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Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

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Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#661

Post by Breza »

rayiner wrote: post #417
sanderjd wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely "subject to the jurisdiction" must mean subject to any jurisdiction, or it is completely meaningless.

That’s a plausible meaning but it erases the exceptions for diplomats and Indians that everyone agrees exist.

If you do crime, can you be arrested by the local police?

"I have diplomatic immunity! Also I live on a reservation with their own police force. So no."

It's pretty clear that's what the amendment means. The only ambiguous situation I've found is if you're born just inside American waters on your way between foreign countries, but that's a really narrow case.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#662

Post by remarkEon »

busyant wrote: post #615
remarkEon wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. My ideas aren't "nativist", they are the mean feeling on this subject for 250 years in this country. It has taken a tremendous amount of effort to convince people that things like "borders", "state sovereignty", and "being discerning about who you let into the country" is bad, evil even. That's why you think you can throw around the word "nativist" as a pejorative. I don't like Ronald Reagan for many r…

> if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine. That smacks of entitlement. Yes. I know that the other side of the argument also smacks of entitlement. But I believe I have the 14th amendment on my side. Also, there are a lot of assumptions baked into your statement…

Nothing I am saying conflicts with this mythology of yours. I think the part of mythology that does not get told often enough is that every instance of large scale immigration into this country has resulted in strife and violence. The Ellis island stories, for example, were largely embellished and were done so after the fact, and it took the Second World War to finally integrate the different groups that came here over the preceding decades. The problem I have with the immigration of today is that the levels of cultural distance are much, much higher than Ellis island. America is the only country in the world where people who do not live here and have no connection to it claim a positive right to enter. I don’t blame them for wanting to enter, and you should not blame me for having the disciple to say no.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#663

Post by danny_codes »

remarkEon wrote: post #662
busyant wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine. That smacks of entitlement. Yes. I know that the other side of the argument also smacks of entitlement. But I believe I have the 14th amendment on my side. Also, there are a lot of assumptions baked into your statement…

Nothing I am saying conflicts with this mythology of yours. I think the part of mythology that does not get told often enough is that every instance of large scale immigration into this country has resulted in strife and violence. The Ellis island stories, for example, were largely embellished and were done so after the fact, and it took the Second World War to finally integrate the different groups that came here ov…

> The problem I have with the immigration of today is that the levels of cultural distance are much, much higher than Ellis island.

Sounds like a good thing to me. More diversity means we can incorporate the best ideas from everyone, instead of a select few. But I suppose not everyone likes to try new things

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#664

Post by danny_codes »

remarkEon wrote: post #544
danny_codes wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birthright citizenship is one of the best things we have going for us. I see no reason why we should treat people differently depending on whether or not they have an imaginary stamp labeling them as special (IE, as citizens). Birthright citizenship ensures the problem of unequal representation is fixed over time. A self-fixing function, if you will.

I think what you mean to say is that as a result of this ruling the voice of Americans can be diluted over time so that your preferred political outcomes can happen. Not everyone in my country believes that the concept of the nation state is stupid and should be done away with. I understand that there are many who do think this, and I have to live amicably among them, but it doesn't mean that I need to pretend that y…

Sounds like you want to have unequal representation. Or rather, you want to keep your privilege by preventing other people from gaining equal footing. You are right that this is a pretty central element of American society. However, I think we're at our best when we concede that this sort of thinking is counter-productive in the end. Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth, so any efforts to prevent cooperation (in this case, by creating a subclass) is eventually self-defeating

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#665

Post by remarkEon »

danny_codes wrote: post #664
remarkEon wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you mean to say is that as a result of this ruling the voice of Americans can be diluted over time so that your preferred political outcomes can happen. Not everyone in my country believes that the concept of the nation state is stupid and should be done away with. I understand that there are many who do think this, and I have to live amicably among them, but it doesn't mean that I need to pretend that y…

Sounds like you want to have unequal representation. Or rather, you want to keep your privilege by preventing other people from gaining equal footing. You are right that this is a pretty central element of American society. However, I think we're at our best when we concede that this sort of thinking is counter-productive in the end. Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth, so any efforts to prev…

So, again, America seems to be the only country where everyone else claims a positive right to enter and dictate what we do. You do not have this right. It never existed. You were convinced that it existed by a combination of overly generous federal spending and the center-left boomer generation winning a few elections here.

>Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth

This is an interesting claim to make when almost all of the leaps forward in technology advancement came either during a war, as part of the lead up to one, or within the context of a cold war. Similar to the entryist problem, everyone demands cooperation from the United States, no one asks for partnership.

>in this case, by creating a subclass

This is literally the point of the concept of the Citizen. A Citizen is prioritized in their own country. A non-Citizen is not. Something happened with education because it feels like we have to go back to deriving the point of the nation-state from first principles.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#666

Post by remarkEon »

danny_codes wrote: post #663
remarkEon wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing I am saying conflicts with this mythology of yours. I think the part of mythology that does not get told often enough is that every instance of large scale immigration into this country has resulted in strife and violence. The Ellis island stories, for example, were largely embellished and were done so after the fact, and it took the Second World War to finally integrate the different groups that came here ov…

> The problem I have with the immigration of today is that the levels of cultural distance are much, much higher than Ellis island. Sounds like a good thing to me. More diversity means we can incorporate the best ideas from everyone, instead of a select few. But I suppose not everyone likes to try new things

Right right, you get your cuisine options.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#667

Post by rayiner »

triceratops wrote: post #656
rayiner wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Such mass fratricide for the sake of non-kin was completely unprecedented in history. Africans never did that. Middle Easterners never did that. Asians never did that. That also means that only in America brother fought against brother to preserve slavery . Not something to brag about. Most of these other countries were able to abolish slavery* without having half their population preferring fratricide over freeing…

You're ignoring the context of the point--it's not about "bragging." We were discussing the quote above that someone is "disenfranchised" by adhering to the original meaning of the constitution "roughly in proportion to how much they share in common with" "white men." But following that logic to its conclusion leads to absurd results.

By that logic, non-white people would have been less "disenfranchised" if the constitution had been written by people who matched their skin color. But, in fact, that's not true! Slavery was abolished in Africa by force by the British Empire, or else in the 20th century due to international pressure. Those societies never developed large-scale indigenous movements to abolish slavery. So if you were an enslaved person in America, you would have been worse off if the constitution had been written by people from your country of origin! Your best-case scenario would have been to have more of the colonies be populated by Puritans and Quakers, who ultimately proved willing to kill other British people to end the practice of slavery. But Puritans and Quakers were "white" too!

The point is that principles transcend race, and focusing on skin color similarity with the founders (or lack thereof) is sophomoric. The constitution was written by "white" men, but the people living under it today are the spiritual and cultural descendants of those men--even the ones who superficially resemble the African and Middle Eastern counterparts of the American founders.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#668

Post by like_any_other »

malnourish wrote: post #655
like_any_other wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States has always dealt with this Did you mean to write "America" instead of "the United States"? Because when the continent had only American Indians, there was no United States. And in fact for a long while after it was founded, they were excluded from citizenship. Regardless, I'm sure we both agree that European conquest and colonization represented a giant change. It's false to imply that another suc…

If I wanted to be that pedantic, I could have looked up one of the many words for the land the displaced indigenous peoples used.

It's not pedantic to distinguish between a landmass and a nation.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#669

Post by HelloMcFly »

onetimeusename wrote: post #644
malicka wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you are in a country, you are subject to it’s jurisdiction. Can you be arrested for petty crimes? Yes? Then you’re under that country’s jurisdiction.

That's what the justices said. That has generally been how modern courts interpret it, with a textualist interpretation. But that was not the original intention of the law which I already stated. So to go back to my original point, it's not an obvious conclusion.

> But that was not the original intention of the law which I already stated

You've stated it, but not evidenced it. This is certainly the right-wing talking point, but never strongly sourced. The meaning of this phrase was viciously debated. Would it surprise you to know that many in Congress hated it for similar reasons as nationalists today?

Let me say this again: the meaning of this phrase was openly and viciously debated in the public record! Senator Cowan thought the phrasing created a loophole for birthright citizenship, and the amendment creators explicitly, overtly, repeatedly agreed with his interpretation of the phrasing and defended it as deliberate policy.

Feel free to read some of this: https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/libertyandjusti... (CTRL+F "If my friend from Pennsylvania" for a quite pertinent line).

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#670

Post by HelloMcFly »

rayiner wrote: post #368
cco wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word jurisdiction is where it gets confusing. The meaning of that word does not map 1:1 to its modern usage. To wit, if we read it as "subject to the laws of the land", then the invading army exception does not make sense, invading soldiers are subject to the laws of the United States and have been tried and convinced of violating them. Note, diplomat exception still makes sense, they _are not_ subject to the law…

It doesn’t cover diplomats either because courts do have jurisdiction over diplomats for certain non-criminal matter. > vast majority of folks arguing against it are doing so in bad faith What’s “bad faith” about it?

In my view: the lack of engagement with the historical record. This topic - and the meaning and expected outcomes of the wording for the amendment - were discussed and debated as part of the open record. Senator Cowan thought the phrasing created a loophole for birthright citizenship, and the amendment creators explicitly, overtly, repeatedly agreed with his interpretation of the phrasing and defended it as deliberate policy.

As I posted elsewhere, you can read some of this for yourself: https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/libertyandjusti... (CTRL+F "If my friend from Pennsylvania" for a quite pertinent line).

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