The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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January 11, 2008
Mike Huckabee vs the 14th Amendment Machiavellian political analyst and freelance campaign consultant Rastus P Placebo writes:
Drudge has a link to a Washington Times story which says that Huckabee now wants to offer a Constitutional Admendment to deny Birth-right citizenship. And: He supports a "test-case" under current law to challenge current birthright citizenship.
Or maybe he's Bill McKay (Robert Redford as The Candidate). Remember the raw footage shot for campaign ads, where McKay is saying that we'll "fire the Board of Reagents" (apparently, to the glee of his audience), and the retort, "He can't FIRE the Board of Reagents!"
It's about on THAT level, that Huckabee's comments about a "test-case" on birthright citizenship should be taken. The crackers are loving this stuff, I'm sure! As for a new Constitutional Admendment: Zero chance of getting two-thirds majorities together in the House & Senate for THAT. (Let alone the 3/4 of the States).
Perhaps ol' knuckle-dragger Huckabee ought to get the nomination-and then try to DEFEND that proposal for a new Amendment. Ol' cracker-boy apparently doesn't understand the historical context of the 14th Amendment; and Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson will be GLAD to lay out that history!
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The brthright citizenship provision is section 1 of the 14th Amendment, the second of the three post-Civil War Amendments. Without spelling out EXPLICITLY, OVERTLY, with ZERO room for wiggling out of it that ALL persons born here are CITIZENS of the US AND (very importantly) of the States wherein they reside, then ol' cracker-boys in the post War South would GUARANTEE to find the most brilliant loop-holes that their brilliant lawyerly minds could create, to deny blacks full citizenship. (Of course, they did that, anyway. But the explicit language of the 14th Amendment is what EVENTUALLY shot down Jim Crow in the middle of the 20th Century).
This birthright full citizenship had to be explicitly spelled out, as a necessary premise to the immediately following premise in the 14th Amendment, that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priveliges or immunities of citizens of the United States". (Interestingly, section one then says that you can't deny any PERSONS due process or equal protection, nor deprive any PERSON [note: It didn't say: any "citizen"] of life, liberty or property without "due process of law").
The crackers of course did a lot of "depriving" and denial of "equal protection" anyway, despite the explicit language of the 14th Amendment. What Huckabee doesn't grasp is that birthright citizenship for ALL born here is one of the key premises underlying the entire Civil Rights Movement. It was the full citizenship, plus equal protection, which together made the legal foundation for every mid-twentieth century major Civil Rights victory in the Federal Courts.
Otherwise, you'd have had WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN (or: his spiritual heirs) out there in the 1950's and 1960's arguing legally: "Yes, 'CITIZENS' must be granted full priveleges and immunities according to the 14th Amendment. Unfortunately, under Mississippi law, the plaintiff is technically not a full 'citizen'; merely a legal RESIDENT whose citizenship was stripped from him by due process of law, as punishment upon conviction for the felony of "looking at a white woman", (and "disturbing the peace", OF COURSE). Thus, NOT BEING A CITIZEN, he does not have the same 'priveledges & immunities' that FULL citizens have".
For entertainment purposes, I think that Huckabee's position against birthright citizenship can be attacked by Obama, whose father was African.
At the Presidential debate: (Senator Obama)-"So, Governor Huckabee; would you have denied ME birthright citizenship? Without being a 'natural-born' US citizen, I'd be ineligible to run for President, even if I were a 'citizen' now, ( i.e., naturalized citizen). So, all those INNOCENT little babies whose PARENTS were illegal immigrants are to be forever barred from EVER being President of the United States, due solely to the behavior of their parents? What about Governor Richardson of New Mexico, whose parents were Mexican, but who was born in the U.S. Is the BLACK man in this race, and the HISPANIC man in this race, (in Huckabee's world), to be ineligible to become President, since mere birth within the U.S. is NOT to be a guarantee of natural-born citizenship?"
(Governor Huckabee's reply): "Well. . .We can't let a schoolbus carry ALL of societies problems!" ***********************************
Mere legislation, not the Constitution, allows foriegn-born individuals with at least ONE parent who is a U.S. citizen, to be citizens at birth. WITHOUT the birthright provision of the 14th Amendment, Congress could technically deny citizenship to U.S.-born individuals whose parents ARE themselves natural-born U.S. citizens. Thus, technically, President Huckabee's newly ratified amendment could give Congress the power to say that any American baby, born after the Amendment is ratified by 3/4 of the States, can legally (on some grounds, if they wanted to find them), be denied U.S. Citizenship.
'Denying citizenship ONLY to the babies of ILLEGAL immigrants', Huckabee says? Then you'd have to have EVERY BABY BORN IN THE U.S. have to have a "citizenship APPLICATION" made. Thus, if any couple has another baby after that Amendment, the baby would have to have the parents submit to a BACKGROUND CHECK to prove they are not illegal immigrants-before the baby can have his or her citizenship legally recognized. Hint: The current back-log of background checks for current LEGAL immigrants wanting Green-cards is YEARS!!!
****************** Do we REALLY want CONGRESS to have the ultimate right to define "natural born citizenship"? (Rather than having the Constitution be the foundation for the citizenship of 99% of all U.S. citizens, as is the case now?) ONLY that 14th Admendment keeps an evil President from finding some legal loop-hole to STRIP some defendant such as Moussoui of his citizenship; thus making him ineligible for appeals to the Federal Courts, etc. (Natural-born citizenship under the 14th Amendment CANNOT BE STRIPPED AWAY INVOLUNTARILY by anyone). Do you want lawyers in the future writing loop-hole filled legislation defining who is or is not a "citizen"? These same lawyers who gave us our TAX CODE?
We know that the right to VOTE is not in the Constitution. That's why the states can disallow convicted felons the right to vote. Technically, a State COULD legally allow legal immigrants to vote: Nothing in the Constitution forbids this . But without that 14th Amendment, technically Congress could use the stripping of citizenship as a punishment upon conviction of a felony. Imagine the Cracker-President saying that upon conviction for a drug charge, (or child-molesting) U.S. Citizenship will be stripped away. Upon having citizenship stripped away, the government can deny future access to Federal Courts if these NON-CITIZENS are arrested in the future for any reason.
I don't believe that folks are fully aware of the insidiousness of messing with our 14th Amendment birthright citizenship. As historical parallel, I'll point out to Reverend Huckabee that the Apostle Paul would have been denied access to the Roman legal system, (i.e., "I appeal to Ceasar!") if not for his BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP. The authorities were all worried after beating Paul, when he told them, (interestingly, AFTER they beat him, not before), that he was a natural-born Roman citizen. (Oops!) So: Reverend Huckabee-would you have wanted to have the Romans eliminate BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP to a Jew such as the Apostle Paul?
Do you agree with me that Huckabee's idea of a new Admendment is about the stupidest, most knucle-dragging idea uttered by a major politician in this campaign? I bet Huckabee's knuckles are calloused, from all the knucle-dragging!!
