Contributors

Thursday, September 07, 2017

Americans First!

An article in the Christian Science Monitor illustrates the false equivalence that Donald Trump drew between George Washington and Robert E. Lee:
In the heat of the debate over Confederate monuments, the names of two generals – Robert E. Lee and George Washington – were linked.

"Is it George Washington next week?" Donald Trump asked, amid the furor over the removal of a statue of Lee.

John Dowd, an outside attorney to President Trump, then circulated an email stating: "You cannot be against General Lee and be for General Washington, there literally is no difference between the two men.”
This is, of course, a bald-faced lie, as historian Jonathan Horn explains:
On the eve of the Civil War, Lee's letters are pretty clear. He thinks secession was illegal, he thinks George Washington would agree, and he opposes it.

In April 1861, Lee is called to the city of Washington by an emissary for Abraham Lincoln who tries to get Lee to crush secession. As Lee remembers the story, the emissary tries everything to get him to say yes and says, "the country looks to you as the representative of the Washington family."

Yet he makes this decision to turn down that command, and he says he can't go to war against the state he calls home, Virginia. He explains this decision to his mentor in the Union Army who says, Lee, you've made the greatest mistake in your life.

But Lee believes that he has to follow his native state, where his first loyalty is due.
[Washington] had come to view to himself as an American first. The best evidence for this is his Farewell Address, which instructs Americans to put the union above any local allegiance. 
Lee thought he was a Virginian first and American second, while Washington was an American first and foremost, and everything else second.

I am with Washington. It is literally un-American to be anything else before being an American. I hear so many conservatives say things like, "I am a Christian first, a conservative second and an American third," or "I'm a father first, a Republican second and an American third." These roles are not exclusive and cannot be ranked.

It irks me every time I see conservatives wearing American flag pins while proclaiming they're so proud of their state, whose flag incorporates the design of the Confederate flag, or has hundreds of monuments to Confederate traitors.

I think it is preposterous to have "dual citizenship," like the Russians who come to the United States and stay at Trump resorts to have their anchor babies. You know, anchor babies? That thing Republicans always accuse Hispanics of? The Chinese have also been doing it for a long time.

I have no problem with the birth citizenship rule that makes this possible. And I have no problem with people speaking their native language at home, preferring ethnic food over the fattening fare that passes for American cuisine, or wearing headscarves or even hijabs. As long as they are Americans first and everything else second.

People like Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who supported Trump for president and bought himself New Zealand citizenship, aren't real Americans. Thiel is planning to bail on this country as soon as it's convenient. Thiel, and any American who actively obtains citizenship in other countries, should be required to renounce their American citizenship, since they clearly have divided loyalties.

People who obtain citizenship by virtue of having been born in a place, as Ted Cruz did in Canada or Russian anchor babies do in the United States, should required to choose their country of citizenship when they come of age.

This is what "America First" should really mean: you are an American before all else -- New Yorker, Texan, Christian, Muslim, atheist, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, black, white, Hispanic. You should place the welfare of the United States -- the whole of it -- above your state, ethnicity, religion or political party.

And yes, America should come before religious institutions. If you're a Catholic before you're an American, move to Italy. If you're a Jew before you're an American, move to Israel. If you're a Mormon before you're an American, go start your own country on Mars.

Religion should be completely separate from country. That's not to say that morality and religious sensibilities should not inform our political process. But as soon as religious institutions and dogma get involved in politics, it's always a disaster as one religion jockeys to gain temporal power over the others.

Today it's Christianity vs. Islam, but in the past it was Protestant vs. Catholic (as recently as 1960), and if we let Christianity dominate it'll be no time before the temporary truce between protestants and Catholics is over. Baptists will start calling Catholics satanists all over again. Oh wait, they're still doing that.

Like Washington, we should be Americans first and everything else second.

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