Describe a specific situation in which citizens in a democracy might justifiably not be dependent upon one another. Discuss what you think determines when citizens in a democracy should be dependent upon one another.

Let’s distinguish positive and negative rights. Positive right applies in situations where a citizen carries the expectation that another member of the public will come to their aid in a time of need. A negative right is the right to non-interference, the liberty to engage in a course of conduct without other agents influencing the planned trajectory.

A citizen of Switzerland expects to be absolved by the body politic of the onerous financial cost of an adverse medical event.  Swiss citizens are protected by positive right from ineluctable medical bankruptcy.

In the United States, a property-owner has exclusive rights over the use of their plot of land. The federal government cannot confiscate an apartment property, even in the extreme case of building condemnation, without paying a fair price for the land that apartment lies upon through the invocation of eminent domain. What’s more, to invoke eminent domain, the government must satisfy a clear and convincing standard of evidence indicating that the plot is critical to the wellbeing or security of the community.  Property owners are protected from government predation by a negative right.

What determines the right balance of positive and negative citizenship? In a representative democracy, citizens make use of the majority, or a super-majority, as the first-line of decision-making. We rely on the courts to protect the minority from a tyrannical majority, by constructing quora (juries) that may counterbalance the abuses of the reigning government or tyrannical majority in favor of the vulnerable minority or conscientious individual. At bottom, we are all ultimately dependent upon one another in a democracy, by way of the legal-legislative-juridical system, to act as and to act upon the voice of individual and collective conscience in the defense of our expectations for and against the interference of others in our vital trajectories.