Misreading the Constitution

We Americans have a tradition of long-standing, going back at least to 1803, of misreading the Constitution ... even as we pretend to revere it. The particular misreading I wish at this time to bring to Gentle Reader's attention is the stubborn and persistent misreading of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment: for many of our current "immigration" problems -- which is to say, the fact that we are being invaded and that our rulers are aiding and abetting this invasion -- are rooted in this misreading.

Here is the text of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment -- "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Of late, in explaining how the "anchor baby" phenomenon came about and attempting to explain to Americans that the Constitution does not require us to attribute citizenship to the offspring of foreigners just because they happen to be born on American soil, several commentators have focused on the subordinate clause of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment ... all the while overlooking the verb.

I call to Gentle Reader's attention the precise wording of the first sentence as compared to the second (and subsequent, here unquoted) sentences.

The first sentence declares that a certain class of person -- previously denied to be citizens -- are citizens of the US, and of the state in which they reside. That is, the effect of this sentence was a one-time deal -- it applied only to certain persons then living, and it does not apply to anyone now living.

In contrast, the second sentence (and subsequent, unquoted sentences) is ongoing -- "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ..."

The purpose of the first sentence of the 14th Amendemtn was to explicitly overturn and repudiate the Dread Scott decision and to incorporate this repudiation into the Constiturion itself (*); it was not to redefine what 'citizen' means.

The first sentence does not say, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." The first sentence is not on-going, as the second is.

(*) Congress actually has the authority to overturn most recisions of the federal courts by mere legislation -- for instance, Congress could invalidate both the Roe v Wade and the Obergefell rulings tomorrow, were the congresscritter so minded, and there is nothing the supreme Court could do except to say, "Yes, sir!"

So that people can see them

Douglas Wilson: In Which I Paint With Some Bright Yellows --

First, whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like a hill to die on from a distance. Up close, when the possible dying is also up close, it kind of looks like every other hill. All of a sudden it looks like a hill to stay alive on, covered over with topsoil that looks suspiciously like common ground.

So it turns out that surrendering hills is not the best way to train for defending the most important ones. Retreat is habit-forming.

This brings us to my second goal this morning, which is to highlight the principle. ...

...
But I am not trying [to] equate anything here — I am simply trying to illustrate how a believer’s conscience ought to work if he is employed by a government that tries to sin grievously through the instrumentality of a godly magistrate. This is just how I paint illustrations, with bright yellows and gaudy greens. I do that so that people can see them.

Douglas Wilson: Benedict and Beza Options

But that, though a nice statement of the problem, does not answer the problem. We need a solution to the impasse created by political polytheism, which is what under-girds our incoherent system of pluralism and diversity. Schizophrenia doesn’t work for cultures any more than it does for individuals.

So all these questions can be answered, I believe, by emphasizing something that all politically-engaged Christians should get tattooed on their frontal lobes — facing in, so that they can see it all the time.

Political process is not neutral. Administrative process is not neutral. Procedures are not neutral. Constitutional law is not neutral. Nothing is neutral. Everything we do corporately in the body politic is an expression of our foundational faith. That faith will either be the true faith — what I have been calling mere Christendom — or it will be an attempt to build a great skyscraper civilization on the foundation of our watered-down secular concrete.

The “rule of law” is not some “pure neutrality,” an ethereal gas that enables a bunch of members of different faiths and religions to bond together in the same society. The rule of law is actually a codified expression of certain aspects of our Christian inheritance. It is part of our legacy and heritage for a reason. It came from somewhere. It grew and developed in some countries and not in others for profound religious reasons. The rule of law has no evident authority apart from the authority of a transcendent God.

There is *always* a "god of the system", and if that god is not The Living God, then it's going to be some idol ... and there is going to be at least one demon inhabiting the idol, just waiting to feast on human souls.

Michael Egnor: Christian county clerk sent to jail for her opposition to gay marriage

Michael Egnor: What's the difference between a clerk not enforcing gay marriage law and a president not enforcing immigration law?

Michael Egnor: What's the difference between a clerk not enforcing gay marriage law and a president not enforcing IRS law?

Michael Egnor: Why are the President's myriad and persistent refusals to enforce law treated as discretionary, but a clerk's refusal to issue a marriage certificate deemed worthy of jail time.

Michael Egnor: What Judge David L. Bunning got wrong

Stupid bitch doesn't (even want to) understand men

Daily Mail: UK's National sperm bank has just NINE registered donors as boss plans to challenge men to 'prove their manhood' -- She hopes to appeal to men's vanity in order to attract sperm donations

Yeah. I'd really like to "prove my manhood" by causing a child to be conceived, so it can be aborted for being the "wrong" sex, or having the "wrong" eye color, or can have its life ruined by some lesbian if she doesn't kill it before it is born.

One thing the modern awash-in-feminism woman never seems to want to learn is that women have no power to shame men unless at least one of the following is true --
1) the man personally respects the particular woman attempting to shame him;
2) the point about which she wishes to shame him is one about which another man could shame him merely by lifting an eyebrow.

And the one thing the modern awash-in-feminism woman adamantly refuses to do is to earn the respect of men.

Karen Straughan

Karen Straughan (video): Why do MRAs bring up the draft?

I've watched of few of her videos (*) recently; she's mostly sensible ... for an 'atheist' and a pro-abortionist.


(*) And I *hate* videos; for in most cases, whatever information they may present could be presented in writing with far less expenditure of my time (to say nothing of bandwidth).