NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm looking for advice to help me figure something out:

What does it mean to be a citizen of a country, as opposed to someone living there? US law definitions are ok, but I'm really looking for more of a general principle.

A citizen is someone a superhero saves when they're hanging from a train trestle. :)

You wanted a general principle:

You get the full set of entitlements and obligations that your country's constitution provides.

Because of the wide variation in constitutions, it's impossible to give a useful definition which is less vague. But under entitlements, assume that for example, you get to vote in anything that's put to a vote, and under obligations, assume that for example, you get to serve in the army whether you like it or not.

There is one other general principle; that your country has the right in international law to intervene on your behalf when other countries take action which will affect you. Note that the right is not necessarily worth that much - your government may decide you don't deserve to be helped, or that good relations with the other country are more important than you are, or your government may not have enough clout that the other country will pay any attention.

Well, from what I know, being a citizen means accepting that country's language(s), laws, customs, and ways as your own, and being accepted by that country as one of their own with all rights, privleges and responcibilites thereof.

It also means swearing aligence to the goverment and the country and its people and promising to help defend/produce for the state.

-A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.
-A resident of a city or town, especially one entitled to vote and enjoy other privileges there.
-A native, inhabitant, or denizen of a particular place: “We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community” (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Well, from what I know, being a citizen means accepting that country's language(s), laws, customs, and ways as your own, and being accepted by that country as one of their own with all rights, privleges and responcibilites thereof.

It also means swearing aligence to the goverment and the country and its people and promising to help defend/produce for the state.

Actually, in most European countries, no swearing of any kind is involved in being a citizen; you're born one, you live there, you're taken for granted, that's it. I've lived in four European countries and haven't sworn allegiance to any of them, not even when I found myself working for the government of one of them.

A citizen is one who will take up arms and join the army to defend against all lifeforms either than human ie:Arachnids.

Kill them! Kill all them Bugs!

A citizen is one who lives and works in a city, and as such are exposed to culture and a broad understanding of the countries occupants.

They are contrasted with provencials who live in fairly homogenous communities and grow to believe that they entire country is just like where they live, and parts that aren't are merely lost in moral decay.

Would you like the Star Trooper definition?

Read Starship Troopers that will tell you. ;)

a citizen is someone who is achnoleged to be subject to all rights privalages and obligations by both the state and that person (i.e. you can't be a citizen if you are not recognised by the state to be one, also you can't really force people to be citizens (well you can try but if they really don't want to be one then you will have a devil of a time trying to get them to be one))

Citizens get special privileges and have special duties towards the government. These vary from country to country, but these are generally things that don't apply to residents. Another difference is that citizens have permanent residency in their country (unless some crackpot regime like the GDR kidnaps them and sets them outside of its borders for criticizing the government).

Citizens get special privileges and have special duties towards the government. These vary from country to country, but these are generally things that don't apply to residents. Another difference is that citizens have permanent residency in their country (unless some crackpot regime like the GDR kidnaps them and sets them outside of its borders for criticizing the government).

I'm sure the British government would resent you calling its 1980s regime "a crackpot one like the GDR". Throughout the 1980s, the UK had a policy of excluding certain of its own citizens who it suspected to be terrorists.