This is reposted from the RenouceUScitizenship blog. Since Ted Cruz had the “temerity” to have born outside the Homeland, Donald Trump has called his U.S. citizenship into question (those of you who were NOT born in the United States would find this debate to be interesting). This raises the question of how “citizenship” should be related to the political process in general.
If Senator Cruz were declared ineligible to run for President, he might say:
“It’s unjust. It’s inhumane. I didn’t choose where I was born!”
Well Ted, that’s too bad. Get with the program. We aren’t talking about justice. We are talking about America.
To what degree should citizenship matter at all? Many readers of this blog are aware of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. S. 3 of that Charter makes a clear statement of the importance of the right to participate in the political process. It also links citizenship to that right.
Democratic rights of citizens
3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.
What about the United States?
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In the finest of American traditions and mythology:
Samuel Adams suggested that "taxation without representation" was a form of slavery." That was then. This is now. https://t.co/E2lWfF6wxh
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) January 11, 2016
The summary statement of the Samuel Adams instructions, written to the representatives of the Massachusetts House, approved May 24, 1764:
“If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?”
But yet,
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