It seems like only yesterday that the New York Times was celebrating Lindsey Graham as a moderate party-bucking maverick:
“I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake, that we should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”
Graham has moved far to the right on immigration in general ever since Harry Reid and Obama threw him under the bus/slapped him in the face/hurt his fee-fees by doing whatever bad thing David Brooks says they did to him (I can’t remember what it was anymore).
I have nothing against Lindsey Graham and I understand that he has primaries to worry about. In the end, like other Republicans, he votes with his party when the chips are down. The insistence on viewing members of Congress as fully autonomous, free-standing objects makes for good copy, but it’s nothing more than a Brooksian fairy tale.
That’s not to say that Graham isn’t more independent than most other Senators — this Washington Monthly piece on his “perilous bipartisanship” gives an even-handed account of his Senatorial proclivities — but how often as he actually voted with Democrats on a major bill during this session of Congress?
Steve
Is anyone on our side ever going to bother making the substantive case against eliminating birthright citizenship, other than “it’s in the Constitution,” “Republicans are racists,” etc.?
I assume the argument looks something like “it would be ridiculous to throw out people who have lived here their whole lives just because we find out their father (or grandfather) never had papers.” Or maybe we have a point that’s even better. But if we just babble in generalities and the “anchor baby” crazies have a specific scenario to point to, more and more people are going to imagine the specific scenario when this issue comes up, and some of them will think it doesn’t seem so unreasonable to close that so-called loophole.
I have no idea if anyone has ever polled the birthright citizenship question (most people have no idea what the Constitution says about it, I’d imagine), but I know from experience that we liberals do a great job mocking a position as crazy and extreme even when it turns out half the country has sympathy for the position. Maybe once we can argue on the merits.
CalD
I think of Lindsay Graham as the new Arlen Specter. When it comes to getting mavericky, he’s all hat and no cattle.
DougJ
@Steve:
So now the burden falls on those who want to preserve the constitution? Amendments are guilty until proven innocent?
NobodySpecial
It’s in the Constitution. Full stop.
What fucking better argument is there?
The ‘substantive case’ here is that they are trying to go around the Constitution, just like their forefathers did in trying to get around the Fourteenth Amendment.
‘If you don’t like the law, offer up a new amendment and watch as 38 states DON’T vote for it’ should be the battle cry.
Staging a Comeback
Except that he’s an asshole.
malraux
@Steve: Because it would be a horrible idea seems like a pretty good reason.
JGabriel
When did this country get so fucking mean ?
And I mean that in the pinched, petty, uncharitable, and ungenerous senses of the word, not just the nasty and brutal ones.
.
Scott
Seems to me that “It’s in the Constitution” and “Republicans are racists” are perfectly valid arguments in this case.
Particularly since the argument for the new amendment would essentially boil down to “Uhhh… MESSICANS!!!”
ciotog
If they can take it away from some, they can take it away from anyone.
Keith G
@NobodySpecial:
It’s not going to matter. Like flag burning, its a rally round the party issue that Pricess Lindsey can squeek about, but likely never have to cast a final, do or die vote on.
Just pixie dust for the base.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve: How would one define citizenship then? How would one prove citizenship? How many generations would we need to go back to prove American-ness? Born here = citizen is simple and straightforward. Nothing else is.
ETA: It is in the Constitution. Until and unless someone comes up with something better, that is good enough.
dmsilev
What’s the correlation between the “Pass a new Amendment, now!” crowd and the “Original Intent! Original Intent!” crowd? I’m guessing there’s a large overlap.
dms
Scott
When did this country get so fucking mean
When you take a bunch of psychopaths, put them on TV, let them scream anything they want, and then celebrate their every sociopathic utterance instead of condemning it, you’re going to end up with a populace that thinks sociopathy is cool, hip, and acceptable.
NobodySpecial
@Keith G: Which is why my worry about it on the Give-A-Fuck-O-Meter is somewhere between zero and -10.
But I would LOVE to hammer some of these guys on why they’re trying to fuck with the original Constitution.
daveNYC
One that doesn’t rest on a document that still has that 3/5 of a person language in it. You can’t just say that the fact that it’s in the constitution means it’s awesome.
Birthright citizenship is a good thing and can stand on its own merits.
Kyle
I thought Repigs were the “Constitution is sacred”, “original intent of the Founding Fathers” fetishists. Now they want to drop amendments they don’t like because they hate brown people and feel no compunction to even explain away their hypocrisy.
That’s the difference between a principle and a tactic.
Repigs are the bratty child who wants what he wants right now, and wants the opposite ten minutes later.
PeakVT
The insistence on viewing members of Congress as fully autonomous, free-standing objects makes for good copy, but it’s nothing more than a Brooksian fairy tale.
I don’t think that’s a problem. Instead, it’s our lazy media using a canned narrative about “mavericks” when there’s no basis for that label in their voting records. Graham never was a maverick; neither was McCain. But it sounds good, so it gets printed.
In reality, members of Congress have a whole lot of agency, as they can’t be fired except at certain pre-determined dates that are at least two years apart. And generally they don’t need the job. So when they claim they aren’t free to act, but are merely expressing the wishes of the voters, it is a signal that they are probably doing something that isn’t good for the country in order to get re-elected.
Mike G
They want to be able to grant or take away citizenship like driver’s licenses, so potentially they can put anyone they don’t like into the precarious undocumented situation faced by illegal immigrants today. It keeps the hoi polloi from stirring up trouble for the Ownership Class in their gated communities.
NobodySpecial
@daveNYC: That part’s also taken care of in the Constitution, too, the RIGHT way.
It’s a simple, easy message that you’re trying to overengineer.
Omnes Omnibus
@daveNYC: Well, that 3/5 of a prrson language is no longer operative. Should we get some white-out and remove it, too?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike G: I know. Same with the right to vote.
thalarctos
@JGabriel:
I get asked that a lot over here on the other side of the pond, using the word “mean” in the “stingy” sense. If nothing else, it makes us look like asses–if we’re so stingy as to deny healthcare to so many of our citizenry for so long, we ought to at least have a ton of money to show for it.
TruthOfAngels
@Steve:
For the same reason that we don’t make substantive arguments against magical unicorns that sleep with pixies to produce UFOs made of jam.
Because, like the ‘anchor baby!’ argument, it’s too fucking stupid to bother with.
JGabriel
@DougJ:
Welcome to the conservative mindset. Most of them don’t think of amendments as part of the Constitution – except for the Bill of Rights, when it’s convenient.
.
K. Grant
Well, we could always make it retroactive.
Punchy
You heard it here first:
There will never, ever be another Amendment added to the Constitution. Never. Absolutely no chance there’ll ever be 2/3rds of the Senate AND House and 3/4ths of the states voting all in the same direction. No way.
Shit’s WAAAAAAAAY too partisan nowadays to ever get anything through.
MattR
@NobodySpecial: So why should they not fix the brithright citizenship issue the RIGHT way, with an ammendment?
cfaller96
Lindsey Graham is my senator, and I’d give him a ‘meh.’ The best I can say about him is that he doesn’t hold grudges on Supreme Court nominations. He claims to be interested in immigration reform and climate change legislation, but his actions leave a lot to be desired on those fronts.
He was the lead prosecutor on President Clinton’s impeachment trial, claiming that the President must be held accountable to the Rule of Law. He flipflopped mightily when it became apparent that President Bush egregiously broke the FISA law. That left a bitter taste in my mouth and I can’t see him as anything more than a feckless partisan too gutless and dishonest to admit to himself or his constituents.
JGabriel
daveNYC:
Technically, it doesn’t. That language was removed by the 14th amendment (Section 2), and is not still there.
Of course, it will always have been part of the original document.
.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JGabriel:
That’s the winner-takes-all society for you. And the rot runs deep – it isn’t just political or in terms of economics – this worm has burrowed deep into our culture.
Have you watched any TV lately? Notice anything about the entertainment lineup, compared with a generation ago. Where have all the sitcoms gone? They’ve been replaced by reality TV shows. What does that tell us about our culture?
Sitcoms may be silly or stupid, and sometimes feature people doing mean or spiteful things to each other, but they generally revolve around a group of characters who have something in common with each other – they are all members of the same extended family, or are a bunch of people at the same office, or are a group of friends who like to hang out together. While there are conflicts between the characters to provide some drama, at their root sitcoms are about groups and have a communitarian ethos. And being comedies they tend to be lighthearted in spirit rather than gloomy and nasty.
Reality TV shows in contrast are a Darwinian meatgrinder. And very few reality TV shows feature groups that win the final prize – they may feature shifting alliances or groupings of the contestants, but in the end there is ultimately only 1 winner who takes home the big jackpot, and everybody else is a loser. Not only do they have a highly individualistic ethos, but they also by implication denigrate any efforts at building communities of common interest. The message they send is that cooperation is only temporary and tactical and if you think otherwise then you are a sucker and a loser.
What do you think that says about our society, that this is the most popular form of entertainment? Reality TV is exposing the underlying ethos of a society in which income and wealth are highly concentrated, and there are only a few winners and everybody else is a loser, and the way to get to the top of the heap is by picking and choosing your alliances very carefully and stabbing in the back anybody who gets in your way.
Jay in Oregon
@JGabriel:
And not even all of those; once they get past 2, they get confused…
Pangloss
Is it just a coincidence that the words faery, pixie, and princess have come up so often in a post about Lindsay Graham?
Omnes Omnibus
@Pangloss: Yes.
NobodySpecial
@MattR: The right way is, everyone born here is a citizen, which is how it’s written now.
The amendment would be what the baggers would want to ‘fix’ it, and if the ERA couldn’t do it, not one chance in hell it’ll ever get anywhere. It’s flag-burning for a new generation of disaffected whites.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
Because it was already fixed with an amendment. The 14th:
Their argument is that they want to amend that amendment. My argument is that they need to have a damn good reason to “fix” something that ain’t broken. Why do we have to point to anything but the 14th Amendment to defend our position?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Speaking of citizenship and amendments, the Thirteenthers put a plank in the platform of the Iowa GOP stating that they want to pass the original text which would have been the 13th Amendment if it had been ratified in the early 1800s. The proposed amendment states that citizenship will be stripped from anyone who accepts a title of nobility, a financial reward, etc. from a foreign power.
Like for example accepting a Nobel Prize.
Because heaven knows, you can never trust somebody who has won a Nobel Prize. Like, ohh I dunno, like you know who in the White House, for example.
As they used to say in the Guinness ads, brilliant!
Nothing better demonstrates the utter contempt in which these people hold scientific knowlege and intellectual achievement better than the idea of giving the middle finger to every person who has or in the future will win a Nobel Prize, just in order to have the satisfaction of insulting Obama.
You stay classy, Iowa GOP! Good thing they don’t have an influential Senator from that state. Oh wait…
Nick
@Steve: If “it’s in the Constitution” isn’t a strong enough argument, then we’ve already lost the argument
Comrade Dread
Yeah, how exactly do you want to define who gets citizenship?
One parent has to be a citizen? Both? How far back? If they’re legal immigrants or naturalized residents, do they count? Do they have to be in the country for a certain number of years to get their kid citizenship? Are all kids going to be denied birthright citizenship and have to earn it somehow?
Nick
@JGabriel:
When we all collectively hit our head on Plymouth Rock.
Seriously, this is a country that had to fight a fucking civil war over whether or not a human being can be property.
MattR
@NobodySpecial: So is your argument that the constitution has been perfectly ammended so that it is now completely ideal and that now other changes will ever be needed? Because otherwise, the argument that “it is in the constitution” by itself is not a good one against a specific alteration.
OTOH, I completely agree with the idea that if something is in the constitution there needs to be a good reason to change it. There was a good reason to get rid of the 3/5 provision. There is no good reason to get rid of birthright citizenship.
Awktalk
First, it is an Amendment to the Constitution, not “in” the Constitution.
Second, the original intent of the 14th Amendment was an overruling of Dred Scott, and to provide citizenship for former slaves.
I’m not necessarily in agreement that this should be repealed, but to portray 14th repeal advocates as wingnuts or crazies is unfair. We’re one of the only countries in the world with a rule like this. My wife is Swiss, and much further left than most people you’ll come across, and she thinks this rule is insane.
Nick
@MattR:
There s no good argument argument against it except it’s just not a nice thing to do. Much like FISA, our only defense is appeal to morality, which is always destined to fail.
so all we have is “it’s in the Constitution”
My only defense is that I believe in birthright, I believe a person has the right to be a citizen of the place they were born in. My grandparents came here in 1946 purposely so that their children could be born Americans. Sure she wasn’t pregnant at Ellis Island, but what’s the difference? Her children were born Americans and had that right. Now the same people want to take it away for future generation because they feel women will come here just to have American babies? That’s what my grandmother did!
honestpartisan
I think that Graham’s reputation as a “maverick” comes from the fact that he wasn’t part and parcel of the John Yoo-torture crowd back in the day. And he voted for Sotomayor and Kagan. But I’m more inclined to chalk that up to Senators-in-love-with-themselves Syndrome than actual conviction, as his voting record otherwise routinely shows. Refudiating a climate change bill on the ground that Reid would introduce an immigration bill and then not bothering to re-support it when immigration reform was dead gives the game away.
Awktalk
Moreover, Congress’ original intent and the Court’s interpretation of the amendment is not even clear.
Nick
@Awktalk:
My wife is Swiss, and much further left than most people you’ll come across, and she thinks this rule is insane.In fairness, most of Europe is Arizona-esque when it comes to immigration issues.
jfc
We hold these truths to be self-evident
allsome men are created equal,that they area few of these were endowed …The Constitution is not the only sacred American document that needs rewriting.
George
Pretty much from the the git-go.
acallidryas
Perhaps one of the anti-constitutionalists can explain a little about what exactly makes a person a citizen, as others have asked, and how far back exactly you have to go. And then they can explain what the benefit is of creating a huge class of essentially stateless people. Because when you have the sort of inequality that exists between the US and our neighbors to the South, it’s going to take a lot more than a few racist and mean-spirited laws to stop the flow of people. Just look at the Haitians in the DR. Their children born in the DR are mostly left stateless, but people keep coming for the chance of making enough to survive.
Also, I just love how when the new nativists are screaming, “What part of illegal don’t you understand?!” the Law is Sacred and Inviolable and Can Never Be Changed, but rights given by the Constitution? We can just change those. No problem.
West of the Cascades
I fault Graham for shifting away from a reasonable position on immigration reform, and disagree with his proposed Constitutional Amendment, but I also think it’s a reasonable position in two ways. First, he’s actually advocating going through the process of amending the Constitution, and not floating some piece of unconstitutional legislation that’s purely symbolic (this is still probably mostly symbolic). Second, there are enough differences among how countries around the world handle “citizenship at birth” that there are a legitimate range of options here, and room for clarifying how the US handles it.
For example, I was born in Chile, but both of my parents were U.S. citizens. By U.S. statute (not under the U.S. Constitution) I am a U.S. citizen. Clarifying that in the Constitution might be interesting (remember John McCain had a similar issue given he was born in the Panama Canal Zone). However, I was NOT automatically a Chilean citizen, because Chile requires that one of your parents be a Chilean citizen for automatic citizenship, even if you are born on Chilean soil. My understanding is that many countries have this sort of principle for birthright citizenship, and so it’s a legitimate issue for discussion.
There were a lot of times between 2000 and 2008 I wished I was a Chilean citizen.
I disagree with changing it because it’s been settled for so long in the US that birth on US soil makes you a US citizen, and also because of the way that the potentially legitimate debate will almost inevitably be tainted by anti-foreigner/anti-illegal-immigrant/racist discourse.
Awktalk
They have varying degrees. Obtaining Swiss citizenship is very difficult and the rules very convoluted. The French on the other hand allow all children of legal residents to request citizenship when they’re an adult and it is automatically granted. I don’t think any country allows you to be there illegally and then automatically gives your newborn a passport. Call that “Arizona-esque” or whatever, but this is not radical policy.
I don’t think anybody is talking about retroactively applying a rule change. Obviously they’d have to grandfather everybody in and only enforce from date it was enacted.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Nick:
I always thought it was a point of pride that the US is relatively open in extending citizenship to people who, if they were born into a similar situation in some other part of the world, would have difficulty being admitted to the citizenry of their local state. It’s strange how the wingnuts who love to bash “European soshulism” are so eager to toss overboard one of the things we already have which is most distinctively American. Why do they hate America?
Tonybrown74
@Awktalk:
How is it unfair? They ARE crazy and wingnuts. I will also argue that they’re RACIST. Do you honestly believe that they’re not doing this because they hate/fear “Mexicans”? As has been argued by better people than me, if these people honestly cared about any semblance of immigration reform, they would be arresting CEOs of companies that hire illegals, as well as those who hire them for cheaper manual labor.
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
She’s from a country that’s perfectly comfortable banning mosques from having minarets on them and has some of the most restrictive citizenship requirements in Europe.
I don’t think she’s quite as far left as you seem to think.
daveNYC
Look, if your argument is going to begin and end with “It’s in the constitution.” then you could at least rephrase it as “TRADITION!”, singing it Fiddler on the Roof style. Just because it might be the only argument that works doesn’t mean that it’s actually a good argument.
grandpajohn
Don’t expect any kind of moderate behavior from Lindsey in the next few years , he is already being hammered here in SC and primary opponents are already tuning up, the teapartiers are in full voice against him, so expect the full wingnut behavior from him until after his next election campaign.
Awktalk
@Tonybrown74:
I should have said “but to portray ALL14th repeal advocates as wingnuts or crazies is unfair”. I agree, most people’s motives here fall into the “racist” category as they are clearly aiming this at Hispanics. But automatic citizenship for people who don’t follow immigration law, no matter what country they’re from, is unsettled law. The SC has never ruled on this.
Awktalk
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks, just never thought about that before. I guess I also never watched her fill out her ballot to vote against the minaret ban and to loosen citizenship requirements (several times).
acallidryas
Then what is the rational argument for fighting to end birthright citizenship in the US? And “other countries don’t have it” is not a reasonable argument.
twiffer
@Awktalk: can you explain why an amendment to the constitution is not “in the constitution”? curious as to the logic behind this claim.
Awktalk
@acallidryas:
Are you also for abolishing the asylum review process? Why have any citizenship laws at all? Why not just grant citizenship to anyone who requests it?
Nick
@Awktalk: I meant more in how they respond to immigration issues. Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and even France far right parties have seen success with immigration as an issue. Northern Italy is dominated by radically xenophobic politics.
It’s more just about birthright, it’s about forcing them to give up cultural traditions, etc.
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
You said that she thinks our having birthright citizenship is “crazy.” What needle are you trying to thread by simultaneously claiming that someone from a country with some of the most restrictive citizenship requirements is trying to get those changed but also thinks our citizenship requirements are too loose?
Tax Analyst
@Steve:
So what other parts of the Constitution aren’t good enough anymore? Maybe we should give the sitting President a line-item type override power. Dubyah would have loved that, don’tcha’ know.
Just as a practical matter does anyone with a brain think it would be fair to suddenly declare kids who were born and raised here to be “non-citizens” and subject to possible deportation to their “country of origin” – where they might not even really know the language.
This is one of those “red meat” issues the Republicans love to posture on to get the Tea Party-types bobbing their silly heads to. It’s brainless and it just isn’t going to happen – just imagine the tons and tons of red tape to properly enforce – or would it just be OK for some locally appointed yokel to start picking out brown-skinned babies to stick into Mexico-bound baskets?
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
So an infant who is born and raised in the US should have to go through exactly the same process as an adult who immigrates here? Huh?
thomas
@Jay in Oregon:
the 2nd is the only one they’re concerned about. and even here they pay no attention to the ‘well regulated militia’ part.
Awktalk
@twiffer:
Blacks being 3/5 of a person is still “in the Constitution”. This was deemed moot by passage of the 13th amendment, which construes the law of the land. The 14th amendment was enacted to guarantee former slaves citizenship.
What is “in the Constitution” was written 240 years ago by a small group of white men. In the years following, it has been amended by the will of people. The original intent of clauses in the Constitution (or more importantly, what is NOT in the Constitution) are much more difficult to ascertain than Amendments, which are designed to relieve specific grievances from the original text.
Awktalk
@Mnemosyne:
I could be wrong, but have you heard anybody argue for retroactively applying a change to citizenship laws? I haven’t. And I certainly would not be for doing so. The only way a change to the law could possibly be palatable is by grandfathering in all citizens. Citizenship is a valuable entitlement; I’d love to have passports issued by a whole slew of countries.
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
I guess you didn’t bother to read what you wrote just a few paragraphs down?
This is explicitly what United States v. Wong Kim Ark decided back in 1898:
Or in other words, if you’re born in the United States of America, you are a citizen of the United States of America. That’s it. Nothing else to talk about. And for those granting legitimacy to the right wing attempts to repeal the 14th Amendment, if the Supreme Court of 1898 could decide in the face of the Chinese Exclusion Act that the child of Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen from his time of birth here, in what world do these people have a credible reason for this “movement?”
The correct answer, of course, is that they do not.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Awktalk: Hi Mr. Pearce!
Awktalk
@Mnemosyne:
I wouldn’t call it threading a needle, she also thinks Swiss citizenship requirements are “crazy”. Precisely the opposite from threading a needle, I’d call it finding middle ground between two extremes.
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
Except if they were born here. I do believe you even cited the case where they made such a ruling.
b-psycho
If kids born in the U.S. aren’t to be automatically citizens of the U.S., then where the fuck ARE they citizens of?
It can’t be where their parents came from, because the kid has never been there & the U.S. can’t go unilaterally overriding the definitions of citizenship of the rest of the world. Anyone pushing to end birthright citizenship is basically saying “screw the children, legal limbo builds character!”.
Awktalk
@Midnight Marauder:
But that’s not what it says. It says, “a child born in the United States of parents of foreign descent who, at the time of the child’s birth are subjects of a foreign power but who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States”
“Permanent domicile and residence” seems to me to say that the parents have legal residence. If a French couple is on vacation and the woman gives birth prematurely, that child is a citizen. But that couple does not have “residence”. They are not here on a resident visa, but a tourist visa.
The SC has never ruled on non-resident children born on U.S. soil.
Awktalk
@b-psycho:
If your parents happened to be on vacation in France when you were born, you are not an French citizen.
Nobody is talking about revoking citizenship or retroactively applying the law.
Nick
@Awktalk:
Well, first of all, chances are a woman who’s six plus months pregnant is not going to take a random vacation in St. Tropez.
But, yeah, why wouldn’t you have French citizenship? You took your first breaths on French soil.
Leo
The electoral college is in the Constitution. Does that automatically mean its good?
Steve is right that progressives need to explain why this system is a Good Thing. Saying it’s in the Constitution only establishes that it’s an Old And Hard To Change Thing.
Nick
@Awktalk:
I doubt it’s Constitutional not to. You’re creating two classes of people, those who were born here and are citizens and those who were and are not.
What is the stipulation in which you can be born a citizen? Does one parent need to be a citizen, both? Do they both need to be born here too? Does no one get citizenship at birth (which would be a fair way of doing things) If so, how do we earn it? Graduating high school?
Nick
@Leo:
Then there’s no way progressives can win the argument.
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
What are you talking about? That’s just the part that covers children born to non-American citizens. Everyone already knows that if you’re an American and you give birth to an American, that child is an American. Are you aware of what the Chinese Exclusion Act stated?
So if you were Chinese and you immigrated to the United States, you couldn’t become a citizen and your children, even if they had citizenship in the beginning, would lose that citizenship if they ever left the country and attempted to come back. Simply because they were Chinese and not “native” U.S. citizens:
The entire case was premised around wether the citizenship Wong was claiming was even valid in the first place. The Supreme Court maintained that him being born in the United States was enough to establish him as a citizen of the country.
It really doesn’t matter what it “seems” to say to you, to be perfectly honest. The ruling actually is clear that the parents must have a “permanent” residence at the time of the child’s birth. You will note that it says nothing about “legal residences.” Typically, having a permanent residence and having a legal residence would be considered one-in-the-same, but that’s not always the case. Your example about the French couple is nice, but it falls apart because you overlooked the operative word from the description of the Supreme Court’s ruling: Permanent.
Examples about people being on vacation don’t have a fucking thing to do with this discussion.
Awktalk
@Nick:
I don’t have a perfect prescription but I’m sure it could be done fairly. Such as, grant all 11 million illegals permanent residence status. Then change the law to say that as of January 1, 2011, children born in the U.S. are citizens if either of their parents are permanent residents. And all children born before Jan 1, 2011 are citizens. How is that creating two classes of people?
I would say that either one or both parents are a permanent resident, kind of like the language of the SC ruling from 1898 previously cited: “a child born in the United States of parents of foreign descent who, at the time of the child’s birth are subjects of a foreign power but who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States”
Leo
@Nick: Really? Is it not a good thing?
I’m not saying the “burden of proof” is on progressives or anything like that. The anti-immigrant nutjobs have the burden. But effective advocacy on behalf of progressive ideas doesn’t rest on “they haven’t met their burden.” We need to go out and make our case affirmatively.
Omnes Omnibus
@Awktalk: And why do you want to do it?
MattR
@Midnight Marauder: So typically, permanent and legal residences are one and the same but not always. Yet you don’t offer any statement about whether or not that is the case as it applies to Wong, what the definition of “permanent domicile and residence” mens in the context of that decision, or how that definition may or may not apply to illegal immigrants. Having said that, it is unclear how the Wong ruling would affect the citizenship of children of people not legally in this country.
Awktalk
@Midnight Marauder:
So how can you be recognized as being a permanent resident if you did not legally immigrate? My wife has a card which says “permanent resident” on it, issued by the federal government. If she has a child here with a non-resident, that child is an American citizen, as it should be.
What? So you’re telling me that a couple here on vacation that gives birth, that child is NOT a citizen? Or if that child is a citizen, how is that irrelevant? It cuts to the core of the issue, and throwing a “fucking” in your response does not negate that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leo: Because we are a country of immigrants. Because we don’t define citizenship by some ethnic means like many other countries. Because the problem of “anchor babies” is a manufactured problem that the Right is using drum up populist anger. Because we, the US, is, and should be, better than that. Because, for fuck’s sake, we shouldn’t buy into an “Ooohh, the Mexicans are coming” scare tactic. How about those as reasons?
Elizabelle
@Awktalk:
Thank you.
kay
@Leo:
It was grounded in English common law, like everything else.
The King wanted you as his subject if you’re born on his ground, so that worked to his benefit: not a generous gift, but a sort of ownership idea.
In practical, modern terms, if the parents are going to be permanent residents here, it just makes sense to grant the child citizenship, because he or she is going to be growing up here. The idea is “allegiance” to one or another nation, so flip the allegiance to the King and change it to allegiance to the Nation. The child won’t be developing a connection to the parent’s birthplace, and if he or she is going to be here, we want them in the tent rather than outside it.
It’s funny, because I would think the idea of (theoretically) securing and defining a person’s national allegiance, a person who is going to be growing up here anyway, would appeal to conservatives, what with the paranoia and all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Awktalk:
Amendments to the Constitution are part of the Constitution.
Awktalk
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why do you want any citizenship laws? Why not grant citizenship to anybody who asks? Asylum for all?
I’m not saying I want to, I’m playing devil’s advocate and pointing out this is a debatable issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Awktalk:
I am not advocating a change to current law. I happen to think that it works reasonably well and that concerns over “anchor babies” and the like are vastly overblown.
ETA: As long as we are arguing with personal examples, my wife is a naturalized US, former Romanian, citizen who is just fine with birth right citizenship. Ha, so there.
Legalize
The actual GOP “rationale” for taking away birth-right citizenship is, “they don’t vote for us, so let’s make it harder for them to vote for our enemies.” It doesn’t matter who *they* are. All that matters is that *they,* in this case happen to be birth-right citizens, who their knuckle-dragging base understands to be brown people, i.e. Mexicans and probably some faggots from France. Their next target will be teh Blacks, then East Coast Liberal Elites, the Union Members, then whomever else they can convince the 27 percenters are evil and coming to take their Bibles and enforce homo law. The great thing about this plan is that they don’t have to have ideas or appeal to anyone other than the rubes; all they have to do is make it so that the other guys don’t get to vote. This is the GOP dream scenario: shrink the amount of people who can oppose them, so that they can keep paying back their corporate masters with policies that make them more money.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
Except for the part where Wong’s parents were not legally in this country.
Awktalk
@MattR:
Exactly. The SC has not ruled on that issue and, given the current racist climate in this country, it wouldn’t surprise me if the wingnuts forced a case in the near future.
MattR
@Legalize:
I am starting to wonder if climate change deinalism is because they are expecting global warming to take care of this group
Midnight Marauder
@MattR:
Well, except for the part where I noted that the Wong explicitly and only talks about permanent residences and never once uses any terms regarding “legal” residences, which was the distinction Awktalk was making. That distinction doesn’t apply to this case because it only refers to permanent residences, which the court acknowledges a permanent residence as a domicile that has a fixed location:
And in terms of how to it applies to illegal immigrants, I mean, that’s the point of the entire case. The government was arguing that Wong’s initial citizenship had become invalid under the Chinese Exclusion Act, and subsequently, he was actually a citizen of China given his parent’s origins. The Supreme Court ruled against that line of thinking, declaring him to be a full-fledged citizen of this country. I think that addresses its ramifications for illegal immigrants quite expressly.
Awktalk
@Mnemosyne:
Except for the part that Wong’s parents WERE “permanent residents” before, “In 1890 Wong’s parents returned to live in China.”
You’re misreading the case bro.
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
Nice dodge, but you didn’t answer my question. Try again.
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
Surely, you jest. This is literally what United States vs. Wong Kim Ark was about.
Nick
@Leo:
In America, it doesn’t matter if something is a good thing. Yes, it is a good thing, it allows a child to grow up feeling loyal to America, feeling s/he is part of a nation. But who cares what I think, I’m a bleeding heart liberal
4jkb4ia
Graham being willing to vote for both Sotomayor and Kagan was extremely important. “Major bill” is too narrow.
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
You’re conflating current immigration law with what existed then. We now have a legal status called “permanent resident” aka someone with a “green card,” but that status did not exist in the late 1800s.
By today’s standards, Wong’s parents were illegal immigrants.
twiffer
@Awktalk: ah, so you are simply arguing semantics? that amendments to a document that specifically outlines a) it can be amended; and b) how to do it; are not actually part of the document because they weren’t thought of in the intial version? this, of course, would also mean that our right to free speech and to keep and bear arms, as well be free from warrantless searches, etc. are not “in” the constitution.
foolishness. constitutional amendments become part of the constitution. mentioning clauses that were not physically removed, but merely repealed or redefined by later amendments is a red herring and hurts any point you are trying to make. trying to strike some distinction between the original document and amendments is pointless.
Nick
@MattR:
I know you were being facetious, but we have to keep in mind that for those in flyover country, the idea of “If New York/San Francisco like it, then we hate it, even if it’s good for us” is prevalent.
Awktalk
@Midnight Marauder:
You’re assuming Wong’s parents established permanent domicile and residence “illegally”. Please point to the part of the case where that was established.
It clearly says, “That during all the time of their said residence in the United States as domiciled residents therein, the said mother and father of said Wong Kim Ark were engaged in the prosecution of business, and were never engaged in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China.”
That was the threshold for granting his citizenship based upon the statute, and allowing him to return to the country as a “native-born citizen”.
What if Wong’s parents would have failed that test? We don’t know, because the SC has never ruled on that.
HumboldtBlue
Why not? Now that’s a debatable issue, we have millions of undocumented immigrants, I’m all for having them head downtown to be granted citizenship. Let’s get started tomorrow and then we can construct an Ellis Island-Southwest. You want to be a part of the nation, spend some time here, learn our ways and then get the golden document. I’m all for it, in fact, we already do it this way.
Trying to argue that racist fuck knuckle wingnuts have a point when they claim that sub-humans with darker skin should never be allowed to enjoy the rights granted to citizens is a waste of time, and attempting to dress it up in reasonable terms means you’re just arguing for “reasonable racist” solutions. They want to be in charge of selecting who s worthy of American citizenship and that means white jesus freaks and no one else. The message is quite clear.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think that it’s just rightwing outrage.
A modern industrialized economy cannot sustain an infinite amount of unauthorized immigration. How as a small business person (landscaping company, roofing, home repair, trades) do you compete with someone who can undercut your price because he/she is not faced with the expenses you have? (Licensing, insurance, having a small family that needs healthcare and education and college savings…)
I think Graham’s hit on an issue that will resonate with a lot of people, and we’re not talking just the Foxbot set.
b-psycho
@Awktalk:
This is the type of thing I was referring to as far as how other countries define citizenship. Getting rid of birthright citizenship in the US would mean the resulting children would effectively be citizens of nowhere.
Didn’t say you were. But now that you mention it, I’m sure in some corner these days you could find a xenophobe that actually does want to revoke citizenship for people born to immigrants, so I wouldn’t be so firm on that.
malraux
Is there a good case for getting rid of birthright citizenship? Pointing out that Europe, which tends to have a worse time of immigrants not blending in to the society, has stricter rules doesn’t seem to be a point in its favor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: No one is arguing in favor of unlimited undocumented immigration. You are conflating issues.
malraux
@Elizabelle: Taken to infinity, yeah, things get bad. We’re nowhere near that currently.
gwangung
@Awktalk:
Plyler vs. Doe suggests that it would be considered irrelevant, as it holds the distinction between legal and illegal status is not a valid one when it comes to schooling.
Awktalk
@b-psycho:
If this were the case, then there would be a worldwide problem because although America is quite “exceptional” we are the only country which has birthright citizenship. If your parents are French, you’re French even if not born there. If there’s some loophole where the mother and father home countries leave a child stateless, there are remedies for that. But I’ve never heard of such a case.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Actually, I would say that’s proof that a modern industrialized economy cannot run without a minimum wage to provide a floor below which companies cannot go. A huge amount of the usage of illegal labor is an attempt to bypass labor laws and minimum wage laws. Getting rid of the minimum wage would have exactly the same effect on businesses as they race to the bottom to try and beat their competitors.
Illegal labor is a confounding factor to cover the real issue, which is companies trying to get around having to pay minimum wage to their workers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Awktalk: What about a state that ceases to exist? Or a state that revokes the citizenship of the parents?
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
You might want to, you know, read up on this stuff before you start pontificating. It’s been a huge problem in Japan for years and they’ve just started taking a few baby steps to try and remedy it. Some of the cases date back to before WWII, so it’s not a brand-new problem for them.
Awktalk
@Omnes Omnibus: UNHCR governs how countries are to deal with stateless persons.
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
I’m not assuming anything at all. According to the laws of the United States of America at the time, Wong’s parents were not U.S. citizens and more importantly, were permanently excluded from ever being naturalized as U.S. citizens. So I don’t need to assume that Wong’s parents were established here “illegally.” In their time, they were the modern equivalent of “illegal immigrants.” The facts of the case are quite clear about this.
What statue? What test? I mean, what in the world are you talking about? There was no statue for granting citizenship to Chinese immigrants in 1898 because IT WAS AGAINST THE LAW FOR THEM TO BECOME CITIZENS! That was the crux of the case! Wong was asserting that he was indeed a native-born citizen based on the 14th Amendment, whereas the United States government was arguing that given his parents’ origins as Chinese immigrants/citizens and such laws as the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong’s claims of citizenship were invalid and he could be denied re-entry to the country.
The “test” you are asking if Wong’s parents would have failed IS THE TEST THEY PASSED. That’s why the Court ruled in Wong’s favor, because his parents met what the Supreme Court considered to be the standards for a native-born citizen. Remember when I cited this at the beginning of the discussion?
All of that was/is talking about Wong’s parents. They passed the test, ergo, he was/is a citizen. But for some reason, you keep insisting on the fact that the Supreme Court has never ruled on the very case that they established as a precedent.
Sheer lunacy.
Awktalk
@Mnemosyne: I stand corrected.
upd: to the stateless problem in japan
Omnes Omnibus
@Awktalk: UNHCR covers stateless persons, true. It does not, however, give citizenship to anyone.
MattR
@Midnight Marauder:
You make a huge leap in your not an assumption. Unlike illegal immigrants in today’s society who are subject to deportation, Chinese people in the United States at the time the Chinese Exclusion Act took effect, like Wong’s parents, were allowed to remain for as long as they like without suffering legal repercussions.
Cacti
@Awktalk:
That argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1898.
Cacti
Whoops, looks like I’m way late to the party on Wong Kim Ark.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Agreed, and you stated it very well.
A lot of omnes’ “fear of Mexicans” is actually fear of having your wages driven to the floor, which would be fine with too many employers.
It’s not racial. It’s economic. And a lot of folks on the left never want to admit that.
MattR
@Elizabelle:
I would say that there is a lot of both, with some people having both motives/fears.
Midnight Marauder
@MattR:
Except for the fact that they were never considered citizens and were legally prohibited from ever achieving such status. Oh, and they could never leave the country, because if they did, they had to obtain impossible-to-acquire certifications for reentry. And you know, any children they would have had would have been considered illegal and non-citizens of the United States. And there was the small fact that Congress, moreover, refused state and federal courts the right to grant citizenship to Chinese resident aliens, although these courts could still deport them. Not to mention that when the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended in 1902, restrictions were added requiring each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence, and without a certificate, they faced deportation.
You know, until the Supreme Court decided the Wong Kim Ark case.
Awktalk
@Midnight Marauder:
What does this have to do with anything? There’s nothing in the amendment that requires the parents to be, or be eligible for, citizenship.
Your entire argument rests on this statement:
I disagree with that. The Chinese Exclusion Act (which would make them “modern equivalent of illegal immigrants”) became law in 1882. Wong’s parents immigrated (legally) long before that. He was born around 1870. When he left in 1890, and tried to return, he was denied entry based on the Act. The court said he was a citizen and could not be denied re-entry. At the time of his birth, his parents met the criteria (which has been quoted 1000 times and I won’t quote again) for granting native-born citizenship to their child.
How would the court have ruled if the Chinese Exclusion Act been law BEFORE his parents immigrated, and they violated the Act in order to establish domicile and then had their child? We don’t know because that didn’t happen.
gwangung
Why would they when it isn’t true. There’s a substantial racial element to anti-immigrant hysteria, from the anti Chinese fervor to the anti-Japanese hysteria (which culminated in the WWII camps) to the anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim jihads. They use the same exact arguments, fer crissakes.
gwangung
Then it’s quite interesting that there weren’t any successful challenges of the citizenship of Asian Americans born after the Exclusion Acts, isn’t there?
Origuy
@Awktalk:
Nearly all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere have some form of birthright citizenship.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
Awktalk
@Origuy: Sorry, “developed” countries + Canada.
Mnemosyne
@Awktalk:
Actually, they didn’t according to the US government, which was why the case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to be decided.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
It’s both. A lot of people who will never be personally affected by low wages in construction will rant and rave about “illegals stealing all our jobs.”
MattR
@gwangung: Well, approximately 80% of the 10,000 cases brought in federal court after entry was denied ended with the result reversed. However, the Supreme Court made that moot when they ruled that the administrative officials who make the decisions at ports of entry have the final say which were not subject to judicial appeal.
Cacti
@gwangung:
You can include the Irish and Italians in that group as well, neither of whom were thought of as “white” by the nativist elements.
MattR
@Midnight Marauder: So you are arguing that since Wong’s parents were essentially illegal immigrants even though they were legally permitted to be in the country that the Wong decision automatically extends to all current illegal immigrants? If that is the case, we are going to have to agree to disagree.
Elizabelle
@gwangung:
and to Matt R: re it’s economic, not racial. Backing down from that one, because you’re right, I was overly broad with it.
Cacti
@MattR:
You would be incorrect.
The last case to reaffirm Wong Kim Ark was Plyler v. Doe (1982) which held regarding documented vs. undocumented immigrants:
no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful
Midnight Marauder
@Awktalk:
Because, once again, it served as the basis for the Supreme Court determining whether Wong Kim Ark could be classified as an United States citizen or not. It was the entire basis of his challenge to the law. I am seriously beginning to question whether you even understand the particular details involved with this case. The 14th Amendment may not say anything about such things, but in 1882, Congress enacted a law prohibiting persons of Chinese descent from coming into the United States or being naturalized as citizens. Now, how the 14th amendment factors into this is the following phrase:
Now the policy of the United States government at the time was that if your parents were Chinese immigrants and you happened to be born in the United States, you were not, in fact, a United States citizen, but were a subject of Chinese rule, just like your parents. This is in explicit contradiction to the wording of the 14th Amendment, so something had to give, obviously.
As part of their guidelines for whether such individuals could be considered American citizens, the Supreme Court used the following justification:
~ At the time of the child’s birth, parents are subjects of a foreign power but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States;
~ Must be carrying on business in the United States;
~ Are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under a foreign power;
~ Are not members of foreign forces in hostile occupation of United States territory
All the Supreme Court decided is that if you are born in this country and the aforementioned qualifications are met, you are considered a full-fledged American citizen under the 14th Amendment. Not because it explicitly states such things, but that the language and spirit of the amendment allowed for such a distinction to be made.
When Wong’s parents arrived in the United States, they arrived during a time that saw a monumental increase in Chinese people being excluded from American society, particularly with an ever advancing set of discriminatory laws. Laws like the Page Act of 1875, which “classified as undesirable any individual from China who was coming to America to be a contract laborer, any Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all people considered to be convicts in their own country.” It’s not like hostility to Chinese immigrants in the United States wasn’t happening before Wong’s parents arrived in the late 1860s/early 1870s. It was just the beginning of an intense rise of anti-Chinese prejudice. The fact that the Court ruled Wong a citizen went contrary to the popular notions of the country at the time that the Chinese should even been allowed to be citizens.
A CRITERIA THAT WAS ESTABLISHED BY THE SUPREME COURT RUILING! There was no criteria before the ruling because, if you were Chinese, you had no recourse to achieve United States citizenship. Hell, even after the Supreme Court decided Wong Kim Ark in 1898, the country still extended the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1902 and added the clause that “each Chinese resident to register and obtain a certificate of residence. Without a certificate, he or she faced deportation.”
But keep arguing that the Chinese weren’t considered illegal immigrants and second-class citizens, even after they were granted the right to citizenship by the Supreme Court.
Nick
@Awktalk:
I don’t know if this applies, but here’s something interesting for you.
my grandmother was born in a small town called Tenda in Northwest Italy to Italian parents. Ok fine, she’s Italian. In 1947, the town became part of France (now called Tende). The Italian government revoked her birthright citizenship, which was I believe part of the deal they made with France since my grandmother was born under Mussolini’s government (1925), both the French and Italian governments told her she could be a citizen if she went through the process, but seeing as she was living here, it seemed pointless as it required her to go to France or Italy. For about 10 years, until she got US citizenship, she wasn’t a citizen of anywhere.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
Heh. It’s always funny to see someone get swatted by their own hypothetical that turns out to not be quite so hypothetical after all.
MattR
@Cacti: Thank you. That was actually what I was looking for. But I would argue it does not make me incorrect. If anything it says the Wong case left that question open for 80+ years. And it shows that Midnight Marauder’s logic was incorrect, which was what I was disagreeing with (I never even argued that Wong did not cover illegal immigrants, just that it was not an automatic assumption to make)
@Midnight Marauder: What would you call a Chinese person who was smuggled into the country after 1882 and who would be deported as soon as they were discovered? I would call them an illegal immigrant. The other Chinese who were there legally do not fall into that category. Were they treated like crap and forced into a permanent underclass? Yes.
@Mnemosyne: Please show me how the case Cacti cited proves that Midnight Marauder was right about his assumption that I was questioning?
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, the legal arguments creating distinctions between the U.S.-born children of legal vs. illegal immigrants have already had their legs sawed off.
I don’t see at this point how anything short of a subsequent constitutional amendment would change the very liberal U.S. policy toward birthright citizenship.
Cacti
@MattR:
In that case, you were not incorrect.
AFAIK, Plyler was the first case to rule that explicitly on that particular point.
Midnight Marauder
@MattR:
But I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that given the restrictions such Chinese persons faced on leaving and re-entering the country. If a Chinese immigrant left the country in 1882 and tried to return only a few months later, they would have been told that their previous citizenship was no longer valid and they were now considered Chinese nationals by the United States government. I have a hard time declaring a group of people are here legally when the restrictions placed on them dictate their citizenship automatically expires the moment they leave the country, regardless of their intentions.
Mike
You guys don’t appreciate the genius of the full Republican argument here.
First, you make you tax cuts on the wealthy permanent and remove the Estate Tax forever. That gives you a permanent aristocracy of wealth for your ruling class.
Second, you remove the 14th Amendment so you can have a permanent underclass of non-voting non-citizens. That gives you a permanent servant class.
Bingo, you have installed the Haitian Economic Model [few wealthy oligarchs, endless supply of peons] on the U. S. and Bob’s yer uncle!
All true-blue Republicans have admired the Haitian Economic Model. It’s the closest thing to the Southern Old Plantation Economy they can find.
MattR
@Midnight Marauder:
Is this actually true? I have not seen anything indicating that citizenship was revoked if a Chinese immigrant had managed to obtain it. All references I saw were to Chinese laborers which was later described as “That the words “Chinese laborers”, wherever used in this act shall be construed to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.”
PS. I know it is not the same thing, but doesn’t the US currently issue some types of visas that don’t allow you to return if you leave?
(EDIT: Duh, this was what Wong was all about, but for birth right opposed to naturalized citizens)
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
As I pointed out to Awktalk, we’re trying to compare today’s immigration law to laws that were very, very different in the late 1800s. A lot of the ideas we’re throwing around, like permanent resident or illegal immigrant, literally did not exist at the time Wong brought his case.
So, yes, I suppose that since there was no such thing as an illegal immigrant in the 1800s, you “win” the single point that Wong’s parents were technically not illegal immigrants since that concept did not exist at the time. Good for you.
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
How about sticking to the actual content of the comment you are replying to? How does anything from Plyer v Doe prove/disprove whether Wong’s parents were considered the equivalent of today’s illegal immigrants? It may be hard for you to grasp this distinction – the point I am trying to “win” is not whether or not Wong’s parents were technically illegal immigrants, but instead whether or not the Supreme Court at the time considered them the same as today’s illegal immigrants. You can argue all you want about how similar the conditions were, but there is an obvious enough distinction (that the Chinese could legally reside and work in the country) that I need more than that for proof. If there is something from Plyer v Doe that says that the Court is reaffirming a principle that was previously decided in Wong, that would definitely qualify. But I have not seen that yet.
MattR
@MattR:
I phrased this part pretty poorly. I disagree with the notion that Wong’s parents were not technically illegal immigrants only because the term did not exist at the time. Being legally allowed to live and work in the country is a critical distinction that prevents me from assuming they would be legally treated exactly the same as today’s illegal imigrants despite all the other factors you have pointed out.
db
Let’s roll this all the fuck back to great, great, great, great grandparents and send just about everyone back.
liberal
@NobodySpecial:
There were a lot of bad things in the original Constitution (well, at least One Bad Thing).
(NB: I think the “born here = citizen” is a good thing.)
liberal
@Awktalk:
I don’t think invoking a European’s opinion on this matter is particularly instructive.
As an American, there are a few things I loathe about this place (most of them related to militarism). OTOH, there’s a few things I love about this place. One is jus soli.
One of the main concepts in opposition is blood-based citizenship. Not merely that one or both parents is a citizen, which is fine and reasonable as far as it goes, but a “right of return” type thing based on “blood”. (Yes, we mainly hear of this in terms of Israel, but it is, or at least was, very common in Europe.)
I think we know the consequences of this blood-based nonsense in Europe in the twentieth century.
liberal
@Mike:
Agreed.
Though the big irony is that AFAIK Haiti has had the only successful slave revolt in all of recorded history.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Also, a country which AFAICT gets a substantial economic kick out of hiding assets for wealthy tax cheats.