Reply #223: This is much like I said, but nobody ever responds.

[Inland]

So those posts are in my journal, along with all the other essays I'm proud of that sink like stones.

I usually try words like community, or identification, but it's all the same thing. Your opposite is, I think, correct: libertarianism, where someone's desire to bid on a job meets all the criteria of citizenship, where an individual's desire is good enough, and all relationships are market relationships. That's not a nation, it's a job fair.

I also said:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Inland/29
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there's also an assumption, entirely warranted, that some aren't going to care about the USA. I have no idea why I would want an *unlimited* (and I mean that only in the sense that I think a billion people is without a limit practically) number of people physically present and interacting who don't care about the US and without feeling any personal stake in me, mine or my society.

See, I don't believe that working a job is the sine qua non of being a good member of society. I'm not a huge believer in homo economicus as our essential social being. I don't believe people obey laws, give to charity, attend town hall meetings, or vote because they are employed here. I think those things happen because they give a shit about a society they are part of.

So when those millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of immigrants come here, will they be in favor of building schools that will serve future generations? Volunteering for the army? Building highways? Cooperating with the police? Picking up litter? Or will they be against all those things and waiting for the day they can take their money and anything else that they were able to gain in terms of education "home" as soon as they see an advantage? Is anyone even asking if they believe in things like law, equality, democracy? What's to say that there isn't going to be a barricade going up the next week?