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Q&A About Country Loyalty

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Clarissa

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I like this question. It makes me feel patriotic.

I’m not a citizen of Ukraine. I had to abandon my Ukrainian citizenship when I was naturalized in Canada in 2003.

This is a great question still because yes, I’m in a weird position of being a fan of the nation-state yet having engaged in the most consumerist passport hopping imaginable. So yeah, I know, I sound like a lifelong alcoholic with the cirrhosis of liver lecturing everybody on the evils of alcohol consumption. But it is what it is.

To answer the original question with every possible directness and clarity:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Not by birth but by the most propitious of circumstances as well as by every inclination of my temperament, all of the most sincere qualities of my being and the most treasured events of my life, I am American.

12 responses to “Q&A About Country Loyalty”

  1. ShadowsCollide Avatar
    ShadowsCollide

    That is an awesome answer, I’m an American born and bred with most of my older relatives being naturalized American citizens. It’s one thing for American people to be proud of their heritage, but in the end we are all Americans.

    I’ve encountered a lot of young people who don’t see themselves or identify as Americans, but identify themselves as their ethnic background, ie. Dominican, Mexican, etc. They see Americans as lame white people who eat bland food, listen to country music and are Republicans, they honestly don’t see themselves as Americans even though they were born and raised in the US and have the same New Jersey accent I do. I identify as an American of Cuban descent, this baffles them that I identify as an American first

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      There is this disturbing ad for a genetic testing company where a guy thought he had Italian heritage and pranced everywhere in Italian folk costumes. Then he did a test, discovered Germanic DNA and immediately rebranded in lederhosen and whatever else.

      This is a very sad understanding of belonging which is like a costume that means absolutely nothing but makes you interesting to similarly vacuous friends.

      So yeah, sad. And that it’s actually used as a way to advertise the service is even sadder.

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      1. random reader Avatar
        random reader

        Once you accept that being a man or a woman is just a matter of your feeling and your costume, there is no way to make a case for the national identity to have any meaning whatsoever.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Absolutely.

          Choice, choice, the primacy of choice over absolutely everything else. But I didn’t choose this! Isn’t it unfair? Don’t I have the right?

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      2. ShadowsCollide Avatar
        ShadowsCollide

        That’s a messed up idea that culture equals wearing kitschy folk costumes and the most superficial things of a culture, but a lot of Americans only have a rudimentary idea of what their ancestral culture is like. I am proud of my Cuban heritage, but I don’t wear folk costumes, listen to Caribbean music and I speak Spanish with a heavy accent. Acting like an American indie/hipster person doesn’t mean I’m not proud of my Cuban heritage, it means my family is assimilated and act like Americans who belong here

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  2. random reader Avatar
    random reader

    Sort of related to this, have you seen this? https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/cia-security-risks-trump/index.html

    I was quite incensed seeing this today, especially this part “And on the CIA’s 7th floor — home to top leadership — some officers are also quietly discussing how mass firings and the buyouts already offered to staff risk creating a group of disgruntled former employees who might be motivated to take what they know to a foreign intelligence service.” These people don’t just need to be fired ASAP, they need to be jailed. If the loyalty to your country ends when your paycheck stops, you have never been loyal to start with.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I agree completely. I hope this is a fabrication because I don’t want to believe that such people exist. We can criticize our country, it’s not only fine but good. But selling it off out of resentment? That is unconscionable. I really hope it’s a rhetorical device and not an actual observation.

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      1. random reader Avatar
        random reader

        Your country is like your family. You can be upset with it, and disagree with many things, but you do not go around harming it because in that way, you harm yourself. Rather, you do your best for it.

        Like you, I became an American by choice. I cannot imagine harming this country. I am grateful for all the opportunities given to me here and my loyalty to the US goes above the loyalty to my country of origin. I hope that the story is not real. However, how does one think that it is appropriate to use something like that as a rhetorical device is incomprehensible. If they wanted to come up with a way for me to be completely unsympathetic toward people being fired from the CIA, they succeeded. Actually, if the story is real, the entire CIA is a security risk and should be shut down.

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        1. cliff arroyo Avatar
          cliff arroyo

          “the entire CIA is a security risk and should be shut down”

          Unpleasant truths… you can’t have a nation state without intelligence services.

          Intelligence services tend to to attract a certain type of person that needs… oversight.

          I’ve seen no evidence that Musk thinks of the US as a Nation State so he doesn’t perceive a need for things like intelligence services (or militaries for that matter).

          He doesn’t even have much loyalty to the idea of Earth…

          This sounds like rumors to make sure no one will protest when intelligence services are gutted (hint: russia is not about to reign in its intelligence services).

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  3. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    Related. I find such talk from a politician, let alone the VP, quite refreshing. It’s too easy to dunk on Ukraine right now, though. There are other ethnic groups that have been engaging in this behavior for decades (jews with AIPAC being an obvious example) and this needs to be pointed out again and again.

    https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1894484552120148063

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      We all know I’m not a fan but this tweet I actually really liked. I can disagree with Vance about what’s good for America but that it should be the greatest priority for Americans is undeniable. Patriotism needs to be taught and nurtured.

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  4. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    As I was saying, lol.

    A Jewish Australian Army officer has been stripped of his Top Secret security clearance by a review tribunal which found he had “divided loyalties” between Australia and Israel and posed an “unacceptable and avoidable risk to security” due to the threat of recruitment by “Mossad”.

    In his defence, the officer told the tribunal that “Zionism is an essential theme within Judaism. Judaism mandates the loyalty of a Jew to his people and to the Land of Israel. The Australian government is aware that every Jew harbours a varying degree of loyalty to Israel. Some have a higher and more overt levels of loyalty than others. This is the latent risk that the Australian government must naturally accept when employing Jews.”

    This is the defense?

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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