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shirtlifterbearThe Republican Party hates Americans.
Truefact.
But the GOP reserves a special hatred for both New Americans and Gay Americans.
"The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people "born or naturalized in the United States" for a reason. They wished to directly repudiate the Dred Scott decision, which said that citizenship could be granted or denied by political caprice.
They purposely chose an objective standard of citizenship -- birth -- that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don't have to please a majority, you just have to be born here."
So the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for citizenship by birth on US soil, and the GOP wants to try and repeal the Amendment to stop the "flood" of anchor babies, as they're called. Anchor babies would be a totally cute thing if at the core it weren't so racist an ideology. (Can't you just see little babies in Navy uniforms and fake little anchor tattoos on their adorable chubby arms? *squee*)
Of course it's merely a coincidence that the 14th Amendment also HAPPENS coincidentally to enforce the Due Process and Equal Protection provisions onto the states, by shocking coincidence, but I'm SURE that's not what the GOP is after, surely not!
I noticed this little threat to our liberty because I just happened to have been born in one of the few countries in the world that did not allow birth location citizenship, El Salvador. The country was founded by Sephardic Jews that had been thrown out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, and they wanted to be sure that no one could ever take their country away from them ever again. (Naming your country The Savior was a brilliant stroke, btw, talk about hiding in plain sight! Crypto-Judaism at its finest!) You have to be a THIRD generation Salvadoran to try to get citizenship!
Some other countries?
Kenya, which removed the right in desperation in the late 20th Century because it was literally drowning in refugees who snuck over the border to have babies and stay, Japan, that bastion of xenophobia, the UK (oh dear!) and Germany.
That's right, Germany.
Germany didn't want all of those Turkish immigrants they had imported as laborers to be able to remain and VOTE! Gott im Himmel, nein! (There were third- and fourth-generation Turkish families in Germany, but no citizens!) The European Union ordered them to change the law to conform with every other nation on earth (except El Salvador and Kenya). n.b.: there is a grand total of one Turkish-German elected legislator in Germany. ONE. And he's in a leadership position in his party because, like Barney Frank, he represents an entire demographic by default.
Pat Buchanan, in a virulently racist and homophobic speech to the Republican National Convention in 1998, used the language "We are America, THEY are not."
Molly Ivins quipped that "the speech probably sounded better in the original German."
The GOP hates the Fourteenth Amendment because it lets immigrants become US citizens, and oh, did I mention that those naughty Due Process and Equal Protection clauses are also going to be the Constitutional basis for allowing Gay marriage?
SHOCKING COINCIDENCE!
EDIT: Thank you to those who strengthened my case about racism and birth citizenship!
I'm making a t-shirt that sums up my sentiments about the GOP perfectly, a three-word phrase that makes me laugh and totally makes my point:
"Suck it, Scalia."
Truefact.
But the GOP reserves a special hatred for both New Americans and Gay Americans.
"The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people "born or naturalized in the United States" for a reason. They wished to directly repudiate the Dred Scott decision, which said that citizenship could be granted or denied by political caprice.
They purposely chose an objective standard of citizenship -- birth -- that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don't have to please a majority, you just have to be born here."
So the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for citizenship by birth on US soil, and the GOP wants to try and repeal the Amendment to stop the "flood" of anchor babies, as they're called. Anchor babies would be a totally cute thing if at the core it weren't so racist an ideology. (Can't you just see little babies in Navy uniforms and fake little anchor tattoos on their adorable chubby arms? *squee*)
Of course it's merely a coincidence that the 14th Amendment also HAPPENS coincidentally to enforce the Due Process and Equal Protection provisions onto the states, by shocking coincidence, but I'm SURE that's not what the GOP is after, surely not!
I noticed this little threat to our liberty because I just happened to have been born in one of the few countries in the world that did not allow birth location citizenship, El Salvador. The country was founded by Sephardic Jews that had been thrown out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, and they wanted to be sure that no one could ever take their country away from them ever again. (Naming your country The Savior was a brilliant stroke, btw, talk about hiding in plain sight! Crypto-Judaism at its finest!) You have to be a THIRD generation Salvadoran to try to get citizenship!
Some other countries?
Kenya, which removed the right in desperation in the late 20th Century because it was literally drowning in refugees who snuck over the border to have babies and stay, Japan, that bastion of xenophobia, the UK (oh dear!) and Germany.
That's right, Germany.
Germany didn't want all of those Turkish immigrants they had imported as laborers to be able to remain and VOTE! Gott im Himmel, nein! (There were third- and fourth-generation Turkish families in Germany, but no citizens!) The European Union ordered them to change the law to conform with every other nation on earth (except El Salvador and Kenya). n.b.: there is a grand total of one Turkish-German elected legislator in Germany. ONE. And he's in a leadership position in his party because, like Barney Frank, he represents an entire demographic by default.
Pat Buchanan, in a virulently racist and homophobic speech to the Republican National Convention in 1998, used the language "We are America, THEY are not."
Molly Ivins quipped that "the speech probably sounded better in the original German."
The GOP hates the Fourteenth Amendment because it lets immigrants become US citizens, and oh, did I mention that those naughty Due Process and Equal Protection clauses are also going to be the Constitutional basis for allowing Gay marriage?
SHOCKING COINCIDENCE!
EDIT: Thank you to those who strengthened my case about racism and birth citizenship!
I'm making a t-shirt that sums up my sentiments about the GOP perfectly, a three-word phrase that makes me laugh and totally makes my point:
"Suck it, Scalia."
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Re: not just three countries
Date: 2010-08-06 06:38 pm (UTC)There was/is concern before that any child born here was a UK citizen so did become a way to gain citizenship, but now the idea families get shipped out automatically and jailed for months is evil. Then again the British invented the Concentration Camp so...
Re: not just three countries
Date: 2010-08-06 06:43 pm (UTC)Sadly, that's what I meant. The BNP has a lot more power in the UK than the equivalent here in the US.
Re: not just three countries
Date: 2010-08-06 08:17 pm (UTC)And BNP hardly has any support now, only got the Euro seats cos of PR. BNP support went down this election.
Re: not just three countries
Date: 2010-08-06 08:25 pm (UTC)SCARY!
Re: not just three countries
Date: 2010-08-06 08:41 pm (UTC)Look up how many fascist/far right MPs there are across Europe. In France they have quite a few - LePen's party polls something like 15% of the vote. Here it's 5%.
Then again a lot of their and BNP's policies are similar to the Teabaggers and the Republicans...major parties here are moderate compared to the Republicans - even the Tories.