Life, liberty and the pursuit of a definition of citizenship

A few weekends ago, I was flown to the old Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg to be a representative in a kind of assembly. McNeil/Lehrer Productions had chosen 47 people from around the country as part of a program on America in the 21st century. Each of us arrived with the thought, "Why me?"

None of us was a public figure in a big way. The highest-level official was the attorney general of Illinois, followed by the mayors of Nebraska City, Neb., and Youngstown, Ohio.

There had been an obvious attempt to touch certain social fence posts by including: an Episcopal bishop, a Muslim chaplain and a professor at the Catholic University of America; a fundamentalist pastor from Florida and a lesbian psychologist from San Diego; a lawyer from an Indian tribe and an organizer from the black neighborhoods of St. Louis; a high-tech businessman born in Hong Kong and a Cuban immigrant living in a FEMA trailer.

There was a woman who designs cars and another who runs a Shakespeare company. There was a lecturer from the U.S. Army War College. Besides, me there was one other editorial columnist, from the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky.

We were supposed to discuss fundamental issues — life, liberty and pursuit of happiness stuff. TV cameras would capture it and editors would make a PBS special of it, to run in 2008.

All 47 of us had opinions, but only a few made a living by marketing them, and we few tended to be more outspoken.

The McNeil/Lehrer folks divided us into four groups to debate resolutions. They further divided us into twos to write the resolutions. My co-conspirator and I were assigned to write a definition of citizenship. In five minutes we came up with this:

Citizenship means to take responsibility for ourselves and our families so that we are not an unnecessary burden on others; to keep abreast of public questions, participate in public deliberations, to speak out when necessary and serve our country in time of need; to live exemplary lives and pass on our values and wisdom to the next generation.

That would be bland enough for unanimity, I thought. But I was wrong. I have read the italicized statement to several folks and asked them to pinpoint the offending clause. So far, none of the conservatives has been able to find it. Liberals see it right away. I think of it as a kind of litmus test.

The offending phrase is, "an unnecessary burden on others."

That grated on the ear of Lisa Madigan, the Illinois AG. It put an unfair onus on the acceptance of help. She moved that the words be taken out.

"It says unnecessary burden," I said.

Still, she wanted it out, and when she made a motion to take it out a majority of our group raised their hands. But by our rules, my partner and I could leave the language in and see if the group would adopt the resolution anyway.

My partner — the Hong Kong immigrant — refused to budge, as did I.

"We leave it in," I said.

The group then voted for it. Why they did, I don't know. Maybe they agreed with it and maybe they were being nice. Niceness came in buckets that weekend. Anyway, they accepted it, and I was able to read it to all 47 delegates.

Betty Bayé of the Courier-Journal, former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, opposed it. She didn't like the idea of self-made Americans, she said. All of us had been burdens on somebody. The greatest public value, she said, is compassion.

On my side were two Asian Americans. One argued that it had been no favor to the American Indians to put them under a regime of federal compassion.

Here was a fundamental divide, though we didn't get far exploring it. I got the impression that Jim Lehrer, who was running the show, was more interested in the things that united us. There were plenty of those — but I think the divisions would make a better PBS-TV special.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is seattletimes.com">bramsey@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com