By Debbie Schlussel
Happy Birthday, America! How sad that things are changing in terms of patriotism for our great country. A Thursday USA Today article bore this sub-headline: “As Dual Citizenships Soar, Older Concepts of Loyalty and Patriotism are Flagging.” (The sub-headline is in the print edition only, not online.) So now, loyalty and patriotism to America are “old concepts”?! Maybe that’s the problem.
Why do we allow duel citizenships? In several countries, you must renounce citizenship in all other states and sovereign nations. Perhaps that’s the best route for us, too. Is it a good thing, for example, when many “citizens” of Dearborn, Michigan (a/k/a Little Ramallah), like Nejla Tavakoli, are voting in Iranian and Iraqi elections? No. Is it a good thing when in many parts of Dearborn, English is not spoken and people can’t understand it? No wonder loyalty and patriotism are flagging.
Remember Yasser Esam Hamdi? He was an American citizen merely by the luck of the draw, but an Al-Qaeda fighter against U.S. soldiers by choice. He was a duel citizen of Saudi Arabia and the U.S.–born here because his Saudi parents were in the U.S. temporarily on a visa. Time to change our citizenship laws in more ways than one. But so much for merely reporting the bad news. USA Today actually encourages readers to try to get dual citizenship in another country.
Happy Birthday, America . . . while there still is an America.