Teach American Values and Exclude Haters

Re “America the Dutiful,” editorial, Oct. 27: The constitutional guarantees that most of us take for granted are utterly temporary unless we grow a citizenry that is not merely jealous of them but willing to die in order to preserve them.

Americans are made, not born. No one is born patriotic or nationalistic. The schools in America have failed to make Americans. This job has been left to the media, the entertainment world and special-interest groups. Unless native-born children in school and immigrants prior to naturalization are inculcated with the positive aspects of their nation’s history and the duty to respect and protect it, this nation, its Constitution and the freedoms many hold so dear may soon disappear in a world that appears to have no place or need for any of them.

We are all Americans regardless of our varied backgrounds if we recognize that we have no rights without responsibility and that we ultimately have nothing if we refuse to suffer and to sacrifice in order to protect those rights.

Angelo D’Elia

Burbank

The Times was shocked that young Muslims at an Islamic school in Washington felt no allegiance to the U.S. The Times has been in the forefront of propagandizing the ideology of multiculturalism and shouldn’t be surprised to see the result. Multiculturalists would have us believe that all cultures are equal and that national boundaries are an old-fashioned concept. Open borders were the way of the future globalized economy (with cheap labor for business and taxpayer-financed benefits for illegal aliens).

Ideas of national sovereignty were thought old-fashioned and discardable in favor of globalism. But the reality of open borders came home with a vengeance on Sept. 11. America’s culture of secular democracy, free speech and women’s rights is hated by many millions of Islamic fundamentalists. We should neither be welcoming them into our midst nor saying that their antidemocratic, misogynist cultures are equal to our own.

Dana Garcia

Berkeley

Such pap as this editorial is part of the reason our sense of self as Americans in the 21st century fails at every time other than when at war. (Hence we must declare “war” on poverty, on drugs, on cancer, etc.) The gist of the editorial is that we must look back to the 1700s for our sense of identity. Give me a break. Try investing your confidence in the future rather than the past.

Rex Styzens

Long Beach

Anyone preaching, teaching or advocating world domination by Islam would ultimately have violence and the overthrow of the government of the U.S. as an end (“Terror Probe Hovers Over Arizona,” Oct. 28). Whether a person is a real terrorist or advocates principles that can only be had by terror and violence, the end is the same.

The U.S. has been too permissive for years as to whom we allow into our country. The line between 1st Amendment rights and treason is the razor’s edge. But there is a difference in motive, and it is clearly discernible.

Now, in this time frame, I believe that anyone advocating, overtly or covertly, the destruction of the U.S. should be deported immediately. These people do not deserve the hospitality of my country or the goodies that my country offers to them. The rules are very simple: With freedom go responsibility and eternal vigilance.

Susanna Hahn

Malibu