Borders

From the New York Times, a story on the newly redesigned citizenship test:

Federal immigration authorities yesterday unveiled 100 new questions immigrants will have to study to pass a civics test to become naturalized American citizens.

The redesign of the test, the first since it was created in 1986 as a standardized examination, follows years of criticism in which conservatives said the test was too easy and immigrant advocates said it was too hard.

The new questions did little to quell that debate among many immigrant groups, who complained that the citizenship test would become even more daunting. Conservatives seemed to be more satisfied.

Imagine my surprise.

I was thinking about going into a diatribe about the test itself - it's available as a PDF at the link - but I think I'll limit that part and take it a different direction. In a second, anyway. First:

72. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1800s.
▪ War of 1812
▪ Mexican-American War
▪ Civil War
▪ Spanish-American War

78. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1900s.*
▪ World War I
▪ World War II
▪ Korean War
▪ Vietnam War
▪ (Persian) Gulf War

Funny how Mexico is the only country from the Western Hemisphere to make these lists. I could name a few others. I'll grant that most of the things I am thinking of are not wars, but U.S. interventions or occupations - but still. For a more complete list, see this Wikipedia article.

Anyway, on to my larger point: The citizenship test is pretty bogus. While the questions seem roughly at the level of a high school government class, that could have an interesting result:

“People who take this seriously will have a good chance of passing,” said Gary Gerstle, a professor of American history at Vanderbilt University. “Indeed, their knowledge of American history may even exceed the knowledge of millions of American-born citizens.”

On the other hand, the test would seem rather ludicrous if it was designed at the functioning level of most U.S. citizens, wouldn't it?

So there's some tension there, between designing a test on the merits and designing a test based on the average knowledge level of the population the immigrant in question is entering. I think one could make a good argument that there's a double standard present here.

But that's still not my main point. Mostly, I think the test is bogus because I think the idea of national citizenship is kind of bogus. Lines on a map are arbitrary, and using violence to prevent people from crossing those lines strikes me as immoral. Also, the idea that someone is more valuable because they are a citizen of a particular country? Pretty baseless.