Dual Citizenship: Political Polygamy

September 18th, 2007 at 02:42am Mike McGarry 214

Dual Citizenship: Political Poligamy

A dangerous, impossible concept

By Mike McGarry  
 

Oath of Renunciation and Allegiance (8 U.S.C. 1448):  

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 the 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 mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

In the fall of 2004, former Colo. Gov Richard D. Lamm gave a short but compelling speech* in Washington D.C.  “I have a secret plan to destroy America” Lamm said. “If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America… Here is my plan.” (Lamm will defend his words on Con Games, KNFO, 106.1, Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the 9AM-10AM. time slot.) 

Number 6 in Lamm’s eight point plan: “I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties.”

In a 2001 paper by the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies, Stanley Renshon, professor of political science at the City University of New York, wrote in Dual Citizenship and American National Identity: “The basic data are indisputable: American immigration policy is resulting in the admission of large numbers of persons from countries that have taken legislative steps (for economic, political, and cultural reasons) to maintain and foster their ties with countries from which they emigrated.”

A person is considered a dual national when he or she owes allegiance to more than one country at the same time. Dual citizenship—political polygamy—necessarily means dual allegiances, a dangerous, impossible concept. Mexican dual citizenship, for example, was designed to encourage Mexican nationals to become U.S. citizens so they could vote in the interests of Mexico, something the Mexican government made no effort to disguise.

Get a load of the imperial arrogance of Mexico’s three most recent presidents. President Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) said in Dallas, Texas, in 1996, to a crowd of U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage: "You are Mexicans who live north of the border," a hint of just where he thought their true loyalties should be.   

In Chicago in 1997 he say to an audience, “We proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders," a statement that closely corresponded to the 1998 change in Mexico’s constitution that extended Mexican citizenship to Mexican Americans who had been naturalized.

In 2004, Mexico’s President Fox (2000-2006), also popping off in Chicago, said: “We are Mexicans that live in our territories, and we are Mexicans that live in other territories. In reality, there are 120 million that live together and are working together to construct a [multinational] nation."
Not to be outdone, On September 2, Mexico’s current president, Felipe Calderon, in an unabashed fit of temper, blasted U.S. immigration policies “that only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers. Mexico, Calderon asserted, “does not end at its borders…Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”
Alan Wall, an American living in Mexico who pens dispatches on his inside observations of the goings on in Mexico, writes that  “U.S. citizenship is seen as a desirable thing. But I have never heard any Mexican say ‘I want to become a U.S. citizen because I love the Bill of Rights and I want to be part of a Universal Nation.  No, most Mexicans who seek American citizenship for themselves or their children do so for personal benefits, and not to become Amereicans.” 

A September 5 Associated Press story, Bids for Citizenship on the Rise In Colorado, published in the Rocky Mountain News, said, [citizenship] applicants rose sharply, from 6,364 in 2005 to 8,122 in 2006 to nearly 11,000 in the first half of this year alone.”  Many immigrants are motivated by the right to vote,” the reporters noted. 

Ismael Medina, a Mexican national said he “is tired of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and is putting on notice lawmakers who have been vocal critics of illegal immigration…I want to vote so we can change the laws so that they're more just." (Italics added)  Maria Pasillas, another Mexican national and future voter, said, “I want to help [illegal] immigrants. Many are losing their jobs because of the political climate. I don't like the way they're treated."

The statements by these future bi-national citizens who will be eligible to vote in both the U.S. and in Mexico are direct reflections of Mexico’s imperial designs to send all its poor and uneducated to the U.S. to create a human fait accompli in furtherance of a borderless North American Union. "We're going to see a whole lot of changes around here soon,” said an organizer of the citizenship drive.  I’ll bet.

Of course, Mexico isn’t the only nation scheming to create large, influential political lobbies out of their nationals in the U.S.—it’s just the most boorish. Nineteen of the top 25 immigrant-sending countries have now extended dual citizenships to their emigrants.         
 

Alfonso Aguilar, Chief of the Office of Citizenship, (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service), has written of the Oath of Renunciation and Allegiance: “Its primary purpose is legal rather than symbolic, unlike the national anthem or pledge of allegiance. The Oath has legal significance – in fact an individual can be subject to denaturalization if he or she is found not to have taken the Oath in good faith and without mental reservations.” Rarely, however, has denaturalization been exercised.    

A friend of mine who became a U.S. citizen several years ago said she as stunned to hear others at the oath ceremony casually and flippantly comment that they would not be giving up their passports of their supposedly former nations; that they would quickly sent their sons "home" if a military draft were to be reactivated; that generally they would be loyal to America only when it suited them. Anyone who thinks that these premeditations are no prima fascia instances of perjury must have a Harvard education.   

U.S. citizenship should not simply be a means to a better job, an extended shopping opportunity or a passport privilege. Would-be U.S. citizens should treat the citizenship oath as serious as a marriage vow, because citizenship is a form of marriage, a lifelong commitment.

With more than a million persons naturalizing each year, with 37.5 million foreign born living in the U.S., dumping dual citizenships it is crucial to maintaining American sovereignty and strengthening the more traditional ideal of citizenship and our long history of assimilating immigrants into American constitutional democracy.

A healthy nation is like an extended family. An international mass of dual citizens is not a national family. The number of dual citizens is exploding to a potential one-in-seven adults. For the U.S. government to continue the practice of recognizing these counterfeit commitments is a prescription for national chaos. Dual citizenships have got to go!
 

Richard D. Lamm (Gov. Colorado, 1975-87) Speech given in Washington D.C., 2004:

* “I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that "an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide." Here is my plan:
                                                   
1.  We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. History shows, in my opinion, that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon – all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans."

2.  I would then invent "multiculturalism" and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.

3.  We can make the United States a "Hispanic Quebec" without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently, "The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved, not by tolerance, but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically, and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together." I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor. It is important to insure that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America reinforcing their differences, rather than Americans emphasizing their similarities.

4.  Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated – I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50 percent dropout rate from school.

5.  I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was all the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.

6.  I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would "celebrate diversity." "Diversity" is a wonderfully seductive word. It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they are not killing each other. A "diverse," peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia.

Look at the ancient Greeks. Dorf's "World History" tells us: "The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus, and all Greeks venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet, all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors ... (local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions ...)" If we can put the emphasis on the "pluribus," instead of the "unum," we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.

7.  Then I would place all these subjects off-limits – make it taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to "heretic" in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like "racist", "xenophobe" halt argument and conversation. Having made America a bilingual-bicultural country, having established multiculturalism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of "victimology," I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra – "because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good." I would make every individual immigrant sympatric and ignore the cumulative impact.

8  Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson's book "Mexifornia" – this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. So please, please – if you feel that America deserves to be destroyed – please, please – don't buy this book! This guy is on to my plan.”

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and U.S. media and foreign policy critic.

Entry Filed under: Immigration, Aspen, Colorado, The West