Too Different Worlds and Two Different Americas

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Too Different Worlds and Two Different Americas

By Scott Rohter, April 2013

“Without wisdom the nations fall and the people perish.” - The Bible

"The greatest threat to our future and our freedom is our own Federal Government."

Imagine a country with a population of between ten and twenty million illegal aliens living and hiding somewhere within it. I am not talking about Europe or ancient Rome. Then imagine that this same country has a Constitution which requires federal elections to be held every two years for members of Congress. Originally the people of the United States only directly elected members of the House of Representatives by popular vote, but in 1913 the 17th Amendment changed that. Now add to this the fact that our Constitution doesn't limit voting to actual American citizens who are either born here or in the country legally. Anyone who is in the country can vote in federal elections. Since 1913 we have held national elections every two years to elect members of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate. These 465 people represent the 315 million people living in our country which includes an estimated twenty million illegal aliens who don’t belong here but remain only because we haven't had the political courage to do anything about them. Not only are these illegal aliens and foreign nationals voting in our elections, but they are also determining who the next President will be and what his policies are.

The Constitution which requires us to hold elections every two years for members of Congress also requires us to elect a President every four years to implement the laws that Congress passes. Our President is elected through a complicated system of popular votes and Electoral College votes, and our Constitution makes no provision at all for how these popular votes are to be counted other than to state in Article 1 Section 2 that the votes are to be tabulated in the same way that they are counted for elections of the various State Legislatures. That leaves the voting for Federal offices subject to a wide variety of different interpretations and sometimes conflicting State laws.

If all of this isn't bad enough.... and just to make matters even more complicated, the word “Citizen” is never used to describe who can and cannot vote in Federal elections. The Constitution just says that, “Members of the House of Representatives shall be chosen every second year by the People of the several States." Note: It does not say that they shall be chosen by the Citizens of the several States. It says they are chosen by the People of the several States... Yet in the very next clause it does say that in order to be a member of the House of Representatives you must be a Citizen of the United States for seven years.

The Constitution says that you have to be a Citizen in order to be elected, but it does not say you that you need to be a Citizen in order to vote. That posed a problem. So Congress passed the the 14th Amendment which was ratified in 1868, and the 26th Amendment which was ratified in 1971 to clear up the confusion. Yet plenty of confusion still remains as to just who can and cannot vote in Federal elections.

Now consider a Federal lawsuit between the Federal Government and one of the fifty States over the use of a voter registration form that merely asks a prospective voter to state for the record under penalty of perjury that they are a legal resident of the United States. It does not require them to prove anything mind you. It just asks them to state for the record that they are living in the United States legally. A legal resident is someone who has more rights than an alien, but less rights than a citizen. This little voter registration form was the subject of a big Federal lawsuit between the State of Arizona and the Obama Administration.

Arizona has a huge illegal immigration problem on its hands. The State wants residents to do more than just fill out the standard Federal voter registration form. They actually want to require people to show proof of legal status before they vote. Arizona rightfully claims that if someone is in the country illegally and they are willing to vote illegally then they would also be willing to lie about it. Arizona’s Attorney General is correct. It’s just common sense. If someone is going to commit voter fraud then it is unreasonable to expect that they are going to admit it on their voter registration form.

Unfortunately for us it does not say in the Constitution what it means to be a Citizen of the United States. I wish it did. Furthermore whatever it means... the Constitution does not even use the word "citizen" to describe who can and cannot vote. It only uses the word, citizen to describe who can and cannot run for Congress. Apparently whatever it meant to be a citizen, it was not a prerequisite in order to vote. So then just what exactly is the difference between the word...“citizens”, and the term “the People of the Several States” as the Founding Fathers understood both of those terms to mean?

When the Constitution was written our country was comprised of thirteen colonies that were scattered across the Atlantic seaboard from Massachusetts to Georgia. The original territory of the United States of America did not extend much beyond the Appalachian Mountains. When immigrants came here they were completely leaving their life in the Old World behind. They were leaving one continent and embarking on a long and dangerous journey to another. Their was no such thing as dual citizenship, and assimilation into our society was easy. Most immigrants who came to America sold all of their earthly possessions except for the clothes on their back in order to pay for their passage and when they disembarked upon these shores several months later they literally set foot in another world. There was no going back and no desire to go back in most cases.

Our Founding Founders never envisioned that the country they created would one day stretch across an entire continent to meet another ocean or that it would share a common border with Central and South America. They never dreamed that our country’s southern border would one day be the flash point that it is and a source of contention between English speaking Americans and Spanish speaking Americans… They never dreamed that our southern border would one day be the dangerous border between two different languages and two different cultures. They never dreamed that our southern border would be the border between two different Americas.

There was something very different about the early immigrants who came to America in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It persisted well into the early part of the 20th Century. There was something different about the attitude of those early immigrants to America that is completely different than the attitude of the majority of people who are coming here now. When people came to America before the advent of trains and planes, the people who made the long and arduous overseas journey had truly given up everything in order to come here and they were ready and willing to assimilate into the fabric of American society. There was no question about which country they were going to be loyal to and that feeling of patriotism and love for their adopted country extended well into the 20th Century, but something is very different about the people coming here today.

There are twenty million poor and unemployed people from Latin America who have crossed our borders today with no feeling of patriotism or loyalty for our country, just a desire to make money. They are not forsaking their old country or their old ways and trying to make a new start in a new world. They are here only to make money and to send most of it back home to their relatives. They can go back to Mexico any time they want, and they frequently do. They communicate daily via cell phone with their family and friends back home. These 21st Century migrant workers are not adopting our language or our culture and they are not forsaking their country or adopting ours. Neither are they relinquishing their allegiance to Mexico or pledging allegiance to the United States. Rather they continue to speak Spanish and maintain their dual loyalties long after they have lived here for many years.

Instead of assimilating into our society today's so called "immigrants" from Mexico and Latin America impose their language and unfamiliar customs upon us. When you make a phone call who hasn't heard the familiar refrain, "Para Espanole marque el dos" ? The imposition of the Spanish language and culture upon all Americans can range from that harmless little message over the telephone to celebrating Cinco de Mayo to the custom of adult Mexican males having premarital sex with underage little girls. The attitude of today’s illegal immigrants from Latin America is a far cry from what our Founding Fathers could have ever imagined. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison never dreamed that our southern border would one day be the dangerous and volatile confrontation between too different worlds and two different Americas.

"The truth, the political truth, and nothing but the political truth. A journalist has no better friend than the truth." - Scott Rohter
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