Citizens, Citizenship, Voting and “Skin in the Game”

Some people think we could solve the gasoline problem by linking it to the illegal immigration problem. One (on the surface) hairbrained solution is to continue the 'catch & release' - but by deporting 15 million illegal immigrants to war zones to fight, in USA uniform, for pay and for a chance to earn citizenship. It's rash to assume illegals even want USA citizenship - instead of having interest primarily in income, food, and welfare freebees, that they cannot get at home. It's more simplistic still, to assume 15 million illegals are a significant aspect of our need to import gasoline -- though we grant how illegals' impact may be significant locally along the border and in sanctuary cities.

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Yet the seemingly hairbrained scheme and simplistic assumptions do point to a much more serious point. Maybe it's time for the nation to consider this bigger point.

• It's bigger than illegal aliens shipped off to earn citizenship in Afghanistan.
• And it's bigger than potential blackmail from abject dependence on foreign oil supplies (drug-lord-ridden Mexico, Jihadist Middle East, warlord-wracked sub-saharan Africa, etc)
• It's bigger than, but related to, our own allowance of enviro-socialist immolation (via intentional choking regulations and outright bans on domestic & offshore drilling).
• It's even bigger than untoward domestic meddling from national-debt holders (like Communist China).

Yet the point boils down, indeed, to who earns citizenship, and how. Today, you're a citizen if you're born here -- no matter if your parent(s) are illegal immigrants. The last part is thanks to a liberal Supreme Court Justice Brennan footnoting a specious argument onto Amendment 14 of the U.S. Constitution. But there's also the question: why does a person have a vote merely due to being born here -- especially if the person does nothing to support the country and everything to drag it down? Let's explore two aspects of citizenship. Robert Heinlein wrote, in "Starship Troopers", that everybody legally born in the country has the right to live in the country, but that Citizenship should be conferred as the definition of a Right To Participate In Politics. To become a citizen means to obtain a political right to cast a vote, and a right to run for & hold political office. A citizenship is earned by proving one's mindset can put the country's welfare above one's own selfish interests, such as by serving a minimum term in uniform defending the country. Since military service was the only ticket to citizenship, all volunteers had to be accepted into military service, whether physically fit or not; it would be the government's burden to ensure all volunteers' time & intentions would be meaningfully used towards proving citizenship-worthy mindset, even if the volunteer was a quadriplegic who could serve only by testing new spacesuit designs while lying on the ground for a few days (each test) in the frozen, poisonous, and tenuous atmosphere of Pluto.

"I, [uniformed military member]... do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion... So Help me God." - excerpt from Oath Of Office sworn by commissioned military officers; enlisted oaths are quite similar, and both include the "unlimited liability clause" to follow orders even when such orders seem to mean imminent death of the service member

This paragraph may seem unrelated, at first; but stick with it. Rome, China, and all great civilizations have repeatedly faced runaway inflation due to 'bread & circuses' welfare spending. The worst for Rome, arguably, was in 280s AD. Rome was bankrupt. Triple-digit inflation reigned. People vied to (literally) buy the Emperorship, in part for power, but also in part so they could make laws to feed their family and protect their own fortunes, no matter what else happened. This economic & political chaos is why Emperor Diocletian decided to divide the emperorship among four men, and split the capital to two places. And this Roman Empire financial & political chaos was even on a gold-standard monetary system -- far different from the USA's current 'fiat' monetary system based on Keynesian principles. Fast-forward to more modern times. Argentina of the 1970s and 1980s resembled ancient Rome's deeply troubled economy, complete with triple-digit inflation and corresponding immense hardship especially on the poor. We note how Argentina was quite typical of a great many countries at that time, when Thatcher and Reagan showed the world a more sound solution than socialism's rampant welfare spending. Argentina thus provides us is a good specific example of what happens in modern political-economic systems, too, when social spending gets beyond control and supersedes affordability -- even beside the separate discussion of whether such programs have a legitimacy at small percentages of a nation's governmental spending.

"They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them." - Margaret Thatcher, 5 Feb 1976 TV interview for 'Thames TV This Week' (3yrs & 3mos before becoming Prime Minister)

From the above two paragraphs and their quotes, we arrive at the crucial nexus of our citizenship point: regardless of which economic model or political model a country adopts, it remains a constant in 'objective reality' (i.e.: a reality whether we admit it or not) that *welfare spending inexorably grows when the recipients are allowed to vote, and that, conversely, 'inexorably growing welfare spending' will destroy any country no matter what economic model -- or political model -- the country is run under*. This runaway spending problem is one readily solvable by redefining and uplifting 'citizenship'. Uplifting? Things that aren't free, are always more highly valued. Thus the nexus of our problem is the range of varying possible definitions of 'citizenship'. Talk about 'change we can actually believe in', for once... As a corollary, we recall how this point came to mind: illegal immigration as a purported drain on a nation's ability to survive. First, to prepare the ground for readily understanding the corollary, we must clarify a related issue. We must clarify that each nation has the right to control its own borders, no matter what; but that border control is a separate issue to be discussed elsewhere. The point here is parallel, only seeming to intersect. The point is about internal order, to which the related issue contributes but does not determine. Having clarified how the issue often confuses discussion on our main point, we reach the corollary: we can rightly suppose the runaway spending problem is only worse, when unchecked numbers of illegal immigrants are granted a share of the taxpayer's welfare burden too, regardless of if a major political party tries to legalize them so they can vote for more handouts. Specifically: whether recipients of government largess are legal residents or illegal immigrants, the distinction is immaterial to the point's corollary that *allowing the recipients to rule is like allowing the fox to run the henhouse: chaos, fear, tyranny, death*. We must ask: Is the citizen responsible, or selfish? Do we legally ensure citizens act for the national good, or legally allow citizens to act for the national demise?

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." - Federalist Papers #51, 4^th paragraph, 6 Feb 1788; in the Federalist Papers, Madison, Hamilton, & Jay were persuading New York to ratify the Constitution

Perhaps it's time to open a national debate on whether people should vote when on welfare or otherwise don't "have skin in the game" of paying taxes for the country's maintenance. (Isn't it refreshing to read an honest use of Hussein Obama's own duplicitous "it's time for everybody to have skin in the game" words?) Let's consider several 'skin in the game' realities:

• Many people would stay on welfare, not caring if they get to vote. And this is OK. Some people care far more for refurbishing old cars than participating in politics. Others prefer to just run their business, or work for somebody who gives them a paycheck, and just spend free time with family or a favorite beverage. Everybody has a different mix of talents & interests. That's fine. That's their free choice.
• But many people wouldn't stay on welfare, if the tax payers alone get the right to vote on conditions underlying welfare and other mandatory charity.
• I dare say that, under Heinlein's rules of citizenship, the Federal Government wouldn't be spending more than 65% of its budget on wealth redistribution, nor be running an annual debt where 40% of spending is pure unfunded deficit spending.
• And, I dare to predict that our oil problem, and bigger electricity problem too, would be quickly sorted out.

What wonders we could accomplish, for the nation as a whole and for individual citizens in particular, if we allow a political office, and a political vote, only to people who "have skin in the game"!