Citizenship is synonymous with representative government. Citizens are not residents, serfs, peasants, or subjects. To be a citizen is to have inalienable rights---rights that cannot be taken away by some ruler or king. Today only about half of the world’s population are citizens of fully consensual governments enjoying constitutionally protected freedoms. They are almost exclusively in the West. Democracy is a rarity and only about 22 current democracies have been in existence for over half a century. That’s why you see people, come hell or high water, go through the southern border into the United States or go through the Mediterranean to reach Western Europe. People would rather be a citizen in a new, unfamiliar country than be a serf, peasant, noncitizen, or subject in their homelands.

But today, we in the West take citizenship for granted. We falsely believe that citizenship has always and will continue to exist. Some even say that, in a borderless world, the idea of a nation-state is outdated---preferring to call themselves "citizens of the world." They forget that citizenship is an exception rather than the rule. There were no citizens for most of human history. In a monarchy, theocracy, or autocracy, people did not have inalienable rights. Elected representatives did not exist. Citizenship was a revolutionary idea that came quite late to civilization. Citizenship is precious and must be cherished. It requires work. Democracy is fleeting. It’s not easy to govern oneself---much less to protect and exercise your freedoms.

We discuss a multitude of toxic forces that degrade national sovereignty and undermine citizenship, including the decline of the middle class, open borders and illegal immigration, identity politics and tribalism, unelected administrative state ("deep state"), technocratic "evolutionaries," and globalism. As always, we connect the dots.

The Dying Citizen by Victor Davis Hanson: https://amzn.to/3ioKsHX

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