  PATRIOT CITIZENRY (Page 19, "What does it mean to be a citizen? ", by Hovannes Abramyan) Shorter: I am copying and pasting a big slab of Iron Curtain rhetoric, substituting a couple of nouns, and adding in a xenophobia grand enough to make Pat Buchanan proud, all because a city wants the opinions of those living within it. To those on the far left, it seems that being American is to be associated with a corrupt system of unfair and indecent policies. America, in their opinion, can never be credited for its corrupt positive attributes because it simply has none. As a result of their distorted worldview, extremists continuously look for ways to undermine the meaning of citizenship. Such as blowing up government buildings and women's clinics, stockpiling vast quantities of weapons, declaring racial holy war, going on "lone wolf" shooting sprees that target minorities, and buying copies of The Turner Diaries at gunshows by the bucketful. Yeah, those extremists on the right are always trying to undermine . . . Wait, did you say the left ? That's interesting, because Abramyan's paragraph, to a word, seems to be a spot-on description of the extremist right in America, the only difference being that they don't take kindly to documented immigrants either.
The point is, extremists of any viewpoint tend to act, well, extreme, and to isolate one group is a useless and deceptive exercise. Hovannes goes through all the qualities that make up an American citizen, happily glossing over those nasty inconvenient ones, like the right to dissent and such (that's soooo September 10th, huh).
And on the way, there's some fun to be had, like: --He brings up the immigration of his parents from Armenia and Colombia, as a contrast (presumably) to illegal immigration into California from Mexico. That's nice, but if either Armenia or Colombia had a common border with the United States, think that might affect his example just a wee bit? At this point it's apples and oranges. --"...Americans have an understanding of the system they live in and work for change only through this system... Those who were born in this country sometimes neglect this understanding, and, in doing so, operate under a false premise that being American requires hating American democracy. " This is the same sort of projecting, narrow nonsense as Amaury Gallais' comment that liberals hate hard work and happiness. (Memo from an actual liberal: We despise Bush, in part, because he never worked an honest day in his life before becoming president. ) Two points for Hovannes: First, as many people on the Aryan right hate democracy as your socialist bogeypeople on the left, and they do so with an even greater passion.
Secondly, if this comment is aimed at a greater chunk of the population than the fringes, then Hovannes is probably making an ignorant error by confusing hatred of corruption in democracy with hatred of democracy itself. And the final graf? Being American is not about residing within a set geographical boundary. Rather, being American involves a love of country, a love of principles, and a love of others that transcends petty differences.
(differences like the often desperate circumstances of those arriving in the country? anyway...) The greatness of American (sic) lies in the greatness of people, but that greatness can only be fully realized when certain privileges are reserved only for citizens. My soft criticism of this is: Then how are we supposed to spread our message of democracy and hope with such mixed messages? And my hard criticism is: There's something very Dred Scott about that line... P.S. Keep in mind that some who violate the terms of their visas have interesting jobs in this state. Like urlLink Governor . 
