More “Party of Jeff Davis” evidence: Move to Repeal/Rewrite “GOP’s” 14th Amendment.
August 9, 2010

 
Share

Credit where credit is due, last week the DailyKOS’s Jamison Foser pointed out the over-looked fact that the 14th Amendment that Republicans are suddenly so hot to repeal/rewrite was a Republican Amendment (passed in 1866, the year after Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War) that the GOP website proudly touts touted as a GOP Civil Rights accomplishment… a fact reported on both Meet The Press and ABC’s ThisWeek yesterday (A quick search of GOP.org produces two links to the 1866 Amendment. Clicking on either now takes you back to their homepage. Gee. I wonder why? Fortunately, DailyKOS archived the photos.)

I almost feel stupid for not picking up on that fact immediately upon hearing the date. Mea Culpa.

In the wake of this frenzy over “rampant unchecked illegal immigration” that in fact isn’t happening, GOP members of Congress… smelling a way to raise money, incite anger (amongst their typically mellow relaxed followers), and rally their racist hoards to the polls… are hopping on the “illegal immigration” crazy train, hoping to ride it to victory come November.

Specifically, their problem is with the first line of the first section of the 14th Amendment:

Section. 1. 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.

Constitutional scholar/eye-doctor/Teanut Rand Paul thinks the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” qualifier provides a loophole, saying the children of foreigners are “not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” but instead under the jurisdiction of, quote, “Mexico” (even the children of Europeans, Rand? Why might anyone think this a racist issue?) So if a foreign terrorist commits a crime inside the United States, we don’t have “jurisdiction” to prosecute? Is that what you’re saying, Randy?

The Party that constantly decries “judicial activism” and claims to only want judges who will “defend the Constitution” (update 8/10: Fox analyst criticized GOP for forgetting oath to uphold Constitution), always seem disturbingly eager to run it through the word processor and “tweak” the parts they don’t like… when they’re not ignoring it altogether. Under George Bush, the Bill of Rights alone (the first Ten Amendments) saw “Free Speech Zones”… a First Amendment violation… that quarantined protesters often blocks away from the events they were protesting; illegal wiretaps that violated both the Third Amendment right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment right against illegal search & seizure; Military Commissions for American citizens declared “enemy combatants” violates the Fifth, Six AND Seventh Amendments; denial of Due Process circumvents the Eighth.

The Second (guns) and Tenth (states rights) Amendments are Conservative favorites… though even those rely upon some “creative interpretation” (ignoring the “militia” qualifier in the Second, or the “prohibited by [the Constitution]” qualifier of the Tenth that says the Constitution supersedes state law). Only the Ninth Amendment (no Amendment shall be passed that violates any other) from the first ten remains unscathed, and that’s only because the Bush Administration never attempted to pass any new Amendments… though I’m sure if they had, it would likely of violated the Third (abortion, DOMA, wiretaps, warrantless searches, etc, all subject to the right to privacy… from a Party claiming to be big on “privacy”).

With no more rights left to undermine among the first ten, our Jeff Davis Republicans have moved on from the Bill of Rights to later Amendments. This week, it’s the Fourteenth… a Republican Amendment passed under a Republican president with an overwhelmingly Republican congress (House: 77%; Senate 79%), meant to settle the question of the citizenship of slaves (because Southerners didn’t want slaves to have any rights), but is now being targeted to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants (because today’s GOP doesn’t want the children of immigrants earning slave wages to have any rights). The full Amendment also lays out the apportioning of Representatives; no one convicted of “giving aid & comfort to the enemy” can hold public office (remember, this was right after the Civil War); no paying off the debt of states that declared war on the United States; no compensation to slave owners for Emancipation; and codifies Congresses power to enforce any of the above. But it’s that first section that keeps “Republicans” up at night. Problem is, I really don’t think these guys have thought things through.

My parents were citizens when I was born here, so I am a citizen. And if my parents hadn’t been citizens at the time of my birth, then I wouldn’t be either according to what Republicans now want to do. So how far back do we go? What if my grandparents hadn’t been citizens at the time my parents were born? Then my parents too would of not been citizens, and ultimately, neither would I. How many Founding Fathers were the children of Royal Subjects of the British Throne? Descendants of the Mayflower? Jamestown? If an immigrant becomes “naturalized” AFTER having kids here, do those kids automatically become citizens… even if those kids are now in their sixties? And if you suddenly find you are now an “illegal”, despite being born here, can you be deported to a country you may have never visited and don’t speak the language?

And here’s the kicker. Be on the lookout for this one: What if only ONE of your parents is a citizen? Is that enough? I mention this because of the BIRTHER movement, which would love nothing more than to declare President Obama an “illegal immigrant” because his father wasn’t a citizen. Be on the lookout for that one, because I’m sure it’s out there. (Note: Mitt Romney’s father wasn’t a U.S. citizen when the Mittster was born either.) What if your only American parent dies? Do we deport you with your “illegal” parent? Or do we take you from your one surviving parent and put you in Foster Care until your one parent can return legally?

And if this is intended to deal with a “crisis” we are supposedly having now, isn’t a Constitutional Amendment that takes YEARS to get through Congress an incredibly inefficient way of dealing with the problem?

Ultimately, what would a massive deportation program like this cost? We already can’t round up and deport the 11 million illegals here already. Multiply that by two or four and we’re talking some serious money and consumption of police resources. No, I really don’t think these guys have thought this thing through.

(ADDENDUM: I wonder if this has anything to do with their confusion? – Abraham Lincoln totally looks like Jefferson Davis.)
 

 

And now, Week-2 of reasons Republicans have no business being put back in charge:

  1. Sharon Angle – The Tea Party’s pick to replace Nevada Senator Harry Reid is too BSC for even Fox News.
  2. Cantor Admits Extending Bush Tax Cuts Would ‘Dig The Hole Deeper’ on the Deficit — and can’t name a single program he’d cut to pay for it.
  3. But that’s not the first time a Republican admits the truth about the effect of tax cuts on the Deficit: GOP Lawmaker Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Slips Up, Admits Tax Cuts Will ‘Increase The Debt’
  4. Not convinced yet? Contradicting His Earlier Denial, Marco Rubio (R-FL) Admits ‘Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves’
  5. Don’t ask these guys how they’ll pay for extending the Bush Tax Cuts. Either they don’t know or won’t say before the election because they know you won’t like it (can you say “cut Social Security & Medicare” after they spent all of last Summer vowing to protect it?)
  6. The man in charge of rewriting the history of the Bush Administration, Rove Invents Fantasy World In Which The Bush Tax Cuts Led To The Most Government Revenue Ever (So how did they double the National Debt in six years if they had all that revenue coming in?)
  7. Tea Party Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-TN) claims mine safety regulations are unnecessary because ‘no one will apply’ for jobs at dangerous mines. – So mines will simply go out of business after 100% of them deregulate and workers choose to starve rather than work for them? (They can just live off their Trust Funds until a better job comes along, right Rand?)
  8. Further proof the Tea Party is to the Right of the Far Right: Tea Party candidate Ken Buck on abortion: ‘I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.’
  9. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) Can’t Think Of Any GOP Ideas That Are Different From Bush. Says Simply: We Are ‘Pro-Growth’
  10. Senate Minority Leader McConnell Filibusters DISCLOSE Act After Decades Of Demanding Campaign Finance Reform – As recently as 2007, McConnell was still defending his 23 year effort to require candidates to disclose who was donating to their campaigns.
  11. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow takes note of McConnell’s flip-flop, producing video proof of numerous Republicans now vehemently opposed to programs & policies THEY themselves invented. (can you say “Cap & Trade”?)
  12. And WHY would Republicans now obstruct their own solutions? Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) says the answer is obvious: Republicans ‘Don’t Want People To Get Jobs Before The Election’ . I think he’s right.
  13. People that think like this have no business being in charge of ANYTHING: Carnival offers shoot-the-president game.
  14. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called for more deregulation to jumpstart the economy, then IN THE SAME BREATH, blamed a lack of regulation for the crisis on Wall Street and the oil disaster in the Gulf:

 

Boehner calls for more deregulation then blames deregulation for crisis’

 

 
Sign our revised petition!

 

 

RSS Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7+ users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts! RSS
Writers Wanted


 

Share

August 9, 2010 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Racism, Right-Wing Insanity, Unconstitutional

One Response

  1. Fast Online news - August 9, 2010

    Kenya’s difficult path to a new constitution…

    Interesting post. I’ve added a Trackback to it :)…

Leave a Reply