Society Becomes How You Behave.

From The Right, You Get Demagogues Shouting About Brown-skinned Anchor Babies And Clamoring To Deport The Undocumented. From The Left, You Get Advocacy For The Oppressed But Otherwise, When It Comes To National Civic Identity, Mainly Silence.

Conservatives Forget That Citizenship Is More Than A Thing To Withhold From Immigrants. Progressives Forget It's More Than A Set Of Rights.

If Half-black Barack Obama Had Decided Years Ago To Call Himself White - Which His Genes Certainly Entitled Him To Do - His Story Would Have Carried Very Different Meaning. If Millions Of Part-black People Had Followed Him Into Whiteness, Then The N.a.a.c.p. Would Be In True Crisis.

To Be Sure, The United States Has Profound Problems, Not Least Our Faltering Educational And Physical Infrastructure.

Honest People Know That The Road To Success And Virtue Always Involves Shared Sacrifice, Hard Work, And Gratification Postponed. Telling People Otherwise Isn't Leadership, It Is Pandering.