One More “Be Like Europe” Plea

Expat (Paris) James Lieber and Temple University law teacher Peter Spiro want American expats to have their own quasi-State, to have territorial delegates in Congress á la DC, Puerto Rico, et al., and be directly represented in our Congress, albeit those delegates wouldn’t have any votes.

No. Expats already have direct representation, should they choose to exercise it by, you know, voting. They’re represented by their representatives and senators in their home district and State. Nor are expats’ votes any more diluted than are the votes of their fellow citizens still resident here at home.

In the end, too, the expats are that of their own volition; no one is making them live abroad.

Lieber’s and Spiro’s argument that Italy, France, and Portugal do things differently, and therefor so should we, is just cynically disingenuous. We are not Italy, France, or Portugal, nor are we any other European nation or nation elsewhere in the world; we’re unique, and that’s on purpose.

It’s only necessary to peruse our Constitution and compare it with the constitutions of those other nations, along with the histories behind them, to see both the differences and the reasons for them.

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