The Bipartisan Assault on American Citizenship
The ideal of citizenship in the United States is under assault from powerful elements on both the left and the right. The cumulative process of dismantling American citizenship, different elements of which are supported by liberals and conservatives, is proceeding on four main legal-political fronts.
These are the continuing growth of dual and multiple citizenship among U.S. citizens; the proposed selling of U.S. citizenship to foreign mercenaries in exchange for military service to the U.S.; proposed guest-worker programs for foreign indentured servants laboring on U.S. soil; and existing affirmative action policies that create different legal-political rules for American citizens of different genetic ancestries. Many politicians support one or more of these policies without supporting the others. The acid created by the toxic interaction of these four policies is eating away at the very idea of American citizenship and threatening to render it meaningless.
The Oath of Citizenship that naturalized immigrants in the U.S. are required to recite says: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty..." What underlies this is the American theory of popular sovereignty. Democracy means that the state is the instrument of a demos, a people. A single democratic republic can only serve one demos, not two or three or twenty.
From the earliest years of the republic until 1967, the U.S. government had the power to strip Americans of citizenship if they chose foreign citizenship. Unfortunately, in 1967 the Supreme Court threw out two centuries of American law and policy and two millenia of political thought about citizenship in a republic.
Beys Afroyim, a Jewish naturalized U.S. citizen, moved to Israel in the 1950s, where under Israel's law of return, intended to provide a haven for victims of anti-semitism, all Jews of any citizenship are Israeli citizens (the law is theocratic, not racist, because Israeli rabbis decide who is and is not a Jew). When Afroyim wanted to renew his U.S. passport in 1960, the U.S. State Department refused, on the grounds that under then-existing U.S. law he had automatically lost his U.S. citizenship by voting in a foreign election. Instead of telling Mr. Afroyim to pick a country, the Supreme Court broke with precedent and ruled that the U.S. Congress has no power to ban dual or multiple citizenship without an individual's consent.
Thanks to the disastrous decision in Afroyim v. Rusk, the U.S. Oath of Citizenship is now a joke. Any U.S. citizen can swear allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty. Mexico has taken advantage of the Supreme Court's aboliton of the American tradition of unitary citizenship to grant Mexican citizenship to native-born U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, permitting them to vote in Mexican elections (and hoping that they will lobby the U.S. Congress on behalf of Mexico). Other Americans enjoy dual citizenship under Irish or British Commonwealth passports. All immigrants today can retain their old-country nationalities on becoming Americans. This explains why a surprising number of jihadists who are citizens of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries are also U.S. citizens.
Along with the American democratic republican ideal of unitary citizenship, the American ideal of the citizen-soldier is under assault today. The Founders believed that the reliance of the U.S. on a citizen army would tend to discourage militarism and imperialism. The difficulty that Army recruiters are experiencing as a result of the unnecessary and misguided Iraq War proves that the Founders were right.
Some neoconservatives have proposed that the U.S. circumvent the constraint imposed on U.S. foreign policy by the citizen-soldier ideal, by granting foreigners citizenship in return for acting as the Hessians or Foreign Legion of an American empire. Already the U.S. has created an expedited naturalization program for immigrants serving in the U.S. armed forces. The press treats this as a heart-warming human interest story, instead of as the unrepublican horror that it really is. Selling citizenship to foreign mercenaries is a time-honored technique of aristocracies and autocracies. The practice is utterly incompatible with the citizen-soldier ideal of a democratic republic.
To compound the insanity, thanks to Afroyim v. Rusk any mercenaries granted U.S. citizenship would be free to be mercenaries for other countries that decide to grant them citizenship, too--and according to the Supreme Court Congress is not permitted to pass a law to prevent this. This approach represents a regression to the sixteenth and seventeenth century Age of Absolutism in Europe, when a Scots mercenary, for example, would sell his services now to a German princeling and now to the Russian Tsar. Our eighteenth-century Founders, recalling how King George III of Britain had unleashed Hessian mercenaries from his German domains on the American patriots, regarded such practices with dread.
Some prominent members of our bipartisan elite have abandoned the American ideal of the citizen-worker, along with the ideals of the citizen-soldier and unitary democratic citizenship. In the 1990s, only far-right politicians like Tom DeLay and his fellow Texan Phil Gramm who were front men for Southwestern agribusiness supported guest-worker programs. But during the presidential race of 2004 Senator John Kerry announced his support for a guest-worker program, and his fellow Massachusetts Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy is cosponsoring guest-worker legislation with Arizona Republican Senator John McCain that would bring in 400,000 foreign indentured servants a year to labor in non-agricultural jobs like hotel jobs and restaurant jobs inside America's borders. Ruthless employers in the U.S. would like nothing more than to pit foreign indentured servants against citizen labor in the competition for jobs in the U.S. itself.
Genetic preference policies or "affirmative action" are another citizenship-subverting program that dates back to the 1960s. A case might have been made for compensatory policies for black Americans, and even the direct descendants of Asian-Americans and Latino Americans whose ancestors suffered racial discrimination before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But there was never any plausible reason why immigrants from Latin America who arrived in the U.S. after 1964 and their descendants, whose ancestors had lived in Mexico or Central America, not the pre-Civil Rights Era U.S., should get extra points in competition with those American citizens defined by the government as "non-Hispanic whites."
Knowing full well that affirmative action for immigrants infuriates the populist right, cynical non-Latino Democrats have used it as a wedge issue so they can portray themselves as the noble, altruistic defenders of Latino voters against sinister "Anglo" racists and nativists. While court rulings and popular initiatives have trimmed genetic preference policies, liberals have expended enormous energy to preserve them, while all criticism of affirmative action has been banned from liberal publications and liberal broadcast networks.
The goal of outlawing racial segregation in 1964 was to create a uniform set of civil rights for all American citizens. Ancestry-based affirmative action, which grants points to some citizens and demerits to other citizens, subverts this goal. The goal of outlawing slavery in 1865 and contract (coolie) labor in 1875 and later was to move toward a uniform set of workplace rights for all U.S. citizens. Foreign guest-worker programs, including those supported by John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, subvert this goal.
The anti-citizenship policies of elite Democrats and elite Republicans are divisive by design, not by accident. Affirmative action is used as a divide-and-rule political strategy by the elite Democratic left, while guest-worker programs and opposition to the effective enforcement of laws against illegal immigration are used in a divide-and-rule economic strategy by the elite Republican right.
While multiple citizenship and mercenary citizenship tend to blur the differences between American citizens and foreign nationals, guest-worker programs and affirmative action tend to accentuate divisions within the American citizenry (or, in the case of guest-worker programs, within the workforce laboring on U.S. soil). Multiple citizenship and mercenary citizenship erode American citizenship from without; guest-worker programs and affirmative action erode American citizenship from within.
A country in which "Hispanic whites" and "non-Hispanic whites," guest-workers and citizen-workers, are governed by different sets of rules is not a nation-state and it is certainly not a democratic republic. Thanks to the bipartisan elite's incremental dismantling of American citizenship over the past four decades, the U.S. is coming to resemble one of those incoherent old multinational empires, like the Habsburg empire or the Romanov empire, in which the elite maximized its power and wealth by pitting subordinate nationalities against one another.
Patriotic Democrats ought to unite with patriotic Republicans and agree to toss the enemies of American citizenship out of their respective parties. A bipartisan program for rescuing and restoring American citizenship is easy to define.
Dual and multiple citizenship should be outlawed, and if the Supreme Court strikes down the law as incompatible with its erroneous decision in Afroyim v. Rusk then the U.S. constitution should be amended to restore the power of Congress to mandate unitary citizenship for Americans. Americans should be citizens of only one country--the United States. Those who want to be citizens of foreign countries should renounce their U.S. citizenship and leave. Any American citizen who actively accepts the citizenship of a foreign state should be stripped of U.S. citizenship and deported. U.S. citizens should not be held responsible for the laws of return of other countries which define them as foreign citizens, unless they act on the basis of those laws--for example, by serving in a foreign military or voting in a foreign election. Any inconsistencies created by U.S. birthright citizenship for children of foreign nationals could be addressed by treaties or U.S. reform.
Granting U.S. citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service to the U.S. should be outlawed. So should expedited naturalization programs for legal immigrants who serve in the U.S. armed forces. For that matter, it's hard to see why any legal immigrants who have not yet become naturalized U.S. citizens and are still citizens of foreign countries should serve in America's citizen military. If we can't fight our wars using only American citizen-soldiers plus the citizen-soldiers of allied countries, we are fighting too many wars.
All but the most miniscule guest-worker programs should be outlawed. Almost all work done on U.S. soil should be done by U.S. citizens with identical rights, particularly the right to quit, the right to organize, and the right to vote. Temporary visiting professors from abroad and the like are acceptable, in tiny numbers. But four million guest-workers a decade in non-agricultural domestic service jobs--the number proposed by Kennedy and McCain? The very idea is profoundly un-American. Given the choice, U.S. employers will always prefer foreign indentured servants, without rights, to American citizen-workers with rights, to do jobs in the U.S. itself. The citizen-worker, like the citizen-soldier, is one of the foundations of our republic and must be defended.
All genetic preference affirmative-action policies should be outlawed. All Americans, no matter what their ancestry, should be subject to a single uniform set of laws and standards with respect to civil rights, school admissions, hiring and congressional redistricting.
Since the 1960s politicians and judges of both parties, to appease particular pressure groups or win votes from particular constituencies, have been dismantling the American republic by dismantling American citizenship, piece by piece. Voters should wake up to what has been going on, throw the enemies of American citizenship out of office and restore the American republic before it's too late.
From the earliest years of the republic until 1967, the U.S. government had the power to strip Americans of citizenship if they chose foreign citizenship. Unfortunately, in 1967 the Supreme Court threw out two centuries of American law and policy and two millenia of political thought about citizenship in a republic.
Beys Afroyim, a Jewish naturalized U.S. citizen, moved to Israel in the 1950s, where under Israel's law of return, intended to provide a haven for victims of anti-semitism, all Jews of any citizenship are Israeli citizens (the law is theocratic, not racist, because Israeli rabbis decide who is and is not a Jew). When Afroyim wanted to renew his U.S. passport in 1960, the U.S. State Department refused, on the grounds that under then-existing U.S. law he had automatically lost his U.S. citizenship by voting in a foreign election. Instead of telling Mr. Afroyim to pick a country, the Supreme Court broke with precedent and ruled that the U.S. Congress has no power to ban dual or multiple citizenship without an individual's consent.
Thanks to the disastrous decision in Afroyim v. Rusk, the U.S. Oath of Citizenship is now a joke. Any U.S. citizen can swear allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty. Mexico has taken advantage of the Supreme Court's aboliton of the American tradition of unitary citizenship to grant Mexican citizenship to native-born U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, permitting them to vote in Mexican elections (and hoping that they will lobby the U.S. Congress on behalf of Mexico). Other Americans enjoy dual citizenship under Irish or British Commonwealth passports. All immigrants today can retain their old-country nationalities on becoming Americans. This explains why a surprising number of jihadists who are citizens of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries are also U.S. citizens.
Along with the American democratic republican ideal of unitary citizenship, the American ideal of the citizen-soldier is under assault today. The Founders believed that the reliance of the U.S. on a citizen army would tend to discourage militarism and imperialism. The difficulty that Army recruiters are experiencing as a result of the unnecessary and misguided Iraq War proves that the Founders were right.
Some neoconservatives have proposed that the U.S. circumvent the constraint imposed on U.S. foreign policy by the citizen-soldier ideal, by granting foreigners citizenship in return for acting as the Hessians or Foreign Legion of an American empire. Already the U.S. has created an expedited naturalization program for immigrants serving in the U.S. armed forces. The press treats this as a heart-warming human interest story, instead of as the unrepublican horror that it really is. Selling citizenship to foreign mercenaries is a time-honored technique of aristocracies and autocracies. The practice is utterly incompatible with the citizen-soldier ideal of a democratic republic.
To compound the insanity, thanks to Afroyim v. Rusk any mercenaries granted U.S. citizenship would be free to be mercenaries for other countries that decide to grant them citizenship, too--and according to the Supreme Court Congress is not permitted to pass a law to prevent this. This approach represents a regression to the sixteenth and seventeenth century Age of Absolutism in Europe, when a Scots mercenary, for example, would sell his services now to a German princeling and now to the Russian Tsar. Our eighteenth-century Founders, recalling how King George III of Britain had unleashed Hessian mercenaries from his German domains on the American patriots, regarded such practices with dread.
Some prominent members of our bipartisan elite have abandoned the American ideal of the citizen-worker, along with the ideals of the citizen-soldier and unitary democratic citizenship. In the 1990s, only far-right politicians like Tom DeLay and his fellow Texan Phil Gramm who were front men for Southwestern agribusiness supported guest-worker programs. But during the presidential race of 2004 Senator John Kerry announced his support for a guest-worker program, and his fellow Massachusetts Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy is cosponsoring guest-worker legislation with Arizona Republican Senator John McCain that would bring in 400,000 foreign indentured servants a year to labor in non-agricultural jobs like hotel jobs and restaurant jobs inside America's borders. Ruthless employers in the U.S. would like nothing more than to pit foreign indentured servants against citizen labor in the competition for jobs in the U.S. itself.
Genetic preference policies or "affirmative action" are another citizenship-subverting program that dates back to the 1960s. A case might have been made for compensatory policies for black Americans, and even the direct descendants of Asian-Americans and Latino Americans whose ancestors suffered racial discrimination before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But there was never any plausible reason why immigrants from Latin America who arrived in the U.S. after 1964 and their descendants, whose ancestors had lived in Mexico or Central America, not the pre-Civil Rights Era U.S., should get extra points in competition with those American citizens defined by the government as "non-Hispanic whites."
Knowing full well that affirmative action for immigrants infuriates the populist right, cynical non-Latino Democrats have used it as a wedge issue so they can portray themselves as the noble, altruistic defenders of Latino voters against sinister "Anglo" racists and nativists. While court rulings and popular initiatives have trimmed genetic preference policies, liberals have expended enormous energy to preserve them, while all criticism of affirmative action has been banned from liberal publications and liberal broadcast networks.
The goal of outlawing racial segregation in 1964 was to create a uniform set of civil rights for all American citizens. Ancestry-based affirmative action, which grants points to some citizens and demerits to other citizens, subverts this goal. The goal of outlawing slavery in 1865 and contract (coolie) labor in 1875 and later was to move toward a uniform set of workplace rights for all U.S. citizens. Foreign guest-worker programs, including those supported by John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, subvert this goal.
The anti-citizenship policies of elite Democrats and elite Republicans are divisive by design, not by accident. Affirmative action is used as a divide-and-rule political strategy by the elite Democratic left, while guest-worker programs and opposition to the effective enforcement of laws against illegal immigration are used in a divide-and-rule economic strategy by the elite Republican right.
While multiple citizenship and mercenary citizenship tend to blur the differences between American citizens and foreign nationals, guest-worker programs and affirmative action tend to accentuate divisions within the American citizenry (or, in the case of guest-worker programs, within the workforce laboring on U.S. soil). Multiple citizenship and mercenary citizenship erode American citizenship from without; guest-worker programs and affirmative action erode American citizenship from within.
A country in which "Hispanic whites" and "non-Hispanic whites," guest-workers and citizen-workers, are governed by different sets of rules is not a nation-state and it is certainly not a democratic republic. Thanks to the bipartisan elite's incremental dismantling of American citizenship over the past four decades, the U.S. is coming to resemble one of those incoherent old multinational empires, like the Habsburg empire or the Romanov empire, in which the elite maximized its power and wealth by pitting subordinate nationalities against one another.
Patriotic Democrats ought to unite with patriotic Republicans and agree to toss the enemies of American citizenship out of their respective parties. A bipartisan program for rescuing and restoring American citizenship is easy to define.
Dual and multiple citizenship should be outlawed, and if the Supreme Court strikes down the law as incompatible with its erroneous decision in Afroyim v. Rusk then the U.S. constitution should be amended to restore the power of Congress to mandate unitary citizenship for Americans. Americans should be citizens of only one country--the United States. Those who want to be citizens of foreign countries should renounce their U.S. citizenship and leave. Any American citizen who actively accepts the citizenship of a foreign state should be stripped of U.S. citizenship and deported. U.S. citizens should not be held responsible for the laws of return of other countries which define them as foreign citizens, unless they act on the basis of those laws--for example, by serving in a foreign military or voting in a foreign election. Any inconsistencies created by U.S. birthright citizenship for children of foreign nationals could be addressed by treaties or U.S. reform.
Granting U.S. citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service to the U.S. should be outlawed. So should expedited naturalization programs for legal immigrants who serve in the U.S. armed forces. For that matter, it's hard to see why any legal immigrants who have not yet become naturalized U.S. citizens and are still citizens of foreign countries should serve in America's citizen military. If we can't fight our wars using only American citizen-soldiers plus the citizen-soldiers of allied countries, we are fighting too many wars.
All but the most miniscule guest-worker programs should be outlawed. Almost all work done on U.S. soil should be done by U.S. citizens with identical rights, particularly the right to quit, the right to organize, and the right to vote. Temporary visiting professors from abroad and the like are acceptable, in tiny numbers. But four million guest-workers a decade in non-agricultural domestic service jobs--the number proposed by Kennedy and McCain? The very idea is profoundly un-American. Given the choice, U.S. employers will always prefer foreign indentured servants, without rights, to American citizen-workers with rights, to do jobs in the U.S. itself. The citizen-worker, like the citizen-soldier, is one of the foundations of our republic and must be defended.
All genetic preference affirmative-action policies should be outlawed. All Americans, no matter what their ancestry, should be subject to a single uniform set of laws and standards with respect to civil rights, school admissions, hiring and congressional redistricting.
Since the 1960s politicians and judges of both parties, to appease particular pressure groups or win votes from particular constituencies, have been dismantling the American republic by dismantling American citizenship, piece by piece. Voters should wake up to what has been going on, throw the enemies of American citizenship out of office and restore the American republic before it's too late.
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"Knowing full well that affirmative action for immigrants infuriates the populist right, cynical non-Latino Democrats have used it as a wedge issue so they can portray themselves as the noble, altruistic defenders of Latino voters against sinister "Anglo" racists and nativists."
--Um, yeah, that worked out real well for us. We've sure been winning a lot of elections this way.
In all seriousness, this post doesn't address any factual issues. Specifically, the guest-worker plans are popular mainly because we can't control the borders very well, because levels of legal immigration are set far too low. The real fix is fixing immigration, not inveighing with some mystical concept of classical citizenship.
August 3, 2005 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael-
It's strange to point to the 60s as the period when the "ideal of citizenship" was undermined. In fact, double standards for citizenship pervaded our history, slave and free and Jim Crow being the most obvious, but multiple standards on which race qualified for quotas for entry to the US would repeatedly be introduced.
In a world where capital can move easily across borders, why should people have to give up links to a home country where they have roots? Especially given the toxic history of the border created with Mexico, it seems especially odd to think that some blurring of nationality is so wrong.
And the idea that all that was needed to end racism was Title VII is completely wrongheaded. Affirmative action exists precisely because private racism is so pervasive that you need not "special" help for anyone, but active scrutiny of decisions to assure any equality.
Racism is still so prevalent that a white person with a felony is more likely to be offered a job than a black person with no record and the same credentials. And latinos face similar racism in hiring decisions.
And the big question hanging over your whole post is who gave anyone the right to shut the borders. White people stole this land from sea to shining sea, so they have little grounds for claiming moral right to keep others out. If there is anything that justifies that history of manifest destiny, it's those words on Lady Liberty offering the benefits of this land to others seeking opportunity. If your argument is that we should open the borders and grant citizenship to those seeking to come, then I would agree.
But a citizenship should be built on voluntary love of this country, not a coercion that demands forgetting one's past and family links.
August 3, 2005 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
August 3, 2005 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, and let's restore the statue of Athena to the Capitol rotunda . . . oh, wait--I got confused there for a minute about which status quo ante Lind is talking about!
In all seriousness, reality waves bye-bye to Lind, whose perfectly rigorous ideal of citizenship, while noble and profound, bears no recognizable relation to how life is lived on Earth today. Sorry, Michael!
August 3, 2005 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's an error in the article: the Israeli Law of Return admits people who are not Jews by the religious definition, but are Jews by Hitler's racial definition. For example, an atheist whose father is a Jew but whose mother is not, is eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.
August 3, 2005 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your discussion about the problem with dual citezenship is defintely apparent and it should be addressed, but I think that its wrong to assume that dual citzenship should automatically be abolished. The many reasons that citizenship is so screwed up in our country has much more to do with the fact that we grant citzenship to anyone born in this country. No baby is ever responsible for any oath nor will he/she ever will be, so by what act of volition did this person say they wanted to be a citizen of the United States. It is acts of volition that have consistently muddled the problem with citzenship , since how does a person truly denounce their US citezenship if they vote in another country. Especially if the country gives citizenship "willy nilly". Can another country granting a person citizenship automatically nullify citizenship of our country, especially if the citizenship of another country does not have the same standards of "loyalty" as ours does?
Citizenship, especially dual citizenship, is a tricky issue since citizenship means so many different things to so many different people. I really don't think that dual citizenship is going to be the end of our republic though, I think that you need to chill. Also affirmative action and guest-worker programs really don't belong in this post. There are much more complicated problems inherent with citizenship that these two really didn't make much sense in the context: You view affirmative action and guest -worker programs as detrimental to the equality and substantial qualities as what it means to be a citizen respectively, but there are many problems that could be used for either traits. Not to mention that intent of both are far from trying to attack citizenship. I believe affirmative action is in place to try to make things "more equal", not to tip the scales for any race, and the guest-worker program's intent is monitor immigration where there is already a rampant amount of illegal immigration. There are obvious problems with both affirmative action and guest-worker programs, but neither really have much to do with the problem of citizenship as in the form of dual/multi citizenship.
-G. New
August 3, 2005 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're just getting mroe nomadic, as a global culture. It's not that dramatic yet, but I'd love to see some deal where an American worker could, with little hassle, head to Canada, Mexico or anywhere in Europe, with little hassle (but where they also can't be forced to go where they don't want to go). The way I see it, I'd like the option, so long as it's only my choice, of working in London or Paris to be as easy as deciding to got from NYC to Seattle. I'd like other people to have that option too.
August 3, 2005 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too have a serious problem with giving foreign nationals citizenship in return for service in our military. That isn't merceniary, it is a far more insidious practice. At least with merceniaries the only thing promised is compensation.
US citizenship should mean something. I am always moved when I see the Oath of Citizenship being taken by people who have left their homelands to be part of our great country. And the meaning of citizenship is tarnished when it is used as a partisan political strategy by either party.
My parents came over from Italy, literally on a boat, in the 1930's. They eventually became US citizens. They had nothing!! My father worked the tobacco fields of Connecticut to put himself through school, while going to school at the same time. He got his degree in electrical engineering and made a comfortable life for him and his family, from nothing. That is what America should be about. Legally entering the country, then through hard work and desire for betterment, making a good life for one's self and family. Anything less diminishes what the America should represent and is the wrong message to send our newest citizens.
August 3, 2005 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... Affirmative Action is destroying American citizenship?
Wow. I woudl have expected that on Littel Green Footballs or Instapundit, but never on a Democratic blog!
August 3, 2005 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, exclusivity of citizenship was long central to equality of citiizens within this republic, albeit also long deformed by notions of equality that were limited to one race, one religion, or, now often, one language.
And, yes, elites of the left and right have converged on a set of policies described by M. Lind that subvert political equility and promote the political-economic privileges of bi-partisan concession-tenders.
And, yes, this started in the 60's but really took hold during the early 70's, when an all-out assualt on the structure of wages began that has now succeeded in crippling our political economy and, I think also, our national security.
But, no, I do not think that "patriotic" elements from both parties can or will agree to restore the republican foundations of our democracy based on M. Lind's crude policy prescriptions, nor do I think that the exclusivity of an American "exceptionalism" is quite the answer.
Let me suggest, alternatively, (a) that only the Democratic Party, purged of its already decrepit concession-tending elite, has the potential of restoring republican instiutions today and (b) that those institutions could be more cosmopolitan and more egalitarian in fact than previously.
Specifically, I would -- and in the context of Texas do -- propose that my state provide for dual citizenship for our expatriates by extending a local franchise (county/municipal elections) to, for instance, Mexican nationals working or residing here and voting in Mexican national elections and campaigns conducted here by the Mexican government and parties in reciprocation for extending a local franchise (county/muncipal elections) to expatriate Texans working or residing in Mexico with comparable access to our statewide ballot.
This is not an ambiguous notion of citizenship as one citizenship would clearly be primary. It is egalitarian and was the practice for French nationals living and working in New Orleans during much of the nineteenth century. It provides for equal application and protection of law wherever the requisite reciprocity can be realized, in fact, in county/municipal contexts where people actually live.
The key to this, I believe, is restoring the notion of a military obligation coterminous with suffrage as the nexus of citizenship. Both of these archaic notions -- militia obligation and suffrage -- are manifestations of popular and state sovereignty, admittedly archaic. Your right to "keep and bear arms" and "to vote" along with the power of a free state to call you to those arms are, I think, the very definition of a republic.
In the case of a federal republic, one is "naturalized" by a Federal Judge, but thereby becomes a citizen of one of the several states, only one state at any one time. Clearly, that is not quite as "natural" as it used to be when Americans were not very mobile and tended to live in racially isolated circumstances.
Today, we all live on a barrier island a few microvolts away from the "admiralty" of "cyber-space". So, the citizenship claims of identity need a secure "meta-system of digital identity" -- to use Microsoft's phrase.
Once, the Navy Colt defined Texas citizenship and sovereignty. Today, I think it should be something on the order of the Dallas Semiconductor DS-1954 "iButton". The first was a pistol. The second is a digital authentication device supporting strong, trused cryptography. It is a practical way to restore republican equality and exclusivity but also republican reciprocity in the context of a national economy that is not as "global" as the nineteenth but more than the twentieth century.
Lind would base republican citizenship on equalty, exclusivity, and exceptionalism. I would base it on equality, exclusivity, and reciprocity. He would do so crudely, looking backwards. I would do so rigorously, looking forward. But, we agree on the present chaos and decrepitude.
August 3, 2005 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
My father came over on a boat in 1935. My grandfather stayed longer and didn't make it out. If I thought I could swing dual citizenship anywhere, you can bet I'd be looking into it right now. Sure, I'd probably never need it, but that's the kind of thinking that landed my ancestor at the bottom of a river. And I think I would be a better American citizen for knowing that if the government here abandons the principles I was raised with, I could oppose it with all my power without becoming a stateless refugee or worse.
Shrill and alarmist? Of course. But then so is anyone who talks about how foreigners and foreign-identified Americans are underming citizenship without talking about the folks who are working to make all citizens' rights and responsibilities a dead letter. Unwilling to follow Nathan Hale or Patrick Henry's shining example? Probably. But I'm not calling for anyone else to do so either.
August 3, 2005 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a lovely idea that the historical circumstances of citizenship should now form the basis of the legal requirements of citizenship...
"What is your name?"
"Rupert Murdoch!"
Whistle! Crack!
"Your name is...TOBY!"
Apologies to just about everybody whom I must have offended.
August 3, 2005 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have had similar thoughts for a while now, but never applied to policy like you've done here. My initial reaction is that your discussion of these policy areas only addresses secondary symptoms and not the actual disease. Likewise, your proposals may well have good effect, but they don't speak to the wider reform and repentance that is needed. A much wider discussion on this topic is essential.
I also mourn the loss of the republican concept of citizenship. I see several causes for its decline:
1. Imperialism - The loss of our republic and the self-delusion and self-justification necessary to continue seeing ourselves in a positive light are beginning to truly and profoundly affect our national character. Whether it's a move toward a profound reinvention or a crisis that will lead to repentance and restoration remains to be seen.
2. Corporate power/globalization - As Jefferson said, "The merchant has no country." That's at least as true now as in his time. But with so many of the middle class now tied through their 401k's to the fortunes of the corporate powers it's a truism that has much greater import today.
3. Libertinism/Individualism - Without at least some minimum level of dedication (and submission) to community and the common good there can be no republic and there is no such thing as citizenship. More and more Americans are viewing themselves as completely autonomous units.
4. Consumerism - We are no longer 'citizens'; we are 'consumers'. We are children. We are what Nietsche called 'last men'. Our primary function is no longer to participate and serve in the life of our communities but to, like cows, consume whatever slop is placed before us by the political and commercial plutocrats running the farm.
August 3, 2005 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
August 3, 2005 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Disagree with most of this, but I'll limit my comment to Affirmative Action.
Affirmative Action is there because people still face discrimination. A racist doesn't give a SHIT where your ancestors are from.
To make a case that we should get rid of affirmative action simply because we don't know if they're discriminating against "home-grown" non-whites versus immigrant non-whites is, quite frankly, is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a while.
As much as the pie-in-the-sky dreamers want to think so, not everyone has an equal chance to "make it" in this country.
August 3, 2005 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
do you understand the rating system? It's mainly meant to control trollishness, a community self-policing system.
I find it pretty nasty to rate someone badly for thanking someone, like you did to Emma Zahn. Do you have something against people saying they like a post?
August 3, 2005 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"do you understand the rating system?"
Actually...I didn't. I'm new here. My apologies.
"It's mainly meant to control trollishness, a community self-policing system."
Gotcha. I redid my ratings.
"I find it pretty nasty to rate someone badly for thanking someone, like you did to Emma Zahn. Do you have something against people saying they like a post?"
Absolutely not. Just didn't understand the context of the ratings. Again, apologies to both you and Emma.
August 3, 2005 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
A definite requirement for citizenship should be a reasonable understanding and ability to use English. I have worked with several people who came from non-English-speaking nations, helping them to study for their citizenship exams. Knowing English is necessary for them to assimilate into our society, and should be a baseline requirement.
August 3, 2005 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a very important post, and one in which I am in total agreement. Of course, you could have mentioned that George W. Bush proposed his guest worker plan even earlier than John Kerry. Wasn't Bush pushing for this back in 2001, before 9/11?
I think the guest worker program would be a disaster for unskilled American workers, and some skilled ones as well. How is the government, which can't even guard our Mexican border, going to regulate the influx of 400,000 workers per year? How are they going to ensure that fair wages (not just minimum wages) are paid? Who is going to make sure that no American workers were left in the cold? Millions of Americans are unemployed right now, so I can't believe there is such a need for able-bodied people. What we need are higher wages to support an American standard of living.
Anyway, great post. You will surely receive criticism but I agree with you 100%. Both parties, for various reasons, have sold out what makes America a strong country.
I would also add that the policy of granting amnesty to any Cuban who touches our soil also diminishes citizenship. Our backward diplomacy towards Cuba aside, Cuban citizens should not receive free passes into this country. All foreigners should be treated the same.
August 3, 2005 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
generally, if you give someone a "not helpful" rating, it would be nice if you gave an explanation.
I'd like to know. And I bet all the other people with posts you rated a two would like to know, as well.
You may disagree with me, but is that necessarily "not helpful?"
August 3, 2005 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
For much more on the assault on American national identity from left and right, see:
- "The Opt Out Society: The GOP Threat to National Unity and the American Social Contract."
For the dangers from the left, see:
- "Identity Politics and the Threat from the Left"
August 3, 2005 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"generally, if you give someone a "not helpful" rating, it would be nice if you gave an explanation."
Sorry. See #17.
Brand new here and didn't understand the context of the ratings. Been trying to get rid of them but apparently they can't be updated back to "none".
Sorry for de-railing the conversation and acting outside the forums norms.
August 3, 2005 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You wrote ... "As much as the pie-in-the-sky dreamers want to think so, not everyone has an equal chance to 'make it' in this country. "
Affirmative action helps to make it so that this state of affairs is perpetuated.
I grew up in a society that had once of the largest affirmative action programs this nation has ever seen. It was called segregation in the American South (Atlanta). Whites were always given preference. Perhaps an argument could be made for affirmative action programs that favored blacks, at least for a while to jumpstart to move to full equality. However, those efforts are outdated now. Blacks (or any others) who apply themselves can have every advantage this country offers. If they are poor, it is more difficult. I know, because I grew up as a poor white, and it was difficult, but that is because of poverty, not race.
Affirmative action is a concept that goes against the American spirit. Our Constitution, as it has evolved, does not favor one person over another as far as rights. As long as we have such built in injustices as segregation and affirmative action, we can never have a just society for all of our citizens, so we should reject such artificial manipulations.
August 3, 2005 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for both correcting it and explaining. Personally, I don't at all mind getting a two rating, but it should be for a good reason. You'll see, as you spend more time here and on other blogs, how things generally work.
But if you disagree with someone, it's much better to just say why. Arguing is highly valued!!!
Giving low ratings without explainations makes you look like a "troll," which is someone who purposely sets out to get the conversation off track, or is here just to make trouble.
And, ps, I gave you 5's. :-)
August 3, 2005 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Consumerism - We are no longer 'citizens'; we are 'consumers'.
At the risk of sounding Marxist, I couldn't agree more. This is the biggest problem here.
Made worse by the Bush Administration, which treats every issue like a product that has to be "sold" to the public. Fake journalists, fake WMD, fake global warming reports -- it's all a sell to them.
August 3, 2005 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the problems with affirmative action is the same problem with the Vietman War and the war in Iraq. The justification for it keeps changing calling into question the whole idea. Originally affirmative action was based on the idea that there were Blacks and members of other chosen groups who could do any particular job but because of rascism institutions did not seek out those talented individuals.
When greater efforts to find Blacks for schoools and jobs did not produce enough applicants there was the first change of reasoning. Now it was that these institutions had acted in a rascist manner in the past and they had to make up for that rascism. It now mattered less if the member of the prefered group could do the job or pass the test, indeed they were made easier, to atone for prior rascism.
As years of affirmative action elapsed. It was harder and harder to prove rascism on the part of various institutions. Now there was another shift. It was now minorities need role models and so colleges and employers need to admit so many group members even if they can't do the job and the institution has no demonstrated history of rascims.
While the white man's angst is greatly over done when it comes to affirmative action. How many Blacks head Fortune 500 companies or are presidents of universities? However, there is a problem with a permanent program that says certain minorities really aren't up to the task so we must push aside members of other groups.
Affirmative action no matter how noble its motive like welfare is the cheap way out. It is easy to just let people into institutions they are not ready to deal with. It would have been a lot better but much more difficult is schools, training and general effort were created and expended to get all members of society prepared to college, and jobs.
August 3, 2005 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertinism -- is kind of a natural response to the government we have. Remember, the Bush agenda is to push all sorts of risk (for retirement, for healthcare, for the economy at large) onto the individual -- the rational reponse is to try to get whatever you can in order to be compensated for enduring that risk.
But, there are also deeper issues. I was born in America, which gives me lots of advantages. But how do I know that I wouldn't be happier in Western Europe? Citizenship is, in the end, just a label you get at birth. My problem with this whole topic is that "Citizenship" is often an impediment to individual happiness. It'd be nice if people could choose, freely where and how they want to live.
August 3, 2005 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blacks (or any others) who apply themselves can have every advantage this country offers. If they are poor, it is more difficult.
I agree to an extent. But poverty and race are intertwined. So, it's really the same problem.
And while our Constitution may have evolved, employers have not.
August 3, 2005 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are injustices that need to be addressed. However, using one injustice to right another injustice does not get rid of injustice, it merely perpetuates it in a different incarnation. Our goal as Democrats should be to get rid of injustice.
August 3, 2005 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, that was hilarious. But, the real world scenario would go like this...
JERK SLAVE OWNER GUY: What is your name?
MURDOCH: CEO of News Corp, a multibillion dollar conglomerate!
JERK SLAVE OWNER GUY: Uh... Whatever you say, sir. Would sir like an apperitif?
MURDOCH: Go whip my son!
JERK SLAVE OWNER GUY: Right away, massa!
Okay, now I'm the offensive one.
August 3, 2005 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
hey thanks for answering! cheers.
August 3, 2005 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. ~
August 3, 2005 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, sadly, this is a complete waste of electrons and brain power.
I can't even quite figure out what notion of citizenship is being advocated or defended here. There are kinds that are evidently considered wrong, but there is no allusion or argument here for the merits, if any, to the notion that is being advocated.
I'm one of those citizenship straddlers. I'm simply sitting on a Green Card and (essentially nominal) foreign citizenship because there's no advantage to changing it- the waste of time involving visas and such to travel which I don't need to as things are is ridiculous. I could literally walk into an INS office tomorrow and apply for full U.S. citizenship, and as I'm in a quota group that is never maxed out it wouldn't be any more difficult than getting a renewal of my driver's licence, but if you go for things that way they nominally make you swear off 'allegiance to a foreign power' (last I checked, anyway). No one I know from the country I come from, or the EU in general, actually ever abides by this- everyone "forgets" to inform their embassy (most other countries are unitary citizenship ones) and renews their passports with whatever deviousness. I'm just too disgusted by it to do likewise.
In essence it's silly and grotesque stuff. The 19th century is over, the tribalism aka patriotism and the pious and simplistic version of citizenship is beside the point.
That being said, while there are lots of people with no interests other than selfinterest in their approach to this stuff, they do on the whole take citizenship seriously. If there weren't a lot of asinine barriers to travel and portability of financial benefits and the like, intended to cheat average non-citizens of equitable treatment, no one would bother with multiple citizenships.
I would also point out that what the Right in the U.S. is going is all about taking the bottom out of and rendering meaningless the 14th Amendment civil rights guarantees of citizenship. That amounts to destroying citizenship as a coherent concept, i.e. turning it into one that protects and extends your rights in direct proportion to the money you put into the system of lawyers and other gatekeepers, the neighborhood you buy into, etc.
On fundamental principles, ultimately the only true and enduring principle in immigration law is that the host society makes the rules. The rules are perfectly situational, generally reflective purely of the level and focus of racism and amount/kind of cheap labor force desired. There can be and is no consistency at an abstract level.
I'd agree with this vaguely provincial rant if I believed the U.S. held itself to standards involving citizenship. But it doesn't at the moment. I admire the people who work in American immigration for doing the best they can to do good work. There is rot in business and plenty of it. Unfortunately, it emanates from the American Right rather than from outside the borders.
August 3, 2005 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
An unspeakably brilliant post, but of course one might ask whether the Democrat and Republicans elites (and this includes the large pool on both sides who pretend not to be) have any desire or intention of arresting America's slouch towards empire and plutocracy (which one gathers would be the point of restoring the value of citizenship). This has been the general direction of things since at least the end of the second world war, and of course the process accelerated significantly in the late 1960s with the Republican realignment, the end of the gold standard, and the shifting of taxation and risk from the wealthy and corporations to the middle class (which happened with generous Democratic support).
It's difficult not to be cynical. I don't much trust the moderate, establishmentarian wing of the Deomcratic Party that is well represented here (although it is spilling over the sides with people much smarter and probably nicer than me). And I think the "reform" wing of the party deludes itselfs if it believes that the kind of change that will be necessary to restore American (small r) republicanism and put plutocracy (and hell maybe even theocracy-lite) back in its box can come now by way of the electoral process. The American people are just too afraid of terrorism to not vote for Republican presidents, and it could take another decade for Democrats to wrest control of congress. By then it will likely be too late to undo the damage the Bush Republicans have done.
The only hope we have of saving this republic from fully metamorphasizing into a pseudo-democratic, corporatist imperium is a velvet, citizen's revolution, demanding a new constitutional convention, the protection of sovereignty, a fair deal for the middle class, spreading the burden of global security around among democracies, an end to legalized bribery (from corporations and other special interests), and an end to our dependence on oil.
August 3, 2005 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
While Lind has raised a number of issues that need broad debate, he is all wrong on Affirmative Action -- largely because he has ignored the historical context that led to its inclusion in the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.
In the several years prior to the bill's passage, I was part of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights -- the unbrela organization that created the common front for legislative purposes, and got a very thorough education in the rational for both the process and the legal roots of what was done.
It hasn't the first thing to do with citizenship. The LCCR made an early decision NOT to adopt either process or legal doctrines that were untested in the courts. Thus for process, we adopted the National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law tradition, which had been tested many times since the 1930's, in creating the EEOC. It is actually a little Ironic that Thurgood Marshall who was in the LCCR representing NAACP initially objected to this decision. He advocated the appointment of many additional District Judges, and strict injunctive relief as the best process -- but he eventually went along with the majority. For Legal Context, we adopted Veteran's Preference Law as our model -- something that actually went back to the Revolutionary War when Veterans, disadvantaged economically by their military service, received land grants in Liu of compensation. Veteran's Preference had been tested in the courts for at least 180 years at the time we adopted it -- and with few exceptions it had stood the test of time. This was a supurb decision on the part of the LCCR, because by tying Affirmative Action to Vet Preference Case Law we essentially rooted it all in 180 years of supportive case law. The added advantage was that it appealed to many legislators of that day -- when you explained that it was much like the GI Bill of Rights they quickly got it -- and could explain it at home.
Without question, there have been flaws in the application and administration of the law. One that we barely appreciated in 1964 was how quickly what then was called "automation" or Cybrynetics" would change the structure of the workplace and economy. 1964 was just the cusp of those changes. But in the end, it has nothing at all to do with "citizenship."
August 3, 2005 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno... Why should strict adherence to English take the front seat to the concept that a citizen must understand--and be able to articulate--the concepts on which this country was founded. Such a concept may, following Mr. Lind's arguments, go much further in maintaining a national identity than requiring English proficiency; see, e.g., all of the English-speaking 'Mericuns who cannot identify where they live on a map, much less accurately communicate the meaning of the Constitution.
August 3, 2005 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
A really interesting post here, Mr. Lind. One question, however: How many of our current problems--and the problems faced by just about every other nation on the face of the planet--are founded in a fervent nationalism such as the one you espouse? I am remined of the Einstein quote, "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." If policy suggestions such as those suggested above were to be put into place, would it not further entrench "the measels of mankind"?
August 3, 2005 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
this post raises several issues. I will let the issue of dual citizenship and affirmative action be responded to by others. I will only address the comments on immigration.Much of this post asserts a history which never existed. Recall, at the time of the founding of our nation, we were all immigrants. During much of the 19th. century a large portion of working people were immigrants. The highpoint of immigration came in the 1890- 1910 period with European immigrants, including Italians. You have your history all wrong.Second, I assume that you mean U.S. Citizen rather than American citizen. America is one of two continents. There are 23 nations in the americas. So, now we are down to reality. You are incensed at current immigration, largly Latino and Asian. This shift came after the 1965 Civil Rights act wich made discrimination illegal. I live in California. California is changing. It changed in 1832; it changed after 1849, it changed after 1945, and it is changing again. That does not produce fear and frustration in me. We know from numerous studies that 2n.d and 3rd. generation immigrants are very similar to 2nd. and 3rd. generation immigrants in earlier periods. ie. Italians, Jews, etc.They become English dominant. They become Americanized.
Several references were made to Texas. lets see.Texas was a part of Mexico. In 1836, a small minority of Slave owning Southern planters ( and a few Mexicans) rose up against the Mexican government One of their primary complaints was that Mexican law refused to acknowledge slavery. So, they declared independence. How is it that this group of slave owners became the model "American" which all others had to assimilate to?Mexicans and Indians have as much right to Texas and California (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico) as do those now screaming to "close the borders".
Mass immigration is a fact of life. It is produced by economic upheavals in the world. Get used to it. This is only the beginning. As long as you have an advanced economy in one area, and a impoverished economy near by, you will have migration. That is how, and why, the Irish, the Italians, the Finns, the Germans, and all the others came to the U.S.NAFTA and CAFTA will increase immigration.
And, while you are trying to end migration, you need to find a way to fund social security. With out the 4 million plus undocumented workers here- workers who pay into social security but are unable to claim benefits- our social security system would go broke in less than one year.
for more on this seewww.dsausa.org/antiracism
Duane Campbell
August 3, 2005 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's simple. If we all speak the same language, then we all have achieved the first step on the road to equality in our society. If we can't understand the words being spoken by one another, we can never be one people.
August 3, 2005 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS I didn't mean to suggest in that last post that I don't trust moderate, establishmentarian types in any moral or ethical sense, only that they failed to deliver the country to Democrats over the past couple election cycles, and that mix of third-way conventionalism at home and liberal internationalism abroad just isn't selling anymore. That wouldn't matter all that much if so much wasn't now at stake.
August 3, 2005 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sara: I'll have to research this further, but if it's true that Affirmative Action was rooted in veteran's rights case law, I would have to call this brilliant maneuvering. Somewhere along the line the marketing failed, though. This is the first time I've heard the GI Bill comparison.
I've always been more than a little mystified by the wide ranging, sometimes visceral, reactions to Affirmative Action. In any case...
It strikes me that there are two basic rationales for AAction. The first is a compensatory rationale - something of value to replace something lost or taken. Though, telling one group of people that another group will be compensated for something will always sit poorly because it's difficult for people to connect the past with the present. One hundred years after slavery ended, many people in 1964 were asking why they were getting penalized for something they had nothing to do with. The same thing was true for Japanese internment compensation. Just ask the seriously flawed Malkin.
The second rationale, I would say, is that it is beneficial to the country to ensure that all segments of our population have a sound economic and social foundation. Ironically, we can see the benefits of reconstructing enemies, i.e. Germany, Japan, Iraq, but become blind when it comes to our own populations who suffer injustice.
Of course, if one looks at the African-American and related races and ethnicities of 1964 and sees a population with the tools and opportunities to succeed, and fairly, then there really isn't any point to discussing this topic.
On the other hand, if one is able to discern inequality, and especially from injustice, why wouldn't the same principles applied to rebuilding foreign entities in times of war be used to (re)build U.S. communities in times of struggle? Why didn't we just tell Germany to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?
As a "bootstraps" aside, there is not a person on the face of the planet who has pulled themselves up by there own bootstraps. Anyone claiming to have performed this remarkable bit of levitation is self-deluding or too narcissistic to take their eyes off of their own reflection.
August 4, 2005 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Lind: A well-written and ardent post. But this sounds like your hot-button topic - I guess the word for this kind of post is manifesto - and I still have no clue why. If you'd have asked me earlier to list the top twenty problems we have as a nation right now, "citizenship issues" wouldn't have been on the list. And after reading this thread, it still isn't.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's worth discussing on some level. But first, you have yet to explain why defending a broad 'ideal of citizenship' is so important. I've always assumed that in our post-modern world, citizenship is a mutable concept: fully capable of changing to meet our needs and wishes. The fact that the role of citizenship has been abused by the powers-that-be is disturbing and surely worth some counteraction, but why do we need to cling to some pure and Platonic ideal of citizenship in order to combat the trend?
I'm simply not offended by the fact that some American citizens feel allegiance to another country too. There might be some pragmatic dilemmas involved, sure, but we can handle them with, uh, pragmatism. Laws to prevent dual- or foreign-citizenship people from joining the armed forces, for example; it's a possible conflict of interest. Illegal immigrants are being exploited to depress U. S. wages, so let's carefully examine the law and find a way to change that. See? No ideological zealotry needed.
Also, you've got to address the obvious counterpoints in advance. The most obvious is race. Talking about race as "genetic difference" may be fair, in a technical sense, but it's rhetorically misleading - it allows you to conveniently ignore the stated purpose of most affirmative action programs, which is to gradually make race measurably irrelevant in the economic and political senses, in order to heal the "divisions within the American citizenry". You claim they engender these divisions instead, but I have little clue why you think so and not otherwise. Without addressing this basic point, your penultimate paragraph denouncing affirmative action sounds more like Pat Buchanan's sound-byte chaff than a well-formulated argument.
Bottom line: if you want to convince me that the dysfunctional approach to citizenship in America has clear negative consequences (beyond being ideologically unaesthetic), consequences that wouldn't be replaced with something worse if we follow your policy prescriptions, you need to demonstrate three things. First, that you're not just a zealot for abstraction - why is the 'ideal of citizenship' worth defending, and why should we define citizenship-related battles in those terms? Second, that you'll give due consideration to the obvious opposing viewpoints. As it is, you've given no sign that you're familiar with the critical race theory underlying affirmative action, so I'm not going to assume you're secretly hoarding an effective counter-argument for it. Intellectual integrity gives me no choice but to ignore your plea, and hope for a more cogent argument later.
And finally, you need to acknowledge that the measures you propose will have some serious negative and/or extreme consequences. Erasing a well-established legal precedent (talk about your legal activism), abolishing migrant labor and existing dual-citizenship arrangements, eliminating affirmative action in both public and private life - it doesn't take much of a risk-taking instinct to bet these could end up being politically, economically, or socially disasterous. Address these concerns, please.
Until then it'll sound like you're most interested in defending abstract concepts, and less interested in addressing real needs. And that bothers me, especially when immigration in particular is an eggshell issue for Democrats, a topic that could eventually shatter our already-flimsy coalition. In purely political terms, immigrant issues are a hot potato and at the very least, we shouldn't tackle it with zest unless our arguments progress the current narrative into a fresh understanding. This argument can't accomplish that because it wholly ignores the narrative.
I respect your opinions, and I think you've skillfully welded several issues together under the 'citizenship' mantle. But if you're going to bring up this topic, do so boldly yet with due respect to the intellectual territory. In your piece I saw too much of the former and none of the latter.
August 4, 2005 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
No need to be so apologetic, forestwalker.
My observation is that even the long time contributors here mostly rate comments based upon the extent to which they agree with the comment, not the quality or appropriateness
of the arguement as intended.
It's human nature and most people can't resist.
August 4, 2005 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we found another area where moderates and liberals differ?
August 4, 2005 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you can explain to me how denying rights to one citizen based on race/gender/religion/etc. to correct the injustice of denying rights to another citizen a half-century or more before based on race/gender/ethnicity/etc. is not injustice, then I'll sign on to affirmative action.
I can fully support extra effort to jumpstart the move to equality where discrimination has existed, but denying rights to one citizen to give rights to another based on race/gender/religion/etc. is not a good policy and should be rejected by the Democratic Party any time it rears its ugly head as a proposal.
August 4, 2005 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll reverse it: how will removing all AA help eliminate the discrimination that still exists?
Seems to me someone's going to get caught on the short end either way.
But how else can you jumpstart the move to equality otherwise?
August 4, 2005 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think AA says "minorities aren't up the task." I think it recognizes the fact that we don't have a level-playing field. That some people, because of where they were born, have two strikes against them.
August 4, 2005 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
If AA does not presume minorities are not up to the task why the attack on standardized test after standardized test? At what point do you say the effects of the bigotry that clearly exists here and everywhere else in the world is no longer so overwhelming that AA is no longer appropriate? High school, college, graduate school such as law or medical or afterwards. If the answer is never then you are presuming that minorities are not otherwise up to the job.
August 4, 2005 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
You asked ... "I'll reverse it: how will removing all AA help eliminate the discrimination that still exists? "
Perhaps you are accepting that some types of discrimination in applying Contitutionally-guaranteed rights are worse than others. In that case, you can make your value judgements and support affirmative action. I don't believe that way. I see all discrimination as bad, and believe that we should work to eliminate all forms of discrimination, including affirmative action, which discriminates against one for the benefit of another. The Constitution and its derivative laws should apply equally to all citizens. In cases where it does not, we eliminate the discriminatory practices. However, we do not substitute a different form of discrimination to eliminate discrimination and call that eliminating discrimination, and Democrats would do well to recognize this truth.
August 4, 2005 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whenever I hear someone demand the end of affirmative action, I reply that I would support it, if it were phased out in conjunction with the end of local school financing. The unequalites of our public school systems makes any talk about who is and isn't discriminated against as adults pointless.
August 4, 2005 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is nice to talk about an assult on a concept, but where are the victims? This is a very long, passionate article, but in all that text, I have not seen a single mention of who specifically is suffering from USA admitting dual citizenship of some of its citizens. Except, perhaps, for Mr. Lind and others, worried about the (loss of) purity of the citizenship oath.
So, who are the victims? Who is being hurt by the fact that some people who have lived in the US for 10-15 years do not hate their country of origin, maintain close ties to it, and do not want to have to request a visa to go back to visit their parents? Not everyone who comes to America in search of the oft-advertised "better life" is doing it because (s)he hates the country (s)he was born in.
There is a number of reasons for someone who is planning on living in the US to seek US citizenship, the most important being the ability to participate in the electoral process from local elections onwards --- something, the readership of this site can probably only welcome. I have lived in this country for a number of years, and personally, I am tired of my inability to have a say in how the place I live in is run, despite obeying all the same laws and paying all the same taxes. So, when the time comes - heck, yes, I will seek the citizenship.
At the same time, I see no reason why I should abandon my current citizenship. Part of this is pure convenience - it is convenient for me to hold dual citizenship. It is inconvenient for me to recind my original citizenship. But even if the sole reason and justification for dual citizenship would be convenience - why not? Outside of some catastrophic events like a war between the two countries, why is it anyone's concern, how many citizenships I have?
Last but not least: way to go to woo possibly one of the most liberal groups of voters: recent immigrants - asking Democrats to pledge to do away with dual citizenship.
August 4, 2005 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that what Mr. Lind was trying to say is that American citizens should have their complete loyalty directed at America. Dual citizenship can imply less than complete loyalty. If that's not what he meant, that's what I mean. I am somewhat suspicious of the motives of someone who holds dual citizenship. I don't dislike them or feel any need to discriminate, but I reserve some trust.
August 4, 2005 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prejudging a group of people because they are different?
You have to define what constitutes "loyalty". Karl Rove, as far as we know, does not hold dual citizenships, which does not prevent him from disclosing the names of undercover agents.
August 4, 2005 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Loyalty by an American citizen is swearing confirmation of the following ...
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
August 4, 2005 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was asking more for what is meant by these words, rather than for a reproduction of the text itself. But ok...
that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
Based on the most straightforward interpretation of these words, how many right wing conservatives would you like to withdraw citizenship from? And symmetrically, from how many liberals would the right wingers want to take their citizenship?
So why zero in on the group of people who are relcutant to abjure all allegiance to ... state?
August 4, 2005 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink