We Don't Know Jack 2.0

As a follow-up to yesterday's bit about the civics test, I decided to go find a test that was more than 10 questions. As it happens, the History Channel has a 96-question remake of the official citizenship test here.

I got 93 of the questions correct, though it should be 94 because I misclicked on the 'who was the first President' question. Either way it's an easy pass; as far as the naturalization people are concerned, I breezed through it. In the actual test, you are given 10 questions, and you must get six correct to pass. That option is available through the link. But we're thorough around here, so you need 58 correct to pass on the full test. That shouldn't be any trouble for actual citizens. It will be, as we've seen far too often, but it shouldn't. This is the minimum we ask of people asking to come here, so the people already here should lay waste to the damn thing.

An important word of note: this particular test is as of the period immediately prior to the November election. That will come into play during the test.

What Is An American?

Lately, there has been a quite serious- and quite shrill- "discussion" in this country over what, exactly, constitutes being an American. Legally, an American is anyone born in the country, born to at least one American parent, or who goes through the arduous, notoriously red-tape-laden naturalization and citizenship process. Pretty simple.

That's apparently not the discussion we're having. Instead, we've found ourselves in something more of what an American should be. There are votes- contentious ones- on healthcare for 9/11 responders that might be illegal immigrants. The term "anchor babies" has been rampant. For some time, there has been heated talks about who and what constitutes a 'real' American, as some Americans are apparently fake. Like they were created in a wax museum or something.

And let's not even get into the ongoing yammering about Obama's birth certificate.

The legal part of what should constitute an American, I've already covered earlier. That needs to be made easier. But even that strayed into the deeper philosophical debate about what an American should be.

So let's just go in with both feet on it. Let's answer two things. What is America as a concept, and what constitutes a 'real' American.

America as a concept, to me at least, is not bound by its borders or its legal intricacies. Rather, it is its ideals. That is what it was always really meant to be. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A government of the people, by the people, for the people. Laws can be changed. The Constitution can be changed. The people will absolutely change. The world will change in ways that our forefathers never could have even comprehended. Surely, George Washington never envisioned me making words appear like magic on a screen by pressing buttons labeled with letters, which is exactly what I'm doing right now. Even doing it on paper was beyond him. There weren't even typewriters back then. Thomas Jefferson never foresaw something to replace the horse-and-buggy. Or paved roads connecting the country.

They surely didn't foresee a way to keep track, on a day-to-day basis, of just who was crossing over the border. Even today, there are many international borders that aren't well-marked. There's no real way to know when you've crossed a border- no landmarks, no checkpoints. The Tuareg live on this, crossing the various borders in the Sahara as if they didn't exist-- and to them, they don't. Illegal immigration was the furthest thing from their minds. And besides, their forefathers didn't come in under the grandest of circumstances, so who were they to judge? If you're on our side, welcome aboard. (As long as you're a white landowner, of course.)

A 'real' American was and is, in my mind and in the minds of our forefathers, simply anyone that does whatever they are able to do, to the best of their ability, to make America the best possible place it can be, in their own small way. I don't care if you're not "legal". I in fact don't care if you have never even set foot in this country. Do you hold true to the same ideals? Do you bust your butt, day in and day out, to improve the life in whatever fashion of not only yourself, but your family, your friends, people you've never met, even people that may question your commitment or your very right to be here? Do you make a commitment to better the United States, to make it a beacon of freedom- true, honest freedom, not just 'freedom to do whatever you want unless I don't like it'? Welcome aboard.

Conversely, someone that is not a 'real' American does not do, or attempt to do, these things. They make little to no effort to improve their country, themselves. When their country calls them, they respond with silence. They consume America's resources and do not make, nor have they ever made, a good-faith effort to put any of them back. (Trying and failing to find a job is a good-faith effort. Unemployment happens. Sometimes jobs and applicants just don't match up and somebody gets the butt end of it. But if you're not even sending out applications, that's another thing entirely.)

Basically, you don't have to be American to be American, but you can be American without being American. If that makes sense.

Now, you're probably asking 'what do you mean you don't care if someone's never set foot in this country? Those guys can't POSSIBLY be American! That doesn't even make any sense!'

Follow me.

There are those people that seek to improve, however they can, not just their own country, but all the others as well. The most successful at this tend to be among the world's most revered: Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, Norman Borlaug, Dag Hammerskjold. These are not just people of their own country, but in fact citizens of the entire world. They are Polish, Swedish, Macedonian, South African, but also Dutch, Chinese, Australian, Argentinian, Tunisian, Qatari... and American as well. They're American; we just share them with everybody else.

Which is what leads to the most maddening part of this all, the recent failed vote to supply health benefits to 9/11 first responders. You would think that this wouldn't even be a question. They're 9/11 first responders, for Pete's sake. Give them whatever they want. They've earned it. However, the vote was turned from a simple-majority vote to a two-thirds vote to avoid an amendment being attached that would deny the benefits to illegal immigrants.

The vote was a majority in favor, but they couldn't clear two-thirds, and the bill was killed.

Consider that a second. There is someone in this country that is so despising of those that are not officially Americans that it does not matter to them if those same people laid their lives on the line to save American lives during one of America's darkest hours. It does not matter. There are people that will jeopardize and ultimately deny health benefits to ALL 9/11 first responders because one or more of them might not be here legally. None of them necessarily are. One of them just MIGHT be illegal, and that is apparently enough for some ungrateful soul to turn on them all.

If you are willing to go through that for the sake of the United States, if you are willing to lay your lives on the line for the sake of people that may later turn on you for the sake of political expediency, I really don't care in the slightest how you got here. You are welcome in my country. You are an American. You are, in fact, an American hero.

You are, at least, more American than they.

Another Look At The Boston Tea Party

Let's talk Tea Party today. Specifically, let's talk the rationale behind calling it the Tea Party.

No, not the fact that calling themselves 'teabaggers' at first backfired spectacularly and provided easy rationale for their opposition to keep calling them that even after they realized their mistake and changed the name.

Something more basic. As popular history tells, the Boston Tea Party- that which served as the underlying story behind both names- was conducted in 1773 as a protest against British taxation under the Tea Act. Protesters dressed up as Indians, boarded a ship loaded with tea from the British East India Company, and flung the tea into Boston Harbor.

The Boston Tea Party happened, to be sure. But the reason behind it wasn't simply to protest British taxation.

You see, the American colonists had a tea trade going. A black-market tea trade. 90% of colonial tea was smuggled in, with the mast majority of that smuggled in by one John Hancock.

Hancock wasn't anything special; a lot of colonists dabbled in smuggling. The American taxes were worse than the ones the British imposed; in fact, were one to play by the rules, import duties, which could reach 100%, would quickly drive them out of business. Hancock just happened to be better at it than anyone else.

He was the one that stood to lose the most to the British East India Company, because even with the three-pence tax to be imposed, the Tea Act served to lower prices on British tea: along with the tax, the British East India Company was to be refunded a 25% duty they were paying importing the tea into Britain on the way to America. With that subsidization, Bohea tea bound for the colonies- the most common type- would see its price come down from three shillings per pound to two.

According to Benajmin Woods Labaree's book The Boston Tea Party, Hancock's price was two shillings, one pence.

Bohea tea made up 91.6% of the tea sent into Boston Harbor.

That was what kicked off the Boston Tea Party. The aim wasn't to protest taxes. It was more to protest competition than anything else.

American Ethnic Food

This is footage of a gourmet grocery store in Berlin, in which someone came across an American 'ethnic' food section.

International readers, let me show you the food of my people:



More need not be said.