I think it's taken on greater importance in recent years and that is respect Government service not necessarily Respect the actions of government, but respect people who are working for the government in most cases working for the public good 100% I hate the phrase deep state working for the government, in most cases, working for the public good. 100%. I hate the phrase deep state that implies that government has been, is hostile. No, there's people like your neighbor, your sister, your brother, your husband, your wife.

What have you? Tens of millions of Americans work in the public space at the federal level, the state level, the county level, the city level, what have you. Tens of millions of Americans work in the public space at the federal level, the state level, the county level, the city level, what have you. And we want the best and the brightest to go into government because government has such an impact on our lives. So we should value governments, we don't pay people a hell of a lot to work in government, so we already give them respect. We already give them our thanks. We have the old volunteer force in the military. We want the best and the brightest to go into that. We have a career-farring service, a career intelligent service,

and so forth. We want talented people. So my point about government is not that it's always right, of course it is, but I do want the best people to go in, which increases the odds that it will be right, and government does stuff that benefits all of us. Virtually every aspect of our life, for better and for worse, is influenced by government. I want to make it for better. The ninth obligation could really be the subject of an entire podcast, and I hope it will be with you at a future time.

And that is support, teaching of civics. It is my favorite obligation. It is the one that I spend the most time talking about so I'm happy to come back and devote a podcast to it. But yeah, I hate the idea that young people can go to a two or four year college university and if they navigate those course requirements in a clever fashion, they'll never be exposed to civics, or that many high schools and middle schools don't teach civics, or what they call civics is really not. I think our schools ought to prepare

people for citizenry. And this is a country that was based on ideas on certain values. And we're not transmitting them. So we have got to make a collective commitment. Like on many things, I'm not naive. We've politicized education, so it won't be easy. But I believe this needs to be our priority. Here we are with three years away from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I would hope that over the next three years,

we will see significant progress towards putting civics back in schools, back in colleges, back in universities, making building some consensus about what everybody ought to be exposed to. The idea is not to politically indoctrinate, but the idea is to give people an understanding of our appreciation of democracy. The 10th obligation I have to admit is a reach for many, many people. Perhaps not if you're in the military, but it's a reach for a lot of us, and that is put country first.

You're right, but isn't that a sad statement that it's a reach? It's one of those things that if you take a step back and say, this is so basic, you sure you need to use up one of your obligations on this? Isn't it obvious? And the answer is sure, it's obvious, but it doesn't mean it's always respected. It's sad that I have to advocate for it. It's sad that we can probably, the two of us, could mention some cases of where it's true. The fact that it stands out that it's an exception

is slightly like Kennedy wrote, John Kennedy wrote the book Profiles in Courage, and he wrote about, I think it was eight senators who either compromised when compromise was unfashionable or held firm against compromise when it was the right thing to do. Be hard to fill probably another volume right now. And that's not a good thing.

We should encourage people to do the right thing. As voters, we ought to reward it. Richard Haas, thank you for joining us on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm glad to see we found some common ground. Thank you for having me. Richard Haas, talking about his new book, The Bill of Obligations. You know, you can certainly argue, Ashley, about who's to blame for polarization and the threats to our democracy. But what was most interesting to me really came in the second half of the interview,

which were his solutions and how we can think a new about what it means to be a good or at least an adequate citizen. Right, and in the coming months, we hope to speak with Richard Haas again about civic education, something he's obviously really passionate about. Yeah, he argues that education should be playing a big role in helping us become more committed citizens. It won't be easy. Some local communities are just as divided about what should be taught in the schools as

congresses about government spending. So we would argue that's the reason why all of us need to be better at finding common ground. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard on Let's Find Common Ground. Our podcast team includes Common Ground Committee co-founders Bruce Bond and Eric Olson. And Mary Anglade, Brittany Chapman, Donna Vislaki and Hannah Weston. And our editor and sound designer Miranda Schaeffer.

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.