Born This Way

It seems like a thing that shouldn't have to be said, but American citizenship is not Olympic gold medal. It's not a PhD in theoretical physics, it's not display space for an interactive art piece in a renowned museum, it's not Halle Berry's phone number. This is to say: it's not a thing you devote your mind, body and soul to achieve over a lifetime of striving and want. If you're not sure what I mean, I submit myself as Exhibit A. All the effort it took for me to achieve American citizenship I don't really have to or want to consider because a) it happened well before I was born and b) it involves my parents copulating, which, you know, no thank you.

The culmination of all that non-effort (on my part I mean. I'm not even going to consider how much effort it was on behalf of mom and dad, yuck) is that I have grown up completely oblivious to the fact that I could just move to Fargo whenever I wanted to. Or Little Rock. Or Orlando. Or Augusta. Or Bozeman. I can barely conceive of why anyone would want to live in any of those places to start with,* but look, they're all there for me to go and enjoy a reasonable cost of living and an absurd standard of living compared to just about all of the rest of the world.

Not only do I have citizenship without trying, I can do all kinds of lunatic bullshit and never, ever lose it. I guess unless you count dying as losing it, in which case all I really have to do is walk into the wrong mall on the day it's my community's turn to get shot up, but in a legal sense, I'd have to go through extraordinary lengths to disavow the citizenship privileges I pay no attention to. I can participate in public displays of performative racism and not only would I get to be a citizen, I'd still be able to be governor of a terrible state. Or I could encourage subordinates to undermine and/or openly break the law to suit my short-sighted, pig-eyed whims and not only would I get to keep being a citizen, I'd still be able to be a terrible, terrible president of the whole dang country.

I guess on one hand I should be glad that the terrible president is spending some time thinking about how thoughtless the act of citizenship-by-birthright is. Maybe this is the start of another controversy like the ones that plagued the early Reformation regarding baptism, where the Catholics wanted to baptize unthinking, irrational, screaming, mewling infants who lacked the sense not to shit themselves, let alone the presence of mind to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal Saviour.** Meanwhile the good and practical Protestants said only rational adults could make the decision to be baptized (just like Jesus!) and so the best course of action in the meantime would be to KILL LITERALLY EVERYONE WHO DISAGREED.

Now, we're not quite to the killing part yet,*** but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the president went after the most obvious target first, the same people Republicans over generations have been scapegoating and vilifying, undermining and demeaning with dehumanizing language at every turn. You know I'm talking about the military and their children. Same old GOP. Looking for someone to hit, go straight for the men and women in uniform. First they sent all of them to Iraq to get shot at, like, five or six deployments in a row, now this. You saw what they did to the guy who came up with the idea to kneel at football games during the national anthem. Their ruthlessness knows no bounds when it comes to sticking it to the man and/or woman in uniform. I hope they can live with their shame.

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*Just to be clear, this is pure coastal liberal elitism talking. Sorry, Real America, it's faster to be a snob than it is to learn the first thing about any of you. I'm sure Wichita is lovely, really.

**You have to keep the U in Saviour because Europeans.

***Or are we?