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  1. #1
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Gregory Kane: Look to original intent of the 14th Amendment

    Gregory Kane: Look to original intent of the 14th Amendment


    Washington Examiner
    By: Gregory Kane
    Examiner Staff Writer



    On the matter of any proposed changes in the 14th Amendment, Alan Keyes and I will have to agree to disagree.

    Over the past couple of weeks, there have been several Republicans who've advocated that the nation take a second look at the phrasing in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

    Some Republicans want that changed, or at the very least, clarified. Sen. Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., proposed the idea, and, judging from the reaction of those on the left, you'd think he'd advocated rounding up black folks and shipping them back to the plantation.

    That's the hysterical response, and the left has been in full-blown hysteria mode this entire spring and summer, ever since Arizona legislators passed SB 1070. The left reacted to that law with shrieks about racial profiling and people being stopped and asked to show their papers, so I'm not surprised by their reaction to Graham's idea.

    Keyes' response, as might be expected, was much more measured and logical.

    "The 14th Amendment is not something one should play with lightly," Keyes said in a YouTube video. Citizenship, Keyes said, is a God-given right, not one to be either bestowed on Americans or removed at the whim of government.

    Well said, but I'm not in complete agreement. It's simply not true that Graham and other Republicans who want to close the birthright citizenship loophole for children of illegal immigrants are "playing lightly" with the 14th Amendment.

    It's more likely they know what that amendment was intended to do. The explicit purpose of the 14th Amendment, clear to every American living circa the mid-1860s, was to give citizenship rights to newly freed slaves, and to give the federal government the legal muscle to prevent former Confederates in the South from terrorizing, murdering and torturing those former slaves, and white Republicans as well.

    What the 14th Amendment was NOT intended to do is what has been done in the last 20 years or so: grant citizenship to children born to parents who've arrogantly, flagrantly and cynically violated American law. The practice, quite frankly, is galling: breaking one American law, and then claiming citizenship for your offspring based on another American law.

    The 14th Amendment's intent is clear from one phrase: "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." That clearly meant those black Americans who had been here for generations, who had been slaves and whose ancestors had been slaves.

    The amendment came about as a result of the Union victory in the Civil War, a victory President Lincoln made clear those slaves were instrumental in achieving.

    "We cannot spare the 140,000 or 150,000 now serving us as soldiers, seamen and laborers," Lincoln wrote in September of 1864.

    "This is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force which may be measured and estimated as horse-power and steam-power are measured and estimated. Keep it and you can save the Union. Throw it away and the Union goes with it."

    Black Americans, probably more so than any other racial or ethnic group, have what might be called a "blood investment" in the 14th Amendment. That's probably why Keyes doesn't want people to "play with it lightly."

    And that's precisely why I don't want to see it cynically abused and misused. Are children of illegal immigrants born here "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, or the country of their parents?

    Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0whirgX3h
    Join our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & to secure US borders by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Senior Member southBronx's Avatar
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    Re: Gregory Kane: Look to original intent of the 14th Amendm

    Quote Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME
    Gregory Kane: Look to original intent of the 14th Amendment


    Washington Examiner
    By: Gregory Kane
    Examiner Staff Writer



    On the matter of any proposed changes in the 14th Amendment, Alan Keyes and I will have to agree to disagree.

    Over the past couple of weeks, there have been several Republicans who've advocated that the nation take a second look at the phrasing in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

    Some Republicans want that changed, or at the very least, clarified. Sen. Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., proposed the idea, and, judging from the reaction of those on the left, you'd think he'd advocated rounding up black folks and shipping them back to the plantation.

    That's the hysterical response, and the left has been in full-blown hysteria mode this entire spring and summer, ever since Arizona legislators passed SB 1070. The left reacted to that law with shrieks about racial profiling and people being stopped and asked to show their papers, so I'm not surprised by their reaction to Graham's idea.

    Keyes' response, as might be expected, was much more measured and logical.

    "The 14th Amendment is not something one should play with lightly," Keyes said in a YouTube video. Citizenship, Keyes said, is a God-given right, not one to be either bestowed on Americans or removed at the whim of government.

    Well said, but I'm not in complete agreement. It's simply not true that Graham and other Republicans who want to close the birthright citizenship loophole for children of illegal immigrants are "playing lightly" with the 14th Amendment.

    It's more likely they know what that amendment was intended to do. The explicit purpose of the 14th Amendment, clear to every American living circa the mid-1860s, was to give citizenship rights to newly freed slaves, and to give the federal government the legal muscle to prevent former Confederates in the South from terrorizing, murdering and torturing those former slaves, and white Republicans as well.

    What the 14th Amendment was NOT intended to do is what has been done in the last 20 years or so: grant citizenship to children born to parents who've arrogantly, flagrantly and cynically violated American law. The practice, quite frankly, is galling: breaking one American law, and then claiming citizenship for your offspring based on another American law.

    The 14th Amendment's intent is clear from one phrase: "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." That clearly meant those black Americans who had been here for generations, who had been slaves and whose ancestors had been slaves.

    The amendment came about as a result of the Union victory in the Civil War, a victory President Lincoln made clear those slaves were instrumental in achieving.

    "We cannot spare the 140,000 or 150,000 now serving us as soldiers, seamen and laborers," Lincoln wrote in September of 1864.

    "This is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force which may be measured and estimated as horse-power and steam-power are measured and estimated. Keep it and you can save the Union. Throw it away and the Union goes with it."

    Black Americans, probably more so than any other racial or ethnic group, have what might be called a "blood investment" in the 14th Amendment. That's probably why Keyes doesn't want people to "play with it lightly."

    And that's precisely why I don't want to see it cynically abused and misused. Are children of illegal immigrants born here "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, or the country of their parents?

    Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0whirgX3h


    you are Not looking at your history Book the Black did not sneak over the wall . & did not kill, they work they did not have hand out. they had to come over . they had the baby in this country yes they did not get pregnant in other Country it was In the USA that why they are Citizen . 1860 Change the 14 Amendment No Baby to Illigal Immgrants we want our Job Back Patrol the Border Good Luck Gov Jan brewer & Joe & ICE
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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