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You Are An American
excerpts from a column by Larisa Alexandrovna. August 19, 2005
On the day that I became a citizen of this country, I said an oath of loyalty and allegiance to the one thing that makes all of us American:
"I hereby declare, on oath, [...] that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."
According to the oath of citizenship, only the Constitution is to be defended and adhered to; not even the country itself is mentioned outside of its subservience to that principle.
No oath of office or obligation of duty demands that a particular political party or ideology be supported, preserved, defended, protected, and adhered to -- because no political party or ideology defines what an American is.
Most importantly, no single person or group of people are elevated above the Constitution and the rule of law, no matter what their role is in our society.
Our duty to the Constitution transcends every other point of disagreement that every person and/or every group of people can have with one another, no matter how deeply felt.
Watching our entire country implode under the self-serving ideologies of those so eager to claim everything but the Constitution as their guide leaves at least half of us without a home. We may live on the same land, but our nation and the citizens of that nation have been exiled into a national wilderness.
You have been reading excerpts from "You are an American" by Larisa Alexandrovna. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/c39zx. Thanks to Larisa and huffingtonpost.com.
excerpts from a column by Larisa Alexandrovna. August 19, 2005
On the day that I became a citizen of this country, I said an oath of loyalty and allegiance to the one thing that makes all of us American:
"I hereby declare, on oath, [...] that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."
According to the oath of citizenship, only the Constitution is to be defended and adhered to; not even the country itself is mentioned outside of its subservience to that principle.
No oath of office or obligation of duty demands that a particular political party or ideology be supported, preserved, defended, protected, and adhered to -- because no political party or ideology defines what an American is.
Most importantly, no single person or group of people are elevated above the Constitution and the rule of law, no matter what their role is in our society.
Our duty to the Constitution transcends every other point of disagreement that every person and/or every group of people can have with one another, no matter how deeply felt.
Watching our entire country implode under the self-serving ideologies of those so eager to claim everything but the Constitution as their guide leaves at least half of us without a home. We may live on the same land, but our nation and the citizens of that nation have been exiled into a national wilderness.
You have been reading excerpts from "You are an American" by Larisa Alexandrovna. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/c39zx. Thanks to Larisa and huffingtonpost.com.
