That’s the name of a blog post from Ron Paul’s “Daily Paul” site.
I am against dual citizenship of any kind. When you benefit from the blood spilled by patriots in the past, the least which can be requested of you is undivided allegiance. …
The idea of liberty dictates that any human being can choose to be a citizen of any country for which he or she qualifies. That’s his business. But any country could suddenly be at war with any other country. That is realpolitik. For the privilege of being a citizen of this great country, you must choose.
So, maybe that is the official Ron Paul position.
In Minnesota, Ron Paul Republicans have sort of taken over (what is left of) the Republican Party, in a way. Paul came in second after Santorum in the primaries, but strange delegate math and sneaky stuff by the Ron Paul campaign happened and now Ron Paul has more delegates. I can’t really explain that. The point is, if I was a Republican in Minnesota (which I am not, by the way) I’d look out for Ron Paul and his followers because they have clout here.
So, this would apply to Michele Bachmann:
Don’t you think perhaps that Michele Bachmann should be investigate as Unamerican?
Here’s a good place to learn more about Swiss Family Bachmann.
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Ah yes – dual citizenship – it’s a great thing !!!!! Just ask:
1.)Salma Hayek – Mexican and US citizenship; or
2.)Hugh Jackman – US and Australian citizenship; or
3.)Jim Carrey – US and Canadian citizenship; or
4.)Anthony Hopkins – US and Wales citizenship; or
5.)Nicole Kidman – US and Australian citizenship; or
6.)Keith Urban – US and Australian citizenship; or
7.)Naveen Andrews – US and British citizenship; or
8.)Ioan Gruffudd – US and Welsh citizenship; or
9.)Marisa Tomei – US and Italian citizenship; or
10.)Mick Jagger – US and British citizenship; or
11.)Jesse Spencer – US and Australian citizenship; or
12.)Jet Li – US, Chinese and Singaporean citizenship; or
13.)Chow Yun-fat – US and Chinese citizenship; or
14.)Hiroyuki Sanada – US and Japanese citizenship; or
15.)Natalie Portman – US and Israeli citizenship; or
16.)Jean Reno – US and French citizenship; or
17.)Olivia Wilde – Irish and US citizenship; or
18.)Elizabeth Taylor – British and US citizenship –
To name a few.
So Greg – what’s your big whoop-te-do about this Dual Citizen stuff all about ????
Hugh Jackman is not a US citizen.
Wales or Welsh citizenship does not exist. They are British citizens.
I’m more worried about someone who claims to be an American citizen but whose true allegiance lies with their sworn enemy, the Republican Party.
To cling blindly and insistently to old fables is tantamount to admitting ignorance and incompetence.
And to know that these people are my neighbors . . . sheesh.
No wonder we keep arguing about who knows where to stop mowing the grass that grows between us.
So, Bob. “Celebrities” and actors (people who pretend to be people they are not) are big stuff for you?
How about people who don’t feel they have to grin like mules with gas when a lens points at them? Don’t the rest of us count?
I had the opportunity to take out dual citizenship (well, still do) – US/Australian. I chose not to for several reasons, including the fact that I don’t really see how I can be truly loyal to two countries. But I hold no opprobrium for those who think otherwise.
Bob, I’m only reporting other people’s stuff in the post.
My personal opinion is that every person should be a citizen of between 3 and 5 countries.
Or a citizen of the only place we have, Greg.
This planet.
The time to claim nationality has passed. We are all residents of the same little rock.
Ascend a mere hundreds of feet and look down. Find the borders.
I know that such a notion really puts a burr under many saddles. Tough shit. As long as we insist on claiming ownership of little slices of what we had no hand in creating we will have these arguments. There is no obvious solution, acquisitiveness being what it is.
I agree, I was just trying to ease into it.
That is one way to go about it. Well done, friend.
Still, the idea of exclusive ownership is demonstrably misguided.
There is always some who will assume privilege, earned or not.
I find Ron Paul’s perspective hard to wrap my head around. I don’t believe that the sort of loyalty that he’s invoking is virtuous. It seems provincial and unreflective to insist that people must be loyal to the local government, which he seems to understand (as a libertarian, I suppose). But the loyalty then applies to… what? “The American people”, whose sole defining/unifying feature is being governed by that organization? The American military, which is precisely the aspect of our government where it’s most dangerous to be unreflectively supported? The physical land under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government, which is inert and has no particular cares about what political subdivisions rest atop it?
Even from a purely philosophical perspective this argument seems incoherent, before we even get into the nitty-gritty of how citizenship actually works, the facts that many countries have a tiny and shrinking chance of going to war with one another in our lifetimes, that citizenship as a legal status no more guarantees loyalty than the existence of a marriage license guarantees that two people are in love, that adopting specific citizenship stauses is sometimes useful or even necessary for bureaucratic or safety reasons, and that for some who have spent (or continue to habitually spend) significant time in multiple countries, there may no valid “choice” to be made that reflects the reality of an individual’s relationship with various societies.
I don’t know if *everyone* should have multiple citizenships, but I think that one good place to start, if you wanted to instill a sense of social responsibility in people, would be to make service projects in other countries an actual rite of passage. And not with a group of people from your own country, swooping in like magnanimous angels taking pride in representing the “Greatest Country On Earth”, but people from a few disparate parts of the world trying to work closely with the local populace on disaster relief or infrastructure projects. Not that these things don’t happen, but it’s mystifying that armed service is a rite of passage that’s considered to be linked to social responsibility and the broadening of one’s horizons, and yet it seems so much rarer and newer for taking part in international efforts to be seen the same way.
Did someone just decide that doing something For America is intrinsically better than doing something for fellow human beings (or other ethical considerations, like non-human animals, the future state of humanity and the world, even an abstract sense of beauty…)? Or is this cultural and evolutionary baggage, where even people with a reputation for opposing military excess buy into the conventional wisdom, the secret we’re all in on, that we have to be better than everyone else, because we’re too damn insecure or too damn selfish to see ourselves as part of a world community, where it might actually be valuable to interact with the larger world in a way that’s flexible, altruistic, and, dare I say, sometimes even forgivibg?
I thought criticizing the president was treason. Or, say, even calling for armed insurrection if he were to be re-elected.
Do you think maybe the smallest unit of political thought is the moron?
Ron Paul called me a traitor. 🙁
(But I kinda called him a delusional fossil, so fair’s fair.)
Bob Allen – just to nitpick, there’s no such thing as “Welsh” citizenship. Whether you’re Scottish, English or Welsh, you’re a UK citizen.
Markita Lynda @11: “Do you think maybe the smallest unit of political thought is the moron?”
No, because the standard SI derived units can always be brought into play; thus there are 1000 millimorons in a moron, and 1000 micromorons in a millimoron etc.
I’d allow dual citizenship only if the recipient pledges that allegiance to the United States takes presidence over that of the other country.
I’d add that anyone with dual citizenship must get the approval of the State Dept. before joining the armed forces of the other country.
I would also ban dual citizenship for Muslims, whose loyalty to the United States is questionable. Many of them are “sleepers,” who some day will rise up and commit acts of sabotage and murder. Tens of thousands of Muslims on our soil are dedicated to Islamizing America and imposing Sharia law on our courts.
How would banning dual citizenship make a difference? Islam doesn’t care about nation states.
Acting that way seems like pure jingoism. That kind of loyalty and exaggerated patriotism isn’t healthy.
@15… why limit it to Muslims? Catholics are supposed to listen to the pope over secular authorities on all sorts of things. Let’s deny Catholics American citizenship, too. There are only about 23 million of them in the US.
Asshat.
What part of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” do you not understand?
Oh, BTW. You don’t have to be a US citizen to join the US military. At present, that number is 35,000 and rising.
So, your freedom to be a complete douche-nozzle is being protected by people who aren’t citizens.
… any country could suddenly be at war with any other country.
“Shep, tensions are rising amid unconfirmed reports of increased skirmishes along the Swiss-American border. Public burnings of cuckoo-clocks from Minneapolis to Minnesota are taking place as we speak, and riots centered on boutique chocolate shops are wreaking havoc at malls across the US. Extra security measures have been announced for this year’s yodeling championships, and currency inspectors are double-checking all briefcases on flights bound for the Bahamas…”
Uh, oops, pls substitute “Miami” for “Minnesota” in # 19…
Randomfactor said – I’m more worried about someone who claims to be an American citizen but whose true allegiance lies with their sworn enemy, the Republican Party.
That was my first laugh of the morning! Thanks.
Bob and Ron really need to get over it and move on. I would be happy to have dual or should I say, triuanl (is that a word?) citizenship. I was born in the USA and I have Lithuanian and Irish genes. As long as my loyalty is to the USA what difference does it make?
Now, I can see if one of the countries of dual citizenship is one that we are at war with would make a difference. We made peace with the UK years ago.
And the CAtholic comic – my second laugh of the morning!
Well, I have dual citizenship – Canadian & British. Works fine for me. I could also be an irish citizen if I wanted (which I don’t). Although I’ve lived in the US for quite a while and am eligible to take out US citizenship I have never had a desire to do so. So to what am I a traitor, Mr Paul?
Dual US and Irish citizenship, here. Both, for me, closely intertwined with family relationships and interpersonal loyalties. Other close branches of my family are also Canadian and Costa Rican, and although I do not share their citizenships, I would feel a family affinity in both cases that far exceeds any sense of “loyalty” (what does that even mean in the abstract) I would have to a non-personal “national” entity.
Ron Paul is essentially asking people to prioritise their relationships to a particular national enterprise, and its security/territorial goals, over any complicating cross-border family loyalties. Whereas, I would be grateful if the fact of a large number of people with cross-border family loyalties acted as a brake preventing the breakout of war. (Not that this has worked very well in the past).
Ron Paul never said that. That is a quote from the writer of the article posted on the Daily Paul Website, NOT from the words of Ron Paul.