Saturday, May 29, 2010

My post on citizenship

My post drew some comments so I will add a little to the discussion. The issue of losing citizenship has nothing to do with illegal aliens, they are not citizens and cannot lose it. My concern is over having different rankings of citizens in our country. Earning additional rights.

What is being proposed by some is that you do not attain full citizenship unless you commit to some type of national service, be it military or to the community. I work for the government so I am not against national service, I am for choice. What I question is which rights will be limited to "partial" citizens. This is the heart of the matter and the threat to our liberties.

The political discussion by Lieberman, Clinton, Obama... starts with a conversation about illegal aliens, it then turns to the question of terrorists, finally it turns to the issue of what we have to do to earn citizenship. They attempt to link issues to citizenship that do not apply.

Illegals are not citizens. Foreign terrorists who obtain citizenship could always lose it, these laws will not change that. People born in this country are citizens as of right. That is the right to live somewhere. Yet, we are not free to go to other countries, our own country can refuse to let us leave. We are not free, if we are not free than we must be allowed rights or no social contract can exist with our government and it loses any right of legitimacy.

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