Least Favored Citizen Amendment

There is a simple solution to the "ground-zero-mosque" brouhaha. As several alert and patriotic citizens have pointed out, Saudi Arabia, our great and loyal ally, does not allow the construction of Christian churches, so why should we allow the construction of mosques?

In international trade, there is an instrument known as the "most favored nation" clause. The way this works is that the nation granted most favored nation treatment will always get the best deal the grantor has to offer. Here's an example. Suppose China grants the United States a most favored nation clause in a trade treaty and agrees to sell us lead-painted toys for $2.50 a ton. Later, China sells such toys to Russia for $2.37 a ton. Because of the most favored nation treatment, the US automatically gets the better rate on carcinogenic toys.

Why, you may ask, do I bring this up? Other than that Christmas is around the corner, and you might want to get a jump on those cheap toys. Just this. We can apply the logic of the most favored nation treatment to our Constitution to solve sticky controversial problems like ground-zero mosques. All it would take would be a simple Constitutional amendment. This is what I propose: "No United States citizen shall be entitled to any right that is denied by any government in the world." (There is no need to reference noncitizens, as they obviously aren't entitled to any rights.) I call this the "Least Favored Citizen Amendment."

The advantages of limiting rights based on what other countries do are obvious and immediate. Women would not be allowed to drive automobiles, thanks once again to our friends in Saudi Arabia. The UK has an anti-blasphemy law that would come in handy. And we would inherit their gun-control laws! (Whoops.) But think of all the gems we could mine from Iran, North Korea, and Uzbekistan! I don't know why no one ever thought of this before!