WHO WILL JUDGE THE PROPOSITION? | 2006-12-04
There are two opposite preambles, that in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln and George Will say that America is based on a proposition, that all men are created equal. You are French if you are born in France, you are German if you are born in Germany, but you are an American if you accept the proposition. America, they say, is a propositional state.
Which is a little hard on those of us both sides of whose families were born here since before the Constitution or the Declaration was written. According to the propositional state idea, we were born stateless. Our right to be in America is based on a proposition.
I fit into "We the people of the United States of America and OUR posterity" but the concept of human equality strikes me as nutty.
So the world is full of Americans, but if this is a Propositional State, I have no right to be here. Foreigners who BELIEVE have that right.
In fact, "a nation of immigrants" would seem to exclude a bunch of natives.
Another question arises. Who is to JUDGE our right to be be here, and how often? Our right to be here depends on our loyalty to The Proposition, but all Propositions are the subject of interpretation. Who is to decide whether I accept The Proposition? I must accept it honestly, in its true meaning, and who is to decide what that true meaning is?
This is not a new situation. Adherence to the proper faith was required in Massachusetts. Jefferson listed as one of his major achievements the end of a relgious test for offices in Virginia. So we are going back to the days when citizenship was a matter of accepting a Proposition, a faith.