If we give a damn about the meaning of citizenship (and about the history of this country), birthright citizenship is hugely important.

The problem isn’t that they don’t give a damn about those things. The problem is that, to begin with, the Know-Nothings don’t really understand the nature of American citizenship and appreciate its value, nor do they truly understand the history of the U.S. They invest all that passion and outrage in defending a set of category errors, not to mention their own sense of entitlement.

Pit an average nativist against an average naturalised citizen in a junior-high level civics test, and I know which one will score higher 90% of the time.

Citizenship matters to those people, a lot, except in those cases where it is inconvenient.  Sounds like their interpretation of most Constitutional, legal, ethical, moral, and even cultural issues.  Being a conservative doesn’t mean adhering to tradition, it means adhering to the “right” traditions while pretending the “wrong” ones don’t exist.

So it’s not just illegal aliens (::: shudder ::: at that term) and brown-skinned immigrants these guys have a problem with. It’s… American citizens related to non-citizens? Um, okay.

But it’s Obama who’s destroying the constitution.

Birthplace citizenship isn’t exactly universal.  Americans use it because they were influenced by the British and French more than, say the Germans.  It’s an accident of history.  Your grad student baby is a Turkish citizen, because Turkey doesn’t care where you were born.  Born to (or adopted by) Turkish citizens, you’re also a Turkish citizen.  Born to Americans on Vacation in Kars?  Not so much.  The child is also Ukrainian, because Ukrainian citizenship is roughly the same - if one of your parents is a citizen, so are you.  (Citizenshipless people with Ukrainian grandparents are also Ukrainian).

You can make an argument for birthplace citizenship without blind Americocentrism, if you’re so inclined.  But just because America does it, doesn’t mean it’s the only right way.

Jesse, you ignorant liberal!

The USA is losing two wars, have killed a bunch of Americans for no good reason, have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for no good reason, have the highest per person consumption of oil but are sitting on the doorstep of Peak Oil next to China and India, we’ve admitted torturing prisoners (and there’s every likelihood we’re still doing it, despite claims to the contrary), we’re spying on our own citizens, we’ve been ripped off by Wall Street, they plunged the world’s economy into the toilet, we bailed them out, and they’re poised to rip us off again, many states are insolvent, Texas is revising our history books to show how great the Confederacy was, we have one party who believes our president is a non-American Muslim usurper and wants government to stay out of Medicare, while the other party is primarily composed of invertebrates with no actual political philosophy except “Reelect us, we’re not as crazy as the Teabaggers!”, we’re still living under a terrorist fatwa, we’ve decided it’s legal to assassinate certain designated Americans on sight, we’ve got a state trying to bring back Jose Crow, and all this is happening while we’re watching John Galt’s buddies turn the Gulf of Mexico into an oily toilet. 

But despite all that, which some people foolishly think is important stuff, don’t you see the the truth — that Anchor Babies are the single most important threat this nation has ever faced in over 230-years?...

Not a huge fan of the German way of determining citizenship.  It is slightly better since 2000, but a country like America that is historically dependent on immigration probably shouldn’t make it that hard to naturalize or get citizenship for your children.

Only if you’re a giant xenophobic dickhead

Which pretty much defines the modern conservative movement.  Actually pretty well describes American conservatism at any time and place.

Birthplace citizenship isn’t exactly universal.  Americans use it because they were influenced by the British and French more than, say the Germans.

It is also at the heart of defining ourselves, at the time of the revolution, as distinct from the British and legitimating our national sovereignty.  The only way to create an American national identity, which did not exist at the time, was through the notion of birth right citizenship.  Also helped to incorporate the persons descended from Germans, French, Spanish, and other nationalities resident in America at the time.

Brian, you seem to be making the opposite assumption: because America does something makes it de facto the wrong way.  Unlike a lot of nations, we’re a nation of immigrants, and so the birthright citizenship is ideal for us.  Without it, many to most of us are actually in a questionable citizenship state, since most of us come from families that immigrated here and gave birth without being naturalized.

But it’s Obama who’s destroying the constitution.

What else would you expect of the sort of sketchy guy who couldn’t produce a proper birth certificate even if an Arizona cop demanded his papers?

But just because America does it, doesn’t mean it’s the only right way.

True. But it is the more effective path, at least as far as achieving the end results of American liberty and innovation and prosperity that the Know-Nothings claim to care about. America is by design less a nation than it is a state, and that informs its citizenship and immigration policies. Simply put, and with a depressing number of historical exceptions, the general rule is this: buy into the American state’s core values (i.e. the Constitution) and exhibit a willingness to contribute to making the country a better place, and you’re in after proving yourself. If you’re born here, we’re also generous enough to give you the benefit of the doubt.

What we have in the average Teabagger (AKA real Murkin patriot) is in fact an anti-statist nationalist, often an ethnic and/or religious tribalist in the bargain. That’s certainly patriotism, but it’s the kind of patriotism more appropriate in places like the Balkans.

Birthplace citizenship isn’t exactly universal.  Americans use it because they were influenced by the British and French more than, say the Germans.  It’s an accident of history.

I don’t think it’s an accident of history that Americans were influenced by the British and French more than the Germans.  It’s also worth noting that virtually every country in the western hemisphere, plus Australia and New Zealand, all operate under jus soli.  That’s because when you’re a country which is largely being inhabited by immigrants, it’s incredibly difficult to do it any other way.  It’s not like the US in the nineteenth century had large amounts of resources to devote to naturalization procedures.

It’s certainly true that many to most countries operate under jus sanguinis, but most countries don’t have large numbers of immigrants, so it is fairly easy to have the jus sanguinis.  Countries with blood citizenship have run into trouble when they start having large immigrant populations - Germany, for instance, had created an enormous class of permanent-resident non-citizens before they finally modified the law to allow a limited jus soli.

Which, I think, is the point.  Bulgaria can have just sanguinis with few problems because nobody particularly wants to immigrate to Bulgaria.  In the United States it would create a massive permanent underclass, which is, of course, exactly what people like Hinderaker want.

In the United States it would create a massive permanent underclass, which is, of course, exactly what people like Hinderaker want.

This is the key factor. It is dangerous and wrong to assume that this stuff is just mindless xenonphobia. The people pulling the strings of this movement know exactly what they’re doing and why.

just because America does it, doesn’t mean it’s the only right way.

That argument is valid when discussing what other countries should do when it comes to determining who’s a citizen. But the discussion is what America should do, and in that context, birthright citizenship is fundamental.

Xenophobia, dammit. I will now go write “I will use preview” 100 times.

Hmm, maybe someone should propose abolishing birthright citizenship, but with the caveat that it would apply retroactively, and then we’ll so how conservatives feel about it.

FWIW, those 58% of people who want to strip Americans of their citizenship because of a crime that their parents committed are a bunch of douches.

Which pretty much defines the modern conservative movement.  Actually pretty well describes American conservatism at any time and place.

Yeah, can we stop giving them that fig leaf of “modern” conservative? As Driftglass says, it’s been this way since at least William F. Buckley’s Publisher’s Statement in the first issue of National Review (but for the good grammar and a few dated references, Sarah Palin could have written it, or had it written). And the history of conservatism in and around the Gilded Age and Great Depression doesn’t fill me with hope that they were all that enlightened either.

FWIW, those 58% of people who want to strip Americans of their citizenship because of a crime that their parents committed are a bunch of douches.

Most likely, they’re a bunch of douches who think that the American citizenry of a child of illegal immigrants means that the parents can stay. Which makes them a bunch of ignorant douches.

From the powerline post:

If that is the case—and, again, the facts are not yet entirely clear—it is silly to call him an “American of Turkish descent.” He, like the other members of his family, was a Turk. The idea that his presence among the dead raises a special diplomatic problem is absurd; if it does, it shouldn’t.

Coincidentally, Scott Rasmussen published a poll this morning that found 58 percent of voters favor the abolition of birthright citizenship. I think the majority is right on this issue. Birthright citizenship is an anachronism, and in some respects a dangerous one, in an era when millions of people travel internationally and millions more enter the U.S. illegally, some for the specific purpose of having a baby here.

#10

What we have in the average Teabagger (AKA real Murkin patriot) is in fact an anti-statist nationalist, often an ethnic and/or religious tribalist in the bargain.

Yes, that’s exactly it. The conservatives aren’t even nationalists anymore. They believe in the tribe.

You know what’s really an anachronism? Monarchy.  Making citizenship both volitional and natural meant making sure your status before the state was not permanently subject to interpretation by, say, King George III.

this is fucking stupid; as the world moves towards more birthright-citizenships, American xenophobes want to move away from it.

Personally, I’m conflicted about citizenship in general, because of experiences of people like me, who are nomads/expats. I do think that birthright citizenship is becoming increasingly anachronistic, but that’s because it’s not flexible enough, not because it’s too flexible: basically, people often move to a new country, and they should have the ability to naturalize and participate in political and social life of their new home relatively easily and quickly, but at the same time without being de facto barred from doing this more than once. In Jadehawkworld, people would inherit one citizenship from their parents, but also be able to acquire residence-citizenships for places they’ve lived in for more than a couple years, so that they can contribute to, and participate in, the politics of their current home.

Since when did anyone give a levitating shit about Rasmussen polling?  All their polls are way to the right of American opinion.

Birthright citizenship was just fine when it was the children of Irish, German, and Polish immigrants who were citizens by birth.

Birthright citizenship is questionable and possibly dangerous when it’s the children of Mexican, Guatemalan, and Middle-Eastern immigrants who are citizens by birth.

The conclusion will be left as an exercise for the reader.  (But not a particularly challenging one.)

It would seem to be the lowest depths to which humans could sink that these folks want to use the violent death of someone who is incidentally a US citizen to strip automatic citizenship from the US populace.

This man is dead, and regardless of the circumstances of his death, we shouldn’t play the game of legalities with his life.

Are these folk worried that the fact he was nominally a US citizen is going to erode support for Israel?  ‘Cuz that’s a good thing, from my perspective:  No nation ought to be able to flout international law and human decency with impunity, not even us or Israel.

jadehawk,

laws vary by country, but often a child who is born in the United States to parents who aren’t citizens will be granted dual citizenship for both the U.S. and the country of their parent’s citizenship.  It can work the other way around too, where U.S. citizens can give birth in a different country and that child will still be a U.S. citizen, possibly in addition to being a citizen of the country they were born in.

I wish the jackass Teabaggers the best of luck getting a Constitutional Amendment passed, because whether they like it or not, they have to change the Constitution by getting rid of the 14th Amendment to get their way.  Not even the current Supreme Court would find a way to justify barring birthright citizenship since it’s explicitly stated in the 14th Amendment.

I know the Teabaggers like to think they are the “Real Americans” and that they are the real Pulse Of The Nation, but they don’t have enough control anywhere to get 3/4ths of the states to ratify this Amendment.  They sure as hell can’t get 2/3rds of both houses of Congress to pass it or get 2/3rds of the state legislatures to call a convention to get the thing proposed in the first place.  And there might be a minor shitstorm once people realize that these asshats are trying to take away rights from actual American citizens.

I think that this anti-citizenship meme is a lot like typical anti-choice belief: a way of showing simultaneously that you’re a mean-spirited jerkwad and completely incapable of thinking through the consequences of things you claim to advocate. If you asked me to prove my citizenship, I sure couldn’t. (I have a passport, but we all know that could have been issued under the mistaken belief that I was a citizen because I was born here. And I have a birth certificate, but that doesn’t say my parents were citizens. And I sure don’t have their passports, or their birth certificates. And my only US-born grandparent’s birth certificate was destroyed in an earthquake… And I’m one of the lucky ones who even knows that all these documents once existed.)

catgirl @24, I know.

this helps only americans, which I’m not. I have dual citizenship for my birthcountry (a citizenship I technically don’t have much use for), and another for the country I grew up in, via the blood-citizenship; neither of them is a citizenship to the country I’ve lived in for the last 8 years. and sure, I could become an American citizen, but then I couldn’t ever move anywhere else; and someday, I’d like to move back to Europe. so instead, I’m a permanent resident and am therefore suffering from “taxation without representation”.

And my situation isn’t that unique that I could just shrug it off as a one-time inconvenience to me personally.

I would suggest a reading of Wong Kim Ark for anyone interested in this subject. It has an extensive discussion of the common law basis for birthright citizenship and places the 14th Amendment in context with that. The Court comes to the conclusion that the 14th Amendment did not do anything new, it merely confirmed the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory:
“The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.”
They also addressed the issue that a lot of conservatives ignore:
“To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.”

Birthright citizenship was just fine when it was the children of Irish, German, and Polish immigrants who were citizens by birth.

Not with everybody. 

The Know-Nothings favorite target?  The Irish. 

Anglo-Saxon Union soldiers routinely made fun of German troops in the Civil War for being stupid and, of all things, cowardly (look up “I fights mit Siegel”).

And don’t get me started on why Polish jokes were so popular for so long.

In fact, the dumb central/eastern European stereotype (re-enforced by early twentieth century IQ proponents) was strong enough to lead to highly restrictive immigration laws for those groups.  I’m sure those that held such views would have advocated removal of birthright citizenship if they had thought of it.

@ Falconer, yes that’s part of it.  They’re also using this “opportunity” for explotative purposes to pursue their long-held agenda.  But yes, there is also concern that Israel pumping four bullets into the head of a 19 yo United States citizen might be cause for some sort of official response.  “Bad Israel” or something. 

Instead we have our lips firmly planted on their ass as usual.

I personally don’t think these people have anything to worry about.  Israel can, has, and will murder US citizens and they will continue to be the sole country in the world who can do so without fear of repercussion or even a scolding.

with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory

I’m pretty sure teabaggers could twist logic enough to make this exception count for any immigrant, legal or otherwise, who has brown skin.  They could try to say that illegal immigrants from Mexico are involved in “hostile” occupation of our country simply their very presence, and any immigrant that comes from the Middle East or practices Islam is exactly the same as a terrorist in their alternate reality.

But yes, there is also concern that Israel pumping four bullets into the head of a 19 yo United States citizen might be cause for some sort of official response.

And the further implication of this attitude is that we should only care about our own citizens and that we should look the other way if someone shoots a Turkish citizen.  It’s like if he were a citizen of some other country this would all be perfectly fine because it’s only United States citizens that matter.

[quote}Brian, you seem to be making the opposite assumption: because America does something makes it de facto the wrong way.  Unlike a lot of nations, we’re a nation of immigrants, and so the birthright citizenship is ideal for us

No, I’m just sensitive to American-centric attitudes like this because I’m Anglo-Canadian.  I haven’t expressed a preference for either method of citizenship, just rejected the notion that because America does it, it must be the best thing since sliced bread.  Dual jus sanguinis and jus soli (as both Canada and America more or less have, except excluding grandchildren & whatnot) is probably the only sensible thing to do, unless you can get everybody on board with one or the other scheme.  But there’s no need to invoke an ignorant and xenophobic attitude, as Jesse has done.

#33

I haven’t expressed a preference for either method of citizenship, just rejected the notion that because America does it, it must be the best thing since sliced bread.

Nobody has actually said the USA does citizenship the best way, at most we have said jus soli was the best method in the USA, given our history. The point of the article is not to judge the best method for deciding citizenship. It is to show how extreme the attitude of some US conservatives has gotten.

But there’s no need to invoke an ignorant and xenophobic attitude, as Jesse has done.

What are you talking about?

But there’s no need to invoke an ignorant and xenophobic attitude, as Jesse has done.

a xenophobic attitude? like where?!

In the Soviet Union, you needed papers to travel anywhere.  Staying in a hotel?  Be prepared to fill out the ankyeta which is more detailed than a driver’s license and lists your nationality.  Born in the Moscow?  Doesn’t mean you’re Russian.  If your ancestors were Jewish, you’re a Jew.  Nevermind if you and your parents and grandparents have been Eastern Orthodox Christians for generations, you’re a Jew on the anketa. 

Have fun trying to immigrate to Israel, since as a Christian they’ll say you aren’t a Jew, but your “home country” won’t accept you as a national because you’re a Jew.

Who knew the US was so full of people who wish we’d lost the Cold War?  We’re apparently chock-full of “patriots” who wish they were Soviets living in an authoritarian wonderland.

@32: The American government has a duty to American citizens.  It doesn’t really have a duty to Turkish citizens, except through the NATO treaty.  We do have a moral duty to stop arming and excusing a genocidal apartheid regime, but good luck convincing the Congress of that.

This is the key factor. It is dangerous and wrong to assume that this stuff is just mindless xenonphobia. The people pulling the strings of this movement know exactly what they’re doing and why.

The neoCons want their cheap labour one way or another. Before the Know-Nothings grasped true power in the GOP (would’a thought?!), the neoCons were content with undocumented cheap labour. Now they have to pander to the racists and religious nuts, and a German-style guest worker scheme that formalises the current situation is the best that they can come up with.

But at this point, simply creating a category of second-class resident won’t be good enough, even with the denial of government services (e.g. education, health care) and even with denying them basic rights and privileges currently accorded to (white) tourists. You’d think that rolling things back to the “good old days” of Jim Crow (or earlier) would be satisfactory, but a few of the Teabagging morons have are beginning to suspect the truth: that this is not a “brown hordes” immigration issue but a labour issue.

For them, any gastarbeiter programme would have to come not only with a built-in bar to citizenship, but would also have to exclude or severely reduce access of non-citizens (and their children, and grandchildren…) to jobs other than unskilled manual labour. Far fewer H1-Bs and academic visas, all so that Cletus can finally get his job (as ordained by Prosperity Jeebus) as a tenured professor or tech billionaire.

Unlike a lot of nations, we’re a nation of immigrants

We were a nation of immigrants, now the country has been settled and we have every right to prevent more people from coming here.  You seem to be having trouble with that concept.

I wish the jackass Teabaggers the best of luck getting a Constitutional Amendment passed, because whether they like it or not, they have to change the Constitution by getting rid of the 14th Amendment to get their way.

No we do not, we need an act of congress signed by the President.  The Supreme Court has no army and can’t enforce it’s rulings unless congress agrees to let it do so.  And I’m not even sure the supreme court would rule against a law eliminating birthrite citizenship.

It’s like if he were a citizen of some other country this would all be perfectly fine because it’s only United States citizens that matter

Exactly.

Isn’t it amazing how these folks consider the Fourteenth Amendment “an anachronism,” but not the Second Amendment? Even though the Second refers to “militia,” a word that now denotes only self-aggrandizing fools in camo gear.

The Supreme Court has no army and can’t enforce it’s rulings unless congress agrees to let it do so.

Now there’s a compelling constitutional argument! No doubt based on Neener vs. Neener.

But there’s no need to invoke an ignorant and xenophobic attitude, as Jesse has done.

Unfortunately, jus sanguinis citizenship laws have been used xenophobically—it was only two years ago that the supreme court in Japan declared that illegitimate children born in Japan to non-Japanese mothers had to be given Japanese citizenship.  Until that happened, you had thousands of kids who were living in legal limbo who couldn’t even be adopted by foreigners since they did not have the right paperwork to leave the country.  There was some ugliness in Germany as well before they changed the laws where you had second- and third-generation immigrants who could not claim German citizenship even though they’d lived their entire lives in Germany.

Given how mobile the world population is right now, going to a birthright citizenship model is probably the least problematic.  If we get back to the days when most people lived and died within 10 miles of their birthplace, then jus sanguinis laws might make sense again.

Now there’s a compelling constitutional argument! No doubt based on Neener vs. Neener.

Bitter Scribe wins Teh Internets

Ah, excellent, here’s an illustration of what I was discussing at #1: the American Patriot who’d like to see one branch of government (the legislative) abolish another (the judicial) while the third branch sits idly by.

“Birthrite” indeed. What’s your tribe, Billy?

We do have a moral duty to stop arming and excusing a genocidal apartheid regime, but good luck convincing the Congress of that.

Considering America’s current and recent record in the Middle-East, for the US to call out Israel right now would be chutzpadik in the extreme. I don’t believe that you have to be perfect to call out bad behavior in others, but between the torture/indefinite detentions/contractor murders/two acknowledged wars and two more unacknowledged….

Mnemosyne, I have to say that a double-citizenship with both jus soli and jus sanguinis is a much better solution, and equally doable. That way at least you prevent the absurd situation of different people in the same family (sometimes even siblings) having different citizenships.

You know, all these guys could have made a valid argument that Dogan was more culturally aligned with Turkey than America. There are a lot of people who feel more culturally aligned with a nation other than their nation of citizenship (including US residents who feel more culturally aligned with America than their country of birth). But, quite rightly, cultural alignment has no bearing on the legal question of citizenship.

Of course, they couldn’t leave it at that. They had to go to the citizenship question. And they had to let their feelings - their xenophobic, racist, scaredy-cat asshole feelings - count for more than what is a very simple and clear element of the Constitution. Really, dudes, it’s there in black and white. It’s settled law. And your squicky little feelings aren’t going to change that.

If these guys had any balls and/or ovaries, they’d actually attempt a constitutional amendment to change the definition of citizenship. But, of course, they won’t do that because 1) it would never pass, and 2) they know damn well it would expose all their worst truths to the world. They don’t want full exposure. They want to keep living in their little isolated world of dogwhistles and winks to their brethren.

Really, is there any more cowardly, sniveling, pathetic bunch of diaper-wearing thumb suckers than the modern far right?

Now there’s a compelling constitutional argument! No doubt based on Neener vs. Neener.

Well, when the limit of his civics education is 4th grade, it does make sense.

One of the consistently amazing things about America to me that a group of people who lived more than 200 years ago could plan so effectively against a destructive and ignorant moron like Billy in the year 2010.

The citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment is just one more thing for the wingnuts to rail against and raise money on, secure in the knowledge that they’ll never get it changed.

No we do not, we need an act of congress signed by the President.  The Supreme Court has no army and can’t enforce it’s rulings unless congress agrees to let it do so.  And I’m not even sure the supreme court would rule against a law eliminating birthrite citizenship.

Oh, honestly Billy. If you’re going to just ignore the constitution that thoroughly, why even involve the President? Or Congress? As currently constituted they’re not going to give you what you want.

So we can deport John McCain back to Panama?

How retrograde will this be?  Will anyone without Native American regestration be kick out?
Because my mother’s side has been here for only 3 generations.  You know, because grandma was born in the states doen’t mean she’s a valid citizen.  What about my sisters?  None of them were born stateside?  Will Germany, Italy and the Phillipines take them back?

Hey, Billy Da Twoll is back!

Making comments completely dismissing one whole branch of our three-part Federal government pretty much explains everything anyone would need to know about you.

Dude, when are you going to just cut all the crap regarding even the most minimal respect for the Constitution and just come out and admit you’re a Fascist who wants a reichwing dictator to rule over us with an iron fist and be done with it.  You seem eager to start filling concentration camps with the people you don’t think deserve to be here.

Hope you look good with a shaved head and a Wehrmacht uniform.  (“Does this swastika make my ass look too big?...”)

Really, is there any more cowardly, sniveling, pathetic bunch of diaper-wearing thumb suckers than the modern far right?

Perhaps the Democratic Congressional majority that lives in fear of them?

Xenophobia, dammit. I will now go write “I will use preview” 100 times.

I was wondering what the fear of a particular noble gas had to do with immigration.

Ben, I really appreciate that sort of subtle snark.

Not one of your best arguments.

I’ll bet our resident proponent for the Republic of Gilead has some “interesting” counter-arguments.

Don’t be shy, corwin—Billy can’t be expected to provide all of the entertainment value in this thread.

#39

No we do not, we need an act of congress signed by the President.  The Supreme Court has no army and can’t enforce it’s rulings unless congress agrees to let it do so.  And I’m not even sure the supreme court would rule against a law eliminating birthrite citizenship.

The last time this kind of thing was fought over with armies, your side lost. You sure you want to try for round two?

Birthright citizenship isn’t an anachronism - it’s one of the ways the United States is Progressive.  It prevents all that stupid stuff about people being imported to do work, never gaining citizenship, and then their children don’t have any citizenship at all in the country where they were born, raised, and live.

Why do you think there were riots in France?  Because second-class citizenry doesn’t work!

(Can we ignore Billy?  He’s a huge distraction from, like, real wingnuts.)

FWIW, those 58% of people who want to strip Americans of their citizenship because of a crime that their parents committed are a bunch of douches.

Well, technically, children of diplomats and tourists don’t get automatic citizenship, either.  There are exceptions already, it wouldn’t take an Amendment to change that.

#59

(Can we ignore Billy?  He’s a huge distraction from, like, real wingnuts.)

The nativists are a real faction within conservatism.

Does Billy actually believe what (s)he says? Who knows?

The trolls are now advocating military dictatorship.  How nice.

The last time this kind of thing was fought over with armies, your side lost. You sure you want to try for round two?

I know you aren’t trying to claim the legacy of the priviledged, misogynistic and racist white males who fought and led the North in the civil war as your spritual ancestors. 

Besides, overruling the Supreme Court will hardly necessitate a civil war.  Andrew Jackson had no problem ignoring the Supreme Court when it became inconvenient and neither will Congress/the Presidency when it becomes necessary to deal with the problem of illegals.

Dude, when are you going to just cut all the crap regarding even the most minimal respect for the Constitution

When have I said I have respect for the Constitution?

How retrograde will this be?

I take it you mean “retroactive”.  In answer to your question:  not at all.  It won’t affect current citizens but only future anchor babies.  Ideally the law would also void the citizenship of anchor babies already born here over the past 15 years, but that would probably be too difficult to implement.

My grandfather was a citizen of Canada.  He emigrated to the US.  My father was part of the group of people who “woke up Canadian” when Canada did away with many eras and classes of who was considered a citizen and streamlined it into a simplified system that very much resembles the US.

He was the first generation born on foreign soil to a Canadian parent - he is eligible for dual Canadian citizenship. 

So why are these jerks jerking off on this?  Simple - they don’t like rights, but they LOVE privileges that are capriciously applied according to “worthiness” and “income”.

Interesting as well how much spouting we hear about “original intent of the founders” ... until we actually run in to some very obvious and clearly defined original intent that conflicts with the hate du jour.

No we do not, we need an act of congress signed by the President.  The Supreme Court has no army and can’t enforce it’s rulings unless congress agrees to let it do so. 

Oh good, but lets first do a trial run by banning any and all guns and sending the cops to search houses and round them up.

When have I said I have respect for the Constitution?

Do you claim to be American? Are you an American citizen (and if so, have you tried to renounce it)? Respect for the Constitution is really the minimum requirement for those things.

Andrew Jackson had no problem ignoring the Supreme Court when it became inconvenient and neither will Congress/the Presidency when it becomes necessary to deal with the problem of illegals.

Nope:

In reaction to this decision, President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” However, Jackson never made any such statement.[1] (What Jackson actually said was that “the decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.”) Arguably because of a legal loophole, he had no grounds for becoming involved unless the Georgia courts formally defied the Supreme Court. That did not happen since Georgia simply abided by the only substantive holding of the decision, and pardoned and freed the plaintiff (albeit after several months of shirking the federal judiciary)

Try again.

Oh, and Billy?  How do we know that your IP address and the rest haven’t been logged by the FBI.  Your disrespect - avowed disrespect - for constitutional law is otherwise known as TREASON.  Just saying ...

Besides, overruling the Supreme Court will hardly necessitate a civil war. 

The reason an amendment would fail would be because the provision would be sure to fail to attract a 2/3rd majority of congress and 3/4ths of the states. So you’d have a lot of federal attorneys and federal courts exist within individual states that not only opposed the amendment but don’t even recognize the process by which a law claims to have any authority. 

The courts don’t have armies, but armies don’t enforce the law: attorneys and law enforcement officials enforce the law, and they take direction from the courts.

Well, technically, children of diplomats and tourists don’t get automatic citizenship,

They may not now, but my grandfather was born in 1902 to a Canadian diplomatic mission member serving on US soil.

And I’m not even sure the supreme court would rule against a law eliminating <strike>birthrite citizenship.</strike>the 14th Amendment.

There fixed it for you.
Now read that out loud and try not to die from the embarassment of the extreme stupidity.

Let this be a lesson against cutting funding to public schools.

oops, didn’t finish that.  My grandfather was a dual citizen with US/Canada according to the laws at the time.

#63

I know you aren’t trying to claim the legacy of the priviledged, misogynistic and racist white males who fought and led the North in the civil war as your spritual ancestors.

You talk about how the Supreme Court has no power because it lacks an army. You sometimes seem to be spoiling for an armed confrontation of some kind. I was asking you to think about whether you would win such an armed confrontation.

The courts don’t have armies, but armies don’t enforce the law

Yes they do.  In America that hasn’t historically been the case but if you actually look outside of America you will see that in every country that has a constitutional crisis, it is the army that decides which side of the dispute prevails.  Constitutions only are relevant so long as the population respects them. 

How do we know that your IP address and the rest haven’t been logged by the FBI.

The FBI certainly knows who I am, and likewise knows that I am no threat to anyone.

Your disrespect - avowed disrespect - for constitutional law is otherwise known as TREASON

No, it isn’t.

When have I said I have respect for the Constitution?

I see, the supreme law of the land is irrelevent to you.
You now have no rights.

I was asking you to think about whether you would win such an armed confrontation.

Who the hell is “we”?  I think that Congress will be able to overrule the Supreme Court if it comes to that.  If anybody were to launch a civil war in such a case it would not be the right, but the left.  And I don’t see any capability of the left waging a civil war against the American majority.

I see we’ve already hit reducto ad Hitlerum here, nice! Billy, I think your biggest problem is you’re not that bright. You don’t seem to understand that you didn’t actually do anything amazing to get born in the USA. you weren’t just hanging out somewhere with all the rest of the unborn children picking, your current status as a legal citizen of america is just an accident of birth.

You know what I don’t get, and it is the same here in Aus as it is over there, If people are so worried about illegal immigrants, why aren’t the helping to make the countries that these desperate people are coming from better places? Less to run away from= less people running to your country.

Without it, many to most of us are actually in a questionable citizenship state, since most of us come from families that immigrated here and gave birth without being naturalized.

You can say that again.  The new breed of know-nothings who descended from German, Italian, and Irish immigrants within the last 150 years are living in a fantasy land if they think everyone in their family tree was born to naturalized citizens with spotless immigration records. (And all their grandmas came onto the shores speaking perfect English, I’m sure.)

“Ideally the law would also void the citizenship of anchor babies already born here over the past 15 years, but that would probably be too difficult to implement. “

Why have you chosen 15 years?

And I don’t see any capability of the left waging a civil war against the American majority.

Oh how cute, someone who thinks non-wingnuts are a minority.

Fatman, I’m guessing because he assumes it’s much easier to strip little children of their rights than 16-and-over brown people. They scare him.

In America that hasn’t historically been the case but if you actually look outside of America you will see that in every country that has a constitutional crisis, it is the army that decides which side of the dispute prevails.

Wouldn’t you be more happy living in a banana republic? Most of us enjoy the benefits that come with things like independent judiciaries and separation of powers. You, on the other hand seem to long for the more exciting lifestyle afforded by a new authoritarian colonel becoming El Presidente for Life every few years.

In that country, of course, you’d remain the same ditch-digging ignoramus you are here.

Constitutions only are relevant so long as the population respects them.

Respect is earned, and if the U.S. Constitution were a brand it would now have more than 100 years of international goodwill.

The FBI certainly knows who I am, and likewise knows that I am no threat to anyone.

Since it’s a wonder you can tie your own shoes, I’m sure that’s the case. However, the Justice and Treasury departments would consider your rejection of the most basic tenets of the Constitution to be treasonous, and rightly so. Most American military officers, who take an oath to defend the Constitution, would agree with them.

Whoops, forgot, your word that it isn’t treasonous makes it all better.

Who the hell is “we”?

A good question. Apparently the answer is: “the anti-Constitutional movement Billy is too cowardly to describe in detail.”

But then, it seems, Billy is too much of an intellectual coward to answer a whole bunch of questions.

Birthright citizenship is certainly the way for any “New World” (and by that I mean not just the Western Hemisphere, but also Australia/NZ and the like, maybe you could throw South Africa in there, too) to do it. Because you cannot define an American, or Canadian, or Brazilian etc. by their ethnic lineage. There’s no such thing, excepting the Native Americans, and even they’re relatively recent arrivals vs. the first inhabitants of other continents when you take into account the time scale of human history.

Oh how cute, someone who thinks non-wingnuts are a minority.

You are on the subject of immigration and this has been demonstrated repeatedly by all public opinion polls.  There is only one group in America that supports illegal immigration and they are only about 7% of all voters.  Every other group, white, black, asian, etc., wants them gone.

My grandfather was a citizen of Canada.  He emigrated to the US.  My father was part of the group of people who “woke up Canadian” when Canada did away with many eras and classes of who was considered a citizen and streamlined it into a simplified system that very much resembles the US.

He was the first generation born on foreign soil to a Canadian parent - he is eligible for dual Canadian citizenship.

Current Canadian law is that basically you are a Canadian citizen if one or both parents are Canadian citizens, or if you are born in Canada and your parents are permanent residents (ie, in the country legally with immediate plans to stay, but of course you can change your mind later).  There are obvious exceptions for diplomats, their families, and any staff they might have.

This basically covers off the vast majority of circumstances.  Children don’t get citizenship if their parents are in the country for vacation, or just visiting, or sneaking in illegally, or just passing through (a woman gives birth while a plane is on a stopover), or on a temporary work visa, or as a student, or other circumstances where the parents either shouldn’t be here to begin with or aren’t planning on staying.  That system is entirely reasonable.

So, Billy, I take it you’re not planning to run for public office anytime soon?

Immigration is one of those questions that don’t make any sense when you poll it. Americans will tell you they hate illegal immigration, but then say they favor a path to citizenship in the same breath.

Kind of like how a majority of Americans are for cutting government spending, but when you list specific categories of spending and ask if it should be increased, decreased, or stay the same,  in every single category except “foreign aid” and sometimes “welfare” they vast majority either wants spending increased or spending to stay the same.

“Because you cannot define an American, or Canadian, or Brazilian etc. by their ethnic lineage.”

...very true, but that doesn’t seem to stop each new generation of know-nothing wingnuts from trying to define who is not an American…

HP

My favorite is when a homeowner, who takes full advantage of the mortgage deduction, whines about “subsidized housing”.

Wow.  Stick > Billy

I said that I was surprised how many “patriotic” Americans wish we’d lost the Cold War b/c they’d make such lovely Soviets, and in marches Billy to prove it.

With his argument that the Supreme Court wouldn’t find a violation of the Constitution unconstitutional, Billy blew through the stick rule faster than Austin.

I think that Congress will be able to overrule the Supreme Court if it comes to that.

I hate to piss on a good masturbation session, but which historical precedent, in conjuction with what sort of interpretation of the modern political structure of the US goverment, leads you to believe that this has the remotest chance of occurring? The United States is a politically stable nation; I believe that there is hardly a single member of the armed forces who would not find your suggestion that the military be used to “enforce” the illegal usurpation of judicial
powers by the legislative branch anything except offensive and despicable.

I’m not sure why anyone pays any attention to Billy. In all of the threads that he’s commented on, he has yet to make a valid or intelligent argument for anything. I guess it is good to try to educate the willfully ignorant, but is it really worth it in this case?

I know I shouldn’t be throwing stones in a glass house, but I would think that an outright call to sedition would be ground for a banning…

You know, I at least attempt to keep my seditious thoughts to myself.

A Legislative Agenda That Only A Giant 19th Century Racist Could Love

A Giant 19th Century Racist

But see, Billy, the post isn’t about illegal immigration. It’s about taking a group of people (who aren’t even immigrants! Their parents, maybe, but… they are not, under the constitution at as currently stands) and making them non-citizens. That is not at all the same thing.

It’s actually a great way of increasing the number of illegal immigrants, though, if that’s your aim: take a bunch of citizens and retroactively declare that their presence in their country was illegal. Oops!

but which historical precedent, in conjuction with what sort of interpretation of the modern political structure of the US goverment, leads you to believe that this has the remotest chance of occurring

See Latin America:  ~1850 to Present.

The United States is a politically stable nation

It won’t be once the anti birthright citizenship act is passed.

I think that Congress will be able to overrule the Supreme Court if it comes to that.

They can. It’s called an “amendment to the constitution.” Inability to pass an amendment means that the support does not exist. Even less so because enforcement of laws relies on people who recognize laws as being legitimately passed. Since law enforcement and its representatives take their orders from the courts, there’s really no path for non-court-recognized laws to take effect. The army doesn’t tale orders from Congress, either. You’re just spouting a bunch of survivalist/anarchy fantasies. Where, unsurprisingly, you fantasize as being on the winning side, or at least surviving the dispute.

@87 - I recall at least one poll in the last year in which a plurality wanted to cut “welfare”, but expand “aid to the poor.”  And yes, an overwhelming majority (~75%) wanted to cut foreign aid, a whopping 1% of the budget.  Of course, there’s no assurances that even that 75% means the same thing.  I’m all for increasing foreign humanitarian aid, but I’d be in that 75% because I want to cut military aid to dictatorships like Egypt, self-sufficient allies like Germany, and apartheid regimes like Israel.

It’s actually a great way of increasing the number of illegal immigrants, though, if that’s your aim: take a bunch of citizens and retroactively declare that their presence in their country was illegal.

While I would certainly support that, it isn’t what’s being discussed.  What we are talking about is eliminating birthright citizenship as a means to prevent pregnant women from having their babies on US soil so that their offspring will be American citizens in the future.  We’re probably stuck with the ones who are here already.

I know I shouldn’t be throwing stones in a glass house, but I would think that an outright call to sedition would be ground for a banning…

Aren’t you Canadian?  American politics is none of your business.

Inability to pass an amendment means that the support does not exist

False, it means we can’t get the 2/3 we need, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a majority.

Aren’t you Canadian?  American politics is none of your business.

Yeah, we’re just their giant fucking neighbor with about 9x their population, a land border thousands of miles long,  military ally, not to mention their biggest trading partner. Why should they care about American politics? It’s not like it has any effect on them! /snark

Billy’s still mad at that latin kid who always gave him wedgies.

it means we can’t get the 2/3 we need, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a majority.

Correct. But that doesn’t matter, because people are only willing to enforce laws they consider valid.

No one is willing to kill or die to end birthright citizenship. You just have a violence fantasy: you should fantasize about something people would be willing to kill/die over, like food, or a situation that would be more realistic with respect to something that would drive a breakdown of civil society, like zombies.

Billy is more proof that no matter what philosophy a government is organised by, and no matter whether it’s run by a dictator, a democratically-elected representatives, or a king, or it’s setup as a commune, they all need somebody to clean the toilets.  And Billy seems perfectly suited to perform that function — his mind more closely resembles a toilet full of bad ideas than an instrument of logical, factually-based, and grounded-in-reality thinking…

Billy’s still mad at that latin kid who always gave him wedgies.

I doubt he’s ever lived in an area with very many hispanics, honestly. Yeah he’s from Florida, but I’m guessing the “Alabama” part of Florida, not Miami. Especially given the fact he thinks a military coup is n actual possibility and not his masturbatory Red Dawn fantasy. He could only get that impression from either living in a really isolated, far-right area. The only other option is that he’s completely demented.

Billy the Douche:

No matter how much you want to believe that The Turner Diaries is an accurate predictor of America’s future, it just ain’t so.

I don’t dispute the fact that racism still plaques this nation in 2010… I dispute your subtle implications that a race war is coming and that you and I will be on the same side because we both happen to be white.

I am a white, straight, privileged male who cannot honestly say that I’ve never had a racist thought or committed a racist transgression in my life.  I have never met a single white, straight male who could honestly say that they have never committed a racist transgression in their life.  Tooting my own horn about just how not racist I am would be both terribly dishonest and extremely patronizing.  I think it is impossible for any member of any privileged class to say they have never viewed the oppressed classes through a racist (or misogynist, or homophobic, etc.) lens.  Before I can become a better person and a committed advocate in the fight against class oppression, I have to acknowledge my own privilege and my own shameful moments in which I caved in to the oppressive ideology of my class peers.

That said… I’m not you, buddy.  And the majority of my straight, white male friends aren’t you either.  And if any of them were as disgustingly racist as you, they would cease to be my friend.

Yes, every person in a dominant class has some degree of xenophobia towards those who are not in the powerful class.  However, unlike you and others like you, a lot of us don’t see this as a good thing, and a lot of us would never join forces with your type to wage a race war.

Racism ain’t dead, misogyny ain’t dead, and homophopbia ain’t dead.  And sadly, I doubt that I will ever live to see the day when any of them will be completely eradicated from society.  But as much as those evils still manifest themselves in today’s world, I remain hopeful for the future.  Barack Obama did not win the white vote overall, but he did win the white vote among younger Americans.  Societal attitudes are certainly more evolved today than they were 50 years ago.  And again, I am not trying to claim we live in a post-racial world… we absolutely do not.  But things which were culturally acceptable in the Jim Crow days are no longer as widely acceptable today.  A proudly racist presidential candidate in the 1948 election was able to use the word “nigger” publicly with impunity, and still managed to win the electoral votes of four states that year.  Today, if videotape surfaced of a presidential candidate using that ugly word publicly even one time - even if it happened 20 years ago - their campaign would immediately be destroyed.  Had George Allen referred to an Indian-American citizen as “macaca” in 1960s Virginia, he probably would have won the race, and he perhaps would have even benefitted from such naked racism.  In 2006, that one word turned a campaign that was headed to a probable victory into a career-ending trainwreck.  The GOP had dubbed Allen as the early favorite to win the party nomination for POTUS for the 2008 election.  But then Allen called a young man “macaca” at a campaign event, and through the magic of YouTube, he watched his political career being smashed into oblivion in less than 24 hours.

That gives me hope.  No, I will not live to see the day when attitudes like yours are completely eliminated from American society, but I do look forward to the day when disgusting worldviews such as yours are even more irrelevant and less popular than they are today.

Your Grand Kleagle lost, dude.  And he ain’t coming back.  No matter how much you wish to believe that your Beck-Limbaugh-Hannity-O’Reilly-Coulter-Malkin-Savage worshipping friends represent the majority of America, it just ain’t the case.  Your Tea Klux Klan is not some wildly popular new idea that was just born in 2009… the mouthbreathing shitbags you see at those rallies are the same mouthbreathing shitbags who still proudly display their “W” stickers and their faux patriotic yellow magnet ribbons on their Suburbans.  They are the same people who just can’t comprehend how George W. Bush could ever be seen as anything other than one of our greatest presidents.

You are so ridiculously blinded by your belief that the majority of Americans are on your side that you just can’t accept the fact that your side lost, BIGTIME, in the last two elections, and that the vast majority of Americans are disgusted by what Dubya’s imperial reign did to this country.  Progressivism may lose some battles, but it is winning the long war… as it always has throughout our nation’s history.

No one is willing to kill or die to end birthright citizenship. You just have a violence fantasy

The only person talking about violence is you.  Who’s going to get violent in reaction to the law? 

White liberals?  Please, the men will be too busy examining their white male priviledge and the women will be too busy blogging on Feministing about the “ableism” on the latest episode of “Glee” to commit any violent resistance.

Blacks?  They suffer more than anyone from illegal immigrants, they aren’t going to rise up to defend them.

Latinos?  Hmm…. Is that what you are counting on?  A Latino insurrection?  I wouldn’t hold my breath.

But that doesn’t matter, because people are only willing to enforce laws they consider valid.

People will consider any law passed by Congress and supported by the President to be valid provided that they agree with the intent of the law.

“He could only get that impression from either living in a really isolated, far-right area. The only other option is that he’s completely demented.”

...remember, Pandagon is a both/and blog, Ben…

Ben D!

Canadians are WHITE!  Whitey-white-white b/c the sun hardly shines there.  They all speak English, with a cute little accent and a little “eh?” tacked on the end like Palin does.  They love America and come to be on our TV shows like “Star Trek” and “Family Ties”. 

What?

Some speak French?  Seriously?  THEN WHY THE FUCK AREN’T WE WATCHING THAT BORDER????eleventy?

Shit.  This poor country.  Surrounded by Francophones on the north, brown Mexican-speakers on the south, and filled with racist xenophobes who are thrilled to give up their liberty in exchange for the illusion of security.

Holy shit, Billy really does think the US exists in a vacuum. Can we just chuck HIM into one?

Billy de la FLA, es un tipo muy estúpido.

See Latin America:  ~1850 to Present.

Yes, because a centuries-long culture of caudillismo has always informed the political structure of the US government.

Question: how did you get access to Dr. Who’s TARDIS and travel to our time-space continuum?

Aren’t you Canadian?  American politics is none of your business.

For a seditious guy who relishes the prospect of one of the most stable states in history collapsing on itself, you sure don’t understand a lot about anarchy.

Some speak French?  Seriously?  THEN WHY THE FUCK AREN’T WE WATCHING THAT BORDER????eleventy?

The funny thing is, from what I understand, the French-Canadians are seen as the “Mexicans” of New England, so to speak.

Oh yeah, I forgot Billy’s race war flameout from a week or two ago.

He talks about the army enforcing laws unreognized by the courts and then claims he’s not talking about violence. Then he displays some pretty severe ignorance about how separation of powers functions. Dishonest as well as ignorant about civics. Who would have guessed?

Really Billy from FLA, why 15 years back?

No matter how much you want to believe that The Turner Diaries is an accurate predictor of America’s future, it just ain’t so.

You guys are the ones who keep bringing that up.  I’ve been very clear that I don’t expect widespread violence in America’s future.

However, unlike you and others like you, a lot of us don’t see this as a good thing, and a lot of us would never join forces with your type to wage a race war.

Dude, I don’t want or predict a race war.  Stop projecting your psychosis onto me.

And if any of them were as disgustingly racist as you

I’m “disgustingly racist” now?  Cause I’m against birthright citizenship, like the majority of Americans?  What makes you think I’m some kinda klan member/neo nazi?

Your Grand Kleagle lost, dude.  And he ain’t coming back.

Who?  What?

Your Tea Klux Klan is not some wildly popular new idea that was just born in 2009…

The Tea Party isn’t popular, but getting rid of illegals is.  Stop trying to change the subject.

They are the same people who just can’t comprehend how George W. Bush could ever be seen as anything other than one of our greatest presidents.

George W. Bush was the most pro illegal alien president this country has ever had, even more so then Obama.  I’m no fan of his.  You, however, will one day look back wistfully at the time when moderate Republicans like dubya could control the rabble.

Hmm, someone mentioned the Klan, and not one remark about what Sen. Byrd did in the early 1940s. Usually, wingnuts can’t resist that. It’s like an automatic reflex.

Fake troll?

Uno no puede entender el balbuceo de los idiotas. Hacen declaraciones, pero no puede apoyarlas. Son aptos únicamente para la burla.

Really Billy from FLA, why 15 years back?

Well how far back would you like to go?  Going any further would be tougher because those anchor babies are now all grown up.  Dealing with children is no problem, dealing with adults would be a major headache.

Fake troll?

Or, maybe just unusually estúpido?

Fake troll?

I’m not a wingnut, I left that bankrupt ideology in my teens.  I am a far-right reactionary.

The only person talking about violence is you.

You’re the one making the proposition that a SCOTUS ruling would be overturned via the military working on behalf of Congress. Will the generals and colonels be bribing the Justices into retirement with delicious cupcakes and back rubs in your scenario?

George W. Bush was the most pro illegal alien president this country has ever had, even more so then Obama.

No, Prince Bush wanted a German- or French-style guest worker programme as described above—basically formalising the cheap labour provided by undocumented workers while retaining their second-class status. But as I noted, that’s no longer good enough for racist fantasists like yourself.

Yeah, using the military to enforce racist laws—because we all know the military doesn’t have any blacks, hispanics, or first generation immigrants in it! No, the military looks like Mitt Romney’s extended family, anyone with ANY experience around the military knows that, silly libs!

/snark

Billy,

Everyone born in America is a citizen.  To change this, you have to amend the Constitution, a hard process that requires a super majority.  Anything less, and you’ve guessed it, the law will be ruled unconstitutional and unenforceable.

What happens if a state refuses to enforce a law or tries to enforce an unconstitutional law?  The federal government steps in.  As when the South was desegregated, federal troops will arrest those violating the law and enforce it properly.

You keep saying that a majority doesn’t like it, as if that means anything.  We tell you it’s part of the Constitution, and you say you have no respect for the Constitution. 

It doesn’t matter that you are a treasonous shit.  The Constitution is the ultimate law of the land, and it will be enforced.  The rabble that needs to be controlled is you.

But as I noted, that’s no longer good enough for racist fantasists like yourself.

It was NEVER good enough, that’s why we killed it.  And you forgot to mention that Bush’s plan included ultimately granting amnesty for the illegals, which is why it had the support of guys like Kennedy and groups like La Raza.

And it is a fact that Obama has been deporting illegals at a great rate than Bush.  I’m not an Obama fan on most issues, but he is doing a good job in getting rid of our unwanted guest.

Ako tunay isipin Billy mula sa FLA ay isang malaking poopoo mabaho ulo.

Google translations rocks

“You, however, will one day look back wistfully at the time when moderate Republicans like dubya could control the rabble.”

If Bush Jr. is your idea of a “moderate Republican” (a species that as far as I can tell went extinct about two decades ago), then I suppose Adolf Hitler was a mainstream Republican in your estimation, right?...

“George W. Bush was the most pro illegal alien president this country has ever had, even more so then Obama.  I’m no fan of his.”

...which probably means you voted for him twice (or wanted to, but were too young), but when the stench got too bad (about 2006 or so), then you started declaring yourself a Libertarian and denying you ever voted for Bush Jr… just like a large percentage of Republicans… who are now calling themselves Teabaggers…

“I am a far-right reactionary.”

Gee, really?  ‘Cause it’s really hard to get that from what you say on blog threads here…

The rabble that needs to be controlled is you.

Exactly.  But the GOP can’t control people like me anymore.  Now we are controlling them.  During Bush’s reign, 23 Republican Senators voted for Amnesty.  Can you imagine even 1 voting for it today?

You keep saying that a majority doesn’t like it, as if that means anything.

It means everything.  We’ll get rid of birthright citizenship and states that don’t like it are welcome to leave the union (or try to) if they have a problem with the will of the majority.  I personally would have no problem with California secceeding and I don’t think most other Americans would be too sad to see them go either.

I suppose Adolf Hitler was a mainstream Republican in your estimation, right?…

No, he was a far-leftist! Doughy Pantload says so! See, they called themselves the National SOCIALISTS, which means they were really Socialist, just like how the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a democratic state, and how the Soviet Union really was run by Soviets (Worker’s Councils), right up until 1991!

...which probably means you voted for him twice (or wanted to, but were too young)

I voted for him in 2004 before it became clear how pro Hispanic he was.

Bullshit, he had immigration reform in his agenda since 2000, and everyone knew it. That’s why he came damn close to splitting the hispanic vote with both Gore and Kerry.

Fake. Troll.

“I voted for him in 2004 before it became clear how pro Hispanic he was.”

So pro Hispanic is a problem, not just pro immigrant?

My mind is bleeding reading the stupid argument the gang is having with Billy.  Don’t you realize he’s shifted positions atleast a half-dozen different times, each time you make him vacate his stance he finds a more ludicrous and unsubstantiated one to take?  Look, he is a terrible troll.  If he does or doesn’t believe what he says, who cares?  You aren’t winning this argument because he isn’t arguing, he’s baiting you for an emotional response which in his poorly developed mind gives him an ego boost.

Nobody is going to try to repeal the 14th amendment.

People born on US soil get to be US citizens.

The supreme court can have the FBI and local law enforcement execute a law because they work in conjunction with lower courts who do have direct authority over law enforcement.  I’m not sure if any of you are lawyers or police, but if you’ve ever experienced the courts you would know that the courts can issue bench warrants and any number of legal orders that the police are obligated to carry out, including supreme court decisions.  In some jurisdictions the police or sheriff are under direct authority of the courts to execute laws and decisions.  So the Supreme Court can make sure laws are enforced.

So to not really waste vast amounts of time, Billy from FLA is purely an internet troll.  His arguments haven’t been politically sound since his second post and have turned towards vigilantism or shadow governance.  Clearly he isn’t a real ideology to take on, so stop trying. It’s just common sense to let him spew his stupidity and ignore him.

Going any further would be tougher because those anchor babies are now all grown up.

Shorter Billy: it’s easier to bully kids than grown-ups. Which explains this:

I am a far-right reactionary.

A far-right reactionary who’s apparently reacting against a Constitution that’s been in effect for more than 200 years. Sadly for us, I don’t think that either the UK or Canada will have you at this point in the game.

It was NEVER good enough, that’s why we killed it.  And you forgot to mention that Bush’s plan included ultimately granting amnesty for the illegals, which is why it had the support of guys like Kennedy and groups like La Raza.

Again, who’s this “we”? You and your mommy? Most of the neoCons’ marks swallowed anything Prince Bush gave them at the time, so you can’t be talking about Know-Nothing conservatives. Except for an extreme fringe, all they really wanted was a second-class resident (illegal or legal) to look down upon and do the scut work for a low, low price.

Kennedy and La Raza certainly did not support a European-style guest-worker plan—Kennedy’s bill included a clear path to citizenship post-amnesty. It’s a shame that the Dems haven’t followed up, instead letting this devolve into a fight between cheap-labour greedheads (like Bush) and racist fantasists who dream of deporting 10s of millions and then building a 2000-mile long wall to keep them out (like you).

Billy de FLA est un homme très odorantes. Avec testicules très faible.

Exactly.  But the GOP can’t control people like me anymore.  Now we are controlling them.

Actually, you (whoever “you” are) are fighting them. This may be a strange concept for you to grasp, but fighting does not equal controlling. And humouring the deranged does not equal total capitulation to same.

Science can levitate mice.

“I personally would have no problem with California secceeding and I don’t think most other Americans would be too sad to see them go either.”

Well, as a born an bred Californian, just let me say that if we left that would sure fix our budget problems right quick.  We only get about 80-cents on the dollar of the money we send to the Feds ($313,998,874,000, in 2007 — we send more money to the Federal Government than any other state).

California would survive quite nicely without a bunch of wingnut-poisoned Red states sucking up our money.

So, fuck me?  No, fuck you!...

Don’t you realize he’s shifted positions atleast a half-dozen different times, each time you make him vacate his stance he finds a more ludicrous and unsubstantiated one to take?

Don’t you realise that this is the entire point of engaging him? Granted, it’s a slow summer Friday, but still…

Some speak French?  Seriously?  THEN WHY THE FUCK AREN’T WE WATCHING THAT BORDER?

Oh, it’s much, much worse than that.  Our last two heads of state (ignoring the one who is in England most of the time) were immigrants.  One Chinese.  And the other, current, one, and this will really get poor Billy’s underwear in a know, is a FRENCH SPEAKING HAITIAN WOMAN!  Married to a guy born in FRANCE!  Ooga-booga, we’re coming to get you, Billy!

Kennedy and La Raza certainly did not support a European-style guest-worker plan—Kennedy’s bill included a clear path to citizenship post-amnesty. It’s a shame that the Dems haven’t followed up, instead letting this devolve into a fight between cheap-labour greedheads (like Bush) and racist fantasists who dream of deporting 10s of millions and then building a 2000-mile long wall to keep them out (like you).

I refreshed and caught this.  If anything the longer they can keep immigration reform and amnesty off the table the cheap labor wins.  They’ll keep the racists in check by either creating a massive loophole or continue to support human smuggling.  This is why it is so important to create amnesty for immigrants or at the very least create a solid guest-worker program with a path to citizenship if so desired.  Nobody really points out that so many of the “illegals” who cross the border want to go back because family is left behind but wages here are better. 

The whole argument is much more complex than that statement lets on.  I don’t want to distill such a deep argument and problem into just racists, cheap labor lovers, and the good guys because the system has more shades of grey than any of us care to admit to.

Science can levitate mice.

To which Billy will no doubt respond: “F*cking magnets, how do they work?”

One final point, Florida douche…

The most disgustingly racist white people I have personally met in my life have generally been the ones who become the most indignantly furious when their racism is pointed out to them.  The least racist white people I have met are the ones who are most willing to own up to the fact that they have had racist thoughts or committed racist transgressions in their lives - the folks who don’t try to dismiss the fact that they have benefitted from the privilege of being white.  They don’t acknowledge their own racist moments in a proud manner, but they do respect the fact that the one thing that’s probably even more objectionable than being a racist is being a racist and refusing to acknowledge it.  And even worse than that are the racists who not only refuse to own their racism, but they also refuse to acknowledge the fact that they have benefitted from the societal privileges that come with being born white.

The first really strong friendship I ever had with an African-American person occurred over a gut wrenchingly uncomfortable conversation I had with him about race during a study session in college.  Yes, I am acknowledging that I didn’t really have any true black friends until I got to college - it’s not something I’m proud of, but I think trying to characterize myself as someone who has always had lots of black friends is dishonest, patronizing, and insulting.

I told my friend, “You know, I’m really ashamed to admit this to you, but I would be lying if I tried to tell you that I have never done anything racist in my life, or that I’ve never had a racist thought in my life.”

His response?  “I know.  The reason why I don’t think you are an unrepentant racist asshole is because you are willing to be honest with me.  Most white people I’ve met are quick to tell me how bad they think racism is, but they refuse to admit that they had any racist bones in their body.  I respect white people a whole lot more when they are willing to be honest with me, and don’t try to deny their own privilege as white people.”

That was probably one of the most uplifting conversations I had in my entire college life, because it felt like the wall of uncomfortability which often exists when people of different races talk for the first time was immediately brought down.  Obviously my friend doesn’t speak for all black people, but for him, the most important thing he expects from his white friends is that they be willing to acknowledge the racist realities of society, and they be willing to admit that they have personally benefitted from white privilege.

The bottom line is that a person cannot experience a feeling of redemption for past transgressions until they are willing to admit to them and own them.  I’m a big believer in the possibility of redemption and change, because I know I’ve mad mistakes in my own life, and I know that I am grateful that people were willing to give me the opportunity for redemption.  If I lived in a world in which the first instance of wrongdoing in a person’s life were to render them hopelessly irredeemable and corrupted, I don’t think anybody would ever strive to become a better person in spite of their past mistakes.  Obviously not all mistakes are equal, and some transgressions are basically unforgiveable, but most things are somewhere in the middle.  I don’t believe a teenager who get busted for shoplifting is as horrendously flawed as the hedge fund manager who bilk his clients out of billions of dollars.  Some argue that a thief is a thief is a thief, and that the weight of the theft is irrelevant, but I just don’t believe that.  If so, the vast majority of human beings are irredeemable thieves, because I haven’t met anyone who never so much as stole a candy bar as a small child at the grocery store, or took a cookie from the cookie jar without permission.

I don’t think a person can transcend their past regrets until they can swallow enough pride to admit that they have past regrets.  The people that I trust the least are the folks who habitually present themselves as scions of morally good behavior, the people who lack the integrity and humility to admit to their own human flaws and failings, the people so self-righteously arrogant that they believe the rest of the world should be looking up to them as the model of perfect morality.  Don’t try to tell me that you’ve never done anything regrettable in your life, because I’ll know that you are lying.  Everybody has regrets, abnd everybody makes mistakes.  Everybody.  It’s part of the human condition.  The biggest liars are usually the people who most adamantly argue that they have never lied in their lives.

Don’t you realize he’s shifted positions atleast a half-dozen different times

Example plz.

Most of the neoCons’ marks swallowed anything Prince Bush gave them at the time

Baloney.  The House Republicans killed it.  And Bush/McCain supported Kennedy’s bill.  Which the House Republicans also killed.

You and your mommy?

My ma is about as pro hispanic/immigrant as y’all are.  “We” in this case is in reference to the No Nothing base of the Republican party.

So the Supreme Court can make sure laws are enforced.

Blah, blah, blah… and yet the courts still can’t stop Arpaio because he is the one with the guns.  That’s all that really matters.

That’s why he came damn close to splitting the hispanic vote with both Gore and Kerry.

Left wing myth, never happened.  Hispanics are bloc Democrats and always have been.  I’m not sure how much Bush won against Gore, but he only won 35% of the Hispanic vote against Kerry.  The left has been trying to spread the lie that Hispanics are some kind of swing vote since 2004, but it isn’t true and nobody (outside of the media and left wing blogs) believes it anymore.

Don’t you realise that this is the entire point of engaging him? Granted, it’s a slow summer Friday, but still…

Don’t feed the trolls.  It’s the first rule of being a teacher/professor.  When a student wants to debate you in class, you shut him down and move on.  Don’t play into the responses.  It never ends well because the longer you argue the more validity he will gain by de facto of accepting his argument as a valid exchange.

Don’t feed the trolls

The point being that it’s a slow summer afternoon—we have to do something to keep us amused.

I don’t want to distill such a deep argument and problem into just racists, cheap labor lovers, and the good guys because the system has more shades of grey than any of us care to admit to.

I think that there are a relatively small number of racists, a relatively small number of those who support amnesty with a path to citizenship, and a whole lot of people who want their cheap labour one way or another. Party affiliation is almost beside the point.

Nobody really points out that so many of the “illegals” who cross the border want to go back because family is left behind but wages here are better.

Some nativists make half-hearted attempts to equate remittances with flight of capital, but that’s not what their nationalist audience wants to hear. They can barely do basic math.

The main problem for the undocumented workers you describe is that they’re completely at the mercy of their employers—the ability to avail themselves of unions, OSHA rules, and other workplace standards enjoyed by citizens and legal residents are not a part of their lives.

However, “deport ‘em all and built a big wall” is not really a solution to that problem.

The most disgustingly racist white people I have personally met in my life have generally been the ones who become the most indignantly furious when their racism is pointed out to them.

Then you’re experience is very limited.  The most noxious racists are definately the “loud and proud” kind.  You obviously have been fortunate enough to never have had to meet any but I have. And it’s no fun, let me tell you. 

Remember what we talked about earlier?  Racism is just a matter of degrees.  Almost all white Americans are racist by the definition used on this board but most would likewise be sick to their stomach after reading the types of things that get said on places like Stormfront (don’t go there, if it made me want to throw up it would probably cause you to have a nervous breakdown).

As for the story of your black friend in college I’m not really sure why you brought up to him that you used to be racist and I’m equally unsure of what the moral of the story is supposed to be and what it has to do with what we are talking about here.

I’m equally unsure of what the moral of the story is supposed to be and what it has to do with what we are talking about here.

This should be your motto.

Well, Billy Boy, as long as we keep you busy spouting amusing vileness here, we can not only study your kind and your “thinking” modes (as it were), we are using up the time you might otherwise put into terrorist activities in support of your treasonous slander.

“This should be your motto.”

...that’s gonna leave a mark… 

I’m “disgustingly racist” now?  Cause I’m against birthright citizenship, like the majority of Americans?  What makes you think I’m some kinda klan member/neo nazi?

I have no idea where you arrived at this ridiculous belief that “majority opinion” = “morally correct opinion”.

If you even paid attention for one semester of high school American history, you would notice that America has righted many of its wrongs despite the wishes of the majority of its citizens at the time.

We are not now, nor have we ever been, a country that has been ruled exclusively by the will of the majority.

Jim Crow laws weren’t struck down because a majority of Americans had come to see them as reprehensible by the 1960s, they were struck down because enough people in positions of authority had reached the moral clarity to recognize just how unjust those laws were, despite the fact that they enjoyed the support of the majority for a long time.

Had you been alive at the time of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you would most likely be arguing that it was an invalid piece of legislation because it didn’t enjoy the support of a majority of American citizens at the time.  You would argue that the majority would soon rise up to strike it down.

And you would be wrong.  Many times in our country, the moral evolution of the masses comes AFTER having laws with which they initially disagree imposed on them.  The vast majority of Americans opposed interracial marriage when Loving v. Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws, but here in 2010, I just heard that roughly 15% of marriages in America today involve interracial couples… and it seems most people really don’t have a huge problem with that fact.

Inbred crackers like you always seem to think that eventually the tide will turn back in your favor, that the progressive laws that attempt to make this country a more perfect union will one day be rolled back to the good old days.  And yet, the track record over the last 100 years has proven you and your ilk wrong many times over.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act is not only safe for eternity, it has become many times more popular in today’s America than it was in 1964 America.  Same goes for Social Security and Medicare.  And eventually, the same will be true for same-sex marriages… gay couples having the exact same right to marriage as straight couples will be the status quo in my lifetime.  And while homophobia will probably still exist, the power enjoyed by homobigots today will be radically diminished 20-30 years from now.  Americans in 2050 will widely view organizations like Focus on the Family with the same degree of disdain that Americans in 2010 view the Ku Klux Klan.

The long arc of history isn’t gonna work in your favor, Billy.  But by all mean, continue to live in your delusional fantasy world in which you and your fellow hatemongers rise up to take the country back to a time when only white male landowners had any authority in our government and our society.  Just learn to be okay with the fact that everyday that you cling to this hateful, reactionary, bigoted ideology you become an even bigger anachronistic joke among your fellow citizens.

History has not been kind to Joseph McCarthy types like you.  That man is considered an even bigger shitbag in the minds of Americans in 2010 than he was in the minds of Americans 20 years ago.  There will never be a day in which the majority of Americans view him as an agent of goodness in our nation’s history.

In the end, the result is always the same… your side will ultimately lose the war in the court of public opinion, even if you occasionally win some battles.  Our nation’s history absolutely reflects this truism.

The House Republicans killed it.  And Bush/McCain supported Kennedy’s bill.  Which the House Republicans also killed.

S.1033 (“Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act”) never made it past the Senate committee. The House had nothing to do with killing that bill.

Bush’s call to Congress to enact what amounted to a European-style gastarbetier programme never got any traction in either the House or the Senate—Bush opposed amnesty which turned off the Dems, and the prospect of even Bush’s minimal measure of dignity for undocumented workers turned off racists like Tancredo.

I will admit that’s it’s interesting to hear what happened in your home dimension back in 2005.

My ma is about as pro hispanic/immigrant as y’all are.  “We” in this case is in reference to the No Nothing base of the Republican party.

Ah, finally. So you’re claiming that the Know-Nothing base (of which you’re apparently a proud member) has the numbers and persuasive power to somehow convince their representatives, duly elected under the terms of the Constitution, to over-turn that same Constitution using military force?

How about bringing back unicorns and free chocolate for all while you’re at it?

DTG, limiting the power of the majority to bully the minority was part of the original intent of the founders of the country, expressed through the constitution of course.  Billy likes the idea of destroying our wonderful country’s rather intentionally laid foundations, so he has no problem with brutal oppression by majority rule.

As Driftglass says, it’s been this way since at least William F. Buckley’s Publisher’s Statement

Racism and xenophobia have been at the heart of much of American conservatism since at least the early 19th century.  Part of this a product of slavery.  It can also be seen in the anti-Irish movement and the Know Nothings.

One of the consistently amazing things about America to me that a group of people who lived more than 200 years ago could plan so effectively against a destructive and ignorant moron like Billy in the year 2010.
Comment #50: Gracchus on 06/04 at 11:14 AM

Given that alcohol consumption then was about twice what it is today, arguing with drunks was probably a common occurrence.

Had you been alive at the time of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you would most likely be arguing that it was an invalid piece of legislation because it didn’t enjoy the support of a majority of American citizens at the time

Hell, I’ll argue that now.

Just learn to be okay with the fact that everyday that you cling to this hateful, reactionary, bigoted ideology you become an even bigger anachronistic joke among your fellow citizens

What?  Are you being serious?  You are accusing me of being hateful?  Dailykos is non stop hate against whites.  Amanda (and commentors here) regularly broadcasts her hatred for the elderly.  Why don’t you go to Iblamethepatriarchy or even Feministing and see the hatred against men?  Hell, you can go to Firedoglake and see hatred against Jews even after this whole boat thing. 

I’m not a hateful person, I’m just looking out for my own interests.  You should take a closer look at your own movement if you want to see what real hate is.

The long arc of history isn’t gonna work in your favor, Billy.

Oh yes it is.  Your like Josh’s rival in “Searching for Bobby Fischer”.  He’s beat and yet he thinks he’s winning.

“He apparently was, in other words, a “birthright citizen,” solely by virtue of the fact that his parents were residing in the U.S. when he was born.”

Aye, me too
For that matter the powerline guys are birthright citizens,” solely by virtue of the fact that his parents were residing in the U.S. when he was born” along with about 300 million other US citizens

has the numbers and persuasive power to somehow convince their representatives, duly elected under the terms of the Constitution, to over-turn that same Constitution using military force?

In time.  Let’s worry about the testable predictions first, though.  In the elections this year I predict that the GOP wins over 60% of the white vote.  Such a result will be the clearest evidence yet that the country is essentially splitting on racial lines.  After that happens, we can talk about what comes next.  Right now the whole debate is a tad too theoretical.

I’m not a hateful person, I’m just looking out for my own interests.

Nah, you’re not hateful. You’re just bigoted against hispanics. How could we ever confuse you with the bigots on Stormfront?

And look, no-one of any colour is trying to take away your floor-sweeping gig. Rest assured, your ignorance and stupidity will keep you precisely where you deserve to be.

Jesus, people, stop feeding the racist fuckbag. He’s admitted over and over that his motivation is the Future of the White Man, that he sees political life as a giant color-based fight where all interests are neatly divided by skin color, and anyone who disagrees with him is a big hateful meanie and HELP HELP I’M BEING OPPRESSED! He’s not even useful for arguing with to make a point to a third party.

I think to show good faith, the twerps at Powerline ought to produce an authentic and provable genealogy showing that all of their ancestors were legal immigrants back to, oh, 1789. Any gaps mean they’ll renounce their citizenship, eschewing their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and will march back to whatever nation their law-flouting ancestors may have come from.

Oooh!  I want free chocolate!  Unicorns are nice, too, so long as someone else is in charge of mucking up after them.

KeithM, you Nunavut!  In the future, when quoting me speaking wingnut, please include my “eleventy”.  It just doesn’t have that sparkle without it.

Billy, have you ever even taken a Civics class?  Have you read the Constitution?  B/c you don’t seem to have the vaguest notion of how this country is organized or functions.

I mean, if it’s just plain treason you’re after, fine.  Just own up to it.

The long arc of history isn’t gonna work in your favor, Billy.

Oh yes it is.

Keep telling yourself that fairytale, chump.  I’ve got 230 years of American history on my side, and you’ve got zilch.  Hell, you just admitted that you would still argue against the 1964 Civil Rights Act today, despite the fact that every decade since it was passed it has become an even more respected and enshrined piece of legislation in our nation’s history.  Your position on the validity of the CRA becomes even weaker every day.  Your side had a much better shot of tearing it down back in 1964 than they do today.  Now it’s absolutely too late to go back… the good people won, your side lost.

Your kind wanted to repeal it right away in 1964.  You failed.  And several times over the 46 years since its passage, some clueless yokel legislator attempts to introduce legislation to repeal it, and they always fail.  And each failure becomes even more embarrassing for your side than the previous one.

So I ask you, Billy, when you look at the long arc of American history, what in the world is it that you see that leads you to the ridiculous belief that your ideology will ultimately triumph over the long term?  I mean, how many of the progressive institutions that you oppose have been successfully dismantled by your people?  You may get an occasional win from time to time (like repealing Glass-Steagal), but in the big picture, your side loses.  And it always has.  I have little doubt that America will be an overall more progressive and more egalitarian nation in 2050 than it is today.  In my own lifetime I’ve seen many progressive causes coming out ahead… in 1985, when I was a child, the idea of gay people ever being allowed to marry ANYWHERE in the United States seemed absolutely ridiculous.  And yet here we are… a long way from true justice (equal marriage rights in all 50 states), but a great deal more evolved than we were 25 years ago.  Have no doubt, your side will fight to the bitter end to prevent the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, and while you may have some success in blocking it for a little while longer, your clock is running out.  You know it, we know it, and everybody living in reality knows it.  We are not too far away from the day when the fundies lose that battle.

And once again, my contention that progressivism in America generally emerges victorious in the long term will be validated.  And you’ll still be wrong about what you think is coming down the road.  I know that you and your fellow 27 percenters want to roll back the cultural clock 50 or more years, but your coalition just isn’t big enough, buddy.  1950s America died a long time ago.  And it ain’t never coming back.

And by the time you and I die, our race will probably no longer represent the majority of American citizens… we’ll still probably have the biggest plurality, but more than half the country will no longer be white like us.  Deal with it.

Let’s worry about the testable predictions first, though.  In the elections this year I predict that the GOP wins over 60% of the white vote.

Oooh, a prediction! Always fun. Are you talking about Senate? House? Both? Or are you (more likely) talking about the campaign for county dog-catcher in your Panhandle backwater.

“We” in this case is in reference to the No Nothing base of the Republican party.

This mispledding is particularly widespread and hilarious. 

I suppose he thinks it means that, when asked, will they give to the poor and downtrodden, the answer is “No food, no shelter, no citizenship, NO NOTHING.”

Wow DTG, great post.

And the biggest difference between you and me Billy… I’m a straight, white male who has absolutely no fear of living in a country in which people who look like me aren’t in the majority anymore.  I happily welcome the day when less than 50% of America is white like me.

You are deathly terrified of waking up to America 2050 - when you’ll be even more of a repugnant anachronistic tool than you are today.  80 years ago, the KKK had an estimated 8,000,000 members.  Today, that number is down to a few thousand by most estimates.  I think those 1920s Klan leaders marching down Pennsylvania Avenue back in their day really believed that one day their side would emerge triumphant.

How wrong they were - the Klan went from being a fairly large organization that had a significant amount of clout in guiding social policy to a shameful nearly impotent relic that is unversally scorned by civilized citizens.  Even the most obviously racist Republicans want absolutely nothing to do with them today, because they realize how incredibly unpopular that organization has become in America through the march of time.

The racists didn’t choose to start speaking in dogwhistle code language - they were shamed into it by their fellow citizens.  A white hood is not something you want people to find in your closet if you wish to be respected in today’s world.

Oh yes it is.  Your like Josh’s rival in “Searching for Bobby Fischer”.  He’s beat and yet he thinks he’s winning.

Shorter Billy: Come back here and fight you coward!  I’ll bleed all over you!

And the biggest difference between you and me Billy… I’m a straight, white male who has absolutely no fear of living in a country in which people who look like me aren’t in the majority anymore.  I happily welcome the day when less than 50% of America is white like me.

That’s because you have other means of supporting yourself than “but I’m white - gimme!”

So I ask you, Billy, when you look at the long arc of American history, what in the world is it that you see that leads you to the ridiculous belief that your ideology will ultimately triumph over the long term?

‘Cause he’s gonna get superpowers and fly all around and be superstrong and have magic powers and kill all the brown people and Debbie Schlussel will totally fall in love with him and they’re gonna do it, like all the time.

So I ask you, Billy, when you look at the long arc of American history, what in the world is it that you see that leads you to the ridiculous belief that your ideology will ultimately triumph over the long term?

1.  Economic deterioration
2.  Natural Resources being maxed out
3.  Racial polarization caused by demographic changes

Progressive politics can only work in racially/culturally homogeneous countries in which there is strong economic growth.  The current American economy is horrible and getting worse, as today’s unemployment numbers show.  Now combine that with with a shrinking white majority and you have a recipe for reactionary politics taking hold amongst white Americans.  Consider two important things:  A.  No majority group has ever voluntarilly reliquished their majority status   B.  No multi-ethnic/multi-cultural country has ever survived long term.  Lebanon didn’t (it’s still under Syrian control), Yugoslavia didn’t, Czechoslovakia didn’t and neither did a whole host of others.  America won’t be the first.

Ofcourse, I don’t anticipate a civil war ever happening or the United States breaking up.  But I do expect that as things get worse economically and as whites see their power begin to wane (they haven’t yet) they will start to push back.  To expect anything else is madness.

Your “long arc of American history” was one of economic progress in a racially/culturally homogeneous nation.  We are entering a new era of economic stagnation/regression in a racially/culturally diverse nation.  There is no precedent in American history for such a situation but there is ample precedent of what happened under similar circumstances in other parts of the world.

Aww, feeling the love up here in Canada.

It still blows my mind how people will twist simple reality.

Simple reality: The Constitution is the highest law of the land, and every member of the armed services takes an oath to “defend the Constitution.”

They don’t take any oath to do the bidding of the congress or any political group. They swear to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. So the notion that somehow Congress could just pass laws that blatantly violate the Constitution, and that somehow the entire military* would just back that up in defiance of the Supreme Court is absolute unadulterated horse shit.

For that matter, every member of congress takes an oath to defend the constitution. Therefore, any member of congress who would defy the Constitution is even more of a lying scumbag than the average.

*And sure, there might be a few individual whackjobs who would, but the military takes a very dim view of that sort of thing and they court martial whackjobs who refuse to live up to their oath.

“Progressive politics can only work in racially/culturally homogeneous countries in which there is strong economic growth.”

The New Deal was enacted during the depression, hardly a time of strong economic growth.

I personally would have no problem with California secceeding and I don’t think most other Americans would be too sad to see them go either.

You wouldn’t, right up until the US (or whatever confederate name your klansman-run country calls itself) goes bankrupt. California has the 7th largest economy in the world. That one state produces more than most other countries, and not just movies. California’s agriculture produces food for a large part of the country.

We are entering a new era of economic stagnation/regression in a racially/culturally diverse nation.  There is no precedent in American history for such a situation but there is ample precedent of what happened under similar circumstances in other parts of the world.

Poor Billy, confusing race with social and economic class in America as only a born mug can. This is why right-wing bigots like yourself are so easily gulled, and why you’ve spent the last 50 years voting consistently against your own economic self-interests.

Even now, you can’t bear to place the blame for your economic woes where it belongs—much easier to crab about Mexican stoop labourers than white CEOs. Let’s see how that works out for you.

The New Deal was enacted during the depression, hardly a time of strong economic growth.

Great example. And when right-wingers started talking about an half-hearted anti-Constitutional coup (one that had nothing to do with race, I’ll add for Billy’s sake), it was exposed and shut down by a military officer who understood his oath.

The New Deal was enacted during the depression, hardly a time of strong economic growth

America was homogeneous then and contrary to popular opinion, recovery from the Depression began in 1933 and continued at a phenomenal rate all the way up until WWII (with a blip in 37-38).

I will also add that FDR pursued anti black and anti hispanic policies which helped endear him to the white population.  I don’t see Obama going that route.

Señor Billy may get his race war after all:

“Altered mural fuels racial debate in Prescott”, The Arizona Republic, June 4, 2010, by Dennis Wagner.

A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.

The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity. But the school’s principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.

...

The “Go on Green” mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.

“We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars,” Wall said. “We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics).”

...

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: “To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?”

... He insists the controversy isn’t about racism but says the mural is intended to create racial controversy where none existed before.

“Personally, I think it’s pathetic,” he says. “You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn’t exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I’m ashamed of that.”

Arizona’s looking uglier by the minute.

why you’ve spent the last 50 years voting consistently against your own economic self-interests.

More workers in an already overcrowded job market is in my economic self interests?

More workers in an already overcrowded job market is in my economic self interests?

They aren’t going to hire you, Billy.  They hire illegals in order to pay substandard wages and work them illegal hours and in unsafe conditions.  They won’t hire you b/c you might go to OSHA.

They’ll continue to lobby Congress for more H1Bs to keep college graduate salaries low.

They’ll just keep screaming “booga booga illegal immigrants” and “Welfare Queens” at you to distract you from the reality that they won’t be paying fines for any illegal practices.  More and more of your money will be siphoned up to the top, and you’ll vote for it time and again, just so long as they agree that brown people are EVIL and SCARY and don’t deserve any human rights.

Two words:

Stick

Rule

I will also add that FDR pursued anti black and anti hispanic policies which helped endear him to the white population.

Um, not really:

Roosevelt was unwilling to desegregate the armed forces. However, on June 25, 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, forbidding discrimination on account of “race, creed, color, or national origin” in the hiring of workers in defense related industries.[117][118]

Yep, I’m sure that the above endeared him to the white population of the time.

Bill, at the risk of sounding like a time traveler from 2003,  I really need to ask you one question:

What color is the sky on your planet?

More workers in an already overcrowded job market is in my economic self interests?

If that’s your concern, shouldn’t you be pushing for state capitalism to prevent labour mobility altogether? Perhaps internal passports? Oh, forgot, your concern is actually about more brown-skinned workers, because that’s the priority.

And unless your economic self-interest is maintaining a job as a stoop agricultural labourer, a meat packer, casual construction labour, a busboy, or a janitor or domestic, those wicked brown “illegals” aren’t threatening “your” job one bit.

As Caren says, the sort of employers who hire “illegals” wouldn’t hire you unless you’d be willing to work (or have no choice but to work) under the same terms: underpaid, long hours, uninsured, no workplace safety standards, no job security, no chance at a union to rectify those issues. Sound good?

When serious people assess value, skin colour is low on their lists of priorities—that goes for the selfish as well as the altruists. And serious people who think about grim meathook futures generally do so with an eye to avoiding them in one way or another rather than happily diving in. All that you’ve demonstrated in this thread, beyond a shaky grasp on reality, is that you are not a serious person—you’re a sucker and a fantasist.

I’m not a hateful person, I’m just looking out for my own interests.  You should take a closer look at your own movement if you want to see what real hate is.

I’m truly curious: in what way is “white” self interest separate from any one of color? As someone pointed out above, you are confusing economic self-interest with some sort of racial segregation. A strong middle class raises the standard of living for everyone, regardless of skin color. The policies and racial segregation you are espousing have little to do with economics, despite the way you try to tie them together.

Really, undocumented workers (and H1B visa holders) DO lower the standard of living for everyone, and that’s why pretty much everyone on this blog want to see legislation that will allow people who are already in this country to work legally so that they can get a living wage (as well as pay taxes). If you have problems with undocumented workers “taking jobs” or bringing down wages, why do you blame the victims instead of the businesses?

But the last sentence is even more telling. You seem to be one of those who feel that pointing out discrimination of any sort - sexism, racism, able-ism (chose your -ism) is worse than actually *being* sexist or racist. If you can’t see the difference between Twisty railing against the patriarchy (it’s right there in the title!) and hatred of men, then you are one sad SOB. What one does and who one is are not the same.

atheist @182: I’m not sure how much uglier it can look. My mother-in-law used to live there and finally couldn’t stand it anymore. Between the dippy Happy Crystal People and the right-wing idiots she was starting to go nuts. There’s living around people with different viewpoints, and then there’s living around people whose political opinions give you a sneaking suspicion that dementia is creeping up early.

Anybody who claims this country has ever been “homogeneous” is a fucking idiot. Sweden is <homogeneous. Japan is homogeneous. The USA, not even the 1950s USA (the real version, not Ozzie and Harriet was “homogeneous”.

Hell, let’s just keep this within white people. I don’t think a white Alabaman feels any kind of solidarity with a white New England yankee from the woods of northern New Hampshrie. Quite the opposite, in fact! This was probably MORE true in 1950 than today!

Example plz.

Okay. How about when you advocated making the law retroactive by fifteen years (?!?), then responded to my comment above by saying that no one was talking about applying it to people already born… and then later reiterated your fifteen-years stance, because dealing with adults would be too much trouble? (because they’re in a better position to self-advocate, presumably.)

This is also where idiots who ask HEY WE HAVE BLACK HISTORY MONT, WHY NOT A WHITE HISTORY MONTH!?!? HUH?? really miss the boat, as well, because they don’t understand that whites are NOT a group in the same sense African-Americans are. The vast majority of black people in this country, with the exception of recent immigrants from Africa proper, went through the shared historical experience of slavery and Jim Crow, and until the middle of the 20th Century their population was almost wholly concentrated in one region, the South.

White people, OTOH, had no such common experience. They all came from different corners of Europe and got here in different ways, at different times, and there’s even a debate about how “white” they were considered in the first generation (see: Irish Catholics, Jews). So we DO have days for the Irish (St. Patrick’s Day), or Italians (Columbus Day), we have historically Polish neighborhoods in Chicago, we have Jim Webb write a book on Scots-Irish history, etc.

But we don’t have “white history” this and that because the phrase is meaningless.

The early 20th century was the high-point of foreign-born residents as a percentage of the American population, and back then it used to be much more common for schools to be taught in foreign languages as well. We’ve had fairly sustained levels of immigration over the past 40 years, but no one should ever claim that the US was “homogeneous” in the 1930s. The difference is that our immigration patterns shifted from being heavily represented by poor Europeans now towards Asians and Latinos.

Yes, today I walk through a bunch of neighborhoods and see darker skinned people speaking Spanish in the streets, but 80 years ago I’d be walking through those same neighborhoods seeing Italian men sitting at cafes reading the Italian-language newspapers, some of which were still publishing until recently. The ethnic neighborhoods of my grandparents and family friends have either gentrified into yuppie neighborhoods or simply been replaced by a cohort of a new generation of immigrants as the earlier waves moved out to the suburbs—and all these decades later, we’re all considered equal because of birthright citizenship. I’m a birthright citizen. So was that unfortunate Turkish guy who got killed on the flotilla. So is Billy. So is the powerline blogger. The children of those local spanish speaking people downtown are birthright citizens, too. We abandoned the idea of “two tiers” of people who are born here a long, long time ago.

Ben @191: as I’ve noted before, a friend of mine who used to be active in Chicago politics was amazed when he moved to the West Coast and learned that “white people” were supposed to have some common interest. Not because Chicago is free of racism - but because there was no such thing as a unified group of “whites”. You had “the Poles” and “the Jews” and “the blacks” and “the Italians” and “the Irish” and whatever; the idea that Poles and Jews were naturally one people because they had pale skin would have made people either bust a gut laughing or question your sanity.

@Mythago,

My sister married a guy from Long Island who is from a Polish family (his grandparents on both sides are from Krakow). When I went to celebrate Christmas with them in NY one year, I swear, the way their family celebrated was so different from my Southern, WASP-y family that I felt like I was on fucking Mars some of the time.

The traditional Christmas Eve meal was completely different, instead of bourbon-based cocktails they took shots of some Polish liqueur I never had before (I can’t remember the name, but it was strong) and even some of the Christmas Carols were in Polish. And they invited way more of their extended family than we ever would! “Homogeneous”, my ass.

Fun times, though!

“What color is the sky on your planet?”

Billy can’t tell because it’s so blindingly white where he lives ...

Not to mention the fact that, even though my brother-in-law is paler than I am, my great-grandparents had they lived to see the day would have been aghast that my sister would marry a “Paptist”, not to mention a yankee! SCANDAL!

atheist @ #182: Why is it that when these guys bring up somebody’s (or in this case, something’s) race to complain about that person/thing (they’re getting unfairly good treatment, they exist in the first place, whatever), they immediately whine about how it’s not about race and it’s their critics who are racist for saying otherwise!

This thing in Prescott reminds me of an affluent (and mostly white) suburb of Chicago that used a vehicle sticker one year showing three children, each of a different race. A village trustee fussed about how he was getting diversity shoved down his throat, or somewhere.

Christ. If you can’t tolerate even a graphical depiction of a non-white child, you are beyond pathetic.

You know, it occurs to me that Billy is right, that Congress could in theory pass a law that would render children of illegal immigrants (future ones, this couldn’t be retroactive) no longer citizens.

I think it’s radical and crazy, but if Billy really wants to give every illegal immigrant to the US full diplomatic immunity he’s certainly welcome to advocate for that view.

Why do conservatives always talk about things being “shoved down [their] throats”?

“Christ. If you can’t tolerate even a graphical depiction of a non-white child, you are beyond pathetic.”

Hey, they just don’t want to disturb their beautiful minds…

...which are obviously quite disturbed enough already…

I went to university in Prescott.  My best friend there was Cuban.  It’s rather embarrassing, personally.

Some nativists make half-hearted attempts to equate remittances with flight of capital, but that’s not what their nationalist audience wants to hear. They can barely do basic math.

The main problem for the undocumented workers you describe is that they’re completely at the mercy of their employers—the ability to avail themselves of unions, OSHA rules, and other workplace standards enjoyed by citizens and legal residents are not a part of their lives.

However, “deport ‘em all and built a big wall” is not really a solution to that problem.

I understand that aspect completely.  I tend not to focus on post-modern history as I don’t work in the Poli Sci department (though some days I wish I did) but I understand the reasons they hire them.  It’s a convenient way to control everything, in some of the worst cases they setup company shops because the wages are so low that they wouldn’t be able to afford to live otherwise. 

The “deport them and build a big wall” idea really comes from the far-west border states that now dominate the republican party.  If you look most of their power players are from south of the Mason-Dixon line and from Texas and further west.  The republicans are far more sectional than they care to admit.  The democrats who support it are reactionary and trying to protect themselves from the scared racists and the white-collars who want to hire them secretly while being tough on them publicly.  If anything, this whole attitude is a tail wagging the dog issue. 

If you look at the honest public opinion polls people are heavily confused and generally in a malaise about it.

The fact that precisely the people who’d be incapable of passing the citizenship test if their lives depended on it are arguing against birthright citizenship leads me to believe that they haven’t really thought their argument through.

I plan to test my hypothesis the next time I hear “birthright citizenship is obsolete” from Billy from Fantasyland or a similar wingnut. My response will be along the lines of “Fine, we’ll abolish that after you take the citizenship test. However, if you fail it you’ll be summarily deported (and G-d knows that no self-respecting country will want to take your parochial monolingual ass).”

At least Ill be able to turn their blindness towards their own unexamined privilege into a source of amusement.

Immigration raises wages because immigrants introduce more demand for goods and services than they introduce new labor into the supply; immigrants, after all, usually come in with families who aren’t looking for jobs but consume goods and services (for instance, children.)

As a whole, immigration improves our economy.  We’re not in danger the way stagnant “settled” countries like Japan are.

However, illegal immigration does depress wages.  Americans can’t get jobs b/c they expect a legal wage, and the companies are not paying a legal wage—they’re stealing it from their undocumentedd workers and calling it “profit”.

And H1B visas are just evil.  It’s a way of depressing wages, and silicon valley in its heyday was more than happy to avail themselves of government sponsored wage depression.

Part of the reason the country is so screwed up right now is because companies have been totally focused on profit as defined by Wall Street.  Wall Street rewards layoffs and cutbacks and other short term “profit” making ideas, and the men at the very top make outrageous sums of money that they then think they deserve. 

If making the amount of profit required this quarter means paying substandard wages and overworking people, so be it.  If it means ignoring safety regulations and drilling regardless of the dangers, so be it.  If it means lobbying the government to increase H1B visas so that highly qualified people can’t demand high wages, so be it.

And to keep the rabble from noticing that they are paid less and less, scapegoat anyone that tries to help them and fearmonger the brown peoples.

i’m pretty late to this game, but i wanted to comment on a serious misconception in Jesse’s post.

citizenship by birth had nothing to do with slavery.

well, it did, but only tangentially. before the 14th amendment, most people in the US understood themselves to be citizens of their particular state. it was far less the cohesive union it is today, and the anti-federalist sentiments lived on in the democratic-republicans and the whigs. there was no clear consensus on what was needed to be a US citizen, and except for people running for president (and travelers needing to make sure they visited the US, and not the texan, embassy in england), US citizenship had little meaning.

the civil war made it clear the problem with the primacy of state citizenship over national citizenship, and citizenship in the US by birth was a significant step in eroding the states’ distinct political identities.

i don’t know if anti-immigrant hostility started before the influx of the chinese in the late 1800s, but it certainly seemed to metastasize for them. but the US managed pretty well to deprive most rights to the chinese regardless of whether they were born there or here, so citizenship was less of an issue. if i recall correctly, the hostility against the massive influx of europeans in the 1920s died down in the 30s and 40s as they began to assimilate and their children were largely beginning to integrate. asians were still marginalized, and blacks enjoyed plessy, and mexicans had their zoot suit riots, so all of the non-whites knew their places and there was no need to focus on birthright citizenship.

of course, the civil rights movement changed all that, and i think that’s where the modern movement to reform citizenship began. it simply never was an issue so long as there was no chance for non-whites to be treated on equal terms with whites.

It’s a convenient way to control everything, in some of the worst cases they setup company shops because the wages are so low that they wouldn’t be able to afford to live otherwise.

This is an unspoken driver of the Bush gastarbeiter plan, I’ve always believed: reviving and formalising the company store, a concept which Libertarians love (mainly because they think they’ll be running it). Sort of a test market for their “back to 1896” programme.

The republicans are far more sectional than they care to admit.

Agreed, but it goes beyond the border states. Combine that with a broken Electoral College system and this stupidity now affects everyone—there are plenty of Republican reps from states without an international border crabbing just as loud as McCain about this wall fantasy. And as you say, teh stoopid is so thick on the ground in the border states that some Dems feel they have to engage in the same magical thinking.

If you look at the honest public opinion polls people are heavily confused and generally in a malaise about it.

I can understand the confusion. Most Americans, unlike Billy, understand vaguely and accept the basics of American citizenship, and more importantly know their own family histories and often know actual family members who were immigrants. At the same time, they believe in rule of law. And many employ undocumented workers in casual and household roles but believe (usually incorrectly) that they treat them fairly. Those are just a few factors.

However, those Americans are not driving the public debate, nor is their confusion informing it. The MSM and various racist demagogues and greedhead politicians and pundits see the confusion, ignore it, and press on with their positions. The only prominent voices missing, as usual, are the reality-based ones.

H1B visas are just evil.  It’s a way of depressing wages, and silicon valley in its heyday was more than happy to avail themselves of government sponsored wage depression.

Agreed, although the term “evil” is a bit strong. Another problem with H1-B visas is that they offered no clear and easy path to citizenship for a class of immigrant that was, by the (questionable) justification of the programme, desirable and had skills that were in short supply. Instead, the average H1-B was completely dependent on his sponsor, and so was afraid to ask for a raise and could be kicked out of the country with only a couple of months notice if the sponsoring company went belly-up.

I worked with quite a few companies during the dot-com that employed H1-Bs. Some treated them fairly, some exploited them, some tried to find a balance (e.g. lower-than-market wages but more of those wonderous stock options). What was common was the desire of the H1-Bs to stay here, build a life, and contribute.

For example, one guy I used to chat with was won over by the First Amendment—he loathed the fact that, in his home country, a portion of his taxes was specifically allocated to a short-list of churches. His sponsor went under, and he was sent back (he’d started his green card process, but even with an attorney there was no way the broken and inefficient INS was gonna complete it in time). Now he’s contributing to the productivity of his home country, while we’re stuck with a racist waste of oxygen like Billy.

caren @207: lower wages isn’t even where the real money is. It’s in ignoring labor and wage-and-hour laws, particularly if you live in a state like California that actually has some pretty heavy laws in that regard. No worries about lunch and meal breaks. No worker’s comp. No unionizing. No scary visits from OSHA. No pensions, benefits or lawsuits over things like your manager raping one of the workers. It is exactly that return to the Gilded Age that makes a lot of Libertarians jizz themselves; a fungible, disposable, powerless workforce you can rip off, because they have no legal protections whatsoever.

Also, H1B1’s generally still pay legal wages. Now you could make the argument as it’s salary work, that sometimes the per-hour wage becomes illegal, but that’s another story.

The unfortunate reality is that the days where a higher education could mean that you could demand a significant amount of money in the job marketplace are quickly coming to an end. This isn’t just happening in tech, it’s happening across the field. There’s just too many qualified workers for too few jobs. Basic market economics.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the political will to actually do something about this issue. The same policies that would raise wages for the middle/upper middle class would also raise wages for the lower class. And people get really upset when the person making their latte or sweeping their floors make just or even almost a decent living as they do. Entitlement issues abound.

Karmakin, one could argue that there are too many people going to college who don’t belong there, are there to give educators puffy balls about their “going to college” statistics, and would be better served by more targeted vocational training for jobs that pay well and that they would do well at.

/threadjack

Linnaeus:

A lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in America was heightened by such things as the case of “Maria Monk”:

Atmosphere of anti-Catholic sensationalism

Maria Monk’s book was published in an American atmosphere of anti-Catholic hostility (partly fueled by early 19th-century Irish immigration to the U.S.) and followed an incident in Boston, Massachusetts, prompted by an anti-Catholic book. In 1835, Rebecca Reed wrote Six Months in a Convent, an unsympathetic description of her alleged experiences in an Ursuline convent school in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In 1834, shortly before the Reed book appeared, the Ursuline Convent Riots occurred. These were triggered by an incident in which one of the nuns left the convent but was persuaded to return on the following day by her superior, Mother Mary St. George, and by the Bishop of Boston, the Most Reverend Benedict Fenwick. This incident immediately gave rise to a rumor that the woman was being held in the convent against her will; a mob invaded and then burned down the convent in an effort to free her. Reed herself died of tuberculosis shortly after the publication of her book; her disease was widely believed to have been caused by the austerities to which she had been subjected at the convent.

Karmakin, one could argue that there are too many people going to college who don’t belong there, are there to give educators puffy balls about their “going to college” statistics, and would be better served by more targeted vocational training for jobs that pay well and that they would do well at.

Tying this back to the topic, there is also an insipid entitlement mentality like the ones displayed by Billy that I’ve seen common in “Real American” undergrads and their parents that comes into play with immigration and “furriners”. 

Whether it is complaints that there are too many international students in American universities, especially at the graduate level STEM departments or undergrads complaining of Professors/TA’s supposed “strong foreign accent” as an excuse to cover the real fact that their mediocre or even failing grades had far more to do with the fact they prioritized partying over their studies and failed to realize that once they left high school…...THEY bear 95%+ of the responsibility for their educational process and it is not the Professor’s/TA’s job to keep tabs on them like their K-12 teachers. 

In addition to the points mentioned by other commenters….there is also the real fear that with the influx of furriner immigrants in school and the workplace….they won’t be able to get by with their complacent “good old boy/girl” techniques and that *shudder*.....they’ll actually have to put in some real effort in their studies and their work.  This is underscored by the astounding numbers of native-born “Real Americans” first year undergrads my Professor/TA friends and I encountered whose command of basic written English was so woefully inadequate that they even struggled through remedial English courses which covered material they should have picked up in elementary and junior high school. 

Though it has been a financial boon for yours truly, it is disturbing how so many native-born high school graduates with great academic records….even ones from topflight private schools arrive on campus with such poor writing and basic English language skills…and then turn around and press for “English first” policies and demanding the very literacy tests of furriners(including the furrin looking Americans) that they themselves would never pass. 

Whether it is complaints that there are too many international students in American universities, especially at the graduate level STEM departments

Among undergraduates, the international students are the ones paying sticker price for tuition, effectively bankrolling the American students’ financial aid.

Among graduate students, America’s public science funding is effectively a “loss leader,” providing subsidies to bring the best scientific minds from around the world to give them an opportunity to study and work in the USA. The flip side is that this has turned the basic sciences into a low paid career path fit only for those who are either very brilliant and on schedule to get a tenure track research position or those for whom endless postdocs paying 30k-40k AFTER completion of your PhD for many years is the best opportunity you will ever have in your life: ie, people from poor countries where the lifetime earnings of an underpaid scientist in the USA is an order of magnitude greater than any possibilities in their home countries, to say nothing of what will be available for their children. I mean, everyone loves having a constant influx of scientists, but it has shifted the profession of science downwards on the economic scale: good enough for immigrants and superstars, but your average American student interested in the sciences would be better off getting an MBA and becoming a venture capitalist.

In any case, exholt, you are taking an awful lot of credit for your academic bona fides for someone who owes a lot to the fact that she attended one of the top public schools in the USA, which not everyone else was able to do.

Kate:The only vocational program I could see being much use right now, would be a fast-track nursing certificate. That’s THE big demand field right now. There might be a bit within traditional apprenticeship careers, but that’s a different story I think. Although from what I can tell, there really isn’t that much demand in those fields anyway.

And that’s the problem. One of the problems that I have with the general liberal outlook on these issues is the ideas that better or more targeted education is the answer. It is, to a degree, but it’s a very small degree. The unfortunate problem is that like most other markets, it driven not by supply, but by demand. The economy at large is made up of certain amounts of needed labor. Increasing the skills of the labor market does very little to change the types of labor that is needed. Increasing the supply of say..plumbers, will do very little except to make plumbing skills a less valuable skills-set in terms of what one can demand in wages.

And immigration bashing isn’t the answer either. This is an active decision made and maintained by conservative AND liberal economic and political leaders, and reinforced by being popular with a large section of the voting population. Shutting the door on immigration just means that the powers that be turns off the tap on the economy and the job creation earlier. That’s all.

The only solution, is to reverse the market. Make businesses compete for workers. That’s the only proven way to increase wages across the board. A shorter workweek. Earlier retirement. Government paid furloughs. Public job creation. Things of that nature. But it’s going to be a VERY tough sell politically. Everybody knows of the perception of the government worker, not doing any work and just killing time. Chances are, these assholes are going drive past some works project where the workers are taking a break, and they’re going to lose their shit.

That’s why job creation has been very limited.

Karmakin, Exholt:

I remember sitting outside the a classroom waiting for my class to start and overhearing the administration, whose offices here across the hall, rail against the students who don’t belong there because the students got into college on the Nevada Millennium Scholarship, to which was the only reason I would have ever gone to college.

See, the people with Millennium Scholarships were often the first of their families to ever go to college. They also didn’t have the additional financial means to afford to focus solely on school, so they had jobs, which are a serious detriment to one’s academic performance.

And, as people who came out of Nevada’s excellent K-12 system, without the advanced classes offered to a select few, they had to take remedial classes in English and math in order to be considered college worthy. Of course it was the students’ fault for being piss-poorly instructed throughout their entire lives.

All this thoroughly ticked the school administration off to the point that they’d speak aloud to one another about how they wished to simply get rid to the students with Millennium Scholarships.

It was a nice kick in my face by those I once trusted as I was exactly everything they hated in a student.

I mean, everyone loves having a constant influx of scientists, but it has shifted the profession of science downwards on the economic scale: good enough for immigrants and superstars, but your average American student interested in the sciences would be better off getting an MBA and becoming a venture capitalist.

In addition to the factors you cited, there is also taxation and economic policies which provide perverse incentives for big business to off-shore and employ guest workers a la H1-B.  Why should a bright US undergrad go through 4-5 years of rigorous undergrad as an engineering/STEM major when s(he)‘s going to end up unemployed or underemployed and up to $180k+ in debt upon graduation because employers find it is much cheaper to offshore to regions where they could pay around $6000 per year for an engineering/STEM graduate rather than $60k+/year for an American/immigrant engineer/STEM graduate?

Moreover, Tyro, my commentary on the poor writing standards of “real Americans” wasn’t meant to highlight my academic bona-fides.  Instead, it was meant to highlight the rank hypocrisy of the “Real Americans” who promote the very anti-immigrant language and educational policy standards that they themselves would fail miserably along with one critical underlying motive for doing so….their heartfelt fear that they cannot compete with the “furriners” if they were on a remotely even playing field and push came to shove. 

Especially when the standards and expectations for these “real Americans” are already so exceedingly low that most international students I’ve met expressed shock at this state of affairs when TAing first-year English/Expository Writing courses as back in their home countries, there was no way in hell anyone who is unable to compose a coherent essay and/or whose writing is littered with blatant grammatical and spelling mistakes would have been allowed to graduate from intermediate/high school, much less matriculate as a university student. 

In short, most of these coasting “Real Americans” would not have been considered qualified to attend university or even many vocational/apprenticeship programs in most other countries including a few industrialized ones such as Germany or Japan.

Exholt, even immigrants who are undocumented are generally smarter, more enterprising, and more capable than the population they emigrated from.  We are getting, for the most part, the worlds best and brightest.  Is it any wonder why our least capable and least competent would be pitching fits over having to compete with people who are able to organize themselves, come here, learn a new language, etc.?

Kate:The only vocational program I could see being much use right now, would be a fast-track nursing certificate. That’s THE big demand field right now.
Comment #217: Karmakin on 06/05 at 02:21 PM

But they ship nurses in from the Philippines under those same H1-B visas as other high-tech and science workers.  Over 90 percent of Filipina/Filipino nurses live in the US.

Exholt, even immigrants who are undocumented are generally smarter, more enterprising, and more capable than the population they emigrated from.  We are getting, for the most part, the worlds best and brightest.  Is it any wonder why our least capable and least competent would be pitching fits over having to compete with people who are able to organize themselves, come here, learn a new language, etc.?

Though I understand this reaction intellectually, this reaction is a bit alien to me.  I’ve always preferred to befriend and to learn from those with far greater capabilities than myself so long as they aren’t assholes.  Fortunately, with the exception of a few teachers and most classmates in high school, that has not been a serious issue.

They could try to say that illegal immigrants from Mexico are involved in “hostile” occupation of our country simply their very presence,

Passing over the Native Americans completely for a moment, remind me again how Texas and California got to be part of the US rather than Mexico…?

Respect is earned, and if the U.S. Constitution were a brand it would now have more than 100 years of international goodwill.

Possibly, although the last few years have been to that brand a little like Coke executives not only being caught peeing in the syrup, but defending the practice as adding a little extra zing to the flavour.

Instead, it was meant to highlight the rank hypocrisy of the “Real Americans” who promote the very anti-immigrant language and educational policy standards that they themselves would fail miserably along with one critical underlying motive for doing so….their heartfelt fear that they cannot compete with the “furriners” if they were on a remotely even playing field and push came to shove.

My noble bride, Illocano Avenger of the Philippine Isles,  no longer is amazed by how badly Americans ‘bred and born’ speak and write what is their supposed native tongue, while she has mastered it to the point when she no longer needs my help in composing memos for her work as she did the first few years she was at her current position.

The observations exholt makes are worse than it was in my time, as then there was a mandatory writing class for all incoming Freshman at the Harvard of the Midwest, when I was an undergraduate there over 30 years ago. 

Even the folks for who we were either a back-up school for East Coast and Chitown people, or locals whose parents could afford the tuition, were required to read and write acceptable American English.

Granted, it’s a slow summer Friday, but still…

Go fuck yourself, you Northern hemispherist you.

But, Phoenician ... some of my best friends are Antipodes!

Suffice it to sy I am stuck inside, it is urinating down outside, and I am going slowly crazy.  Crazier.

Exholt, even immigrants who are undocumented are generally smarter, more enterprising, and more capable than the population they emigrated from.

Coming from beautiful cultures such as that of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras; that’s not saying much.

Passing over the Native Americans completely for a moment, remind me again how Texas and California got to be part of the US rather than Mexico…?

Mexico, who had stolen the land from the native inhabitants AND subsequently failed to settle it to any appreciable degree, started a war with the United States and proceeded to be mauled.

Do you have any other questions about American history?

My noble bride, Illocano Avenger of the Philippine Isles, no longer is amazed by how badly Americans ‘bred and born’ speak and write what is their supposed native tongue, while she has mastered it to the point when she no longer needs my help in composing memos for her work as she did the first few years she was at her current position.

Another interesting thing is that most of the Chinese immigrants in my parents’ generation have an inferiority complex regarding their English language skills.  This is quite ironic as their English writing skills are not only superior to those of most “Real Americans” undergrads in terms of basics such as coherence, grammar, and spelling, but also demonstrate greater sophistication in their writing.  This seems to apply even when the immigrants concerned only had the benefit of a few years of high school or even intermediate school education in their nation of origin. 

The observations exholt makes are worse than it was in my time, as then there was a mandatory writing class for all incoming Freshman at the Harvard of the Midwest, when I was an undergraduate there over 30 years ago.

Mandatory writing classes for all first-year undergraduates are still in effect in the vast majority of colleges today.  The main issue is that so many incoming first-years are arriving on campus with such woeful writing skills that they often need to take remedial writing classes to cover what their schools did not cover well and/or they chose to tune out during their K-12 years. 

Even the Ivies like *cough* Harvard *cough* are not immune to this judging by the quality of the writing of many of their first-years.  This especially applies to the upper/upper-middle class private school educated first-year “Real American” students who were whining and ranting about why their expository writing papers received Cs, Ds, or even Fs from their writing instructor.  And if you read the quality of the prose…..you’d wonder how the hell they even managed to graduate intermediate school…much less gain admission to a well-respected university. 

Likewise, I also thought the same about a certain overentitled well-off sporty “Real American” asshole undergrad at another Ivy who seemed to have mistaken me for the TA in his section of some history class when he went on a lengthy tirade about a C-level grade and shoved his paper in my face.  Upon glancing at the first two pages, it was clear that the TA in question was not only correct in marking up his paper the way he did, but overly generous in his grading.  It was so satisfying to give him a good dressing down by informing him that if he had attempted to hand that piece of written garbage to any of my public high school teachers, he’d be given an F and harshly told to reconsider his excessively lofty college aspirations. 

Even the folks for who we were either a back-up school for East Coast and Chitown people, or locals whose parents could afford the tuition, were required to read and write acceptable American English.

I’m sorry to report that this is no longer the case, even at top-tier Ivy/Ivy-level institutions from what my Professor/TA friends have seen over the last 2-3 decades and my own experiences in higher education as a student and academic tutor.

This especially applies to the upper/upper-middle class private school educated first-year “Real American” students

exholt, I actually would have worked this from the exact opposite angle: most people (just look around livejournal or read some Daily Kos diaries) are absolutely terrible writers. Outside of a few people who had access to high-quality private-school-level instruction in high school of the sort usually only available to the upper middle class and those who attend a few public magnet high schools, your writing skills at the age of 18 are going to be at best mediocre: so outside of the people who specifically asked you for tutoring, you’re going to find upper-middle-class private-school educated students with a head start on writing when they start college. If your writing skills aren’t any good, then unless you go on to attend a university that has high demands of your writing, your skills are likely to stay there.

“Coming from beautiful cultures such as that of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras; that’s not saying much.”

Billy from FLA, you have said the we are all racist to one degree or another and I agree.  Then you said that the active racism displayed by white supremacists at Stormfront made you want to vomit.  Yet the above statement displays active, not passive, racism.  Why then did the active racism you witnessed at Stormfront make you physically ill, when it is not a difference in kind, but simply degree?

Actally, Billy, it IS saying a lot when people with negative advantages manage to escape their lack of resources, intractable poverty, and cultural limitations to emigrate and start over in a new and alien place.  The nastier the morass, the more impressive it is.

Billy, I’ve demonstrated how you were wrong about history and FDR, you really are a 21st Century member of the <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing”>.

Do you have any other questions about American history?

Yeah - have you ever read any, or do you just make this shit up as you go along?

Congress declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. Mexico declared war on July 7 1846.

So, you know, when you say “Mexico started a war with the United States”, you’re talking crap.

Do you have any other questions about American history I can help spank you on?

Somehow, I can’t see Billy walking from Florida to Montreal, taking odd jobs as he went along, because the local death squad leader didn’t like him.

“So, you know, when you say “Mexico started a war with the United States”, you’re talking crap.”

...I think Billy is making another argument altogether.

What he’s saying is that the way Mexico was dressed, with that short skirt and halter top (you know how they are in that tropical heat), looking all brown and sweaty, with long hair and pouting lips, and that sexy accent, and then the way Mexico was flirting with all the other countries, right in in front of the US! — well, what else can you expect. 

The US was forced into unleashing the Kraken on Mexico’s ass.  So from Billy’s POV, Mexico was just asking for it, and we gave it to them, so in that respect it was Mexico’s fault.  Totally…

Outside of a few people who had access to high-quality private-school-level instruction in high school of the sort usually only available to the upper middle class and those who attend a few public magnet high schools, your writing skills at the age of 18 are going to be at best mediocre: so outside of the people who specifically asked you for tutoring, you’re going to find upper-middle-class private-school educated students with a head start on writing when they start college.

Actually, I am not completely sure it is solely an issue of poor English language, grammar, and writing education in K-12…..though they are critical parts of the problem.  In addition, this issue is also a sign of the complacency which comes from considering oneself a “real American”, reveling in the longstanding US anti-intellectual tradition, and being able to coast on that from K-12 with tacit approval from the larger society, the local community, and the parents to varying degrees without ever having been challenged intellectually until one arrives on a college campus. 

A reason why their anti-immigrant hysteria is partially driven by fears of being caught short by potential competitors they disdain as “inferior” combined with great anger that the world where they could succeed by coasting on being a “real American” is in danger of ending. 

Moreover, I was not appalled because those students were not handing in perfectly written prose which would make your stereotypical “grammar nazi” proud. 

I’m appalled because they are writing so incoherently and with so many blatant mistakes that the reader would not only be at a loss about what the writer was trying to communicate, but also wonder how they managed to get to college with the writing skills of someone who is barely literate…..and that may be putting it way too kindly. 

And this sentiment was not only from the student essays I’ve had the dubious pleasure of examining, but also international grad students and Professors who TAed/taught first-year writing and other writing intensive courses and had to examine and grade dozens or even hundreds of these incoherent ramblings each semester.  And this was all before the texting and associated textspeak craze….

the only required logic here is STUPID simple. without birthright citizenship, NONE of us are american, except native americans. because if that first relative born in the US isn’t american, how are any of their descendants either?

“When have I said I have respect for the Constitution? “

billy, why the fuck are you living in this country then? it’s people like you who should be kicked out, since you hate the US so much. go start your own cracker paradise. be an innovator. but don’t sit around here on your lazy ass talking about how you wish to turn an existing country into something it never has been and was never meant to be. get your guns and get your cracker taliban started somewhere else. germany probably wouldn’t have it, but maybe you can find an island somewhere.

“I am a far-right reactionary.”

admission of being unable to think for oneself, or to think PROactively. reactionary is behind the game.

i agree. fake ass troll. if you really believe this nonsense, billy, you have the mental maturity of a toddler. no exaggeration.

When was the US ever culturally homogeneous? Hint: Never. Even for the oldest settled parts—let’s say the Thirteen Colonies and Spanish Florida—the governments and cultures differed between colonies, from Puritan Massachusetts to Baptist Rhode Island to Dutch Nieuw Amsterdam to multicultural Georgia, not to mention the many, many native cultures that somehow survived the European invasion.

Billy, you are an ignorant, seditious asshole. Seditious speech is not a crime and should not be, but it does make you the sort of person that people who actually like this country shouldn’t associate with. You don’t understand the Constitution, you have no inkling of the nature of constitutional law or common law, you don’t even hide your racism (which makes your denials hilarious), and you’re a nativist from a state whose colonial history spoke primarily Spanish. You are a grade A pigfucker.

No multi-ethnic/multi-cultural country has ever survived long term.  Lebanon didn’t (it’s still under Syrian control), Yugoslavia didn’t, Czechoslovakia didn’t and neither did a whole host of others.  America won’t be the first.

I was born in, and live in, the United Kingdom.  I would venture to suggest that we’re a country that has “survived” long term.  Anyone who thinks our mongrel population is homogenous thinks all white people are of the same culture, and is, therefore, stupider than a stick.

No multi-ethnic/multi-cultural country has ever survived long term.

Like Switzerland, where they’ve been that way for centuries?

Switzerland comprises three main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, and Italian, to which the Romansh-speaking valleys are added. The Swiss therefore do not form a nation in the sense of a common ethnic or linguistic identity. The strong sense of belonging to the country is founded on the common historical background, shared values (federalism, direct democracy, neutrality)[7]  and Alpine symbolism.[8]  The establishment of the Swiss Confederation is traditionally dated to 1 August 1291; Swiss National Day is celebrated on the anniversary.

Got something else we can blast apart with the facts, Billy the
Unhistoric?