It’s Friday, November 2nd, 2018…and here’s an abbreviated edition of The Gouge!
We lead off the inaugural installment of November with both sides of the 14th Amendment argument, each courtesy of the WSJ. First, Hillsdale College’s Matthew Spalding makes…
“President Trump accomplished something remarkable this week: He sent his harshest critics and closest allies running to the Constitution. In an interview about immigration, the president argued that the “ridiculous” policy of birthright citizenship has to end—and that he can do it through an executive order.
In response, Democrats and Republicans alike have raised the banner of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.” They claim this means anyone born in the U.S. has a constitutional right to citizenship.But a closer look at the language and history shows this is not the Constitution’s mandate and should never have become national policy…”
“…the framers of the 14th Amendment debated the question presented by President Trump’s proposal. During the ratification debates, Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania objected to the birthright-citizenship proposal: “Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen?” he asked. “Is it proposed that the people of California are to remain quiescent while they are overrun by a flood of immigration of the Mongol race?” Sen. John Conness of California answered that the children of Chinese and Gypsy aliens “shall be citizens” and he was “entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment.”
Judges have affirmed Conness’s view consistently. In 1898 the Supreme Court adopted it in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. The justices held that the 14th Amendment “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory…including all children here born of resident aliens.”…”
So what, inquiring minds want to know, is the definition of a “resident alien”? This is where, in our humble opinion, Blackman’s argument in support of anchor babies falls apart.
“A resident alien is a foreign person who is a permanent resident of the country in which he or she resides but does not have citizenship.To fall under this classification in the United States, a person needs to either have a current green card or have had one in the previous calendar year.“
Oh,…and has entered the country LEGALLY!!!
We report, you decide. But before reaching a conclusion, please consider the following two points:
(1). Senator John Conness of California, a native-born Irishman, had nothing whatsoever to do with the drafting of the 14th Amendment, and likely had a limited knowledge of both the law and the Constitution, having neither training nor schooling in either, facts of which Mr. Blackman should have been aware. And the good Senator’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment stemmed from his support for the well-being and rights of Chinese immigrants in California…LEGAL immigrants, i.e., “resident” aliens. Conness’s views on Section 1 of the Amendment are thus as meaningful as the combat recollections of…
…Hillary Clinton and Brian Williams.
(2). As a good friend noted over lunch on Thursday, Conservatives need to reframe this debate. Rather than allowing the focus to remain on the poor, huddled Hispanic masses yearning to breath free of the fetid stench of Central America, we need to ask whether those who drafted and passed the 14th Amendment really intended to grant the offspring of pregnant Russian women with the wherewithal to fly into the country immediately prior to their due date the greatest honor in the world simply because they were birthed on U.S. soil?!?
We’d strongly suggest the answer is…
In a related item, as regards the Hispanic horde attempting to reach our southern border prior to Election Day, not only is it unlikely they’ll make it, but more importantly, as Victor Davis Hanson records at American Greatness, they’re almost totally undeserving of the refugee status they dishonestly seek:
“…Central Americans claim they are “refugees,” forced out of their homes by violence and endemic lawlessness to save their very lives by migrating to the United States. They insist on that rationale because of quirks in American law that make it more difficult to deport resident “refugees” (especially those with small children) than ordinary illegal aliens seeking improved economic conditions inside the United States.
Yet the migrants are now for the most part well inside Mexico. The Mexican government has generously offered succor.No one is threatening their lives. Mexico has even offered temporary residence for those who seem to have good grounds to be admitted as true political refugees.
In response, the caravan migrants have ignored those offers, because the vast majority are not true refugees. They are mostly no different from the millions of illegal aliens who have entered the United States for higher wages, for the chance to send remittances to their families back home, and for the generous entitlements of American social services that supplement entry-level wages and subsidize remittances…”
Still, there are two ways Trump can stop them in their tracks. First, as Hanson goes on to suggest, inform Mexico, should they reach the border, he’ll impose…
“a 15 to 20 percent federal tax on all remittances sent from the U.S. to Central America and Mexico…”
Which would not only provide some $60 BILLION PER YEAR to fund The Wall, but give both Mexico and her neighbors to the South a financial incentive to counter continued caravan invasions.
“In a few days the U.S. will have its midterm results, and the Beltway press corps will lecture us on the lessons. Don’t expect to hear much about the one takeaway that is already obvious: that today’s preferred progressive politics—of character assassination, mob rule, intimidation and wacky policies—is an electoral bust. It is not what is winning Democrats anything. It is what is losing the party the bigger prize.
Six weeks ago, Democrats were expecting a blue wave to rival the Republican victory of 2010, when the GOP picked up 63 House seats.Everything was in their favor.History—the party in power almost always loses seats. Money—Democrats continue to outraise Republicans by staggering amounts. The opposition—some 41 GOP House members retired, most from vulnerable districts where Donald Trump’s favorability is low. Democrats were even positioned to take over the Senate, despite defending 10 Trump-state seats.
Democrats obliterated their own breaker in the space of two weeks with the ambush of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.The left, its protesters and its media allies demonstrated some of the vilest political tactics ever seen in Washington, with no regard for who or what they damaged or destroyed along the way—Christine Blasey Ford, committee rules, civility, Justice Kavanaugh himself, the Constitution.An uncharacteristically disgusted Sen. Lindsey Graham railed: “Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it!”
A lot of voters suddenly agreed with that sentiment. The enormous enthusiasm gap closed almost overnight as conservative voters rallied to #JobsNotMobs. Even liberal prognosticators today forecast that Republicans will keep the Senate and Democrats will manage only a narrow majority in the House, if that. It’s always possible the polls are off, or that there is a last-minute bombshell. But it remains the case that the ascendant progressive movement blew an easy victory for Democrats…”
Republicans may be the Party of Stupid, but we’re eternally grateful Dimocrats will always be the Party of Overreach.
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