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Post by HiTemp on Aug 18, 2015 6:02:41 GMT -7
Couple of things in there I like. The part about giving American tech workers preference in hiring, for one. I'm not a big fan of preferences in that process but as long as we're going to have them for so many other things, why not this too?
The other thing I liked is the wage increase for workers with H1-b visas to cut off the financial incentives to hire foreign workers just to pay them more. Problem I see is how do you handle things like a company hiring a firm in India to handle customer service calls? It's not up to anyone here how much they make, and the only thing you could do to "equalize" things there would be to force a company to pay a foreign companywhatever a local firm would charge. Then, once any local firm knows that's how it will work, their rates will rise exponentially... it's a win-win. If they get hired, they make a fortune; if they lose, their competition becomes an easy target to be undercut with a bid.
Then where will it stop?
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 19, 2015 6:04:16 GMT -7
Yeah, but the tariffs and fees to build the border fence is probably a non starter, it would probably hurt us as much as them. He says the cost pales compared to the cost of letting them in and then in the next paragraph says that Mexico can pay for it by with holding illegal wages, increase fees on visas to diplomats and CEOs and NAFTA workers etc until they do, which they never will. The former being necessarily intrusive if not illegal to Americans to find that out, the latter no more than annoyance. If he wants to put real pressure on to do it, revoke then all, but its not about effect, its about perception. And he claims he is not a typical politician.
Lets just be up front and acknowledge that is just a dumb idea and just build the fence and man it without waiting for Mexico to pay for it.
But things like tripling ICE, and maybe giving directives to deport everyone they catch instead of select people. E verify, penalizing sanctuary cites, citizen hiring preference etc is all common sense.
However ending birthright citizenship is problematic and I would not support it. It would not be an issue if they would just deport them, being a citizens and yet a minor is in no way a means a reason to allow whole families to stay. You were born here, great, see you in 18 years unless you are have another legal guardian here who is a US citizen. If we did that, the abuse of the anchor baby would disappear over night without screwing around with the constitution.
Some serious reform on visas is required, there is no reason we need to be letting people in at the rate we are. For 25 years we hardly let anyone in, and during that time the middle class became the most prominent it had been before or since, and its not a coincidence. You cannot artificially deflate wages with no consequence, and the fiction of jobs Americans just won't do is now extending into higher technical trades as well.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 19, 2015 11:08:17 GMT -7
That would never fly in an immigration court hearing. For one, we don't deport our own citizens, so the kid - if a citizen - has every right to stay. That's already been ruled on as a Constitutional protection (guarantee). The question then becomes a matter of depriving one of our own citizens his/her only means of support, i.e. - the parents. So they get granted a pass because doing so is in the best interest of the kids, our own citizens.
To do what you suggest means legislation would have to happen that overturns all previous court rulings, and it would have to pass muster with appelate courts and the SCOTUS. I find that highly unlikely to happen. I don't see where there would be large support to force a citizen to choose between his/her birthright or separation, however temporary, from their own family.
The only way to do it is to remove the birthright altogether. Then there is no citizen to protect any longer and they can all go elsewhere together, no choice involved.
What is it about a baby's geography that makes you support birthright citizenship for children who's parents break the law, come here, and have the child on US soil? It's a far cry from a military family, already citizens, having a child in Panama, like McCain's parents did. The anchor baby thing is a scam.
Would you support state citizenship for a family who traveled to one of these states that send out oil subsidiary checks just to have the baby, and demand those checks for the kid continue forever when they actually choose to live elsewhere? I think that would miss the whole point of the program.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 20, 2015 6:50:56 GMT -7
You would not be deporting the kid alone, you deport the parents and its their choice to take them or not or leave them with a guardian relinquishing custody. It not us breaking the family up, its their choice to violate law and the consequence, and we break up families everyday we send someone to prison here, so its not like it has no precedent in law or society. They want come back, see you in 18 years or when your parents get a legal visa.
As to concern of overturning all previous court rulings, what does a constitutional change do to them? Which is what some of these candidates are advocating, and even less likely to happen than enforcing existing immigration law in that way.
I see many are trying to nuance the constitution to suit their agenda in this, but lets just read the pertinent part of the 14th.
"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."
It specifically says ALL persons. Not just legal immigrants or children of citizens, or people of any specific groups, but all people. I may not like that, but that is what it says, it grants citizenship to anyone born on our soil, and whatever the intent was, like inclusion of former slaves, its wording means exactly what it says. I imagine they never dreamed of the scope of mass migration and uncontrolled borders ever being the problem it is now, but that in no way invalidates the amendment, nor is there a fault in their part since its up to us to enforce law and keep the country sovereign.
Last night Mark Levin made a big deal about how the jurisdiction clause prevented just anyone from being part of the "all people" and jurisdiction did not mean geography. The 'subject to jurisdiction' of the US means what? Geography? No I agree, it does not mean simply geography, it means rule of US law, including everything within the national borders and territories, in which the constitution is supreme in the law. So unlike so many rights the left usually reads into the constitution, this one is expressly clear and there is no law congress can make that supersedes the granting of citizenship without violating it.
People use the same argument to claim the militia clause negates the second amendment to mean only militia can have firearms, which not only goes against the specific wording prohibiting infringement on the people, but creates a false entity of "militia" that exists aside from the people. So I am a little disappointed that so many claiming to be constitutionalists would try and nuance the wording to mean what they wish it to be.
BTW, the oil subsidy from Alaska only apply when you live there and is not limited to native born Alaskans.
Further, we have had this amendment for 147 years, and this has only become a problematic issue with it in the last 25 to 30 or so, and has become so because the immigration and border control is so under enforced its basically completely ineffective. I would not support changing the 14th amendment because we simply cannot hold our own govt accountable, and allow people to exploit one part of our law because we fail to enforce other parts, because that is not going to fix anything. And I certainly am not going to support any kind of law or executive order that violates the constitution in regard to defining citizenship for political reasons. We can repair the house without knocking out a corner of the foundation.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 20, 2015 18:29:44 GMT -7
Yet you would suggest that the judicial branch of our government "choose" for the citizen that the best thing for his liberty, happiness, protection, and security is to tear his family apart and let the state be his parents for as many as 18 years, at which time he's free to leave if wishes to reunite?
To me, that's reading the Constitution and applying immigration laws in total vacuum.
To use your 2nd Amendment argument as an example, the literal reading of the Amendment does clearly state the purpose of this particular right being granted is because a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. Because of the differences between the text actually passed by congress and the text actually ratified by the states (punctuation - where the commas go), throughout our history arguments have been presented on either side, weighing the independent value of the individual right as it does/does not pertain to "a militia," and thereby to the security of the free state. It took a couple hundred years before the SCOTUS finally determined it is an individual right completely independent of any established or perceived militia. What the SCOTUS, in effect, did is to rewrite the Amendment in such a way that it could effectively be written as follows and still be coherent with their ruling:
For valid reasons, including but not limited to self-defense and recreational use of firearms, the right of the individual to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except in cases where the government may show a compelling interest and may place limitations, however severe, upon the right so long as they don't completely eliminate it.
That's essentially what we have today. Oh yeah, you have a RIGHT, but it's okay for NYC to demand you prove you need it before you may exercise it. DC may say only certain people may exercise the right in very limited ways. The rights you enjoy in WY you cannot enjoy in NJ. The hollowpoint self-defense round you carry in VA makes you a felon in MD, DC, and NJ.
So what they have crafted is a right that is based solely on geography and has nothing to do with one's being, one's membership in a class called "citizen of the US."
What I'm saying re: the 14th Amendment is precisely along this same line; that you cannot simply pick up the Amendment sans anything else like immigration policies, court rulings, etc. and simply read it off and use it as a legal talisman. No law works that way.
A prime example, here in FL, is the so-called Stand Your Ground law. There is no law specifically labelled as such, it's just that in our State Statues is this:
As you can plainly read, in subsection (2), one cannot be arrested for using deadly force unless it's 1)been investigated and 2)pc exists to show the act was unlawful. A plain reading of the statute indicates a person is free from prosecution until those two conditions exist. But it doesn't work that way. Way it works is, the police can arrest you and charge you even if the ONLY thing that exists is a possibility you were unlawful. That's how Zimmerman got charged even after the Sanford PD (and the local SA) determined no probable cause existed. Then it's up to the defendant to request a hearing (SYG hearing) where he has to use the affirmative defense that he acted in self-defense. Affirmative defense means the burden of proof shifts to the defendant, meaning he has to prove he's innocent, otherwise he's guilty, which in this case means he then moves on to a trial on the merits of the case.
So there is a huge chasm between reading it straight out of the law and how it is actually applied. I believe the same case can be made for your reading of the 14th Amendment. It's purpose was to ensure a settled matter of citizenship for the children of immigrants, certainly, and the presumption was they were here legally to begin with. Up until GITMO terrorist court cases, Constitutional protections didn't always apply to people who were NOT here legally. In fact, at one time just being here illegally landed you in jail until your got sent home.
So I don't see a hard spot with courts reasoning that the 14th Amendment was not aimed at someone wanting to stick their pregnant wife under a fence two or three feet, enough to georaphically claim a right, in this case a birthright of citizenship. As it stands, we are the ONLY western nation that either has such a law or interprets our own law to mean geography equates to the application or denial of rights.
I think that's just dumb.
Come here legally, fine, I'm with you all the way and want your kids to have the birthright of citizenship. But sneak over the fence and break laws... sorry, you don't get rewarded for that and neither should your kids.
I will never be convinced that our government could not reasonably and efficiently settle this matter and make the immigration process easier. They got a Obamaphone program up and running inside two years, and there 20 times more Obamaphone users than there are illegal immigrants.
The real issue is they know there will be such an influx they don't want to have to say NO or TRY AGAIN LATER They don't want the political heat so to avoid it they keep a broken system and run around pointing fingers at each other calling for it to be fixed.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 21, 2015 7:08:57 GMT -7
Where exactly did I suggest anything of the kind? As a minor, citizen or not, they are subject to the choices their parents make for them, including effects in penalty in breaking the law. We do not ignore other law because of consequence to family members, why are we in these cases? These people are criminals, and that is part of the consequence for breaking our law. How can that be construed somehow as the state making choices for people. We are not obligated to let people stay here because they have family members who are citizens. They have to apply, and we can refuse entry. But a minor, citizen or not, will have to have some sort of guardian until they reach age of consent, and no one is stopping the parents from taking them back home with them.
The court may write its interpretation, but the original intent and wording remain unchanged. I am sure the court would love to think they have the power to rewrite the constitution, what they do is create case law that at time is completely contrary to the constitution, using things never even mentioned within it as reasoning. And even then court at times will go back and reissue opinion on the same thing years apart changing the law yet again. All the states and cities who infringe on rights have to be challenged, and many of those challenges are not ever heard by the supreme court, which is what made Heller unique, but it never changed the 2nd amendment itself.
The militia argument has always been spurious, because the militia as they mention, was at the time, has always been and still is, the citizenry at large in the original context they wrote that amendment in, because there was always separation of standing forces and the people, and militia is not the national guard or the police who are standing forces of the state.
The ideal is that rights exist regardless of what govt says, that is the whole point of the bill of rights, to protect rights that already exist, not create them. That the state has become so powerful as to infringe without consequence doesn't change that ideal, just makes the practice of them difficult if not impossible.
Granted with most law, when the people enforcing it vary in the degree in which they do, you get different effect of that law. For example not all the self defense shooting cases resulted in arrests of the shooter in FL, IIRC it was not that long after Zimmerman they had another that the stand your ground was applied, and the police never arrested the guy. But because there was no racial component it didn't draw the fire Zimmerman did. So yes, interpreting circumstance in which law applies does differ.
However there is distinction between that kind of enforcement and constitutional mandate, the former is based on judgement of circumstance in those cases, unlike the 14th amendment that simply states ALL persons, there is no wiggle room in that. All means all. Even if you want to go back to original intent, we have accepted that limits on classes of people no longer apply, women and blacks now have equal weight in law where at the time they did not.
To be sure some have come up with convoluted ways to skew meaning of simple things like 'All Persons' and 'Shall not be infringed' to mean 'some persons' and 'can be infringed', but is that who we want to be or in fact have become become? Like the left where truth and fact is arbitrary so long as the desired result is achieved? Does the end always justify the means?
We have several things stated in our founding structure that other nations don't, like the 1st and 2nd amendments, and a lot of people think those are just dumb too. So? Get 2/3s of the people to agree and change it.
Illegal aliens / immigrants are not new, people came here without permission before they wrote that amendment, if it was a cause for exclusion, they would not have used such an all inclusive term as "All persons". You can play that game "well they didn't mean X", but that is exactly what they SAID, and in the law we should only go by that. In this particular case of language no ambiguation nor change of definition of what 'all persons' means. I don't like it, its being used as an exploitation of our law, but that's no excuse to basically lie about the meaning of simple wording and subvert the constitution because its inconvenient at the moment. And even if you wanted to try and obscure the obvious meaning, there is no clause contained within that gives an opening like the militia clause does. It specifically states that where the US has jurisdiction, all persons born within it are citizens, period. It even went further expressly prohibiting states from making law violating that.
To construct some sort of claim they never intended for non citizens to be subject to the law under the constitution and all actually means some is truthfully unfathomable. So people who are not full citizens either have no rights, or are not subject to our law? Either way, setting aside legal standing of a class of people does not bode well for any society. And we do consider them within our jurisdiction of US law, or why do they have to appear before a judge and a whole court system created for deportation hearings before they are deported?
If we are adamant the constitution and its actual word in law is arbitrary to how we feel at any given moment, lets just say it out loud, the constitution does not bear the weight of law anymore, not to the left and not to the right. When almost everyone, certainly what seems a majority anymore, willingly subverts what is supposed to be the foundation of justice and equal application of law, why should I or anyone obey any law, if we can get away with not? There is no common basis for compliance anymore, no limit on govt or people alike, the social contract that is the constitution is broken, null and void. Now its just what we can get away with or impose by force. This experiment has failed, we just wait the final death throws which certainly will come without a restoration of those things. I don't see it happening, there is no will for it, its too hard and/or inconvenient, or simply a roadblock that must be gotten around in the pursuit of power or agendas.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 21, 2015 16:20:26 GMT -7
I'll try to answer the points one by one. Lot to cover
You didn't use those words but the end effect is the same. It's similar to claiming you didn't tell someone to commit suicide, you only told them to touch the third rail in the subway station. The concept is simple; the law doesn't allow us to deport a citizen. There is no law that allows parent citizens of another nation to decide for a US citizen if he will go or not. Thus so long as the kid has a claim to citizenship, he or she isn't going anywhere unless they, not the parents, choose to go and the accepting nation allows them in. So the circumstances, the only choices this kid would have are:
a. Stay in his own country (USA), the illegal parents get sent away. b. Leave his own country in order to stay with his family, if the receiving nation allows him to.
Since you wrote "It would not be an issue if they would just deport them, being a citizens and yet a minor is in no way a means a reason to allow whole families to stay. You were born here, great, see you in 18 years unless you are have another legal guardian here who is a US citizen." that seems to indicate you would be in favor of 'them" (I assume the INS courts i.e. - government) choosing to deport, meaning legally forcing option b over option a. Did I misunderstand what you meant?
That may well be, but when we discuss policy I think it's reasonable to consider what the current laws ARE, including any deviations from what Jefferson et al had in mind when he put pen to paper. We could argue ANY court interpretation of constitutionality as in or not in accordance with original intent, but that changes not how it's going to be dealt with down at the courthouse. That's why I used the 2nd Amendment as an example. Some today think the Heller decision was all wrong, that it capitulated to the school of thought that varies from original intent. But whether they think that or not, Heller IS the law, and until it's reversed, all policies will be weighed with Heller somewhere on the scale.
It makes them impossible, not merely difficult. To exercise them in any form of difficult way is to say they are exercised ILLEGALLY per current law. Need examples? How about abortion? Where is that in the Constitution? Yet try to forcibly lock the doors of such a clinic and watch what happens. How about these guys who run around not paying taxes over some obscure law they believe doesn't empower the IRS to collect taxes? They're defeated every single time in the courts, usually getting fined, jail time, and losing assets. Or how about these Sovereign Citizen people? They have an "original intent" in mind too. Unfortunately for them, the US legal system doesn't buy it and they too are treated as if current law applies to them despite whatever they claim.
I just don't see how you can cling to one part of the Constitution/BOR but are willing to ignore the other parts, which should have equal weight, that allow a judiciary to interpret law and rule on constitutional issues? Point is, they have, meaning like it or not they have morphed much of the Constitution away from its original intent. And to what effect? That their current rulings are what is deemed legal or not, and original intent is reduced to historical curiosity. I'm not arguing that's right, I'm arguing that it IS. The Bill of Rights itself is but one example of how the legislature and state legislatures modified what was originally expressed, in that case because the original expression didn't go far enough in preserving certain rights.
The issue I was discussing is the concept of a child born 2" inside US soil, specifically by parents who are NOT citizens and have to break laws to gain those 2 inches, and how we are the only western nation with such a law. And THAT law is the result of interpretation and policy... it's NOT in the original documents that way, only because you interpret ALL to mean each and every while refusing ANY possible restriction. If we follow your logic, we (the state) has NO right to deprive felons of any rights, such as voting, gun ownership, even life in capital punishment states because it would conflict directly with enumerated rights of the original document. But we DO have those rights, it's the very reason that governments are formed. Without them, without that given authority to act in the public best interest, to be the referee if you will, we are reduced to anarchy and the only laws are what brute force might provide. Like ISIS.
You might recall the Dred Scott decision and the subsequent overturning of that ruling. It is quite clear to me that in a nation that allowed slavery while at the same time claiming "All men are created equal... and the pursuit of happiness" clearly did not mean the word ALL to mean each and every, which is how it is currently applied. If we use your idea of original intent as the gold standard, then we must also dissect the word "all" and parse it to mean "all as all applied in 1776 - 1791. All then would mean blacks born in the US do not have citizenship any longer, being victims of original intent modification. You can't have it both ways; you have to allow change from original, or you have to keep it all original. To pick and choose is exactly what you are accusing me of, and all I want them to do is make a ruling or pass a law that removes that one particular category from the current interpretation of ALL, as they have every right to do. It will only take a Constitutional Convention if that law is struck down by SCOTUS. Until then, they are free to make it and apply it.
As to the rest I'm not asking for illegals to have NO rights nor am I suggesting the laws don't apply to them. I'm merely suggesting that in my opinion the best way to tackle the issue of over-immigration on the part of illegals is to remove one of two primary incentives, in this case, citizenship for kids born here to parents who aren't here legally. If they're legal, no problem, but not illegally. In that case, they and their kids ought to go through the process to gain legality, not have citizenship handed to them. The other way would be to remove the financial incentives such as all the free giveaways the government provides them, often more than they provide to their own citizens.
I don't see any fairness in having to pay for my kids college when an illegal alien can sneak across the border, have a kid, and that kid gets to go to college for FREE. To me, that's no different than allowing a burglar to pick any two tools he wants from my shop and he gets to take them home because he successfully broke into my home. I'm not willing to stick all my hopes on a purist view and Constitutional Conventions when everywhere I look that system is NOT being used for any other matter of law or policy. This isn't an issue in a vacuum, it's on equal footing with every other issue we face and ought to be handled using the same tools.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 21, 2015 20:19:59 GMT -7
Since deportation can only be done by govt I figured it would be an automatic assumption they are doing the deporting, who has the only authority to do so in deporting someone who broke the law coming and staying here illegally. But as a baby being a minor dependent of them and not legally able to make the choice, they then they would have the authority to choose from, as we both exampled, staying with a guardian or leaving with the birth parents, the choice being of those parents, not the govt. What's the problem? Govt doesn't have to allow any option, they only have to allow options that comply with the law thats being enforced. Until that person is able to legally make the choice for themselves, they are bound to the choice and consequence made by their guardians. What choice do children of convicted felons have, in some cases the state involuntarily assuming guardianship of them. We have separate law for minors that abate much of the right people have as adult, this is no different.
And yet Heller was no greater in law than the 2nd amendment it was based on correct? So which is superior?
Not absolute like that though, just look at the many laws that were challenged and over turned or simply repealed in legislation. The court is not always the final say. You have to start that somewhere, if you never disobey a law and have consequence, you have no standing in challenging it. Courts are arbitrary but fortunately lesser to the constitution, and can be challenged themselves using it. If all we are going to do is take a snapshot of any law being enforced, then yes, the constitution means noting at the point of contact, but that's not the system, that's a situation, and even so the system is not perfect, many times the law does not share anything with justice.
You used that case as unique, its not, we have several things in the constitution that are unique, that doesn't necessarily mean its bad in itself, it just means its abuse is bad. But I would no sooner get rid of it than I would the 2nd amendment because of abuse. THAT makes no sense.
Is 2" inside US soil, US soil? Yes, and all laws within it are within its jurisdiction to enforce, with the constitution supreme in law. Sorry, all means all there is no other way to couch that if you going to be intellectually honest.
If I said I will pay you 20 bucks for all the apples in your tree and you agree, would it then be fine if you gave me half? The other half was not fully grown so not really apples or you couldn't reach the high ones so those don't count as all? Only if I used a qualifier would that apply, like I will take all your apples you can reach, or I will take all the ripe apples. So show me the qualifier in the 14th amendment.
I think you have that a little backwards. I am not claiming any original intent to change the meaning of all, you are.
For starters that phrase of all men are created equal does not exist in our law, it was expressed in the declaration of independence. And yes, as I said we now consider all races and genders as equal legally which we did not then, so even more than before we should be seeing all to mean all. Further its specified 'all persons.' Not all citizens, not all rich white guys, it in fact was intended for BUT NOT limited to former slaves, who up to that point were not being treated in law as citizens, so the very idea of the 14th was to legalize previous non citizens to be such through native birth. So other than origination and duration of stay, which is irrelevant to the particular intent of the amendment of granting citizenship through birth on us soil, what is the difference?
For one, I don't see how giving up on border enforcement as primary focus will ever stop anyone from coming here. Even with no job and no citizenship they will still come, because even our underground poor are better off than many of the worlds working classes.
For another this simply punishes those who do come here legally, their kids will then have to be naturalized even if they are native born. And why? because we can't even force our govt to it duty in enforcing law already on the books.
Yet that has nothing to do with the 14th amendment, it has do do with subsidy and entitlement which even getting rid of the 14th would not effect if you allow govt to extend benefits to illegals anyway as they do now.
I do agree, there is so much that isn't fair in our system it makes me so angry I could spit nails, but focusing anger over one thing on a basically unrelated issue won't fix it.
I also agree with you that how the 14th is being abused is not tolerable, how we seek to fix that is where we part ways.
Seems to me you are not willing to use the constitution in any way if result is not immediate, yet are willing to subvert it like others do, for desired effect. Imagine what would happen if instead of interest groups subverting it for their own agendas, the majority of people stood up on principle and demanded it be restored to its supremacy in law. How many absurd laws would be struck?
I am willing to tolerate abuse so long as the liberty remains for those who justly earn it, I think we can enforce our law much better and restrict illegal immigration with out dumping the whole idea of native born citizenship, as I said, we did so for well over a century, including mass deportations of over 2 million over a few years that included native born minors.
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Post by zrct02 on Aug 22, 2015 7:46:45 GMT -7
I can envision 2 illegal parents having 4 children here. The parents a citizens of, say, Mexico. The children are citizens of the US. We deport the whole mess of them back to Mexico. The Mexican government says wait up, the parents can come in because they are citizens of Mexico. We don't want the children, because they are American citizens. The US has to take care of them - not Mexico.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 24, 2015 11:48:00 GMT -7
Actually it wouldn't impact them one bit. I've said all along that if immigrants come here legally, the birthright ought to belong to them. I just don't think it ought to apply if the immigration is illegal.
Suppose a stadium full of people are gathered to watch a sporting event; baseball game, NASCAR race, whatever. It starts to rain, and an announcement is made that the event will not take place because of the rain and that everyone in the stadium will receive (as they exit) a full refund or a voucher for a ticket at some subsequent event. You paid for your ticket, but I jumped the fence. Justice, then, means you and I both get a voucher of equal value? The fact that you used the product of your own sweat to gain entry and I used criminal means should matter not, right?
That's the crux of how I'm applying the situation to the existing law. I don't think our borders are some kind of magical field where, if penetrated, no matter how, grants particular rights under any circumstances. Our national history bears that out. As expansion west happened in our history, those "born here" were not recognized as citizens. Native Americans were rounded up and forced into lands often far from where they started out. Where was the "All men.." application there? It wasn't. And no one around in that day would have even considered the idea that they were citizens. It's only in this modern day of PC-everything where no one can be put into some lower class, even criminals, lest someone feel bad about it.
Well I don't. The act is either criminal or not, and if it is, the fruits of that criminality should not be rewarded. No one would dream of letting Google keep 100 million dollars if they were to falsely report their income and thus shield the money from legitimate taxation. They would be forced to pay it all plus a penalty for the criminal intent of hiding it. But in the case of illegal entry into the country, we can't apply that same principle? That seems rather odd to me. Either our laws mean something as a whole, or none of them do. How do you get to where this law applies to X but it doesn't or shouldn't to Y?
How ridiculous is it to have one law that says you aren't allowed into the country unless you do X, Y, and Z, then have another law (or application of it) that says in the event you violated the first law, you get all these benefits with no penalty? Would that not be like saying you must pay your income taxes but if you don't, here's an extra few hundred bucks? Who in their right mind would ever obey that law?
I'm not talking about subverting any Constitution. I'm talking about making a law through the accepted, normal process of doing so in the Constitution. That law would specify that birthright does not get bestowed upon cases of CRIMINAL entry. Such a law could then be challenged, like any other law, and could go through the courts for a determination of constitutional veracity or not. How is that subversion?
The basic problem as I see it is we have three camps. One camp wants the Constitution to be inviolate, meaning so long as anyone can come up with a claim of restriction or diminishing of a right, that in and of itself ought to dissolve any proposed interpretation of that Constitution. Another camp thinks the document is a living, breathing "thing" and any modification is fine so long as a case of need or public outcry can be made for the change. The third camp holds that the original document and its intent remain meaningful yet changes, be they full Amendments or simply the way the document is applied in the meaning of everyday laws, are valid. I'd put myself in camp 3.
I think it's okay to remove rights from someone who has committed a felony, despite the Constitution granting those rights and making NO mention of stripping them from anyone, not by federal and not by state. Some do not agree, but agreement isn't part of whether a law is valid or not. In the same way, I believe it's okay to remove the birthright from cases where it was earned only through criminal behavior, even if the system (enforcement, policies) does not directly pursue or punish those perpetration the criminal behavior. There's nothing subversive about it. I just think it's common sense to not offer incentives to break our laws.
Would it be okay with you if the current administration offered an incentive for sellers of ammunition to refuse sales to anyone not a credentialed federal law enforcement officer? Every time someone tried to buy a box of ammo, they documented the attempt, refused the sale, and submitted a voucher to BATFE and received a check for $200 above the price of the attempted purchase? Would you stand on the principle that since the Constitution only grants the right to bear ARMS (but says nothing about ammo) that such a move is Constitutionally pure and thus acceptable? Or would you take a more common sense approach that a firearm without ammunition does not constitute "arms," and thereby read into the Constitution words that do not appear? And more to the point, would you submit that it could ONLY be resolved by holding a Constitutional Convention and getting the okay of the majority of state legislatures specified in the Constitution?
I believe most would say the easiest and best resolution would be to get rid of the rebate policy itself, not change the Constitution in a way that would render it illegal. That's what I'm talking about here. The granting of birthrights is a policy, and the easiest and best way to stop it is to cease the policy, not tinker with founding documents.
That and possibly one or both parents have something that makes them persona non grata in the eyes of the Mexican government. Perhaps a background of criminal behavior; perhaps illness. Could be any reason. But one way or another it's going to force the state(s) and NOT the parents to be the deciding factor. It seems to me that turns the supreme holding of rights into a farce. It holds a citizen rights-granting document so high on the altar that it ends up granting them no rights at all and subjects them to total state control. It's a dog chasing its tail and the tail is winning.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 24, 2015 13:15:49 GMT -7
Sure it would, you remove the natural born aspect of being born here and have to become a naturalized citizen despite that. Unless of course when you amend and repeal the 14th and replace with stipulation that only children born here to legal residents or citizens are granted citizenship through birth. And I would have no major issue with that, though still think its not addressing the core issue of uncontrolled immigration itself.
But you cannot make a law stating anything other than all person and be constitutional, no matter how right or wrong you think it is, its what the constitution says. You can make a law in accordance to it, but any law cannot change or negate the purpose of the constitutional stipulation or mandate.
They are not magical, they are sovereign, and in a republic such as ours, supposedly law is supreme. Its not the child born 20 yards inside the borders fault, yet it is those you seek to infringement on the constitutional right of birthright citizenship because of how their parents got here. Maybe if we kept them from crossing that 20 yards this would not be an issue to start with?
That is another case of treating the symptom because the root cause is just too uncomfortable to address. If people are known to and highly likely to commit violence, why are they free? and if we think its OK for them to be free why are the second class citizens with abridged rights? Can't own firearms, can't vote etc. You look at it as OK because its pragmatic to the current situation, I think its problematic and why crime rates keep increasing because the penalty in the criminal justice system is not stopping people from returning to crime.
is anyone really to be taken seriously claiming the Constitution can't be changed? There is however a process in which that happens, and laws passed by congress that are contrary to it is not it. What is the constitution, a list of restrictions on the people? No, its 1st a framework in which our system of govt and law is created and exists, and 2nd a clear limit on that govt itself. In the case of that particular amendment its stating who is eligible for citizenship at birth, and it is all inclusive of anyone born in jurisdiction of US law. If that a problem, we need to amend it, not ignore it and make law from thin air because its feels better. Aside from that the last thing we need is another law on the books surely to be challenged repeatedly.
Technically at the time, arms included powder, which was also ammunition. That may be in compliance with keeping, but not bearing which is not carrying in the context of military use. What would be much tougher to fight is a simple high tax making it prohibitive to buy. Of course either way if the intent is to keep people from buying and using it, it still infringes on the bearing (use) part, as even militias are not really well regulated being essentially disarmed and should in sane world be considered an infringement and unconstitutional. The point is the intent is clear, the right of the people shall not be infringed, and all arguments trying to do just that are parsing words individually to do so. How are you doing that with the 14th amendment? It only says all persons how are you parsing all when the context is stand alone, meaning all persons period?
So just to be clear, you would grant that argument as legitimate and in your estimation that is constitutional for the admin to do, yet wanting to prohibit that from being used you would rather ignore the actual constitution, pass a law that is counter to that? And that is not subverting the constitution how exactly? This is exactly the case why we should be amending it, not ignoring it if the effect is not working as the people intend.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 25, 2015 10:05:41 GMT -7
You see it as subversive because you interpret ALL to mean each and every with no exceptions. I don't, and frankly neither does any other area of law, constitutional law included. I have already cited examples for you of this very principle; the stripping of rights from felons who have, supposedly, paid the price levied on them for whatever crimes they committed. Under your strict ALL interpretation, we can't do that and not violate the protections granted in the amended Constitution. Instead, our courts have, using their Constitutional role as arbiters of constitutionality, deemed we can indeed do those things, thus demonstrating that although the paper says ALL, there are allowed exceptions.
The first Amendment says nothing about yelling fire in a theater, it only says that speech may not be squelched. So what should we do with people who yell fire in a crowded theater? Do nothing, because the document doesn't address it?
Where does the document address confiscation of assets such as happens PRE-trial in RICO cases? Doesn't that impact the right to due process, to a trial and a guilty verdict before the government takes the hammer to anyone?
There are dozens of examples where restrictions of rights are applied to distinct classes withing the umbrella of ALL.
After all, we say everyone has a right to life, but then murder innocent children because they are unable to accelerate their own gestation before some Planned Parenthood body parts harvester hacks them to pieces while still alive. Where is the ALL in that situation? After all, the SCOTUS said we can't know when life begins, yet we act as though are certain that happens only upon exit of a uterus, and not until. All ain't all there.
I agree that is one way, but disagree it's the only way. Every other example of exceptions I gave above came from laws made, challenged, survived judicial review, and didn't require an Amendment to apply them. I think following the existing off-the-shelf model is just fine, thus that's my proposal.
I also agree that enforcing existing laws and sealing the borders would work, but for now at least there seems to be some aversion to enforcing them. I don't like that politicians can "choose" to not enforce laws because that violates their oath of office. If they can do that, then a Catholic governor ought to be able to suspend the death penalty or ban abortions in his state just because, with no problems as far as violating his oath goes. But we all know that wouldn't fly. I'm fine with that, but only so long as everyone else plays by the same rules and doesn't get to pick and choose what to enforce or not enforce.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 25, 2015 17:07:15 GMT -7
Except it does in this case, its how its been practiced since that amendment was ratified. Sorry, all does mean all, if it didn't they would call it some. That being a case of your right to swing a fist ends at the tip of my nose. You are only penalized if you cause harm in doing that, no cause of harm by being born. Unfortunately again, the right to life was the declaration of Independence and has no weight in law. And the constitution does not say a thing about abortion, so ruling on it as a protected right of liberty which it does mention was a stretch of imagination. That is the crux of this argument though, that is exactly whats happening, your idea is to use that tactic, which unfortunately makes it legitimate and the constitution anything but supreme.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 26, 2015 14:23:52 GMT -7
I didn't think the normal legislative process equates to the situation of an elected official choosing not to enforce laws, so I'm not sure why you think I'm choosing the latter when I've stated clearly I'm in favor of the former.
You keep throwing the Declaration to one side as though it has nothing to do with law, nothing to do with government or process. That document espouses the principles under which we understand the concepts of law, justice, equality, and rights. Do you think your right to life came to you courtesy of Thomas Jefferson in 1776 or is there another source of that right? Is it okay for the government to deprive you of that right to life? If so, when, and under what circumstances? What process delivers that? Can Congress pass and the President sign into law a bill that removes your right to life? If you say no, then show me where in the Constitution they are prevented from doing so.
I don't think you want that document tossed over the side so quickly and easily.
It certainly does have weight in law. Were it not for those rights enumerated in the Declaration AS rights, the law prohibiting taking of life would have no foundational basis. What other basis would you use? Morality? Okay, whose morality, yours or Brother Farakkans? Generally accepted social practice? Same question - whose? The Third Reich's? North Korea's? ISIS's? The declaration is the concrete into which the support beams of all our other laws are poured.
I'm going to remind you of how solid this legal ground is the next time you are disturbed by yet another "shall not infringe" violation upsets you. I'm going to say you shouldn't be upset about the next gun ban because, after all, this is how it's been practiced since that Amendment was ratified. I'm sure that will sit well with you. ;-)
Personally, I don't hold simple words to be legal cement, and - look around you - neither does any legislature nor any court. What a word meant in 1973 has little bearing on what it means today. If it did, the NSA would never have collected any megadata on any US citizen, but in fact they have and just recently they were found in violation by a federal court for doing so. The justification wasn't that some law way back when means the same thing today, interestingly.
History teaches us a lesson about another government, a democracy in that case (Greeks), and what destroyed it. It was the clinging fast to strict application of legal rules in the face of proof that application was destroying the very democracy that clung to the rule. It's like trying to bail the ocean to save a sinking ship rather than admit the ship is sinking and do something about that. When the abuse of a law and the application of that law in the face of non-enforcement of other laws designed to protect it, I think it's time to change that law, and I don't think it rises to the level of Constitutional crisis to do so. Those scenarios, Constitutional crises, were only envisioned in the form of states against states much like the civil war problems. It was never envisioned as elected officials ignoring their oath causing another good part of the law to become a destructive element to society.
What we have today is a scenario that shouldn't be happening in the first place. We have laws that grant citizenship to those born here and that law sits alongside other laws that delineate the rules under which one may legally enter the country. The "plan" as it were was to never have mass illegal entries specifically to gain citizenship and thereby benefits. Since the border is not secure, it has thrown the "plan" totally out of whack and resulted in scenarios never envisioned.. where now illegal entry results in the same or better than legal entry, thus making a mockery of the law. It is this mockery that needs addressing to put the balance back into the equation, to get back on "plan" so to speak.
Our constitution gives us a process to change the application of laws. It's been used before without a majority of states. The Clinton era gun ban is but one example in a sea of many that impacted constitutional rights yet required no convention to do so. I think that's the easiest and most viable solution and I don't see how it defecates on anyone's rights because it's dealing with the granting of rights, not the protection of them. How a right is given or removed has always been a matter of law for the legislature/President/courts to determine, not state legislatures.
If we aren't going to address this glitch in the law, then let's save everyone a lot of time and trouble and just grant citizenship to the entire planet. Why not, after all, the way the law is working now there is no need of any distinction since it's not recognized in practice. Let's move right along the Greek timeline rather than dally along about it.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 26, 2015 19:52:57 GMT -7
If the elected officials are making law that is unconstitutional, that is the same thing. They are not enforcing, or adhering to and protecting the constitution as they swore to.
And yes, the declaration, as great a document as it is, has no legal weight, especially when weighed counter against the Constitution. Of course we assume we have right to life, liberty and property, but that document does not grant them and has no bearing on retaining them in the law. The constitution is our basis in law, the declaration was a statement of principle to explain secession from a system of governance. It may share a lot of that principal, but when the actual weight of law is concerned, the constitution is supreme.
The constitution is not a document enumerating and restricting rights of people, its doing those things to restrict the govt from infringing on them without cause. That is what keeps the president and/or congress from supposedly passing laws that deprive you of rights arbitrarily. It gave each branch some specific powers, but also specified in 2 places that all other rights are retained by the state or the people individually. The 9th and 10th amendments, So short of something egregious as high treason which would be cause at the federal level to deprive a person of life IMO, those protection prohibit that from happening. If we actually followed it anymore in that way. For over a 100 years we have not, and now we see the consequence, a govt that citizens do not control.
You can, which would be applicable if they followed the actual wording of 'shall not be infringed' and were prohibiting law doing that as the thing actually says, where as the 'all persons' is also just as it says and should prohibit the same There is no double standard there. I don't want to reinvent what 'all persons' means. Actually its not reinventing, its reverting. What we are doing in that is dehumanizing people to a defacto non person or half status where they have abridged rights on our soil despite being covered by explicit constitutional right, which is exactly what that amendment was created to fix.
Why? Man, why does the phrase "eat crap, 10 million flies can't be wrong" come to mind when I argue this point. So you have no issue with same sex marriage being ruled as legitimate marriage, because enough verbiage was used to justify that change in definition for a supreme court justice? See this is where I have problem with that, words do mean things, even simple words in short phrases, and that is exactly why the constitution for the most part is made up of just that.
Do you think that was constitutional really? That they did it, does not make it proper or right. It was in fact unchallenged in the court which even then is not the final say, as congress could repeal or even a constitutional convention could change it as well. The power should rest finally with the people, not law makers.
You are correct the constitution provides process for congress to make or change law to execute its powers, but that process of making law is never to used to change the constitution itself, which also has a process to do that, that is separate and distinct. Making any law that changes the meaning of wording of the constitution is unconstitutional by its very definition.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 27, 2015 6:03:55 GMT -7
You know, this reminds me of another argument I have had not long ago. If you really want to twist your mind in understanding someones reasoning, try it with a birther. They equate the phrase of "natural born" to be defined by the 14th amendment. But the 14th neither was intended, nor expressly defines that term. In that case the constitution gave congress a mandate to create uniform law of naturalization, and in any law there has to be established definition of what that is and what or who it applies to, from the 1st laws they made about it, they stated that people born to a citizen has a birthright citizenship regardless of where that is. They claim that is not natural born, because that its stated in law and not in the Constitution is somehow naturalized. Well I fail to see how being born and having citizenship bestowed as intrinsic is anything but natural.
They try to be strict constructionists, and use original intent, and in so they also often try and use a statement from the law of nations which was borrowed upon in part to create the constitution which states; "(§ 212) The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens."
The problem for them in using that as some sort of gotcha is 3 paragraphs later it says this - "It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed. By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§ 212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him"
I find amusing the reaction when you point that out.
Anyway, the ambiguous nature of the mention of a term like natural born, and with the power vested in congress, its certainly proper for congress to make a law that defines and clarifies it. It does not changes it though, and there is no ambiguity with the phrasing of the 14th amendment, that is explicit in what it means.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 27, 2015 10:24:14 GMT -7
Explain to me again the process by which Charles Manson cannot keep and bear arms when the Constitution clearly says the government may make NO LAW that infringes that right and that right applies to ALL citizens? Or is it your position that because the 2nd Amendment doesn't say the word "ALL" it's application may be limited such that so long as one person in America is still allowed to bear arms, that's good enough? What's the magic number, and how is it determined?
We can argue all year about how the Constitution including the BOR is best preserved in it's original state of intentions, but it's a fool's errand if the existing legal process operates completely apart from that idea. I am saying, like it or not, it DOES operate apart from some state of purity and my examples have been cited. We can pretend that, apart from this immigration law issue, it's still fine and dandy, but I don't believe it is, nor do I believe there's one living soul in Washington desiring that it go back to some pure state.
You cited the example of same sex marriage being ruled legally valid. Whether I like it or not, it is the law now and we don't get to pick and choose which ones we want to follow and ignore the others. I was going to cite that example earlier to prove my point that what exists today as law has nothing to do with what the Founders had in mind. So if we can vary so far from original intention on that issue, what is there keeping Congress from saying "ALL" in the case of immigration doesn't mean you can break the law and gain a birthright? All they need to do is say that any measure of how Constitutional (or not) a law is will always be predicated by the assumption that it involves LEGAL activity. That's the very core of why yelling fire in theaters is NOT protected speech; because inciting a panic is not a legal thing to do. Neither is conveying state secrets to a foreign government. Just ask Mr. Snowden how his freedom of speech is working out. All rights have limits; speech, the press, bearing arms, privacy, and anything you can name up to and including the right to life. None of those limits came about using a Constitutional Convention with exception of Prohibition, but for some reason ALL means ALL for birthrights and no one may alter it? I don't think so.
Say, by the way, can you cite for me the Constitutional Convention that introduced the concept of the warrant-less search without consent such as the NY street pat-down? I can't seem to locate that. Could it possibly be that the reason a no-warrant search of a motor vehicle without consent is legal in the case of a cop smelling the odor of marijuana coming from the car has to do with that element of illegal activity that, if not present, would RETAIN the constitutional protections against the government searching one's property? By gosh I think maybe those protections assume the activities to be legal, whereas if they were ILLEGAL the same rights fall into the ditch. But don't try that at home with immigration law lest the ghosts of Madison and Jefferson haunt you.
If you disagree, I'd be interested in learning the facts behind the notion that the Founders intended citizenship be granted solely on the basis of a criminal act, which IS the case we're really dealing with.
Okay let me get this straight - you admit that for over 100 years we have not practiced the application of laws to precisely the scope as you feel the Founders intended us to do. Now, in this issue, you want to ignore those practices and hold this citizenship issue to some higher standard - that is practiced precisely nowhere else in law - because it meets the original intent of the document. But you don't want double standards. So you will - what then - erase all the other laws you don't think were crafted correctly and replace them with nothing unless they exist somewhere as state law? Are you going to erase SCOTUS decisions altogether or just the ones you think are unconstitutionally determined constitutional? Good luck with that one.
I prefer to not stand on purity in hopes of getting something accomplished. I wish the DMV worked differently and more efficiently as regards administrative tasks like license and tag renewals, but I also know that if I want to get those renewals I better follow the procedures they specify, agree with them or not. I don't agree with all the security stuff associated with airline flights, but I know better than raise those issues in the TSA screening line lest I encounter something other than I'd hoped for.
Systems work a certain way. We might wish for something else, but the reality is no one in a system has any impetus to change what's working for them. Again, I'm not saying it's better this way, it probably isn't, but the system is what it is. That being said, I have no problem using what's there in front of me.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 27, 2015 12:23:44 GMT -7
1st off Manson and many other criminals rights are infringed by state law, which is a power granted to the states. But even it were federal law, the 4th amendment that protects a person from being seized only exists to protect so long as there is no cause.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
So if you are going to use the cause of a mother being here illegally to deprive a right and deny citizenship to a baby born here, you are still depriving the wrong entity who committed the crime.
Nope, facetiousness aside, because the state can do that by force makes it just fine to you? If that's the case then if I can shoot a cop and get away, I should not be breaking any law, so long as I have the force necessary to sustain that, I mean the only basis of law is might makes right, or should I guess that would only apply to govt right? The rest of us being only subjects of the state have no rights since the constitution is mutable to popular opinion and whim of legislators.
Except apparently the law that you don't like, like the 14th amendment or the ways that can be changed?
There is a huge difference between purity and principle.
Again, it is practiced in law exactly like it is written in the constitution, or we would not be arguing this now. I don't see acknowledging that the constitution has been systemically subverted and undermined long before I was even a thought is some sort of capitulation that being proper?
I only go along by force, not agreement.
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Post by HiTemp on Aug 29, 2015 16:51:50 GMT -7
Last I checked, the right to bear arms wasn't in the 4th Amendment, it was in the 2nd. I asked under what authority Manson was deprived of that 2A Constitutional right, and you cited search and seizure which has nothing to do with it. Unless you are extrapolating the "cause" thing in the 4th Amendment to hold true to all other rights, and if that is so, then anchor baby rights can be removed for cause also. The other claim, that states have power to deprive him of 2A Constitutional rights - where is that allowed, where a state can remove a Constitutionally granted right?
If states can take away a BOR "right," then we've greatly simplified the problem here because states then can pass laws taking away anchor baby rights, and I presume that would be okay because it's the same thing. Right granted in the BOR, right taken away by the state. Same same. No Cons. Conv. required.
I acknowledge it is the law of the land now. I'm not advocating ignoring it because I don't like it. I'm advocating passing a law that alters how that law is applied using the exact same method as historical laws have been passed to make other, equal Amendments, restricted in a way that makes their application sensible. There was no Constitutional Convention held when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes cited his example of person falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater.
Maybe take a look at the facts in that case (Schenck v. United States). Congress had passed a law only two years earlier, the Espionage Act of 1917, that restricted criticism of war efforts including recruitment. Here is a prime example of something that flies right in the face of a plain reading of the 1st Amendment... yet the law was passed, it was enforced vigorously under Wilson's administration, and in 1919 it ended up in front of the SCOTUS in the above cited case. And the government prevailed because they could demonstrate a valid reason for having that restriction in place, that being to not do so would harm the war effort. That's when Holmes gave his example of how not every kind of speech can be free. What he in effect did was to say that "ALL" in terms of speech did not mean "each and every," it means everything so long as harm is not done as a result. See there? No Convention, law passed restricting an enumerated right, and it passed muster with "ALL" not meaning "each and every."
Why then, if it was fine to do that in the case of the 1st Amendment, and Manson's 2nd Amendment rights were removed from him by the very same process, do you balk at accepting using that same method to remove birthright granted as the result of a criminal act on the part of parents? Even going so far as to say the method is UNconstitutional when I've given you solid examples where it was proven NOT to be that. I think it would be perfectly legal to limit birth right just as the Congress did in 1917 with the 1st Amendment, only in this case they would use other justifications to demonstrate cause.
It must be huge somewhere else but certainly not in your view of constitutional rights. You have said that just because a law gets made that, in your view, is unconstitutional, that law is somehow invalid. You wrote:
Again we're talking about an ideal on one hand, and the practical application of laws as they currently exist without regard to how pristine was the method by which they got there. If a US Senator votes against a bill he thinks is unconstitutional and the bill goes on to pass and get signed into law, what exactly is its status right then - constitutional or unconstitutional?
I would argue that this "systematically subverted" stuff is opinion - some of which I totally agree with - and not fact. What's fact is the way the government - Congress, President, courts, etc. operate with those laws in place. Now you may think that in doing so that they missed the mark as regards the Constitution, but those charged by that very same document to carry out the tasks disagree with you. It is their opinion that counts as to whether a law is the pristine scion of the Constitution or it isn't, just as SCOTUS finding civil gay marriage to be a right is the opinion that counts for law over my disagreement with it being a good decision/law. It is what it is, and we have to live with what they say, otherwise we have to go back to the Declaration you don't seem to give much weight to and pursue that part about "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new government,,,"
We have the government we have. We might not like how it is or what it has become, but we only have two ways to change it; elections or revolutions. I don't see a revolution on the horizon for anything much less citizenship birthright.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Aug 29, 2015 20:06:45 GMT -7
No, but the 4th does tell us how rights can be abridged and how no rights are absolute in any circumstance and that there is cause to abridge them in some cases. And since we are going to absurd lengths in semantics, when you are arrested and imprisoned for a crime you most certainly are seized by the state. Further, when imprisoned by the court it is done through a warrant, a written order of the court, and are deprived of all except most basic of rights as part of the sentence.
What cause is that? The crime of their mother? I would really love you to show me that anywhere in our criminal code that the crimes of a person can be punishable upon their children.
Sure you are not saying just ignore it, you are wanting a law to ignore what it says and use wording of its own to say what you want it to say, even if its shares noting in common that it says originally and completely alters the way its was written and practiced, even though the constitution had never empowered the legislature or its law to work that way.
The 14th is one of the few things left in the constitution that is used verbatim and works just fine in its obvious simplicity. But can't have that, its too simple, and now because you don't like it being abused we must join the rest of the progressives and the 'living constitution' crowd so we can "interpret" ALL to mean basically anything but. That's sensible? The sensible thing would be to reword the constitution with an amendment to mean only those legally here so it cannot be challenged in court using the original wording. A law that clarifies ambiguous terms is one thing, just as I exampled with 'natural born', but there is NOTHING ambiguous about 'all persons'. The pretense that the people who wrote the amendment were incapable of understanding what 'all persons' meant and have to have a law made to clarify all persons means only people with a certain group is pretty much the opposite of the term, then and now. and that is irrelevant to how its applied in law, its unconstitutional to change the constitutional application with law and not amending it. So the justification for demanding an unconstitutional law is we already do that? And you wonder why we live with things that are extra constitutional that you don't like?
How about someone wants a law that says Christians can practice religion only on the 1st Tuesday of every month? I mean make no law doesn't mean make NO law right? No doesn't really mean no if "we" want it to mean maybe some instead. So we can just make a law to work like we want and heck since they can still practice their religion in some form, its no violation of the 1st amendment. Technically since you think the wording of the constitution is malleable in its practice you should be fine with something like that that as well.
So any law is constitutional until its challenged? How about the ones that were challenged found OK and then later the opinion reversed? Were they constitutional before they weren't? Actually we treat them as they never existed once rule unconstitutional except when it come to amendments. But if you are all about pragmatism in obeying law, lets say they passed a law outlawing religion, are you going to wait until it makes its way through the court before practicing? Which ideal are YOU going to hold true to, law abiding or constitutional and religious tenet.
Right, so I would like to hear your answer to the last question posed. How are you going to live with that? You are absolutely right in that then the law no longer follows its own mandate of limits, we are indeed left as last resort to invoke the declaration of independence. As expressed in that declaration, some truths are self evident and some things are unconstitutional by its very definition, that when they pass law that infringes on the second amendment despite the explicit prohibition on that, when they make laws that specifically prohibit the free exercise of religion despite the prohibition of doing that themselves, almost completely ignore the 4th amendment from the local police to the federal govt. etc. And if the govt does not address and rectify in replacing the limits that document created as the foundation of law, then those words of the declaration of independence are the most powerful ever written in response.
But I am under no illusion that has some sort of a binding power in our law, its a declaration of rebellion in which this country and its constitution and all its laws are declared null and void in authority. At which point we have to back that up with force i.e war.
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