The British people are subjects under a constitutional monarchy that provides a titular head of state, who reinforces the relationship between the government and the governed.Read the whole thing.
The state must take care of its subjects. The British like this.
Citizenship is messier. People have more personal responsibility.
Everyone is equal. People shout down congressmen. How rude.
I can see why Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco thinks such behavior is "un-American."
She sees the American people as subjects, not citizens.
So does the president.
"The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties," President Obama said in 2001. "Says what states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."
Obama proposes that Ivy League-educated experts will give the people an economy, universal health care, bailouts and even help them trade in those old clunkers for shiny, new cars.
Subjects are not individuals. Subjects are simply members of a group.
Any time a member of any group acts like an individual - Clarence Thomas is a fine example - he is singled out for ridicule.
Citizens see people as individuals, and respect those who march to their own drumbeat. This is why conservatives had Justice Thomas's back.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Subjects or Citizens?
Don Surber explains the difference:
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For an insight into the whole mentality, I suggest reading this:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/
I would note that at first glance the writer might seem to be striking a "confessional" pose, but linger over it a bit, and you find that the author really does consider himself to be of a higher class.
And what I marvel at is this: that the intellectual author who speaks other languages and cannot figure out how to address a plumber -- what is it about lefties and plumbers? (I think the Dingo ate his baby) -- the author, I say, who is soooo deep, soooo intelligent, sooo brilliant -- fails to notice the salient fact that he cannot fix the blankin' toilet himself. Duh.
It's not like it's nuclear physics. The august writer sees the chasm separating himself from the plumber as partly a cultural construction, yet fails to see that plumbing operates according to Newton's laws.
It's an open and shut case, really. The plumber may be "slow" but he's ahead of this Yale egghead.
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