Americans, a noxious notion has seeped into your kid’s school curriculum. It’s called “world citizen”. It’s happening to your kids, prep school to inner-city.
As a retired teacher of 30 years, I was perplexed. Is this an attempt to erase borders or proclaim allegiance to the UN or both? Anyway, the original concept of citizenship may go the way of plastic straws. The modus operandi is to fiddle with the minds of the youngins and tie the project’s prospects to the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
These Democrats aren’t kidding. They are actively trying to erase the border as they erase the distinction between citizen and non-citizen, and even legal and illegal resident. The cultural appropriator Beto (as in Robert O’Rourke) absconded with Reagan’s old line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, absent the reference to Gorbachev. 12 Dem-heavy states and DC already are issuing driver’s licenses to people whose presence in the country is in violation of our laws, thus creating havoc with motor-voter laws.
That bastion of insanity, California, has taken the chant of “healthcare for all” literally to mean “all”, as in any of the world’s denizens who can get here. Oh, Bernie in his 2016 concoction of the concept tried to stop migrants from receiving the benefits if they enter for that reason. The restriction is meaningless. How could it be enforced without a mind-reading machine? Sander’s 2017 version, the one tucked to the bosom of Dem candidates seeking to oust Trump, ended the masquerade. “Residents” are eligible for the freebie; the adjectives “legal” and “illegal” are absent.
Gillibrand goes further than the cultural appropriator with calls to dismantle ICE and the wall. She’s in good company with many in the Dem congressional caucus. And once these foreign citizens get here, it’s now wrong to count them as “non-citizens”, as per Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Jessie M. Furman (Obama appointee). Not only are we not to stop the citizens of other countries from entering but we are to be kept in the dark about how many are here.
“Foreign-born” is the approved moniker for everyone born on foreign soil and taking up stakes here. If they are non-citizens – which we can’t tell thanks to Judge Jessie – they are still citizens, citizens of another country. That makes for an interesting situation when voting rights for foreign citizens in the US gets traction among the Dem rank-and-file. Other countries’ citizens get to help choose what happens to US citizens. Soon, with the erasure of the border, every US election will require shipping ballots to Moscow, Mexico City, Managua, Capetown, etc., etc. With the Dems, what’s in a border anyway?
Voting rights is making the rounds among Dem strongholds in the US. Stacey Abrams (failed Dem candidate for Georgia governor) announced her support for the craziness in local elections. SF, of course, and some Maryland localities have already broken the ice (not ICE). They excuse the folderol with cries that non-citizens – legal or illegal (which we can’t tell thanks to Judge Jessie) – pay taxes. In tax-happy cities and states, yes, they pay some exactions. The legal ones pay but don’t have to mess around with jury duty and draft registration. Illegals ditto, but they don’t pay Social Security taxes and the like, unless they commit document fraud – which many have since that’s the only way for them to get paid. Advantages abound for those keeping their foreign citizenship. They avoid the flip side of rights: responsibilities.
Today’s Dem Party is clearly out to blur the line between citizen and non-citizen. And why not? It’s a rich vein of votes. It works to elect Democrats. In 50 Dem congressional districts, the foreign-born comprise more than 20% of the population (only 11 Republican districts meet the standard). Sandy Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was elected in a 25% foreign-born locale (almost 50% Hispanic). In-migration and out-migration combine to bend the partisan balance beam of a neighborhood.
If we take the words of the donkey party’s candidates at face value – And how could we take them otherwise? – what’s the point of being a citizen? Simply renting on American soil is enough to get all the bennies of the nanny state, condones massive document fraud, avoids certain inconvenient responsibilities of citizenship, and is a qualification for the franchise. For all practical purposes, naturalization is irrelevant. Now, that’s one way to repeal Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cl. 4 (naturalization power) of the Constitution.
Say bye, bye to the border. And isn’t that the point?
RogerG
* Thanks for the contributions of Howard Husock of “City Journal” and Matthew Continetti of “National Review”.