The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens by Richard N. Haas
ISBN: 9780525560654

For starters, it helps to know who Richard Haas really is. Read this. Haas characterizes himself as apolitical but he is an ideological dinosaur who was hatched in the Cold War and went on to support every manner of US intervention, most notably in Iraq. His love of democracy, if he really has one, certainly doesn’t extend beyond US borders. He bemoans diminished US influence, wants to promote a type of democracy that can stand up to Chinese intervention (even mockery) and be an example for the world to emulate. Who says the United States should aim to foist its own overripe democracy on the world? Haas goes on to talk about how the executive branch has assumed war powers from Congress but as a neoconservative he himself took full advantage of it

Haas writes, “Americans are required to observe the law, pay taxes, serve on juries, and respond to a military draft, if there is one.” Right. Just like Bone Spur Trump. Haas downplays the fact that the rights of the highest and lowest in America are vastly different. Even our obligations are different. Shouldn’t we fix this rather than making appeals to citizenship and nostalgia? Haas provides numerous examples that show how the Constitution is deformed and has led to virtually every democratic crisis in our history, but despite his own knowledge of all this, his book is about citizenship. Haas’s thesis is constructed by completely rejecting the structural inequalities and defects in law and society as primary threats to a healthy democracy. This is a sneaky little book for Liberals who want to listen to MAGA bedtime stories.

Haas tells us that fixing voting rights, making election day a holiday, making it easier to vote, eliminating barriers to voting, regulating social media, getting rid of dark money in political campaigns, offering open primaries, ending the filibuster, expanding the court, eliminating income inequality, improving education, introducing paid family leave, offering free college, student loan forgiveness, tax reform, and immigration reform – none of these things are going to do anything to fix our democracy. “This is where obligations come in: American democracy will work, and reform will prove possible only if obligations join rights at centerstage.” This is exactly the same”pull yourself up by your bootstrap, there is no racism in America” magical bullshit that MAGA America loves to sip on. In reality, we need massive structural reforms, if not a complete do-over, and then we can talk about citizenship – within a completely new context.

Haas’s 10 obligations are intended to be uncontroversial, appeal to patriotic emotion, and invoke an America of 50 years ago. But, given the state of our democracy, and the fact that we are 2 minutes to midnight before a new Fort Sumter, almost all of Haas’s prescriptions require copious caveats and exceptions:

(1) Be informed: OK; (2) Get involved: Americans waste a lot of time trying to get little single-focus groups to do something when their political institutions should be leading the charge. So get involved in what?; (3) Stay open to compromise: Within reason, but what ever happened to sticking to your guns? The last debt ceiling impasse revealed that Democrats’ idea of compromise was rolling over and sacrificing Black people; (4) Remain civil: Civility is vastly overrated. Civility is what liberals demand of those who (rudely or not) speak justice to power; (5) Reject violence: This is a strange appeal given that Haas’s necon buddies killed a million people in Iraq. And if America ends up fascist, it will be the obligation of every American to fight it; (6) Value norms: We ought to question what the norms are. Racism and American exceptionalism are norms and I don’t want any part of them; (7) Promote the common good: Fine; (8) Respect government service: This asks too much when the levers of government are usually tilted against the poor, those of color, and non-citizens – especially if those service employees are in the military, jails, border patrol, or police or work in an unjust legal system; (9) Support the teaching of civics: Not if the civics taught was concocted at Hillsdale College or promotes flag-waving neoliberalism; (10) Put country first: Why not an internationalist outlook?

This is a book that both Democratic Neoliberals and MAGA Conservatives can read because, without either caring to admit it, they share many of the same values.

If you’re considering buying this book, don’t.