Constitution, patriotism and rights only have meaning in a nation-state. They come together with citizenship as a package deal. You can’t ditch the idea of citizenship and retain Constitution, patriotism, and rights. This is such a basic, obvious thing, and people are still not getting it.
You either do not understand the message you quote or you manipulate it. Constitution, patriotism, and rights do not come together with citizenship as a “package deal”. They also apply to those living legally in the United States as permanent residents, who have all the rights as the US citizens except the right to vote and a few other ones, some of which are listed below.
As a permanent resident (Green Card holder), you have the right to:
Are you pranking me right now? Or are you a new reader, in which case, OK, I’ll repeat myself for the 30th time.
Rights don’t spontaneously emerge from the ether. Rights only exist inasmuch as there are institutions willing to guarantee and defend them. Such institutions only exist in one form of statehood which is the nation-state.
The social contract of this form of statehood is that the state guarantees us rights and in return we keep the nation-state in place. We protect and defend it, including with our lives. The nation-state is a form of statehood that has clearly defined borders and a concept of citizenship. Once these attributes are weakened, there’s no Nation-state. And all your rights become so much vapor.
You can’t ditch your obligations to the nation-state and expect it to keep its obligations towards you. Because once you’ve ditched yours, for example by saying that citizenship is fluid and not that important, there is no longer any nation-state to give a crap about your rights.
If this is all new to you, that’s fine. Start doing searches on this website with keywords rights and nation-state. I’ve written about this in great detail for over a decade.
People keep wondering why the middle class is dwindling and welfare protections are evaporating but can’t be assed to find out what form of statehood makes these nice things possible and what happens when this form of statehood goes away.
It’s the Magic Stuff philosophy: anything nice that we already have is some kind of God-given right (except without God). Never ask where it came from or what maintains it. Anything that makes you vaguely uncomfortable is a Societal Evil that must be overcome at any cost.
It’s really easy to sell to the smartphone generation. Their ability to hold a thought for more than 30 seconds is seriously impaired.
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People start getting really pissy when one points out all of this “boring” stuff about institutions and forms of statehood. They want to feel virtuous by making sweeping statements about rights that magically engender themselves. Yet with all their love for rights, they have no interest in the duties and obligations that accompany them.
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This is how we end up with local governments who are embezzling the heck out of everything, un-usable public parks and libraries, exploding homeless addict zombie populations, and failing schools. Nobody understands how any of that “government” and “funding” and “taxes” stuff works. It’s all vibes now.
You’re either overthinking it or you did not provide the context for the original quote. I responded based on the quote and your reaction to it.
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I’ve been studying this issue since 2002. Yes, I’ve thought about it deeply. It is my job to do so.
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I assume this is a paid talking point. I have seen it robotically repeated so many times now.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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