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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Keeping the 14th Amendment [ barf alert!] The 14th Amendment to the Constitution speaks in unusually emphatic language: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Not most persons or only those who are white or who are born to citizens. All persons. Yet some Americans hold a fringe view and would deny citizenship to those whose parents entered this country illegally. That idea so violates our history and law that it has long been consigned to the periphery, but recent political posturing by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others has brought the debate about birthright citizenship into the mainstream. Graham's motives are transparent: He has made one too many deals with Democrats and now is eager to placate his base. Others are in the same situation. Gone is the statesmanship of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who once reminded his constituents that illegal immigrants were "God's children too." And only months ago, Graham himself braved his party's ire to craft reform legislation that included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Today, as if referring to cats and dogs instead of women and babies, he says of illegal immigrants: "They come here to drop a child." Graham knows that birthright citizenship is not about to be repealed. That would require an amendment to the Constitution. Two-thirds of both the House and the Senate would have to approve it, as would three-quarters of the states. Here in California, neither Meg Whitman nor Carly Fiorina, Republican candidates for governor and senator, respectively, supports the idea, nor do their Democratic opponents. So why is this issue being debated? Because it's a freebie: Conservatives can tout it without fear of it coming to pass, thereby proving their toughness without having to take responsibility for the consequences. At the same time, birthright citizenship strikes a nerve with a middle class that feels exploited by the interests of well-to-do employers seeking low-wage labor, and that is fed up with a Byzantine system of laws that appear to be ignored or enforced with no discernable logic. Animosity toward illegal immigrants often intensifies during hard times, and now is no different. Unemployment is stuck at 9.5%, foreclosures rose 75% in urban areas during the first half of this year, and in California, income dropped for the first time since World War II. And that's not all. The complexion of the United States is changing. The nation's Latino population doubled from 1990 to 2008. By 2050, Latinos will make up almost one-third of the U.S. population; whites are projected to become a minority, at 47%. As they attempt to hold back that tide, those who are unsettled by it have turned to the idea of denying citizenship to those born here. But what would it solve? Citizenship does not confer the right to live or work in the United States. Immigrants, legal and otherwise, have jobs, buy homes, start businesses, send their children to school, have access to the healthcare system and pay taxes. The Supreme Court has ruled that all children have a right to K-12 education, and federal law requires hospitals to provide emergency medical care to all. Eliminating birthright citizenship would not change any of that. What it would do is deny American children the right to be a part of the country of their birth. The 14th Amendment was enacted in response to Southern states' attempts to create laws to keep newly freed slaves in bondage. By extending to blacks a right that had been automatically bestowed on almost all others — the glaring exceptions were Native Americans and Chinese immigrants — the 14th Amendment corrected a fundamental flaw in the Constitution. It ended a permanent underclass, a laboring class of noncitizens. Withdrawing citizenship wouldn't drive immigrants away; it would simply increase the population of illegal immigrants exponentially, generation after generation. Were there compelling reasons to revoke this fact of American life and law, it would be one thing. But what are the arguments in support of it? That birthright citizenship draws immigrants to the U.S.? No. Studies have shown that the majority of illegal immigrants come to work and to be reunited with family already here. That the citizen children of illegal immigrants provide a route to permanent residence for their parents? No. Those children first must reach 21, and only then can they petition for their parents to join them; the wait can last more than 18 years. So much for "anchor babies." Lastly, there is the supposed industry of "birth tourism" — the phenomenon of wealthy foreigners visiting the U.S. specifically for the purpose of giving birth to a child who will be a citizen. Yes, it is an abuse of birthright citizenship, but it is a small one. There is no evidence that millions of children are the products of luxury vacations. There is one truth buried in the arguments of those who would tamper with the Constitution to deny citizenship to children born here. Many immigrants come to this country, legally and illegally, because they want their children to grow up in America and participate in its dynamic society. That is a testament to this nation's allure. It should be a source of pride, not fear. The immigration system is broken, but it's not our Constitution that is to blame, it's Congress. No matter how much politics distorts this debate and vilifies immigrants, it is not constitutional guarantees that are hurting the nation. It is the refusal of legislators to enact reform.
Poster Comment: Check out some of the 94 comments. Life in California is not all about palm trees and sunshine. It's all about staying alive while residing in the belly of the beast.
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#1. To: scrapper2 (#0)
America and Americans are suffering the results of accepting fraud and fiction in place of common sense reality. How is it that intelligent people would create a monster to turn on them and destroy everything that it was meant to protect ? Intelligent people wouldn't. How is it that an entity such as the U.S. Govt., created by others hundreds of years ago, is able to impose JURISDICTION on people that are supposed to be free and never signed on to the jurisdictional claim ? The real question is whether a man's conscience can be violated by mandate of the majority in a free society ? Yesterday I listened to John Stadtmiller's radio program and could clearly identify John's frustration related to the immensity of fraud placed upon the lives of people ill equipped to defeat it. I certainly relate and empathize with John. (I have agreed with him for years). However, usage of commercial paper as we know it, things like "PayPal" or "CREDIT CARDS" being utilized by RBN for donations will have to be reformed away from the (privately owned) Federal Reserve Bank System. Many believe a gold/silver standard is required to do this but it's not, at least not immediately. Treasury Notes would work at least in the transition period ... but America would need to regain its production of goods capacity. The guests on his program were Ron MacDonald and Ed Waller. Both of these guys have walked through the valley of federal fraud death and suffered the damage like so many others. While Ron sees us trapped in an FRN prison with no way out, Ed Waller views the Courts as sanctuary or at least an opportunity for remedy. The discussion boiled down to three people having the same goal with differing opinions on how to attain it. The frustration is beyond calculation for all three men because the system is designed to do just that. Think about it for a minute. Ed Waller was saying the way out is to rebut the presumption that you're in the system. (John didn't say it but I know he was thinking, who the fuck gave any court the right to presume anything at all, especially to make presumptions that the average man or woman has no idea are even relevant. The Ron MacDonald jumps in to say these are un conscionable contracts without proper notice that are null and void. That we are all 14th Amendment debt slaves. In the end, all three guys are right about the situation and at the same time not certain as to how the situation can really be addressed. BUT HEREIN LIES THE "RUB" ! Every possible solution requires some entanglement with the (system) FEDERAL RESERVE BANK COURTS (GOVERNMENT). And, like Ed Waller stated, lots of Americans "like it" (the system) as it exists. There may come a day when the country balkanizes due to differing opinions on how it should operate. One thing is certain however, those relying upon the current system's handouts will lose them when the worker bees leave the hive or as soon as the world wakes up to the inability of the U.S. to cover its debt. The current system has been put in place by and through incremental fraud that has either been accepted or gone undetected by most living souls today. In any case it's up to us individually and some day collectively to put an end to it. (Unless of course you like it !) All we really have to do is refuse fraud of any type. Like the debt instruments we call money but are in fact worthless promises to pay. We need large numbers of people willing to just say NO. In other words to just be honest. We would need to re-write laws that grant people rights to corporate entities ... that was bullshit from the start !
"To communicate anything to a goy about our religious relations would be equal to the killing of all the Jews, for if the goys knew what we teach about them, they would kill us openly". (Book of Libbre David, 37.)
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