Citizen K

Along with around 87% of my current fellow US citizens, I was born here in this country. And so when I just a wee, wee lad—as for cherubic, I have some doubt (as many others do surely)—the rights and laws of this nation I duly inherited. I say inherited in the sense that I have not written a law, passed a law, or for that matter voted for a law.

No, I have gone about my life’s business as one of many, paying taxes, obeying said laws, keeping my property reasonably tidy. Perhaps some fellow citizens would want me to do more, although I can’t imagine anything of such magnitude that they would be harping at me about it. Some think my role-playing just fine, and the vast majority never give my performance as citizen a second thought—heck, never a first thought most likely.

My take on being born a US citizen is premised on an obvious point: The moment of my birth was also a moment of birth for hundreds of others around the globe, each a citizen of where brought into this world. I surely must have a Chilean “cousin”, a Cambodian “cousin”, and a Canadian “cousin” along with the rest of an international lineup born August 11^th, 1953.

I wonder if any of these birthdate cousins migrated here and became fellow US citizens. Odds to the affirmative must be reasonably good, I think.

I am here, historically speaking, via some ancestors who arrived well before the birth of the US in 1790 with the ratifying of the Constitution. However, the ratification happened only after Rhode Island first rejected the document by popular vote, and then, by way of a constitutional convention, caved by a margin of two votes under threat of being identified as a foreign country otherwise.

I skip past the Declaration in 1776 because anyone can declare pretty much anything about anything. Let me see, then, what results.

The Rhode Island example is instructive. The popular vote regarding the Constitution, an example of democracy in action. The convention delegates’ vote, a republican act—overturning the popular vote in this instance.

The Constitution is the elemental homeland document conceived in a very particular time and place, coming on 230 years ago in Philadelphia. But what interests me as we bat and batter the document about is population.

According to the first census in 1790, 3,893,635 was the count. Now, estimates have us 84 times larger. Think of a town of 1000, for example, now a small city of 84,000. 

Or think of Virginia in 1790, the most populous state then by more than 12 times tiny Delaware. Now consider California today with 69 times more folks than Wyoming.

Right there, then, begin your mulling over the Electoral College. Of course, without taking account of the state where you now reside. Of course.

Maybe—most likely—my yard could be, should be tidier.