Posted on 08/13/2010 6:33:17 AM PDT by detritus
The final state to ratify the 14th Amendment was Ohio -- in September 2003. The Ohio Legislature had passed the amendment in 1867 but rescinded its approval a year later, claiming it was "contrary to the best interests of the white race." When Ohio finally rectified this embarrassing bit of history, just one legislator -- Republican state Rep. Tom Brinkman from Cincinnati -- voted against it. His opposition was viewed as an isolated curiosity.
Now another Ohio politician, Rep. John Boehner, the House minority leader, questions the centerpiece commitment of the 14th Amendment: birthright citizenship. He is joined by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), along with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)....
Critics of birthright citizenship are in revolt against the plain meaning of words. They sometimes assert that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" must exclude illegal immigrants. It doesn't. Undocumented immigrants and their children are fully subject to American laws. The idea of "jurisdiction" had a specific meaning in the congressional debate surrounding approval of the 14th Amendment. "The language was designed," says historian Garrett Epps, "to exclude two and only two groups: (1) children of diplomats accredited to the United States and (2) members of Indian tribes who maintained quasi-sovereign status under federal Indian law."...
The Radical Republicans who wrote the 14th Amendment were, in fact, quite radical. They were critical not just of the Confederacy's view of citizenship but also of the Constitution's original silence on the issue, which, in their view, betrayed the promise of the Declaration of Independence. Their main goal was expressed in birthright citizenship: to prevent a future majority from stealing the rights of children of any background, as long as they were born in America....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If this report is accurate, it ain’t gonna help on Nov. 2.
hope they do
Typical uninformed liberal garbage trying to distort reality.
However, your point is correct. Politically, this is not the time to make this a major point of the campaign. It NEEDS to be done, but folks are concerned about jobs and the debt and that needs to be our focus.
By whose say so? Yours? (the idiot author, detrius, not you)
An illegal alien is subject to the laws of his own country- and CLEARLY does not care about our laws (see: ILLEGAL alien)
Let's change this ammendment- and I think it is a GREAT republican winner issue- Add clarification that CHILDREN OF ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE NOT CITIZENS
This piece reads like diarrhea. What exactly is the point that the author is trying to make?
Would be par for the course for the Repubs...
That being said - it would be entertaining, if they must go down this road, if they used the exact text of Harry Reid’s bill from just a couple of decades back on this issue...
Gerson’s point is that Republicans are racist.
I'd like to go even further, amend the constitution to make all previous blanket grants of shamnesty, as well as all future grants of shamnesty, illegal outright.
Of course, amending the Constitution means nothing since the government ignores it anyway.
Ahhh, no wonder it made no sense.
God, what are we talking about? I’m sorry, but if someone is born here, he or she is a citizen automatically if the parents choose them to be.
OUr birthrates are down. The democrats would love to have us tagged with the idea that REpublicans are against Anchor Babies.
For once, Ann Coulter should STFU about this.
you may be ritht ....I thnk Republican leadership is on Democrat payroll
I thought that the 14th was for blacks. that it does not include anchor babies..
I have the feeling the there is a great battle ahead of us. It will be a world war. The world vs Islam. WE will need all the help we can get. It will unite all of us, Chinese, Russians, Europe, South Americans etc., all of the USA.
WE need to secure our borders, but to bring true God fearing, America loving people here.
Now is NOT the time to play this card. What do you do, declare all the people born here non-citizens? Have we lost our minds.
Please tell these dumb@sses to drop this issue now....!!!!!!!
We are on the verge of taking back this country. The only birth citizenship issue we should be talking about the incompetent elitist @ hole in the white house.
Regardless of original intent, this birthright citizenship issue is out of control. It needs to be fixed. It’s not, however, going to be fixed with our current makeup in congress, nor as long as Obama is in office.
Because they have a Battleship fully loaded and no Captain... yet.
LLS
Simple, paint GOP as racist and scare people away from voting for them.
Sorry... illegal invasion is part of this depression.
LLS
The author finally gets around to the touchy-feely at the end.
"Consider two newborn babies at, say, Parkland Hospital in Dallas. One is the child of citizens, the other of illegal immigrants. Critics of birthright citizenship look at the child of immigrants and feel . . . disturbed? Outraged? But why? Do they see a child somehow tainted by illegality? That hardly seems fair."
**reaches for tissues**
“Undocumented immigrants and their children are fully subject to American laws.”
Duh. Including immigration laws.
Idiots. Liars. Racist marxists.
“Do they see a child somehow tainted by illegality?”
Physically “tainted?” No. By looking you can’t tell anything. In the same way that you can’t tell someone is a felon just by looking at them.
It doesn’t change their immigration status. If the child is of illegal aliens then the child should not have “Amercian citizen” put on its documents.
Period.
I whole-heartedly agree.
However, we're 80 or so days to the election, and the libs are looking for anything and everything to Mau-mau us with. Let's not let them use this. It just takes too long for "the middle" (read: dumbest, least informed voters) to get their heads around the reality.
Imagine the DNC running an ad with a bunch of shiny eyed, dusky hued, children being loaded onto buses headed for the desert on the road to mexico. You know that would resound with "the middle" and we wouldn't have enough time to counter it.
If we're going to do this, and we NEED to, let's do this in January.
That's not what it says. Conservatives are supposed to assume that the Constitution means what it says, not what they want it to say.
Birthright is not to issue here, its the damn ANCHOR-BABY thing. Change that!
they are running our borders but dont want to be americans...they want to stay mexican ..they are breaking the law so it doesnt apply ...which counts first... law breaking or child birth.
Ping!
agree...but right before Nov. election may not be time for this fight and dear old Lindsy is such a loser he may jinx the election. smirk
Agreeing returned. This fight can wait and anyone, other than mclame, that trusts lucky lindsey is a certified fool. mclame has already been certified.
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