Spakovsky is a very good writer and luminary. I respect his opinions and findings immensely.
He’s absolutely right about this. But again as with other amendments, the writing of the amendment is poor because there is never any authority delineated to determine and execute certain phrases. The phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ can only be enforced by a government body and no government body is specified. State offices issuing birth certificates have defaulted to issuing BCs for any child born on American soil. There are no statutes that require state offices to determine how to execute and enforce the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’.
When new amendments are drafted, especially from the forthcoming Article V Convention of States, the drafters must think and work to write enabling language to each proposed amendment. Otherwise, abuse of new amendments will surely ensue regardless of the amendment’s meaning and intent. The 14th Amendment is a prime example of how certain groups take advantage of poorly crafted words by ignoring certain phrases or by injecting new meaning and intent in derived rulings.
Indeed, dear Hostage: That is the very problem. It seems this question has been kept "open" until now.
But it definitely needs to be addressed, before the United States is bankrupted because having to pay for an influx of people from anywhere and everywhere who do not care a fig for American values and principles (indeed, may even be actively hostile to them), a great many of whom cannot even write their own name, who would destroy our Republic from within, economically, socially, culturally. These people come from cultures of poverty and ignorance, mostly looking for a better life.
Yet as much empathy and sympathy for such people as we Americans may feel, given their sub-human existential plight (mainly because of their noxious governments), not even the total receipts of the American people — i.e., a 100% tax rate, which equals total confiscation of the genius and productivity of the American people — could bail out this human plight after a year or so.
Maggie Thatcher once said something to the effect that the fundamental, inevitably fatal problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, it runs out of "rich people": There's nobody left to plunder. Everybody in society has been "equalized" on the level of poverty, financial and spiritual. Thus, the government has nobody left to hand the bills to, for which they issue demands under force of law that they be paid.
But you can't get blood out of a stone.
Therefore, one should consider the wisdom of Aesop's Fable about the Golden Goose....
Excellent essay/post, dear Hostage! I very much admire your proposed constitutional Amendment XXX. It would "nail down the language" — which nowadays would be very refreshing, considering that words of long, historical meaning have been converted, even inverted, to "define" a "new" meaning.
Examples from more-or-less recent times: e.g., the definition of "liberal"; the definition of "marriage." It appears there is not yet a scientifically precise "definition" of human sexuality. Seems to me, that is perennially an open question.
But not so "open" that it's not under God. Still, given the current morally-ambivalent public climate, it appears that a public case can be made that definitions regarding human sexuality itself are up for grabs.
Certainly, people are trying to do just that. I give you Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner as evidence.
Everybody seems to have gotten on-board with addressing "he" as "she," "him" as "her." Score 1 to BJ.
However, until and unless BJ can give me documented evidence that he has had a successful DNA transplant, I will never call him a "her."
But I digress. :>)
Thanks so much for writing, dear Hostage! Please keep me posted on developments!