Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#551

Post by camgunz » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 7:26 AM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #384

ceejayoz wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep reading! > In Second Amendment cases, this Court applies the Amendment to semi-automatic handguns even though those did not exist in 1791 or 1868. "Shall not be infringed" apparently applies to unimaginably better weaponry, but they couldn't have anticipated immigrants being pregnant.

Does the right to bear arms extend to stuff like MANPADS, tanks and fighter aircraft?

The motivations underlying 2A are:

Protection

Participation in military / national defense

Resistance of tyrannical government

Hunting

Depending upon whether or not you think the Constitution is a living document, a modern reading of 2A could reasonably include things like explosives, drones, radar, etc., but maybe exclude things like nukes, fighter jets, biochemical weapons, other purely offensive things. I'm very pro-gun regulation, but I think this would be a fine reading as long as we're doing the same thing across the Constitution, i.e. substantive due process.

But while conservatives love modern readings of 2A, they deny modern readings of anything else. So they have to find some way to fit their desired outcomes into originals/textualism, leading to absurd dilemmas like "either the founders meant muskets or they meant nukes", or tortured standards like scanning all firearm or self-defense laws in effect around the late 18th century to discern intent, which predictably do not emerge from consistent foundational principles because their authorship is scattered across space and time and thus really are no help... unless of course you cherry pick shamelessly.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#552

Post by pfannkuchen » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 7:43 AM UTC

erxam wrote: post #394

pfannkuchen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you being so rude? Please don't put words in my mouth, that is nothing like what I believe. My views are something like what the average American believed in 1910. Were they literally Hitler also?

> My views are something like what the average American believed in 1910. Were they literally Hitler also? That's not really a great counterpoint considering how much inspiration Nazi Germany took from the amazing levels of racism the US had. Jim Crow, miscegenation, segregation, citizenship … The average American in 1910 wasn't a little Hitler, he was a Big Hitler. Hitler's father, even. Good try, though, eierkuchen…

[dead]

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#553

Post by dgellow » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 7:49 AM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #469

dgellow wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in the process of building a new country little by little. Eventually they will openly dismiss the US constitution. Things are really, really bad. We are pretty much in US‘s Weimar period. The fact all of that was predictable makes it just so frustrating to see it play out in real time

> hey are in the process of building a new country little by little. Eventually they will openly dismiss the US constitution. Things are really, really bad. We are pretty much in US‘s Weimar period. Why the scaremongering? What are "they" waiting for?

It’s not an ominous “they”, it’s a very well understood patchwork of actors who have been pushing for the end of American democratic, liberal system. The heritage foundation is an important component, but you can add the Thiel fellows, the GOP, evangelical fundamentalists, the right wing media ecosystem, and quite a lot more. They’ve spent multiple decades developing an interconnected infrastructure of think tank, media groups, legal advocacy groups, donor networks, political organizations. They are all working to reshape American institutions away from liberal democratic norms, towards an autocratic conservative governance model.

It’s not a new thing or something discussed in underground circles. They have been very vocal and open about their goals, and you can find a lot of investigative work in that whole movement.

Their most obvious victory so far has been the complete take over of the Supreme Court, allowing the realization of the idiotic, fascist “Unitary executive theory” concept.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_nationalism

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

If that sounds scaremongering you might want to reevaluate your sources of information for at least the past decade

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#554

Post by ang_cire » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:10 AM UTC

abduhl wrote: post #495

rayiner wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/diplomatic_immunity U.S. courts do have jurisdiction over diplomats for certain things, such as suits related to commercial activities.

Is the child of a diplomat a US citizen if they are born during a diplomat’s commercial activities?

If the diplomat put the baby up as collateral on a loan, prior to their birth, then I think they have to be in order for the US to be able to enforce contract law relevant to the loan.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#555

Post by pfannkuchen » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #392

pfannkuchen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you being so rude? Please don't put words in my mouth, that is nothing like what I believe. My views are something like what the average American believed in 1910. Were they literally Hitler also?

America had a pretty decent sized fascist movement in the early 1900s.

“Average”, son. Was the average American a fascist in the early 1900s?

The fascist party in the early 1900s was a fringe party. It existed and was considered a legitimate opinion, fine, but don’t act like the average American was anywhere near fascist.

What in gods name would blood and soil even mean when you’ve got Italians living next to Irish living next to Poles living next to English? You haven’t got any blood to fascism about!

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#556

Post by coldtea » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:29 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #507

coldtea wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the same white men created Jim Crow and seggregation. If you were a black man would you have been disenfranchised when those laws were in force? I'd say yes. The fact that it was/is worse elsewhere, e.g. in some places in Asia, doesn't make the critique (of how white Constitutional/law makers historically disenfranchised certain demographics in the US) invalid.

> you were a black man would you have been disenfranchised when those laws were in force? In a counter-factual world where the founders hadn’t exported their ideas all over the world, I’d be disenfranchised in my own home country! Because everyone was disenfranchised. Everyone was a serf.

In the real world, as a black, you would be disenfranchised in the US, even into the 1960s (and even now in certain systemic aspects), and the Constitution didn't prevent that. In fact it was written by people owning slaces or disenfranchizing blacks, the poor, and women, themselves.

And what we're debating in this subthread, is whether "a constitution interpreted precisely as written by wealthy, landed 18th century white men disenfranchises every person who is not a wealthy, landed 18th century white man, roughly in proportion to how much they share in common with such a person".

The fact that the constitution inspired changes "all over the world" doesn't change that fact.

Regarding slavery, which is something somewhat major you'd agree, the Constitution didn't even inspire enough within the US itself, since it took until the Civil War (and, more importantly, it took a civil war) to get it abolished.

>Because everyone was disenfranchised. Everyone was a serf.

You try to paint it as some unique development, but things like Magna Carta and habeas corpus (and even a bill of rights) already existed, as you're aware, the Swiss cantons had democratic (even direct democratic) institutions and the landsgemeinde system, and other such developments.

Slavery too had already disappeared in practice in western europe, but also many other places, centuries earlier. Which is likely why you had to change it to "serfdom", but even that wasn't applicable. The British, the Dutch, and other peoples had also quit (or effectively quit) serfdom as well, before the Constitution. Why, even russia (famous for its miserable serfdom system) had abolished serfdom right about before the Civil War!

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#557

Post by dgellow » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:44 AM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #342

azeemba wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But since we have the dissent opinions, it's not tricky at all to see why they are dissenting. Alito and Thomas straight up believe that the constitution does not provide birthright citizenship and the executive order is valid. Gorsuch mostly agrees but makes an exception if the parents plan to stay in the US. Kavanaugh agrees that birthright citizenship is not provided by the constitution, instead he argues its a fe…

If it said “regardless of the citizenship status of the parents” they would still find a way to disagree.

The joke that Supreme Court judges are high priests interpreting the constitution as if it was holy scripture was in fact accurate description all along

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#558

Post by dgellow » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:54 AM UTC

denismenace wrote: post #548

danny_codes wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But his base is largely not people benefiting from birthright citizenship (at least, not recently).. so if anything Trump would be an indicator that we need more immigration to counter the homegrown, um, MAGAts

So you want to diminish the voting power of the native population through mass immigration? Tell me how this rhetoric would not radicalize any normal citizen.

Ironic to use the word “native” here, given that we are talking about birthright citizenship.

Native, adjective, belonging to one by birth

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#559

Post by greggoB » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

MisterMower wrote: post #508

greggoB wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are any of these stipulated as criteria anywhere? There's also proportion of adult in prisons, people who believe in angels, and the mass-shooting high score > AC units per capita This gave me a laugh

Despite all of those things people still travel across the world to give birth in US just so their posterity can become a part of our country. What other metric do you need?

Not everybody across the world is doing that in equal measure (I've not heard of a concerted effort by Europeans travelling to the US to give birth in contemporary times).

People migrate for economic opportunity. South Africa is not a rich country, but sees millions come in from the SADC for this reason, despite some pretty big social problems.

The US is nothing special, it's just a particularly large market of economic opportunity with a history of allowing in migrants. If China was significantly more migrant friendly, we'd see the same happen there. None of this specifies that the US has some secret recipe for success that papers over some of its obvious and glaring deficits.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#560

Post by watwut » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:58 AM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #326

ceejayoz wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kavanaugh's dissent is kinda hilarious in this context. > The original constitutional principles do not change absent a constitutional amendment, but the relevant principles— both the rules and exceptions alike—must be faithfully applied not only to circumstances as they existed in 1787, 1791, and 1868, for example, but also to modern situations that were unknown or unanticipated by the Constitution’s Framers. This,…

I've laughed ever since United States v. Jones (2012), the GPS tracker-stuck-to-vehicle case. The justices actively debated what the historical equivalent of 24/7 digital tracking would look like in 1791. This prompted the famous hypothetical of an officer secretly squeezing into the trunk of a horse-drawn carriage to track someone's movements over several days. The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever…

> The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century. Bug or feature?

Of course there is, it is just being done - the constitution is being rewritten out right now by supreme court. All you need is a majority on a 9 person commission.