14th Amendment

The Boston Tea Party Anniversary: Time To Reflect On The Tea Party Extremists Who Want To Destroy The Constitution They Say They Revere! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Today, December 16, 237 years ago (1773), the event revered since then, the Boston Tea Party, took place, and galvanized the American colonists into the eventual movement for independence.

But one must remember that it still took two and a half years before the “Founding Fathers” agreed to move toward independence, as the Boston Tea Party crowd were considered radicals who were reckless and uncontrollable and irrational by many.

It is ironic, therefore, that many intelligent, thoughtful people consider today’s so called Tea Party Movement to be similarly radical, reckless, uncontrollable and irrational, and for good reasons!

Tea Party spokesmen in the differing movements that call themselves that title have called for radical actions, while claiming they revere the Constitution. But advocacy of measures such as the following belie what they claim to be their beliefs and goals.

These extremist statements and views include the following:

1. Modifying the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to all born in the United States or its territories.
2. Repealing of the 16th Amendment which provides for a progressive federal income tax.
3. Repealing of the 17th Amendment, which provides for direct election of the United States Senate by popular vote, and returning the election to the state legislatures.
4.Repealing of legislation long established by federal law as an entitlement, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment Compensation.
5. Elimination of the Departments of Education and Energy.
6. Wiping out of the legislation passed under the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
7. Elimination of the Federal Reserve System set up under the New Freedom of Woodrow Wilson.
8. Ending of the numerous reforms passed under the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.
9. Termination of the agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration signed into law by President Richard Nixon.
10. Promotion of “Nativism” by reviving fear of immigrants, and trying to ban immigration from “undesirable” parts of the world.
11. Promoting States Rights and Secession 150 years after Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War was supposed to have settled that issue for all time.
12. Advocating Christianity as a national religion, and a church and state alliance, while the Founding Fathers specifically avoided that idea, instead promoting separation of church and state.

The Tea Party Movement is not a reform group designed to improve this nation, but instead to take it back to the reactionary realities of the past, which were overcome by a growth in power and influence by the national government, including the Presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, to make the country truly a nation “of, by, and for the people”.

The Tea Party Movement does not offer “change”, but rather negativism and a return to the Gilded Age and the 19th century, before this nation became the great country that it is, a beacon of freedom, progress, and opportunity for the world!

Iowa Congressman Steve King Wants To Abolish Birthright Citizenship In 14th Amendment! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

Right after the Civil War, the Republican Party passed the 14th Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification, and in 1868, the most important amendment since the Bill of Rights, up to the present day, went into effect!

The excuse of a Republican Party of 2010 now has Representative Steve King of Iowa, one of the most outrageous members of the House, wishing to repeal the birthright citizenship portion of the amendment, put into place 142 years ago!

Constitutional experts say this attempt to take away citizenship from children born of illegal immigrants would be unconstitutional, but the plan is to pass legislation and have it challenged, and then push for a constitutional amendment to ban “anchor babies”!

Others, including Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have also backed such an idea, which would be setting up a new category of children born in the United States, who would be technically stateless!

If such a law or amendment was passed, it would be a violation of human rights, but it is certain no such amendment could pass, since it would require a two thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and thankfully, such despicable thoughts are not shared by that large a number of the members of Congress! 🙁

Historical Ignorance Of Phil Gingrey And Other Republicans On 14th Amendment!

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Georgia Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey was on Hardball With Chris Matthews on MSNBC today, speaking up on the GOP attempt to change the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to all born in the United States! This is all part of the strategy to deny “anchor babies”, children born to illegal immigrants and tourists, from having the right of American citizenship!

Gingrey argued that European nations do not allow “anchor babies” to be citizens, which is interesting since Republicans usually condemn the idea of America following any European traditions!

He also forgets that America is unique, a land of opportunity, different from so called “old Europe”, and that we have always been a nation that was different than all others, the beacon of hope in the world!

When people come to this nation, even those who are illegal, 98 percent of them came for a better life, not to get involved in drugs or gangs or crime! A small percentage of criminals and drug dealers and gang members should not reflect upon an entire ethnic group, as that is stereotyping! 🙁

But beyond this point, Gingrey also said that immigrants were not part of the equation during the debates over the 14th Amendment, as there were only SIX THOUSAND immigrants to this country during the 1860s!

What an unbelievable statement–SIX THOUSAND–and totally false! If one peruses historical census records, one discovers that in the decade from 1860-1870, 2.1 MILLION immigrants came to our shores–Germans the most, British second, Irish third, and Scandinavians fourth!

Anyone with any historical knowledge knows that so called “native” Americans, meaning those born here, despised the coming in of those “horrible Catholic” Germans and Irish!

And 2.8 percent of those who came into America during the 1860s were from Asia, primarily Chinese! 2.8 percent of 2.1 million immigrants means approximately 60 THOUSAND Chinese or other Asians migrated here in the 1860s! That alone is TEN times the total number of all immigrants that Congressman Gingrey claims arrived in the US during the entire decade of the 1860s! And they were not well received, even by the Irish, who lobbied over the next decade to bar them, succeeding in 1882, with the Chinese Exclusion Act!

So immigration was alive and well while the 14th Amendment was being debated, discussed, passed through Congress, and ratified by the states between 1866-1868!

No one suggested that so called “anchor babies” or children of immigrants should not be citizens at birth in the 1860s!

For Phil Gingrey and other Republicans and conservatives to suggest otherwise shows historical ignorance, prejudice, discrimination, and willingness to exploit an issue to gain votes, but knowing that under no circumstances will a change in the amendment EVER come about! 🙁

In other words, the GOP is again, for the umpteenth time, acting in a despicable and disgraceful manner! 🙁

The Right Wing Attack On The Constitution! Proposals To Destroy The 16th, 17th, And 14th Amendments! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

Conservatives and Republicans keep on claiming that liberals and progressives are destroying the Constitution, but in actual fact, it is the right wing that is setting out to distort and eviscerate the Constitution by eliminating constitutional amendments that they do not support!

There has been an attack in recent years on the 16th Amendment, the so called “progressive” federal income tax amendment of 1913, which if it was really enforced properly, would be taxing the rich much more than they have been, due to all kinds of loopholes and favored treatment of the elite throughout our history! But now, many right wingers want to wipe out the 16th Amendment altogether, and have a national value added tax or sales tax instead, which would victimize the middle and lower classes more than they are now, in favor of the elite evading taxes further! 🙁

Some right wingers have also proposed a wipe out of the 17th Amendment of 1913, which provided for direct popular election of the United States Senate! The argument is that the state legislatures should resume selection of the Senate, so as to wipe out popular participation (which is code language for preventing all those “undesirable” liberals and minorities playing a role in the selection of the upper chamber, which is already highly unrepresentative because of Senate rules, but would be more so if returned to the corrupt system that prevailed until 1913)! Is there anything more undemocratic than this desire to take away the power of the vote from the people? 🙁

Now, there are proposals by Republican Senators to reconsider the 14th Amendment, so as to prevent children born in the US of visitors and immigrants who are not citizens, from becoming citizens at birth as was clearly stated in that amendment upon passage in Congress in 1866, and ratified by 1868! Instead of America being the “land of opportunity and hope”, they want to separate children from citizenship by the circumstances of their birth! 🙁

The point to be made about all three of the above amendments is that this is basically all just political propaganda, as an amendment change or new amendment would require a two thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and passage by majority vote in both houses of the state legislature in three fourths, or 38 of the 50 states!

So the odds of any of this happening is near zero, but it is a great way to divide America and win elections!

To even imagine that we would ever have a nation where two thirds of both houses of Congress and a majority vote in both houses of the state legislatures in three fourths of the states would occur to bring about these changes is a literal nightmare scenario! 🙁

If that were to happen in reality, then America would be seen as having lost its way and the purpose of its existence–as the last best hope for oppressed people and average, everyday Americans who just want a fair shake!