In a new entry titled American Exodus, Vanishing American attempts to broach the subject from at least a couple of different angles. It's a good post, and I heartily recommend that you read it in its entirety.
VA writes:
This is all well and good for those of recent immigrant stock, as apparently many European countries will accept immigrants with ancestry (even grandparents or great-grandparents) from that country. Still, that doesn't help people like me whose ancestors have been in this land for quite a few generations.
The article gives the impression that some of these people who are seeking dual citizenship have rather shallow loyalties to this country, and who are actually 'hyphenated Americans' with one foot in the 'old country.' So in that sense, they may not be bellwethers of 'White flight'. They seem to be opportunists, in many cases, who think their economic chances are better in Europe, and they have somewhat weak ties to this country. (italics added)
Yes; yet despite their weak ties to this country which it seems to me would only tend to get weaker in proportion to their distance and time away, they presumably would retain the strength of their political ties -- their U.S. citizenship -- once having established permanent residency in Europe! Nuts!
My concern here is with this whole issue of "dual citizenship". As to VA's italicized comments above, I personally have always thought that this was a given with "Americans" who are dual citizens of America and of a distinct foreign country with distinctive foreign interests.
I've written about this before and I've consistently maintained that dual citizenship in the United States and the country of one's ancestral origin, Western European or otherwise, does by definition divide one's loyalties between the two. Therefore, I think that dual citizenship should be prohibited by law.
Personally I don't even like the idea of dual citizenship for native Americans, because I think, again, that there's a division of loyalties inherent to the concept of dual citizenship, which is self-destructive. This is the reason, for instance, that someone found to have a conflict of interests is disallowed from serving on a jury. It is commonly understood that such a person cannot be unbiased in his judgment, or, stated differently, he cannot act solely in the interest of justice because he has an interest which conflicts with impartial justice.
But at least in the case of native Americans they are persons whose conflicting loyalties are not between the United States and a foreign state, but between the United States and the given Indian Nation, both confined within the same broad borders. Nonetheless, I believe that native Americans should be forced to make the choice between United States citizenship and all the priveleges and immunities that go with it, and of the tribe to which they belong. There should be no conflicting loyalties, nor any opportunity for those loyalties to conflict.
While I'm not saying that American interests are altogether distinctive from, say, Great Britian's; that the two countries do not at times share the same interests, I am saying that they also have distinctive interests which often conflict with the interests of the other. And it's on this basis that I reject the idea of dual citizenship, not just for cultural incompatibles like Muslims, but for everybody. Where am I going wrong? Read More
