Primary Citizen Responsibility

The primary responsibility of citizens is to obey their nation’s civil and criminal laws.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

I basically agree with the stated opinion. If a country has to remain stable and progressive, having law abiding citizens is a critical success factor. If people adhere to civil and criminal laws it can help in building a utopian society. 

When citizens obey civil laws, they ensure that they at least respect other people's property, private space and modesty. They also make sure that they are considerate of other people, recycle things and keep their neighbourhood clean. By obeying criminal laws people make sure that their neighbourhood is a safe place to stay. When added incrementally over the whole nation this translates into a country with very well mannered citizens, extremely low crime rate, cleanliness and a not-so-burdened judiciary or police force. This in turn can encourage development of the country in form of foreign investment, strong domestic industry and tourism.

I am aware of the fact that it is not the only responsibility of citizens. At the end of the day the sky is the limit. However this summarizes the bare minimum a government expects from its citizens. If this is delivered then the government would find it easier to implement its own responsibilities in a better way. So even though it is not the only one, it definitely qualifies to be the primary one.

Even on a practical basis when ideas are very hard to implement or monitor, I see this as a primary responsibility. It can be argued that citizen responsibilities need to be carefully juxtaposed along-side government responsibilities and cannot be a one-way street. That a lot depends on the human development index of a country and its political scenario. I agree that in general a brutal dictatorship with extremely low human development index and suspended civil liberties has no right to expect anything from its citizens. However even if such a country at the bottom of the ladder has to make any progress, it may at least need its citizens to obey the nation's civil and criminal laws.