Good morning, y’all. I find as I get older that it is easier to compromise some of my lofty ideas and just take the easy way out. I’m talking about Kudzu, and I’m talking about Roundup. Time was I wouldn’t use Roundup, partly because I want to think of myself as an environmentalist, and partly because of Agent Orange. My attitude has always been “screw Monsanto and the horse they rode in on”. The older I get the easier it is to let my standards slip. It’s hard to cry ’nuff to a plant.
Some folks who claim they believe in Democracy and our American way of life, folks who are willing to spend our treasure and our youth to push our system on the other peoples of the world, are now attacking one of the cornerstones of our Democracy, the 14th amendment.
For those of you unfamiliar, here is an excerpt:
Section. 1. 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.
Now, the timing of the 14th goes back to post Civil War when the “back to Africa” crowd wanted to deny all rights to the recently freed slaves. To protect the blacks, and each succeeding generation, the 14th was adopted to determine that any baby born on U.S. soil was a U.S. citizen, and therefore entitled to all of the rights and privileges of a citizen. It didn’t matter where your parents came from, or how your parents got here, if you were born on American soil, you are an American citizen. To double down on the concept, the amendment prohibited any state from making specific laws that would inhibit the enforcement of a citizen’s rights. This is the oft referred to “equal protection under the law” that comes in to play when a group/class of people have the expectation that an act permitted in one state should be allowed in another. Think voting.
Now we find a group of candidates that want to repeal the 14th amendment to improve the survivability of the Republican party, and to grease the wheels on the “back to Mexico” bus. If the “back to Mexico” crowd can deny the Hispanic children their birthright of American citizenship they can avoid one of the legal hurdles in rounding everyone up and sending them back over the Rio Grande. If this proposal succeeds, all of those naturalized Hispanics of voting age will have lost their right to make a difference in our leaders, their voice in our democracy. And the irony, the proposed changes to the 14th comes from those candidates that would have us all die in church at the hands of a madman rather than arrange one comma in the 2nd amendment. I hate a hypocrite worse than anything.
It’s hard to see how this plays out in this election. One would assume that the current citizens by birthright would be grandfathered in to whatever these new “champions of democracy” are going to propose. It’s also likely that any “right leaning” Hispanics might be encouraged to vote for the Democrats out of fear for having some other indignity imposed on them in the future. If the “back to Mexico” bus leaves on time, then the “red states” with high Hispanic populations will go from purple back to solid red. It probably doesn’t stop the inevitable, just delays it for another election cycle or two. I guess that would give The Donald time to declare martial law and require all of us to have our immigration genealogy verified. A new industry, Citizen Validation, is born, and a dying industry, bus travel, has a boon. Who says the Republicans don’t create jobs?
Well, Dr.Pepper says it’s good at 10, 2, and 4, and since it’s nearly 2 A.M. I believe I’ll end this and go have one.