Dred Scott? You're soaking in it?

Repealing the 14th Amendment, GOP?  We're now talking about jumping off that ledge? 

The reason why GOP wants to do this is simply amazing.  From S.C Senator Lindsey Graham via Politco:

I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake ...  We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen.” {...}

People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It's called "drop and leave." To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”

Did you get that?

The Illegal Immigrant horde is sending its Drone Queens to our E.R.s to lay their eggs by the thousands.  Presumably once they hatch they will use their citizenship to establish the Alien/Predator liberal Utopia they have been scheming to create since at least Ridley Scotts 1979 Documentary.

The Know-Nothing-esque immigration mythology aside, Graham’s argument is a perfect example of why the citizenship clause was placed in the 14th Amendment in the first place.  Can you say Dred Scott?

Creating a definition of citizenship that isn't subject to popular whims and majority predjudice was the whole point.  Taney and the pro-slavery justices in the Scott case exploited the lack of such a definition in the Constitution as a way to not only settle the violent conflict over expanding slavery into the territories, but to unravel the Missouri Compromise and the entire idea that Congress had the power to ban or limit slavery anywhere in one blow as well.  It is the gold standard of Judicial Activism and overreach.   

And seriously, what are we going to do this for?  To appease the paranoid fantasies of a group of cranks who think their shitty economic prospects are the fault of the immigrants?  Ummm..lets not.

The 14th Amendment is one of  the foundations of Modern American society.  From Brown vs. Board of Ed to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act to virtually every law that requires states to apply their laws equally .  Attacks like this on the 14th are an utter scam, and for some a dog whislte for the sorts of racist douchebags who want to restore Jim Crow and elevate their pathetic selves over someone else.   Not to mention that there is not a shred of actual evidence that a) there is some mass influx of egg laying immigrant women trying to seed the country with their non white offspring b) that a motivating factor for illegal immigration is citizenship.  Instead, what we've seen is immigration, both legal and illegal, rise and fall almost exactly in regards to economic conditions in the U.S.   

One of the cruel ironies for GOP politicians who play the appease the crank game is that if such an idea really did get traction, a very powerful constituency would get very upset, Corporations. Santa Clara Country vs. Southern Pacific Railroad is the basis for the natural personhood of corporations, which has profound implications for the legal, political and economic structure of our economy.  The whole idea is on pretty shaky ground to begin with, and I seriously doubt any laywer representing a corporation in the U.S. is eager to have the whole idea become the subject of litigation.  Something that would undoubtably happen if the citizenship clause was repealed.

I won't even get into the implications for Griswold and Roe.  Let's just say that this whole idea is so terriblly insane and intertwined with the racist and ahistorical threads running through the TeaParty numbnuts and their Fox and GOP enablers that it cannot be smacked down hard enough.  But lets try anyway.

And Lindsey, please borrow a quarter and buy a clue.