The Fourteenth Amendment Under Fire
We Americans have a reverence for our Constitution, almost bordering on the obsessive. This is on all sides of the political spectrum. Why? Because it's a damn great document, a work of genius. Which is why a shudder goes through me whenever I hear talk of Congress wanting to amend it. Nothing is scarier than the pinheads on Capitol Hill monkeying with the greatness of our supreme law.
So now we have the Dark Lords of the Sith (the Republicans) making noise about tweaking the Fourteenth Amendment, one of three amendments passed following the Civil War that codified rights for freed slaves. They don't object to that (maybe except for Rand Paul), but there's a nagging bit of prose that sticks in their craw: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This has been interpreted to mean that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen, end of story.
Of course, in this age of anti-immigrant fever, this had made the xenophobes angry. I've spent some uncomfortable time in the ugly world of the far right-wing, where they scream about "anchor babies," that is, babies born to parents who come here for the express purpose of making their children U.S. citizens. Some have even postulated that terrorists are doing it, planting their little seeds that they can take back to Arabic countries, indoctrinate them, and then send them back to blow themselves and us up, presumably. Or, more mundanely, these brown people from south of the border come up here and breed and then we have to pay for the schooling of these varmints. "I want my country back!"
I fail to see how this is a big problem. Estimates are that fewer than 10,000 babies fall into this category, a drop in the bucket. And it has yet to be proven that these children grow up to be some sort of menace. I thought the American experiment believed that all people are created equal, and that parentage shouldn't be entered into it. A bigoted poster reads, "Squat and Drop is no way to be an American." Well, actually it is. Except for naturalized citizens, we are all bestowed citizenship because we are born here--our mothers squatted and dropped. Some of us are born to Americans, some of us are not. It's all the same to me.
The absurdity of this is that the Republicans, during the Kagan hearings and at other times, declaim about respecting the Constitution, but man do they sure want to constantly change it. Whether it's for a balanced budget, stopping flag burning (there sure is a spate of that going on, isn't there?) or prohibiting gay marriage, the Republican Party can't keep from flapping their gums about taking a giant shit on the document. Leave it alone. Amendments to the Constitution should not be added to take away rights (see how well that worked with prohibition?), only to expand them.
So now we have the Dark Lords of the Sith (the Republicans) making noise about tweaking the Fourteenth Amendment, one of three amendments passed following the Civil War that codified rights for freed slaves. They don't object to that (maybe except for Rand Paul), but there's a nagging bit of prose that sticks in their craw: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This has been interpreted to mean that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen, end of story.
Of course, in this age of anti-immigrant fever, this had made the xenophobes angry. I've spent some uncomfortable time in the ugly world of the far right-wing, where they scream about "anchor babies," that is, babies born to parents who come here for the express purpose of making their children U.S. citizens. Some have even postulated that terrorists are doing it, planting their little seeds that they can take back to Arabic countries, indoctrinate them, and then send them back to blow themselves and us up, presumably. Or, more mundanely, these brown people from south of the border come up here and breed and then we have to pay for the schooling of these varmints. "I want my country back!"
I fail to see how this is a big problem. Estimates are that fewer than 10,000 babies fall into this category, a drop in the bucket. And it has yet to be proven that these children grow up to be some sort of menace. I thought the American experiment believed that all people are created equal, and that parentage shouldn't be entered into it. A bigoted poster reads, "Squat and Drop is no way to be an American." Well, actually it is. Except for naturalized citizens, we are all bestowed citizenship because we are born here--our mothers squatted and dropped. Some of us are born to Americans, some of us are not. It's all the same to me.
The absurdity of this is that the Republicans, during the Kagan hearings and at other times, declaim about respecting the Constitution, but man do they sure want to constantly change it. Whether it's for a balanced budget, stopping flag burning (there sure is a spate of that going on, isn't there?) or prohibiting gay marriage, the Republican Party can't keep from flapping their gums about taking a giant shit on the document. Leave it alone. Amendments to the Constitution should not be added to take away rights (see how well that worked with prohibition?), only to expand them.
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