For many Americans who see the state as being the central and most important institution there is, the axis around which civil society orbits, the whole idea of ‘dual nationality’ is deeply disturbing. A person born in a different land can assimilate into civil society, adopt the mores, trappings and affectations of the place in which they now live and even accept being marked as a political subject of the government (become a citizen) but if they do not in fact repudiate being a subject of their previous home, to a statist American the question often asked is “can that person really be an American?”
I have heard people in the US say that of the many Jewish Americans who also hold Israeli passports and now increasingly that question is asked of Mexican Americans who retain ties to Mexico. Cosmopolitanism is seen as somehow dangerous and almost wicked. That dual nationality is particularly disturbing to some Americans is not surprising seeing as how the USA claims a proprietary interest in Americans nationals even if they do not live within the lands within which the US state claims sovereignty over (to the extent that even foreign people with US green cards who are not US subjects and who no longer live within US territory are still supposed to make US tax returns and incur US tax liabilities!). In most of the rest of the world, the moment your cross a national border, the nation you lived in generally looses interest in most of your economic and political activities, making dual nationality rather less emotive an issue other than in times of war between the two nations in question. Being a US ‘citizen’ is like having a big brand on your arse which stays with you regardless of where you go, making claims that US citizenship is somehow superior because it is not ‘ethnic based’ somewhat odd… it is more analogous to creating a new ethnicity, at least politically speaking, called ‘American’.
But for many, probably more who hold dual nationality, it is just a means of being able to live where they please and cross borders to places where they have friends and family without being harassed by the state’s border guards and pettifogging officials. The truth is that for the great majority of people the state is not the axis around which their life revolves and the bit of coloured cloth that flaps over them is really not a big deal.
As a ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ myself, I make no secret that I see collecting as many citizenships as possible as useful way to dilute the influence that states have over people. That does not mean I am blind to the possibility of political leaders in one country making mischief in another country by appealing to notions of ‘Volk’ or ‘La Patria’… yet political antics can be trumped by simply allowing the natural (yes, natural) process of assimilation to run its course, rather than distorting and delaying that process with crazy ‘identity politics’ which reward primitive tribalistic attitudes, and social welfare programmes that invert the traditional motivate for people to become immigrants in the first place.
The US has always had an ambivalent attitude toward nationalism, and now is embracing it even as the rest of the world is moving away from the nation-state model in which every state uniquely “belongs to” and uniquely “owns” people of a particular nationality.
The difficulty is that the nation-state underpins most of the justifications for democracy, and democracies have to be nations to some extent. If you accept that a majority should govern, you have to ask “a majority of what?” Nationalism answers that question, and so is always going to be appealing in a democracy.
The alternative model — the state-of-its-inhabitants or whatever you want to call the nationless-state — is a lot more sensible from the point of view of freedom and of the individual as having existance prior to and independent of the state. But it exposes deep incoherencies in democracy — cf this own blog’s musings on who gets to vote for what and where in the various EU constitution referenda. Democracy, reduced to “a majority of the (mobile) people in this particular area,” becomes incoherent. Citizenship, one the the last vestiges of nationalism, serves largely to confuse rather than to clarify the situation in these days of easy mobility and porous borders.
The old equations, land=state=nation, inhabitant=subject=national, were always a tyrranical and dehumanizing approximation. Now they are incoherent as well, and democracy may be some time in adapting. The US embraces nationalism as a way of holding onto the old equation for a little while longer. Vile though it may be, it’s understandable: Nationless freedom is unthinkably chaotic to the old and tired bones of the old paradigms.
–G
I think it may be more basic than that. Civis Americanus Sum is becoming the new Civis Romanus sum, and there should be something to that.
I’m all for freedom, but I also think it’s important that one makes it clear just where their loyalties are, and for that reason I dislike the whole notion of dual citizenship. You should WANT to be 100% American (if you’re an American), or make your home elsewhere. Is this a provincial attitude on my part? Probably, but sorry, that’s just how I see it.
Actually Hank, I think you just described the common sense views of nearly everyone who ever lived.
I suppose in some ways national identity can be an aide to power-grabbing governments. But it’s certainly not one-way. I recommend Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky’s writings on how the Kremlin would deliberately engineer ethnic disagreement (and worse) precisely in the hope of undermining feelings of national identity and cohesion. The hope was the Kremlin could then present itself as the cavalry over the hill that can rescue people from the resultant chaos … so long as they hand over their freedoms without asking too many questions.
Grant Gould writes: The US has always had an ambivalent attitude toward nationalism, and now is embracing it even as the rest of the world is moving away from the nation-state model …
They are? China is moving away from the nation state model? India is moving away from the nation state model? Singapore? Australia? New Zealand? Brazil? Uganda? Taiwan? Hello?
Are you perhaps referring to the suicide pact known as the EU? Not only is the EU not “the rest of the world”, it is increasingly irrelevant to the rest of the world.
Hank Scorpio doesn’t like the idea of dual citizenship, and if I am honest, as international as my life has been, I don’t think I do either. I can understand dual British/US citizenship, or Indian/New Zealand citizenship because we are all members of the Anglosphere and share not only a language but common cultural underpinnings. I think such are benign because they present no conflict of beliefs.
There are dual citizenships I would consider toxic, though, because the philosophies underlying the two countries are opposed rather than complementary. Dual Saudi/US citizenship, Pakistani/British and so on.
Perry, The arument you make here is a good rebute to the nonsense spouted by anti immigration “libertarians” like Hans Herman Hoppe, who espouse a nationalist and state loving solution under the guise of property rights or some such thing. And these same morons who (correctly) claim the state is incompetent and criminal, somehow at the same time think it can be used to stop “uncontrolled” immigration.
You should WANT to be 100% American
What then, of my Southern co workers who can frequently be heard proclaiming that they wish California would slide into the sea.
The truth is that one’s loyalties may lie in many and varied places and in many ways, it’s not really the governments concern.
And interestingly enough, as far as I know, if and when I attain American citizenship, there will be no mechanism for me to renounce my British citizenship. After all, I am not a free citizen but a subject of her royal maj. That means it’s not up to me whether I’m British or not. How would one hope to manage that one?
Rich
Richard — if I’m not mistaken, getting US citizenship involves taking an oath that specifically renounces your previous citizenship.
I’m not particularly concerned that some private US citizens might have mixed loyalties. However, I absolutely do NOT want people with mixed loyalties representing US interests in an official capacity, particularly if the secondary loyalties are to states or societies that are at odds with the US. That’s simple common sense.
Upon further study, it seems I was incorrect in claiming that Hoppe appeals to the state for blocking immigrants. However, I certainly feel that he soon would do so once he saw that his tribalist claptrap failed to materialize in an ultraminimalist state.
This may have nothing to do with it but I find it odd that we in the U.S., being nationalist as we are, still have our sovereignty while some countries with dual citizenships are losing theirs. Just a thought.
I find it hard to reconcile libertarianism with being against free imigration, at least on a theoretical level.
I mean, there *are* currently reasons why opening the borders would not be a good idea but to my eye, most of those reasons would disappear, if not immediately, then with time in a libertarian type environment.
Rich
Walter Russell Mead’s discussion of the Jacksonian mindset in America sheds light on this. America is not just a matter of administrative convenience, it is a folk community. The government is not “our enemy, the state” but in the main it is the military power of the United States, which exists to protect the interests of the folk community. If something bad happens to a foreigner, that is regrettable. If one American is held hostage somewhere in the world, tens of billions of dollars worth of military equipment will be moved to come to his or her assistance.
Perry is a rootless cosmopolitan. That is fine. But America is not primarily composed of rootless cosmopolitans, it is composed of Americans, a majority of whom think a certain way about what that means. They expect certain standards of conduct from their fellow citizens and they expect their government to act in their interests, if necessary to the detrimnent of others. This is all very un-libertarian. So be it on that as well.
A person might well, as a libertarian, detest the very thought of all of the foregoing. As we say in Chicago, knock yourself out, man. Everyone in the world is free to despise us as we are. And we may well despise them right back.
But if you want to leave aside your personal judgments, and try to understand America, what it is, how it works, and why it does what it does, then re-reading Mead’s essay will be a start, then reading the rest of his book Special Providence will help even more.
American citizenship is a big, big deal to Americans. I am lucky to have it. I did not earn it, but I am in no hurry to cheapen it our hand it out too liberally. If others find that offensive, too damn bad.
Lexington,
Thanks for saying what I wanted to say. I couldn’t have said it better.
Let’s be clear why some governments encourage double citizenship its control. The UK does not allow its citizens to lose citizenship not for any love of its people but for control. It is amazing any state would want to retain any vestige of control of a national that has made the decision to swear alliegance to another state. I do have a problem with Americans who are dual nations if American citizenship means so little why not just settle for residency?
Didn’t the British refusal to allow it’s subjects/citizens to renouce their Britishness help start the War of 1812?
Why should citizens who live abroad continue to pay US taxes? Well if they expect an unlimited right to return to the United States and benefit from whatever it offers, it only seems fair that they should help pay for its upkeep.
ATM makes a good point. There is also the small matter of consular protection and other things that one is entitled to abroad as an American citizen.
It is very possible to renounce your Britishness, as I understand it all you need to do is go to the Embassy, swear an oath and sign a decleration I think. You can get it back once after you have done this if it was done under duress (for example to keep another citizenship as happened in Zimbabwe).
When you are abroad being British is free and doesn’t entail you doing anything for the British goverment there are also no legal travel restrictions so far as I know.
If we want to talk about a country with an agenda of controlling it’s citizens then America is the country to look at. An American is restricted in the places they can visit (don’t go to Cuba), they are restricted in what they can do (as Bobby Fischer found out), they have to pay U.S. federal and sometimes state taxes, and they can’t give up their citizenship if the IRS thinks it’s for tax purposes. I think I’m correct in saying that even after you have given up citizenship they expect you to continue to file taxes for 10 years. In other words they treat their citizens as the property of the U.S. Goverment. Even the U.S.S.R. wasn’t that bad.
ATM and E.Nough have an indisputable point. You want protection – stay in the club and pay your dues.
Richard Thomas – “I find it hard to reconcile libertarianism with being against free imigration, at least on a theoretical level.”
How about on the theoretical level that millions of people for thousands of generations have invested in the country to make it as it is, and the incomer hoping to benefit from all those hundreds/thousands of years of investment, hasn’t?
It is disputable, I dispute it. You are also a blatant hypocrite because you are over there living in Mexico and you no doubt retain British citizenship and have not paid a penny to Her Maj since you left. Luckily for you Her Maj in her beneficence does not want your money.
A club doesn’t have to have a membership fee, and the “membership fee” that the US charges amounts to goverment enforced slavery. Some people have the idea in their head that the higher the membership fee the better the club, which only goes to show that a lot of people are morons: “The membership fee in North Korea is extremely high…so it must be wonderful.”
Sir, in response to your troll:
Americans have always regarded their citizenship for foreigners as a voluntary association, and one becomes fully an American by subscribing to our Constitution and ideals. Under this system newcomers are just as American as old settlers, provided they behave like it. Being a hyphenated American is not being an American. I’m not talking about living in the North End of Boston (where there are wonderful Italian cafes) and eating pizza; I am talking about voting in foreign elections, an act for which (at least formerly) immigrants forfeited their U.S. citizenship.
Owing allegiance to a foreign prince or power is not American behavior. The first thing Europeans (and I have been reminded on Samizdata that Brits like to include themselves in this classification nowadays) don’t understand about Americans is that we got here because we had a strong dislike for the Old Country. We are welcoming to newcomers (see Carl Zuckmayer’s speech, Amerika ist anders, in which he tells how his New England neighbors taught him dairy farming since being a German playwright did him little good once he got to America), but it is to teach them our ways. We are so tolerant of foreigners that we have millions of illegal aliens in this country, and very few citizens are bothered by it. In fact, it is only because Al Quaeda is slipping folks in over our southern border that lethargic and minuscule measures are being taken to slow the flood.
From the American point of view, dual or triple or quadruple (if Moslems may have four wives, why not four passports?) “citizenship” is one more dab of privilege. America makes it easy for foreigners to acquire citizenship; it is far harder for foreigners to acquire citizenship in Mexico or Europe, for instance. So the foreigner waltzes in and acquires a US passport (la, how jolly, like an extra watchband for evening wear), and tells the native yokels how unsophisticated they are not to a) have two, also and b) not to approve of such foreign attitudes.
There is an argument to be made for citizens escaping the control of sovereign nations: I am surprised I have never heard the British book, The Sovereign Individual, mentioned on Samizdata; it would make for interesting discussions. Its argument is that the state loots the rich to pay the poor, and the rich are finally seeking ways to escape the system. The practice of British actors living in Switzerland is at least 50 years old, by the way.
So you are right to taunt us with our IRS’ pursuit of Americans for their income tax long after they have left the U.S., and citizens seeking to abjure American citizenship are in for a very rough time indeed. Such practices are recognizable by Americans as un-American, although we have a growing government that seems to know better for each of us.
Please don’t come here and flaunt your two passports, except in the narrow belts along our east and west coasts. You may be envied and admired there, but the rest of us will know you not as a fellow American, but as a tourist whom we cannot expel.
I just read The Sovereign Individual, by Davidson and Rees-Mogg. It’s excellent. The story about the man who took up Greek citizenship at the age of 37 and was immediately dragooned to serve 6 months of national service is instructive. Dual nationality has its perils. I’m currently debating applying for a British passport in addition to my US one, as my sister, also USA-born, did recently. Why do I have the feeling that something unexpected and inconvenient could happen if I do? I’d better do some more research.
Della – you’re a hoot, but many thanks for taking time off from stacking Tesco’s shelves at 2 a.m. to give us your insights on citizenships. Listen, at least it’s minimum wage and I’ll bet they let you take a wee nap behind the Campbell’s Mushroom Soup shelves … Hmmm…. Campbell … why do I think you have a blood tie with the Campbells?
And yes, I am partly domiciled in Mexico. And?
Re the US, you had these pensées: I think I’m correct in saying that even after you have given up citizenship they expect you to continue to file taxes for 10 years. In other words they treat their citizens as the property of the U.S. Goverment. Even the U.S.S.R. wasn’t that bad.
Perhaps because they shot them.
Robert Speirs
Good luck with your application. You won’t be press ganged into any military service though your employer will be required to send your entire salary to one Gordon Brown Esq.
In exchange for this a weekly food parcel will be left on your doorstep.
Why? Take me, for example… I have lived and worked in the USA for well over 1/3rd my life when added up, with each clump of years being when it suited me… and when somewhere else suited me better, I moved there (I live in London, even though I am in Los Angeles at the moment). I feel no ‘loyalty’ to either state just because I happen to have worked and lived in those places. I would be just as willing to move to (say) Croatia (a place I like) for a few years if business and/or personal development indicated that made sense. This sort of approach seems so much more sensible that bizarrely tying yourself to one nation-state or regarding being a subject/citizen as something more than a utilitarian issue of assisting your freedom of movement.
Perry, …while I sympathize with and largely share your sentiments, you probably know that American citizenship is an expression of faith in the American ideal, allowing Americans to transcend their lives and be part of something larger, a noble experiment, the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation.
Don’t deny them that.
If you do, the effect is like telling a five-year-old that there’s no Santa Claus.
Try burning an American flag in a public place and see what happens, then.
EG
AMT: By that measure, the U.S. should be writing a check to the U.K. for my education from which it is benefiting.
Verity, firstly, in a more libertarian environmnent, an imigrant would only be enticed to come if they could make a positive contribution and hence a decent wage for themselves. They would not be drawn by the lure of free handouts because there wouldn’t be any. Secondly, history did not stop in 1900. Why should imigrants stop contributing to the society they join as they have in the past. Bear in mind that I would argue that imigration would be naturaly a lot lower because only hard work would be rewarded, not merely being there.
Ultimately, I always bring things back to this: “What would I want for myself?”. And the answer is to be able to roam where I want and exchange my goods or services for whoever would pay for them. Lacking hypocrisy, I don’t see why anybody else shouldn’t have that either.
Rich
Robert, it was my understanding that if an American applied for citizenship elsewhere then they had to forfeit their American citizenship. Is this not the case?
Rich
Perry, there is nothing wrong with your attitude of living and working where you please. You show no desire to pick up extra passports. Americans have nothing against permanent residents who like it here and want to live here. We do resent those who wish to disguise themselves as citizens while having other plans and bolt-holes.
CV: for the war of 1812, read Niall Ferguson’s recent book (“Empire”, or some such.) Howlingly funny.
Many others: all this stuff about no other loyalties and so on – does that mean that you approve of the earlier view that no President (US) or P.M. (UK) should be a Roman Catholic, because he is then the subject of a foreign sovereign, the Pope?
Americans have nothing against permanent residents who like it here and want to live here. We do resent those who wish to disguise themselves as citizens while having other plans and bolt-holes.
That’s the first I’ve ever heard of “Americans” saying something like that nad to be quite frank I’m disappointed. I know lots of people who hold dual US/UK citizenship, pay their exorbitant taxes in both the USA and the United Kingdom and thus contribute to the welfare of both countries. Do you suggest that people should stay just in the USA and not have the “right” to make use of their alternative nationality? What if we were to suggest from a UK standpoint that US nationals should be required to renounce their nationality after a set period of residence in another country – something that a number of other European countries require?
[I]t was my understanding that if an American applied for citizenship elsewhere then they had to forfeit their American citizenship. Is this not the case?
From the U.S. State Department:
It’s the intention part that’s the key. If you simply want a second citizenship, you don’t have to renounce.
Thank you, tim. That’s handy to know.
Personally, my preference would be to be able to wander between the U.S. and U.K. staying as long as I feel like and paying taxes (grudgingly) as I go. Obtaining dual citizenship for my wife would make that much easier.
Rich
anonymous coward… to quote from a previous article(Link) I wrote…
Actually Julian, I am interested to see people speak for “Americans” or any other disparate and varied group on a website ostensibly for rational individualists.
Rich
I don’t think Americans object to a dual citizenship when the person is living abroad. What Americans object to is a dual citizen living in the States and voting in elections because they may not be voting in the best interests of the United States, but of a foreign power who their true allegiance lies.
Of course, this is a nonsense argument for a true libertarian who believes in a radical autonomy of the individual. Samizdata is a libertarian blog and Perry is a libertarian. His argument is useful though in distinguishing between those people are really libertarian and those who find them good allies in promoting more freedom than exists now, but disagree as to the eventual limits of freedom.
As for me, I remember that most of the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire did not cross the frontier as invaders, but had already been welcomed into and lived within the Empire quite legally and who moved there in order to enjoy the benefits of the Roman state. That still did not stop them from destroying that very said state.
Perry, the only practical proof of citizenship Americans have is the passport; that’s why it seems to have become a symbol of citizenship. Birth certificates can be sniffed aside by officials (“Where’s the picture?”), and anyone, it seems, can get a voter’s registration card.
So why does Perry want to put US passports up for sale, except as a way of saying he would like to buy US citizenship, or as a way of insulting it? I was not kidding when I said I recognized his post as a troll, and hope I have given him sufficient fun for his effort.
As for amusing passport stories, Otto von Habsburg used to boast he had the only Austrian passport stamped “Not good for travel inside Austria.”
Perry, while travel and being cosmopolitan is nice, you are addressing lifestyle choices. Citizenship in the U.S. is also a lifestyle choice, and many of us like to think of it as an exercise of a fundamental freedom, the right of free association. It’s written into our Constitution in the First Amendment, and people like to point out that the freedoms enumerated in that Amendment (political speech, religious freedom, free association, freedom of the press) are listed First for a reason.
Our notion of citizenship isn’t geographic. Yes, if you are born here, you get to be a citizen free of charge. But if you come and join our club – the club of people who buy into the essential elements of the belief system of being an American – you will be welcome by most people. We celebrate the immigrants who come to the U.S. and embody our way of life as well or better than we do, by making a fortune or being successful in the marketplace of ideas, i.e. politics. See, e.g. Governor Arnold Schwarzenterminator. For a blogospherian example, I give you Kim du Toit. He is one fine American – he’s clearly drunk our kool aid.
We seem to buy into the Lockeian notion of the social contract. Thus U.S. citizenship is a deal – it comes with benefits and it comes with burdens. While we generally won’t bother to vindicate the fundamental rights of Africans or Europeans or South Americans, we will go to the wall to vindicate the rights of an American, or somebody held in one of our jails. The burden is that if your country calls with an exhorbitant tax rate (actually our tax rate is pretty low) we expect you to pay; in time of war, we may ask you to serve; and worst and most onerous of all, we expect you to put up with both Massachusetts, and Mississippi.
Citizenship does mean something to us – it’s about our ideas. We have a fuzzy notion of democracy; we have, as Sen. Moynihan put it, one of the only functioning legislatures in a democracy, ever. And we really, really hate people who haven’t bought into our social contract trying to tell us what to do. The reasons for this are twofold.
First off, people who haven’t bought into our system, don’t really have a stake in the outcome of our internal fights. No offense bro, but I don’t want you to have a say if the sum of your investment in the U.S. project is spending three months a year here doing a consulting gig to have a say in how I’m going to live year ‘round.
Second off, we have a pretty good system going on here, and a lot of the folks who pass through are the mortal enemy of it. The jackanapes running Mexico these days could pass as a Rothbardian, except when he is urging his people to vote for the statist candidate for U.S. President. Likewise, the fine people of Belgium, who wouldn’t know a corrupt government if it buggered and snuffed their kids, think our justice system, military, president, and educational system and beer are the embodiment of Satan’s will and an affront against man and beast, if they believed in Satan or any distinction between man and beast. (Okay, on our mass produced beers they may have a point). We don’t want them to have a say either. Frankly, they are the enemy when it comes to opinions on how to run a country, and we don’t want them to get to vote for our socialists. Frankly, the collectivist urge is strong enough without European (and Asian) reinforcements.
Third off – I know I only promised two – is that we aren’t all meant to live the same way, yet our jet setting elite believe that the world will be a tragic place until we all live just the same. They will only be happy when the Swiss Alps are dotted with Starbucks, when all schoolkids carry Apple Powerbooks, and everybody reads The Economist and mouths the pieties of the age. Diversity among nations and states is a good thing, yet diversity is reliant upon local habits, and local laws. When all the laws are set by the same people (say for instance a court of nine elderly lawyers) it has the effect of reducing diversity of lifestyle choices from place to place. Our courts have the habit of Constitutionalizing bad ideas, so that every state in the Union has to live under the same stupid court rulings. How much worse would this be if the Euro elite had an ability to impose their bad ideas on us, and make us like them? How much worse would it be if the 12 million or so illegal Mexican aliens – 10% of the voting population if they had the vote, and enough to tip the vote in their direction – decided to vote Mexico and Mexican citizens benefits out of the U.S. fisc?
No offense meant, Perry. You seem like a great chap, and I hope that if England ever gets to piss you off too badly, that you’d consider joining us here in the ‘States. We can use more brilliant freedom lovers. But the last thing we need is to try and enfranchise you in America, only to inadvertently let the assorted rabble of the European Parliament and their 60 billion page founding document through the door. It’s not you – it’s those disreputable, smelly unshaven goons we worry about, as well as other Europeans who *haven’t* been French politicians.
Sure, I realize this is a parochial, profoundly conservative Burkeian or Tolk-ien kind of argument, but I think it has merits. Even Hayek would probably militate in favor of local control of one’s local community – the more distant are the sources of sensibilities and rules, the more likely we reach absurd and bad outcomes. Sure, the U.S. may not be the bulwark of liberty that we wish it was. But in our case, it’s a bulwark against EUro stupidity and bureaucratic statism, and we’d like to keep it that way.
Perry, while travel and being cosmopolitan is nice, you are addressing lifestyle choices. Citizenship in the U.S. is also a lifestyle choice, and many of us like to think of it as an exercise of a fundamental freedom, the right of free association. It’s written into our Constitution in the First Amendment, and people like to point out that the freedoms enumerated in that Amendment (political speech, religious freedom, free association, freedom of the press) are listed First for a reason.
Our notion of citizenship isn’t geographic. Yes, if you are born here, you get to be a citizen free of charge. But if you come and join our club – the club of people who buy into the essential elements of the belief system of being an American – you will be welcome by most people. We celebrate the immigrants who come to the U.S. and embody our way of life as well or better than we do, by making a fortune or being successful in the marketplace of ideas, i.e. politics. See, e.g. Governor Arnold Schwarzenterminator. For a blogospherian example, I give you Kim du Toit. He is one fine American – he’s clearly drunk our kool aid.
We seem to buy into the Lockeian notion of the social contract. Thus U.S. citizenship is a deal – it comes with benefits and it comes with burdens. While we generally won’t bother to vindicate the fundamental rights of Africans or Europeans or South Americans, we will go to the wall to vindicate the rights of an American, or somebody held in one of our jails. The burden is that if your country calls with an exhorbitant tax rate (actually our tax rate is pretty low) we expect you to pay; in time of war, we may ask you to serve; and worst and most onerous of all, we expect you to put up with both Massachusetts, and Mississippi.
Citizenship does mean something to us – it’s about our ideas. We have a fuzzy notion of democracy; we have, as Sen. Moynihan put it, one of the only functioning legislatures in a democracy, ever. And we really, really hate people who haven’t bought into our social contract trying to tell us what to do. The reasons for this are twofold.
First off, people who haven’t bought into our system, don’t really have a stake in the outcome of our internal fights. No offense bro, but I don’t want you to have a say if the sum of your investment in the U.S. project is spending three months a year here doing a consulting gig to have a say in how I’m going to live year ‘round.
Second off, we have a pretty good system going on here, and a lot of the folks who pass through are the mortal enemy of it. The jackanapes running Mexico these days could pass as a Rothbardian, except when he is urging his people to vote for the statist candidate for U.S. President. Likewise, the fine people of Belgium, who wouldn’t know a corrupt government if it buggered and snuffed their kids, think our justice system, military, president, and educational system and beer are the embodiment of Satan’s will and an affront against man and beast, if they believed in Satan or any distinction between man and beast. (Okay, on our mass produced beers they may have a point). We don’t want them to have a say either. Frankly, they are the enemy when it comes to opinions on how to run a country, and we don’t want them to get to vote for our socialists. Frankly, the collectivist urge is strong enough without European (and Asian) reinforcements.
Third off – I know I only promised two – is that we aren’t all meant to live the same way, yet our jet setting elite believe that the world will be a tragic place until we all live just the same. They will only be happy when the Swiss Alps are dotted with Starbucks, when all schoolkids carry Apple Powerbooks, and everybody reads The Economist and mouths the pieties of the age. Diversity among nations and states is a good thing, yet diversity is reliant upon local habits, and local laws. When all the laws are set by the same people (say for instance a court of nine elderly lawyers) it has the effect of reducing diversity of lifestyle choices from place to place. Our courts have the habit of Constitutionalizing bad ideas, so that every state in the Union has to live under the same stupid court rulings. How much worse would this be if the Euro elite had an ability to impose their bad ideas on us, and make us like them? How much worse would it be if the 12 million or so illegal Mexican aliens – 10% of the voting population if they had the vote, and enough to tip the vote in their direction – decided to vote Mexico and Mexican citizens benefits out of the U.S. fisc?
No offense meant, Perry. You seem like a great chap, and I hope that if England ever gets to piss you off too badly, that you’d consider joining us here in the ‘States. We can use more brilliant freedom lovers. But the last thing we need is to try and enfranchise you in America, only to inadvertently let the assorted rabble of the European Parliament and their 60 billion page founding document through the door. It’s not you – it’s those disreputable, smelly unshaven goons we worry about, as well as other Europeans who *haven’t* been French politicians.
Sure, I realize this is a parochial, profoundly conservative Burkeian or Tolk-ien kind of argument, but I think it has merits. Even Hayek would probably militate in favor of local control of one’s local community – the more distant are the sources of sensibilities and rules, the more likely we reach absurd and bad outcomes. Sure, the U.S. may not be the bulwark of liberty that we wish it was. But in our case, it’s a bulwark against EUro stupidity and bureaucratic statism, and we’d like to keep it that way.
If we view membership in a nation-state as contractual in nature, then why shouldn’t that contract be an exclusive one? There are exclusive business relationships all the time, after all.
There can be good reasons for both businesses and nations to require an exclusive, especially from those who have governance powers (which includes the power to vote.) You don’t want someone with a stake in your competitors either sitting on your board or appointing your board, for example. Those who have placed all of their eggs in your basket have every incentive to be sure that everyone with a stake in the enterprise does the same. Ask anyone who has run a law firm or medical practice.
There’s probably lots of economic analysis out there about firms and exclusive contracting that could be profitably applied to this question, by someone less lazy than me.
I was born in New York and I dont remember signing any contract with the US government that gave me permission to stay here. I come from here and I am a member of a society that includes people from all over the world. I know good and bad people when I meet them and I do not give a damn what it says on their passports. The government does not OWN the society I live in and it sure as hell did not create it. I do not need the states permission to exist and I have no intention of moving somewhere else because I will be damned if I will accept the states power to decide who is and is not an acceptable American just because it takes a cut of the fruits of my labor.
Exiled, in modern Western societies there is an element of consent to citizenship, in that you can leave anytime you want, revoke your citizenship and take up residence or even citizenship elsewhere.
I think that element of consensuality/contract can’t be pushed too far, but I also wonder how much of the “love it or leave it” opposition to dual citizenship could actually be explained as a rational action intended to maximize the success of the polity upon which at least some of your well-being, whether you acknowledge it or not, is dependent.
I think some of the reasons why it is rational for some economic actors to demand exclusive relationships might well carry over to both the civic and economic spheres.
Exiled, you are right. The government doesn’t own U.S. society. We, the people do. And we don’t want to let some tinhorn Mexican politician who can’t manage to help his people straighten out their economy win voting rights for illegals, in order to hijack the country from us. That’s why we use the government to define and enforce borders. Sorry to wake you out of your Rothbardian slumber bro, but I really don’t want wide open borders and full enfranchisement for every temporary visitors. Fancy a flood of Chi-Com visitors every four years, round about October / November?
It’s not racist to say “those people aren’t like us” because it applies to Europeans, Asians, Africans, all sorts of people who don’t live here and who haven’t bought into our notions of how a country ought to be run. Sure, at the atomistic level, I guess border controls are practically murder, the greatest injustice ever foisted on mankind by the evil that is government oppression. Viewing the larger picture, the one that exists past the end of one’s toes, nose and penis – it amazes me that so many libertarians simply can’t grasp the fact that communities can be a tool to preserve liberty, and that borders and legislative (people-directed) *ordered* liberty is a tool for doing that. I’m not kidding about the catastrophic effect letting illegals and temporary visitors vote would have on this country – just a few million people, more or less, would allow various foreign countries (almost all of which are much more statist than the U.S.) dictate U.S. policy. That’s a nightmare scenario.
The Supreme Court are “We, The People”?
The main difference between Americans and Brits are the degree of cynicism involved I think. 😉
Citizens can vote. Those who are not committed fully to the US should not be allowed to have a say in the government of the country.
That was the original rationale for disallowing dual citizenship and it still holds true today. At the time of the Revolution, there were plently of people who wanted to vote but whose ties and loyalties were elsewhere. We made a conscious decision that that was bad for the republic and it still is bad.
Perry, I think your attitude towards citizenship is flippant, shallow and self-indulgent. By all means, continue as you see fit — but don’t expect me to support the idea of giving you a franchise to vote in the US.
Wow. This discussion hits very close to home.
Flippant? Sure, because I have little respect for the idea of brand like citizenship and I am positively contemptuous of the idea it is somehow ‘sacred’. Political communities are generally little more than a way to legitimise groups of people trying to mug other groups of people, which is why I do not vote in any of the various places I can legally vote it.
Shallow? How so? Seems to me that my views are pretty well developed.
Self-indulgent? Why, because my views do not agree with your? Make an argument or fuck off.
hypothetical:
imagine a country where all of the samizdata’s wet dreams of libertarianism were won. would the libertarian citizens value their passport/citizenship then?
No, because there would be no passports and no ‘citizenship’, at least not as currently configured.
Cosmopolitan = loads of money to travel and no kids.
Its not a political doctrine, its a lifestyle choice that most people with familes to care for and feed cannot and will not have.
A relatively healthy society requires stable family life. The idea that we should all be cosmopolitan is so absurd that only liberals could be deluded enough to believe it.
“Make an argument or fuck off.”
He did.
He said your views were shallow. He’s right.
The idea of one world with no borders is as facile as the Marxist workers pradise, and for almost the same reasons. It ignores human nature. Human beings form communities. Nations are just large communities with a shared identity and history.
Communities, like families, require protection from aggressors, hence the need for police, the military, and borders to define the community and protect its interests. And hence, citizenship.
This is obvious to everyone except liberals.
shawn, i come from a very large extended family stretching from tooting to los angeles and I sure as hell fit perry’s description of a cosmopolitan. all my family do. sure, we are “indian” if you think skin color says who a person is, but we are also british, american and canadian and have no problem with those identities either. both my brothers have “married out” with canadian and british wives respectively, my girlfriend comes from brazil but is of german parents and my oldest sister is engaged to an irish guy who lives in toronto. and my maternal grandfather was scottish. human nature? no man, dont confuse your nature for human nature.
As a citizen of earth, the only conniving governments that i acknowledge are the international olympic committee and the united nations; when i can get identifications from those two organisations it will be unnecessary to obtain a passport, as would anyone else.
OK, its and old discussion, but Hank makes the “love it or leave it” case, and it is important to answer that. I know US history – not the song and dance taught in school – the “murdered millions around the world for transnational corporations” TRUE history. I do not want to be associate with the USA. So how, Hank, (and all those who feel this way) can I trade in my USA Passport for one of another nation? You see, other nations do not allow foreigners to work there – like the USA-corporations do, to drive wages into the dirt. They don’t seem to be handing out passports – even in trade. So Hank, how do I escape???