No, it was after his birth King Herod decreed all male babies below a certain age (3) were to be killed. This due to the wise men telling of the newborn king.
So his parents took him and buggered off to Egypt for a decade or so until Herod was gone.
Doesn’t anyone actually read the Bible before decrying how terrible and stupid it is?
Hang on a second, I posted mine, and yours showed up after. Now I reload the thread and yours is before mine.
Who did you bribe to get that, hmm? Make it look like I’m copying you shales first impotently
Anchor babies are a thing? I thought it was right wing fake shit, like Welfare Queens. Something create to get votes, but complete non existent.
The problem with changing the 14th amendment is all the details, though. As examples, my guess is that in each of these cases below, you are saying, “nope, they cannot be born as US citizens.”
- What if the parents are here long term on work visas?
- What if the parents have filed for and been accepted as refugees?
- What if the parents are here for medical procedures?
- What about found children, i.e., this clause: “a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States”
And some further gray areas where I wonder what the consensus would be, since you seem to be inferring that only citizens can have citizen babies, do we also mean, only born in the US? Or what about these questions:
- What about a citizen who has a child with an illegal immigrant, are they then prevented citizenship?
- Would you also change the Naturalization Act? i.e. mixed citizen and non-citizen parents that have a child born outside the US are at this time considered citizens. Would you change that?
Scuzz, also a point, I’m not trying to spin anyone up here. These are my legitimate counter questions to the few of you on the side of changing the amendment. I like this discussion, it comes up from time to time from different politicians and unless I’m misremembering, it’s mostly from those who are very conservative. So I’m wondering why and what the counter arguments are. Sorry if you had to repeat yourself there, I may have missed your original point.
Don’t blame me. Blame the big guy. Wumpus works in mysterious ways.
Besides, mine showed up first on my screen.
I remember the killing of the babies part but I had forgotten them going to Egypt.
And before anyone thinks I am some evil anti-immigrant fiend (come on, somebody was waiting to say that) I actually am against the idea of the wall, I don’t like ICE rounding up law abiding undocumented immigrants and I am for keeping the families together.
I just don’t see why the kid gets to win the citizenship jackpot when his parents broke the law to get here.
Because the kid broke no laws. The baby is an innocent born in the United States, and that makes him or her a citizen.
But I don’t think it should be, so there.
Just saying the kid broke no laws is kinda a stupid reason you know. If I had a kid in France would it get French citizenship, or become a citizen of any other of a hundred countries out there.
That’s objectively false. Here are the counter arguments.
To why should we have the law:
You won’t find ‘because they deserve it’ anywhere there.
Here are my counter questions to your proposal:
Still noticing about what they deserve.
Want to try to address them now?
Well, here’s an anecdote. A buddy of mine and his little brother were born in Australia. Their American parents were teaching there for a couple of years. So my friend and his brother were born with dual citizenship, because that’s how those two civilized countries deal with citizenship. They all take the moral high road.
My friend hasn’t been the best Australian citizen. He almost never pays Australian taxes (only sales tax, when he’s visiting, has never served on an Australian jury or armed services, has never voted in an Australian election. But he still values his citizenship there.
Get this, his kids have dual citizenship too, even though they were born in the US! They have only visited their fatherland (not, I note, motherland) once or twice. Now, if THEIR kids (my buddy’s grandkids) want to be Aussie citizens, my understanding is that they (my buddy’s kids) have to live in Australia for two years. So my friend is hoping his kids will go to college there, because it’s nice to have that escape route, if needed.
It’s true that his parents weren’t “illegal immigrants”, they were just temporary workers, glorified tourists. But so what? Most illegal immigration happens by people overstaying their work or tourist visas, not by people hopping a fence. And, as has been discussed in the immigration thread, even people hopping a fence (or crossing a river, stepping over a road, etc) are guilty of a misdemeanor, not a felony. My friend’s parents weren’t felons when they had my friend and his brother.
Basically, I think that we first world countries offer citizenship to each other’s accidents of birth because, really, what’s the big deal?
This is one of those issues that defines what the United States should be, as a country. Is it a nation that follows the creed of the Statue of Liberty? It’s a bit corny but many people believe that’s exactly how we should act as a country. Many on the GOP side seem to think of the US as a Christian nation. Following that, shouldn’t Republicans be in complete favor of this sort of idealistic vision of America? And yet immigration was the defining issue of the 2016 election, resulting in a very un-Christian President.
I have a friend like that. He was born and raised in Australia and moved here and now is married with kids. I am not sure he is a US citizen though.
But isn’t it true that most don’t, that we are the rarity. Or am I wrong with that assumption?
Because when you start choosing who gets to be a citizen or not, then you’re just opening the door for the next “reasonable” argument. Anchor babies become welfare babies, and next thing you know, boom.
It’s technically a thing, although of very limited value to the parents (as I understand it) because the baby can’t sponsor the parents for citizenship until it reaches 21 y.o. But similar arguments to the “chain migration” talking points from DT, etc.
But maternity tourism is still a growing thing because having citizenship for the baby itself is seen as valued.
If you wouldn’t mind, I would find it interesting if you answered @scottagibson’s questions back at you. He addressed the other end of the discussion.
When discussing fundamental changes like a constitutional amendment (or “clarification”) I think there needs to be clear reasons to do so.
Yes, this is who we are, and this is who we should be.
This is what has made America great. The fact that we are a bunch of poor mutts, hungrier than the rich aristocracy.
At this moment and in the context of rising ethno-nationalism and fascist power, the “birthright question” is something you want to discuss, but not the debate, but the question itself.
Who is asking the question? Why? What narrative do they wish to set? Why? What do they want to normalise? Why? Who gains by trying to intellectualise and set a reasonable tone? Who gains from this?
Suppose the Trumpians win this through reasonable debate and action it, where do they stand in terms of power and position to put forward the next question? Their standing is increased and they can continue boiling the frog. We know how fascism creep works, I think its happening in this thread, right now, albeit not maliciously. I’m not saying anyone here is purposefully advancing fascism, Im saying this is how it works on a national scale.
I think this is what @LMN8R and others recognised when they saw the WP article and cancelled.
I have been listening to the sound track Hamilton way too much. I blame Wierd Al Yankovic and a cheap subscription to Amazon Music.