My wife’s family fought in the American Revolution. Mine came here when Seinfeld had just come on the air. I think that makes a difference—the analogous facts would certainly matter in most other places in the world.
Glad too see that you are in agreement with George Orwell. Some citizens indeed are more equal than the others!
Also, you are talking about your wife's family?!!! You mean her great great grandparents or even earlier ancestors?
I am very intrigued by this inheritance based credit system that you are proposing that goes beyond wealth inheritance?
Do you still get points if your ancestors participated in the revolt but were highly incompetent?
How many points do you lose if some of the ancestors fought on the British side? Do you gain or lose points for capturing native American territory and massacring them? Do you also get to keep the points earned by the slaves the ancestors owned or do they go to the descendants of the slaves? Do you gain/lose points for dropping napalm in Vietnam or searching for WMDs in Iraq?
I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!
It's not about "assigning points" but rather distinguishing "of a place" from "foreign to a place." I think I win on points--my family was wealthy landowners in Bangladesh, and her's settled the west coast of the US. My family had indoor plumbing way earlier than her's did.
But that doesn't mean I'm "of the U.S." just because I'm a citizen in the same way she is "of the U.S." The U.S. as it exists today reflects the culture that her ancestors handed down to her much more than it reflects the one mine handed down to me.
> I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!
I have come to the conclusion that most Americans don't understand that culture exists in the same way most can't tell the difference between the national deficit and the national debt. They know the words, but don't actually grasp the concept.
