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

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#671

Post by triceratops » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #667

triceratops wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 const…

I didn't really follow the long discussion thread y'all were having. I just dislike Civil War revisionism and interjected with a correction.

For me, the British Empire's battle against the Atlantic Slave trade is a worthier example of Western (and especially Anglo) abolition efforts than your example of the American Civil War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#672

Post by onetimeusename » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 10:42 PM UTC

HelloMcFly wrote: post #669

onetimeusename wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep look at what they wrote

     It must be that the Gypsy element is to be added to our political 
     agitation, so that hereafter the Negro alone shall not claim our entire 
     attention.

As I said, the 14th Amendment Clause 1 was primarily centered around whether enslaved people and their children were citizens and it seems the question of whether literally anyone born here was not taken very seriously. This question actually came up in a later case a few decades later and the court affirmed it. But I don't think there is any evidence the people who wrote this ever expected large numbers of "anchor babies". They literally dismissed that scenario as a way to prevent formerly enslaved people from being citizens.

So then it just depends how you want to interpret the meaning of this law under the present. The UK, with common law tradition, abolished birthright citizenship decades ago to combat exactly the problems we are having with it now. So what was intended by jus soli birthright citizenship in 1866 could be viewed differently now.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#673

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

Breza wrote: post #658

jjallen wrote: post #7

You can be pro/fine with legal immigration (and moderate/non-partisan) and still not think birthright citizenship is a good idea (like I do). Also ~95% of countries don't have unconditional birthright citizenship. It creates perverse incentives. Reminds me of legal abortion: practically everywhere in the world has it. If you are not in that vast majority you should be taking a very close look at yourself/things. So y…

The United States is different from 95% of countries. We're the place you are supposed to flee to when those other countries oppress you. That's just not the history of a place like Italy or Japan. My great great grandparents left Quebec in search of a place where they could earn enough money to make it. They immigrated to America. They lived in communities of other Quebec emigrants and spoke French their whole lives…

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#674

Post by malnourish » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

like_any_other wrote: post #668

malnourish wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

touche, but metonymy is an accepted part of the English language.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#675

Post by matt-attack » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 2:35 AM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #353

paxys wrote: post #24

The most obvious read of the constitution in the world still being a 6-3 verdict shows the state of the Supreme Court today.

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

Is it? Pretty much all of the trump EOs that everyone got so up in arms about were ruled against by the Supreme Court - in fact most often by the individual Justices that that same group got equally up in arms about.

Seems like the definition of hand wringing and over drama.

I mean remember how folks thought Kavanaugh was the end of the world and it meant the end of democracy? Well he’s continually ruling against trump.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#676

Post by pfannkuchen » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 7:16 PM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #429

pfannkuchen wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I did say what I mean explicitly. > it comes out sideways in other dimensions > current moral programming Not one of these words holds meaning in context. If it were only the phrases, there might be some grounded message. Each word and phrase seems to be code for a concept attached to your specific mental model. People tend not to have discussions with other people who cannot grasp what they are, or are not, saying…

Hmm I suppose that’s fair. Another commenter did seem to understand what I’m saying, but he may have a more similar background to myself.

Coming out sideways is a common phrase in psychology land, or at least this is my impression. It refers to when a feeling cannot be expressed directly due to repression, and so the feeling comes out a different way. For example instead of feeling crushing shame about being wrong (due to past experiences of being shamed when wrong), a person gets angry at the person suggesting they are wrong, even though they are actually wrong and it wouldn’t be a big deal at that time to just admit it.

Moral programming I thought was self explanatory. Where do you think morality comes from? Different groups in space and time have had different moralities, and children have whatever morality they are consistently exposed to growing up. It does get complicated if they are exposed to multiple moralities simultaneously, they are still programmed but it is more of an RNG in that case (e.g. Christianity at home but progressivism at school, the apparently socially dominant flavor typically wins but not always). Our current moral programming includes a lot of aspects about race and nationalism, and so people have difficulty thinking clearly in this area and sometimes when they internally disagree with the morality they are still unable to express that disagreement directly and so it comes out sideways as awkwardly critiquing some specific language in the constitution or whatever is happening this week about it.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#677

Post by pfannkuchen » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 11:57 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #650

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?

People are being rude because you're being a dumbass. > My views are something like what the average American believed in 1910. The question of birthright citizenship was settled law for 40 years by the 1910s, so this is - unsurprisingly - a lie.

My entire point in this thread has been that nobody actually cares about birthright citizenship itself and it is a vector to oppose demographic change, which itself is not an allowed discussion topic.

So, for me to hold the views of an American in 1910 on this topic, I would be opposed to non-Europeans becoming a majority in America. Where is the lie? I never said anything about being anti birthright citizenship. You sir are morally triggered and cannot think clearly in this area.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#678

Post by IAmGraydon » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #491

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this even mean? The decision came out the “right” way today.

Four of the justices dissented on something that by any reasonable reading should have been a unanimous decision. That is a BIG problem because that means that almost half of the Supreme Court are off their rockers.

Correct. The only reasonable way forward is impeachment of the four justices who dissented. They are clearly corrupt.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#679

Post by ithkuil » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 9:47 AM UTC

Breza wrote: post #659

ithkuil wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people really want to stop this kind of birth citizenship tourism they must vote for people who will pledge to amend the constitution using the proper democratic process. But today's climate is so hostile to any kind of rational discussion about how to change laws. One faction just wants to deny citizenship right now to any people they seem not "american enough" while the other faction cannot possibly entertain an…

What change would you suggest? A minimum period of time in the country before birthright citizenship applies? What about people who enter the United States illegally and then have a child twenty years later? What about my ancestors, who entered the country legally but never pursued American citizenship? The 14th amendment was written the way it was to create a bright line that was easy to implement. I'm sure they con…

I'm not suggesting a change, I'm suggesting a public discussion about a change.

What I see is one political faction who wants to convince everybody that their desired outcome was in the constitution all along and we're just misreading it. My suggestion is that, if that's really what the people want, then the current democratic process should be followed to amend the constitution in order to clarify whatever rule is unclear. There are good reasons in place for such changes to require a supermajority.

If a supermajority cannot be reached, then let's have a discussion and figure out how to make everybody's concerns heard.

But that's so completely against the current populistic climate where the most boisterous and outraging claims are rewarded; so I know this won't happen; but that's what I think _should_ happen.

Re: Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship

#680

Post by bumby » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 11:52 AM UTC

shimman wrote: post #592

bumby wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best I can tell, 7-9% of US births are to non-US citizen parents. Maybe you could clarify what exactly you mean by “citizen tourism?”

Ask the person I'm replying to that used that phrase, it's mostly a racist dog whistle that is anti-immigrant.

What terminology would you prefer to describe that real dynamic then? I don’t know that you can hand wave it away when it’s a substantial portion of the real births. I’m not even claiming it’s a problem, just not something that should be superficially dismissed in a good faith discussion.