He essentially said that the 14th Amendment was a bad thing, implying either that it should be repealed, or should never have been passed in the first place.
The entire purpose of the 14th Amendment was to ensure that black Americans would not be deprived of their civil rights and their United States citizenship.
So what else am I supposed to think? Especially when DiogenesLamp has made extreme statements in the past?
On one occasion, he baldly stated, because I disagreed with him, that if I were to be taken out and shot, he would cheer.
I'd call that a significant good track record of extreme position on his part.
The entire purpose of the 14th Amendment was to ensure that black Americans would not be deprived of their civil rights and their United States citizenship.True, that. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted expressly to grant U.S. national citizenship to all de facto fellow countrymen who were born within the sole jurisdiction and boundaries of the USA, but were born of a special class of parents (i.e., former slaves) who, but for their enslavement, would themselves have been citizens.
Most former slaves were born jus soli - of the country's soil, yet a Constitutional amendment was required to just make some of these, our fellow countrymen, citizens. That’s right (and plain as can be). Many former slaves who were born on U.S. soil were legally being denied citizenship by certain states because they were born to non-citizen parents! (They were not born jus sanguinis – of citizen blood.)
Clearly, jus soli was not enough to make them citizens (let alone natural born Citizens). That the Fourteenth Amendment exists at all is proof positive that the founders did not consider jus soli sufficient by and of itself to confer natural born Citizenship status – blood and dirt were both required.
The above train of thought is perfectly consistent with the founders’ expressed intent to prevent our commander-in-chief from having any foreign affinities, loyalties or allegiances. The natural born Citizen clause ensures that the circumstances of our president’s birth provide no claim by any foreign power that our president could be a direct subject or citizen of that power. That means that our president must not be born within the jurisdiction of any foreign power of which the USA recognizes their jus soli birthright citizenship, nor may he be born to parents (jus sanguinis) either of whom the USA recognizes as being legitimately claimed as subjects or citizens of a foreign power. Note that when an alien naturalizes as a U.S. Citizen, he does so by legally severing all ties to any former land(s) and swearing sole allegiance to the United States.
Blood and dirt – perhaps not perfect, but the founders recognized it as doing the best job of protecting sovereign Citizens of our great nation from the danger of a usurper gaining the presidency (and sadly, the danger that comes from defying their wisdom we are experiencing first hand today).
Reminds me of a very old joke involves a man being shown a set of inkblots, and interpreting them all as pictures of people having sex. When the tester announces that he's clearly obsessed with sex, he says, "Me? You're the one with the collection of dirty pictures.
You (JW) put words in his (DL) mouth and then interpret them to reveal your own biases.
He (JW) also has that cadence of a lefty.
Truth, truth, falsehood therefore all statements are true.
Obama like Ex.
The Constitution is the law of the land.
It should be adhered to.
Just like the Muslims who were so instrumental in it's construction would ask of us.
Obama and lefties are notorious for this. They use the truths to justify the falsehood.
and you suggest that the 14th Amendment was a BAD THING, what else am I SUPPOSED to think?
He did not suggest that. He said is was badly written and much abused.
I am suggesting that it is badly written and much abused. I would not be in favor of repealing it unless a substitute amendment or set of amendments (it really needs to be divided into more coherent and separate aspects) could be put forth to accomplish it's legitimate objectives.
George Will says the same thing.
An argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032603077.html
A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.
To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "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." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.
A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, "can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Therefore, "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."
Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." (Emphasis added.) The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. Indeed, today's regulations issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice stipulate: