Welcome back to Common Sense Civics and Citizenship. If you are a subscriber to our weekly newsletter, you will find two new articles that pertain to our citizenship. We discuss how lobbyists are now writing our laws because Congress is more focused on image than law writing. (!) Additionally, the quality of legislative assistants’ work these days is not what it used to be. Find out more in “Lobbyist-A Changing Role.”
In our first article below, we focus on two types of U.S. citizens, those naturalized and native -born (not illegal migrants). Let’s begin with “Who Appreciates Their Citizenship The Most?”
Why do people who choose American citizenship seem to be more devoted and excited about the American form of government than native-born citizens these days?
Recently, Celtics center Enes Kanter became an American citizen and changed his last name to Freedom. There you have an outward symbol of inward enthusiasm for a new status. He is free in America. His former country canceled his passport for criticizing its president. He had no First Amendment right to freedom of speech there. Kanter-Freedom is not alone. I had several conversations with an acquaintance who moved here from eastern Europe. She spoke openly to me of her experience under communism but in hushed tones. When I extended an invitation to talk to my Jr. High civics class, she quit her job, still fearful that the police would come for her since she spoke openly to me. She feared a setup.
I was born in the United States. I am married to a naturalized American and the daughter of one. I know from personal experience that where you are born has a lasting effect. Our Founders and Framers understood this, having lived under State servitude. So, our forefathers sought to provide a foundation of personal, individual freedom for “ourselves and our posterity.” They studied a variety of sources and concluded from historical facts what makes a people free. They concluded that We the People running the government is more likely to lead to freedom than any other form of government. But, it is up to the People to keep their freedom by daily exercising their citizenship, guarding their liberty, living it, and passing on patriotism to their children.
The Founders understood that citizens needed to adopt values like integrity, loyalty, courage, and purity to remain free. They embraced biblical values of truth, honesty, justice, respect, and self-control. Biblical values do not make you religious, and they don’t make you a Christian (believing in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins makes you a Christian). Biblical values simply work. Who doesn’t appreciate loyalty in your family or workplace? If you don’t steal, you will have a clear conscience to focus on other important matters. What about honesty? Honest people are not distracted by constantly having to cover their tracks. Courage? Who else would willingly die to defend their nation and fellow soldiers? Justice? To understand justice:
Don’t read a newspaper.
Read Article III and the Constitution’s First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
In fact, read the Constitution to understand how these values translate into the most humane form of government on the face of the earth.
You see, people who have lived under dictators, regimes, even monarchies understand freedom from experiencing what it is like to live in bondage to the State. They can’t stop talking about how incredible freedom is. They see the free exercise of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition as unlimited potential and the freedom to keep and bear arms as imperative to maintaining those rights. They take their citizenship seriously.
If our nation could return to an exuberance, an appreciation of what our Founders gave us instead of trying to turn us into the governments that many new citizens left behind, think of the unlimited American potential that could be released!
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship.🇺🇸
