You Want Civility? I’ll Show You Civility!

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I just received a Ron Paul flyer in the mail. In this particular piece of merde, Dr. Paul is arguing against illegal immigration. He believes he is the one candidate running who will stop it once and for all.

Part of his strategy is to amend the 14th amendment in the Constitution and end automatic birthright citizenship in the United States.

My initial and immediate reaction was…

Fuckity fuck fuck piece of shit racist bastard. What an asshole you are for pulling this shit, especially in the South where it is too damn easy as it is to appeal to the deep-seated racism here. Fuck off.

And then I thought of the fight going on here yesterday, and I see continuing somewhat today. And I thought it worth bringing to your attention.

Birthright citizenship is also referred to as Jus Soli. There is a very good wiki article on the subject here.

Without birthright citizenship, children can end up in a no-man’s land and have literally no citizenship anywhere until certain legal thresholds are met.

Dr. Paul’s position is a little more nuanced that I originally gave him credit for. To read more about it, here is his October 2, 2006 column on the subject, published in his official government web page.

An excerpt:

A recent article in the Houston Chronicle discusses the problem of so-called anchor babies, children born in U.S. hospitals to illegal immigrant parents.  These children automatically become citizens, and thus serve as an anchor for their parents to remain in the country. Our immigration authorities understandably are reluctant to break up families by deporting parents of young babies.  But birthright citizenship, originating in the 14th amendment, has become a serious cultural and economic dilemma for our nation. …

No other wealthy, western nations grant automatic citizenship to those who simply happen to be born within their borders to non-citizens (Ed. Note: not true, see the first link).  These nations recognize that citizenship involves more than the physical location of one’s birth; it also involves some measure of cultural connection and allegiance.  In most cases this means the parents must be citizens of a nation in order for their newborn children to receive automatic citizenship.

Make no mistake, Americans are happy to welcome immigrants who follow our immigration laws and seek a better life here.  America is far more welcoming and tolerant of newcomers than virtually any nation on earth.  But our modern welfare state creates perverse incentives for immigrants, incentives that cloud the issue of why people choose to come here.  The real problem is not immigration, but rather the welfare state magnet.

That pretty much sums up his thinking.

The truth is though – even thought he talks about the welfare state, Dr. Paul’s goal of rewriting the 14th Amendment will appeal to exactly those types of closet racists who are looking for any excuse to stick it to foreign immigrants. Especially those brown skinned foreign immigrants.

Friends, racism is still a real, living breathing issue in this country. It is simply (slightly) more subtle than it used to be.

It now comes wrapped in fancy packaged phrasing such as ‘you’re just racist against the white man’ or ‘goodness look how nice and normal they are behaving’ or ‘let’s modify the 14 Amendment on the grounds of the US being such a generous welfare state’. What utter bullshit.

And that, my friends, is truly uncivil. And uncivilized.

And I say fuck that noise.

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  1. We still have a long road ahead on this battle of ours.

    FWIW, we may have suffered some setbacks these past 8 to 40 years (depending on your perspective), but I still think we’ll win out in the end.

    But it will take a while. And a lot of work.

  2. Global War On ‘Them’

    There is no ‘other’ on this tiny little planet and until we figure that out, we are doomed to the cycle of war and destruction.

    We are all us.

  3. I heard an interesting interview on Air America in which a truck driver was discussing the lawn signs he sees, in Iowa the most predominate ones are Ron Paul and Obama. I think Ron Paul’s appeal like the other outlying candidates, is he offers not more of the same, and addresses people alarm at the drift away from the Constitution and our insane ‘foreign policy’, and the GWOT.

    The bigotry and racism and other horrific aspects of his positions lose most once known ( a trip to his website will do it), but probably appeal to extreme wingers for all the reasons you’ve stated. He is a whack job libertarian. The troubling thing for me is the refusal of the Democratic base and the candidates to look at his appeal, the sane part, and why it exists, instead of hysterically  knee jerking.      

  4. Many people are not even aware that they have subconscious opinions which give rise to making associations/assumptions. As an example: my parents, when seeing interviews of black politicians, movie starts or athletes would always comment on whether or not the person was articulate.

    The first assumption was that it was “bad”  if the person “sounded black” and “good” if the person “sounded white.” The second assumption was that they needed to comment – as if it were a surprise that a black person could be, in their estimate, articulate. A third assumption was that they thought their comments were compliments.

    And you know what? I’m sure there are even more assumptions that I’m missing. Which is, of course, my point.

    It’s not just racism – this embodies all forms of discrimination, which in turn makes discrimination so hard to eradicate. Because even people who try to not discriminate and work to increase their awareness are probably still, at some level, discriminating.

    My guiding principle in life is to always be learning and to always increase my awareness of other people and the world around me. I think this is what separates progressives from others. We tend to see multiple sides to every story and can try to extract from experiences that which will help us learn and increase our awareness. Many people, I think, are afraid to do that, because it can mean admitting that you were wrong.

  5. debate on, which as I cook I’m hearing parts of. It’s surreal it is an exercise in how low can we go as humans. The crowd being terrifying and the pols pumping it for all it’s worth. I stuck my head in and caught Ron Paul, on two occasions, the war which brought cheers, and his debasing, racist, sexist and generally bat shit nastiness, which also brought cheers.

    Jesus, one forgets how insane these people are. It truly puts the issues I have, or any other qualms I get about the  democrats in perspective. The squeeze I get from the status quo corporates, Democratic, does not hold a candle to the magnitude of the Republicans, of all stripes, depths of degradation of the human spirit, and the sickness of where they would take us. My dilemma  still remains intact, the issues are fractured and we all lose. Insanity reigns supreme.                    

  6. same page.  Excellent diary about the Republican Youtube debate that for me ices the cake of the tensions I feel living down here in the Southy South of Alabama.  Jena was shocking for me only that it seemed that people still cared about the plague of racism.  I’m exposed to so much of it I really started thinking nobody gave a shit anymore and we had digressed horribly. Racist people down here in the South are no longer as ashamed of displaying their racism under the current government. They have now swung into shamelessness…….both ineffective ways of dealing with their racist issues but if they won’t deal with their emotional problems I’d rather have to deal with them ashamed since it hints at wrong doing.

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