Judge Napolitano "Immigration is a right."

[ChristianAnarchist]

Great Caesar's Ghost's three ring flea circus on a pogo stick!
Someone else wants to discuss the constitutionality of the issue!!!!!

Hey CA, lemme stab in the dark here... did you become an anarchist when it became apparent that strict constitutionalists also don't give a running jump through a rolling donut what the document actually says?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Original intent: Feds control citizenship, States control immigration.

Through a long series of Federal laws, the Federal government has taken on the task of regulating borders and immigration.

Basic history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_immigration_legislation

Yes, like so many other areas, the Fedgov goons have gradually usurped power which was never given to them. According to the Constitution, they have power to determine citizenship, but not to control, regulate, restrict, nor have anything to do whatsoever with immigration nor emigration. They can't do it. They just can't. "Congress shall make no law respecting immigration" -- that is the Constitution's position on the matter. But I don't read that, you say? It doesn't have that in there? It doesn't need to. I'll put it this way: there is, at the end of the Constitution, a very long list of provisions. It goes something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting mining
Congress shall make no law respecting housing
Congress shall make no law respecting fishing
Congress shall make no law respecting logging
Congress shall make no law respecting plastics
Congress shall make no law respecting schools
Congress shall make no law respecting construction
Congress shall make no law respecting computers
Congress shall make no law respecting wages
Congress shall make no law respecting prices
Congress shall make no law respecting gay marriage
Congress shall make no law respecting wealth redistribution
Congress shall make no law respecting bread production
Congress shall make no law respecting milk pasteurization
Congress shall make no law respecting marijuana consumption
Congress shall make no law respecting old-age pension schemes
etc.

It goes on into infinity. Congress can make no laws in any areas whatsoever other than about 17 specific powers granted to it, in Article 1, Section 8. That's the key belief to being a strict contructionist Constitutionalist. Otherwise, how are you going to say that Social Security, Obamacare, drones, or anything are unconstitutional? You aren't. You can't.

Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then sure make up whatever stupid junk you want and say the gov't can do that. Whee! I, though, think that if the Constitution is to have any meaning at all, if we're going to show any respect to it at all, then the words that are actually written in it have to obeyed, as opposed to whatever words might pop into your head which you think should have been there.

Also, I happen to think simply following the Constitution would be a pretty acceptable compromise position to most here. Maybe -- feel free to set me straight if not. But AntiFederalist mentioned that he's fine with immigration, just as long as they can't vote. Many others have mentioned them getting various gov't handouts. Others have expressed the sentiment that the law should be followed. Well this addresses all of that. Immigration and citizenship are two separate issues. Separate them out properly, and a lot of these controversies go away. Obviously only citizens should be permitted to vote -- no question. And also, very clearly no non-citizen should be permitted to receive any gov't handouts. Settled. And if we care about following the law, the Constitution is the biggest law of them all. No "law" which violates the Constitution is even any law at all -- it's illegal, it's null and void. Laws about "illegal immigration" are themselves illegal. Let's follow the Constitution.

 

[FreeHampshire]

Conversations concerning open borders on here usually fall back on the usual libertarian talking points. The idea that libertarian policies will create a free society is untried and ahistorical. Rather, when we see nations with unchecked immigration, tyranny increases. It is estimated that 1 billion people from around the world would move to America if we had totally open borders, this is 1 billion people from the world around us which overwhelmingly supports barack obama. In most nations he is actually seen as a right-winger or a moderate at best, rather than an extremist left-winger. Until the anti-borders types explain how a society with no walls makes us all safer, more productive, and increasingly prosperous as a nation, they cannot advocate such a position. Doing so would actually make them statists, as the vast majority of immigrants, both legal and illegal, prefer the Democratic Party. The few that would go GOP would be be pure RINOs that were won over by Mccain or Rubio's antics.

Then there is the argument, that, if we magically accepted immigrants from all over and had no borders then the populace would be inclined to eliminate social benefits such as welfare. But that is pure fantasy, the immigrants and roughly 50% of Americans have a massive incentive to keep these government programs, there will be no elimination. The people, politics, and media alike will opt for a statist solution. The country will be swung to the extreme Left, which is probably a-OK with the bulk of people on this forum.


The original intent of the Constitution would actually imply controlled immigration. For enemies, both foreign and domestic, need to be taken care of, and this has always included immigrant groups. Historically speaking, invasions are often synonymous with migrations. See the Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain as an example. And legally speaking, not a single founding father or author of the Constitution, AoC, Declaration of Independence advocated for mass immigration, unchecked immigration, or open borders.

 

[FreeHampshire]

Actually, according to you and the other libertardians on here, the Native Americans should be the happiest people in the world.

 

[presence]

Immigration and freedom

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Published January 31, 2013

FoxNews.com

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/immigration-and-freedom/#ixzz2JkLfz1RS


As President Obama and Congress grapple for prominence in the debate over immigration, both have lost sight of the true nature of the issue at hand.

The issue the politicians and bureaucrats would rather avoid is the natural law. The natural law is a term used to refer to human rights that all persons possess by virtue of our humanity. These rights encompass areas of human behavior where individuals are sovereign and thus need no permission from the government before making choices in those areas. Truly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, only God is sovereign -- meaning He is the source of His own power.

Having received freedom from our Creator and, in America, thanks to the values embraced by most of the Founding Fathers, individuals are sovereign with respect to our natural rights. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our sovereignty is a part of our human nature, and our humanity is a gift from God. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson himself recognized personal sovereignty in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote about Nature’s God as the Creator and thus the originator of our inalienable human rights.

If the government can restrain the freedom to travel on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth, there is no limit to the restraints it can impose.

​

The rights that Jefferson identified consist of the well-known litany of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By the time his ideological soul mate James Madison was serving as the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the list of natural rights had been expanded to include those now encompassed by the Bill of Rights. Yet again, the authors of the Constitution and its first 10 amendments recognized that the rights being insulated from government interference had their origin in a source other than the government.

This view of the natural law is sweet to the heart and pleasing to the ear when politicians praise it at patriotic events, but it is also a bane to them when it restrains their exercise of the coercive powers of the government. Thus, since the freedom of speech, the development of personality, the right to worship or not to worship, the right to use technologically contemporary means for self-defense, the right to be left alone, and the right to own and use property all stem from our humanity, the government simply is without authority to regulate human behavior in these areas, no matter what powers it purports to give to itself and no matter what crises may occur. Among the rights in this category is the freedom of movement, which today is called the right to travel.
The right to travel is an individual personal human right, long recognized under the natural law as immune from governmental interference. Of course, governments have been interfering with this right for millennia. The Romans restricted the travel of Jews; Parliament restricted the travel of serfs; Congress restricted the travel of slaves; and starting in the late 19th century, the federal government has restricted the travel of non-Americans who want to come here and even the travel of those already here. All of these abominable restrictions of the right to travel are based not on any culpability of individuals, but rather on membership in the groups to which persons have belonged from birth.

The initial reasons for these immigration restrictions involved the different appearance and culture of those seeking to come here and the nativism of those running the government here. Somehow, the people who ran the government believed that they who were born here were superior persons and more worthy of American-style freedoms than those who sought to come here. This extols nativism.

Nativism is the arch-enemy of the freedom to travel, as its adherents believe they can use the coercive power of the government to impair the freedom of travel of persons who are unwanted not because of personal behavior, but solely on the basis of where they were born. Nativism teaches that we lack natural rights and enjoy only those rights the government permits us to exercise.

Yet, the freedom to travel is a fundamental natural right. This is not a novel view. In addition to Aquinas and Jefferson, it has been embraced by St. Augustine, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II and Justice Clarence Thomas. Our fundamental human rights are not conditioned or even conditionable on the laws or traditions of the place where our mothers were physically located when we were born. They are not attenuated because our mothers were not in the United States at the moment of our births. Stated differently, we all possess natural rights, no more and no less than any others. All humans have the full panoply of freedom of choice in areas of personal behavior protected from governmental interference by the natural law, no matter where they were born.

Americans are not possessed of more natural rights than non-Americans; rather, we enjoy more opportunities to exercise those rights because the government is theoretically restrained by the Constitution, which explicitly recognizes the natural law. That recognition is articulated in the Ninth Amendment, which declares that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution shall not be used by the government as an excuse to deny or disparage other unnamed and unnamable rights retained by the people.

So, if I want to invite my cousins from Florence, Italy, to come here and live in my house and work on my farm in New Jersey, or if a multinational corporation wants the best engineers from India to work in its labs in Texas, or if my neighbor wants a friend of a friend from Mexico City to come here to work in his shop, we have the natural right to ask, they have the natural right to come here, and the government has no moral right to interfere with any of these freely made decisions.

If the government can restrain the freedom to travel on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth, there is no limit to the restraints it can impose.


Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/immigration-and-freedom/#ixzz2JkLaIElx
​

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

No one who has to pay property taxes owns their land. So that leaves how many landowners in the United States?

The Federal and State governments, the people of the United States, own public land. Your property is the sidewalk. In Mexico, in order to protect himself as the emperor of the Western World, Santa Anna granted most of the land over to 35,000 families.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Actually, according to you and the other libertardians on here, the Native Americans should be the happiest people in the world.

It was the prior Puritan culture of the old pagan order that put the Native Americans on reservations and not the new order our Founders declared as a natural right within the Declaration of Independence.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Yes, like so many other areas, the Fedgov goons have gradually usurped power which was never given to them. According to the Constitution, they have power to determine citizenship, but not to control, regulate, restrict, nor have anything to do whatsoever with immigration nor emigration. They can't do it. They just can't. "Congress shall make no law respecting immigration" -- that is the Constitution's position on the matter. But I don't read that, you say? It doesn't have that in there? It doesn't need to. I'll put it this way: there is, at the end of the Constitution, a very long list of provisions. It goes something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting mining
Congress shall make no law respecting housing
Congress shall make no law respecting fishing
Congress shall make no law respecting logging
Congress shall make no law respecting plastics
Congress shall make no law respecting schools
Congress shall make no law respecting construction
Congress shall make no law respecting computers
Congress shall make no law respecting wages
Congress shall make no law respecting prices
Congress shall make no law respecting gay marriage
Congress shall make no law respecting wealth redistribution
Congress shall make no law respecting bread production
Congress shall make no law respecting milk pasteurization
Congress shall make no law respecting marijuana consumption
Congress shall make no law respecting old-age pension schemes
etc.

It goes on into infinity. Congress can make no laws in any areas whatsoever other than about 17 specific powers granted to it, in Article 1, Section 8. That's the key belief to being a strict contructionist Constitutionalist. Otherwise, how are you going to say that Social Security, Obamacare, drones, or anything are unconstitutional? You aren't. You can't.

Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then sure make up whatever stupid junk you want and say the gov't can do that. Whee! I, though, think that if the Constitution is to have any meaning at all, if we're going to show any respect to it at all, then the words that are actually written in it have to obeyed, as opposed to whatever words might pop into your head which you think should have been there.

Also, I happen to think simply following the Constitution would be a pretty acceptable compromise position to most here. Maybe -- feel free to set me straight if not. But AntiFederalist mentioned that he's fine with immigration, just as long as they can't vote. Many others have mentioned them getting various gov't handouts. Others have expressed the sentiment that the law should be followed. Well this addresses all of that. Immigration and citizenship are two separate issues. Separate them out properly, and a lot of these controversies go away. Obviously only citizens should be permitted to vote -- no question. And also, very clearly no non-citizen should be permitted to receive any gov't handouts. Settled. And if we care about following the law, the Constitution is the biggest law of them all. No "law" which violates the Constitution is even any law at all -- it's illegal, it's null and void. Laws about "illegal immigration" are themselves illegal. Let's follow the Constitution.

Exactly. That is true on many levels. On the secular, consider how Christ didn't even deal with the emperor? Instead, he dealt with a governor of a state in Pilate and a king of a city state in Herod. Empires are supposed to be dissolved. We shouldn't recognize such tyrannies. The people in charge no longer speak our language. They are so out of touch that they should be considered foreigners.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Conversations concerning open borders on here usually fall back on the usual libertarian talking points. The idea that libertarian policies will create a free society is untried and ahistorical. Rather, when we see nations with unchecked immigration, tyranny increases. It is estimated that 1 billion people from around the world would move to America if we had totally open borders, this is 1 billion people from the world around us which overwhelmingly supports barack obama. In most nations he is actually seen as a right-winger or a moderate at best, rather than an extremist left-winger. Until the anti-borders types explain how a society with no walls makes us all safer, more productive, and increasingly prosperous as a nation, they cannot advocate such a position. Doing so would actually make them statists, as the vast majority of immigrants, both legal and illegal, prefer the Democratic Party. The few that would go GOP would be be pure RINOs that were won over by Mccain or Rubio's antics.

Then there is the argument, that, if we magically accepted immigrants from all over and had no borders then the populace would be inclined to eliminate social benefits such as welfare. But that is pure fantasy, the immigrants and roughly 50% of Americans have a massive incentive to keep these government programs, there will be no elimination. The people, politics, and media alike will opt for a statist solution. The country will be swung to the extreme Left, which is probably a-OK with the bulk of people on this forum.


The original intent of the Constitution would actually imply controlled immigration. For enemies, both foreign and domestic, need to be taken care of, and this has always included immigrant groups. Historically speaking, invasions are often synonymous with migrations. See the Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain as an example. And legally speaking, not a single founding father or author of the Constitution, AoC, Declaration of Independence advocated for mass immigration, unchecked immigration, or open borders.

In the end, despite president Obama's efforts, it won't be the social communist who bury our old dead asses. It will be Mexicans!

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The original intent of the Constitution would actually imply controlled immigration.

Why would that imply that? In what way was it "implied"? What does that even mean?

I know for me, if I was writing a document to delegate specific powers to a federal government, a document designed to create a limited government, only permitted to do certain things, and if I wanted this federal government to have a certain power X, I would make sure that power X was on the list of things that they could do! If I forgot to put it on the list, that is a major oversight! It's the difference between the federal government being permitted to do it, and forbidden to do it. Immigration is not on the list. Go read the list. It's not there. Where is your leg to stand on? You have none.

Are you interested in the least in following the Constitution? I am an advocate, a very strong advocate, of following, very strictly, the rule of law: the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution was written very precisely to restrain the power and force of government, and to protect the liberties of each and every one of us. Let's follow the Constitution.

For enemies, both foreign and domestic, need to be taken care of, and this has always included immigrant groups. Historically speaking, invasions are often synonymous with migrations. See the Anglo-Saxon migration into Britain as an example.

One can make the same kind of lame consequentialist arguments for any unconstitutional action. Let me demonstrate:

The general welfare of the people has always been a paramount responsibility of the government. This very clearly includes not allowing hundreds of millions of the old and infirm to starve in the gutters of our streets. That is, one would think, a bare minimum standard, not to be a society of good people even, but if we are to be able to consider ourselves to be even just barely human! The founders did not intend for our elderly to all die gruesome deaths. Social Security cannot and must not be ended. The original intent of the Constitution implies that Social Security is Constitutional.​

And legally speaking, not a single founding father or author of the Constitution, AoC, Declaration of Independence advocated for mass immigration, unchecked immigration, or open borders.

And legally speaking, not a single founding father advocated for killing all old people in the gutters. Furthermore, not a single one ever made a single argument against having a nationalized old-age pension plan run by the federal government. They didn't.​

See how that works? And in point of fact, it's true: they didn't. Not a one spoke a word against Social Security.

Now it looks like a parallel, but actually the case against the Constitutionality of immigration restrictions is perhaps stronger than that against the Constitutionality of Social Security if your standard is looking at what the founders said and wrote. For though no founder wrote a word against a national pyramid scheme, there were some who wrote and spoke in favor of free immigration. Some more energetic researcher could find you some quotes proving it.

It's also important to note that the actual policy of the United States up until 1875 was one of completely unrestricted immigration. Not even any health test and required shots, no check-in, no signing the guest book, no Ellis Island, nothing. Zip. Scratch. If the men who wrote the Constitution felt so strongly about restricting immigration, perhaps they would have written a law doing so, don't you think? Why did it take until 100 years later, in the Progressive Era, for this enlightened reform to finally take shape? And even then, the 1875 law was not restrictive at all. It didn't limit numbers, it just made some rules and procedures for immigrants to follow: sign the guestbook, don't bring a plague, etc. The first real restriction on the amount of immigration came in the 1920s.

I am very skeptical of things that the federal government never, never did until the Progressive Era. As a rule, they tend to be grossly outrageous and completely illegal under the Constitution. The Progressives simply ignored the Constitution when it didn't suit them. This issue of immigration is no exception.

 

[erowe1]

Rather, when we see nations with unchecked immigration, tyranny increases.

Tyranny increases everywhere and always has, regardless of immigration policies.

Until the anti-borders types explain how a society with no walls makes us all safer, more productive, and increasingly prosperous as a nation, they cannot advocate such a position.

Do you apply this test to all policy positions? A person has to prove the policy will make us better off before they can support it? To me it always comes down to black-and-white ethical issues. If I demand that you only hire people with my permission lest I punish you somehow, then I do wrong. I have no choice but to be against that.

 

[otherone]

It's also important to note that the actual policy of the United States up until 1875 was one of completely unrestricted immigration.

Actually, no one was even a citizen of the US until 1868.

 

[FreeHampshire]

Why would that imply that? In what way was it "implied"? What does that even mean?

I know for me, if I was writing a document to delegate specific powers to a federal government, a document designed to create a limited government, only permitted to do certain things, and if I wanted this federal government to have a certain power X, I would make sure that power X was on the list of things that they could do! If I forgot to put it on the list, that is a major oversight! It's the difference between the federal government being permitted to do it, and forbidden to do it. Immigration is not on the list. Go read the list. It's not there. Where is your leg to stand on? You have none.

Are you interested in the least in following the Constitution? I am an advocate, a very strong advocate, of following, very strictly, the rule of law: the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution was written very precisely to restrain the power and force of government, and to protect the liberties of each and every one of us. Let's follow the Constitution.

One can make the same kind of lame consequentialist arguments for any unconstitutional action. Let me demonstrate:

The general welfare of the people has always been a paramount responsibility of the government. This very clearly includes not allowing hundreds of millions of the old and infirm to starve in the gutters of our streets. That is, one would think, a bare minimum standard, not to be a society of good people even, but if we are to be able to consider ourselves to be even just barely human! The founders did not intend for our elderly to all die gruesome deaths. Social Security cannot and must not be ended. The original intent of the Constitution implies that Social Security is Constitutional.​

And legally speaking, not a single founding father advocated for killing all old people in the gutters. Furthermore, not a single one ever made a single argument against having a nationalized old-age pension plan run by the federal government. They didn't.​

See how that works? And in point of fact, it's true: they didn't. Not a one spoke a word against Social Security.

Now it looks like a parallel, but actually the case against the Constitutionality of immigration restrictions is perhaps stronger than that against the Constitutionality of Social Security if your standard is looking at what the founders said and wrote. For though no founder wrote a word against a national pyramid scheme, there were some who wrote and spoke in favor of free immigration. Some more energetic researcher could find you some quotes proving it.

It's also important to note that the actual policy of the United States up until 1875 was one of completely unrestricted immigration. Not even any health test and required shots, no check-in, no signing the guest book, no Ellis Island, nothing. Zip. Scratch. If the men who wrote the Constitution felt so strongly about restricting immigration, perhaps they would have written a law doing so, don't you think? Why did it take until 100 years later, in the Progressive Era, for this enlightened reform to finally take shape? And even then, the 1875 law was not restrictive at all. It didn't limit numbers, it just made some rules and procedures for immigrants to follow: sign the guestbook, don't bring a plague, etc. The first real restriction on the amount of immigration came in the 1920s.

I am very skeptical of things that the federal government never, never did until the Progressive Era. As a rule, they tend to be grossly outrageous and completely illegal under the Constitution. The Progressives simply ignored the Constitution when it didn't suit them. This issue of immigration is no exception.

The problem is that you're throwing the words "unconstituional" around as if the Constitution existed in a vacuum. This is the very same Constitution that didn't recognize blacks or indigenous americans as fully Human, and thus they didn't have the same rights as White civilians. Going off of a pure constitutional viewpoint, as you are, you would be forced to slaughter and enslave as many blacks as possible right now. You have to look at the context in which the Constitution was written and what the founding fathers thought about immigration in general. Benjamin Franklin was a staunch opponent of German immigration, see here:


Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious."

Contrary to what most Americans may believe, in fact, the Founding Fathers were by and large skeptical of immigration.

- Thomas Woods


There is simply no american tradition for mass migration, illegal immigration, or unchecked immigrant of any sort. There is nothing in it in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles, or the Constitution. The only people in the real world who advocate such nonsense are excited about a permanent Democratic majority, which I suspect atleast half of the people on this forum secretly wish for as well.

Tyranny increases everywhere and always has, regardless of immigration policies.

No, just the opposite. Compare Arizona's policies with California. Making America, a first world nation & sole superpower which is proven successful, into a nation like Mexico, which is a borderline failed state, is pure madness. You're simply going to get a third world culture and people with a significantly lower IQ that will vote for crooked Democratic politicians.

 

[erowe1]

people with a significantly lower IQ that will vote for crooked Democratic politicians.

Is that supposed to be worse than people with high IQ that vote for crooked Republicans?

The answer to California's problems isn't more government, it's less.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The problem is that you're throwing the words "unconstituional" around as if the Constitution existed in a vacuum.

I am merely proposing that the government follow the Constitution. Are you proposing that they disobey it?

 

[Brian4Liberty]

"Those who live by the immigrant, die by the immigrant."

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Yes, like so many other areas, the Fedgov goons have gradually usurped power which was never given to them. According to the Constitution, they have power to determine citizenship, but not to control, regulate, restrict, nor have anything to do whatsoever with immigration nor emigration. They can't do it. They just can't. "Congress shall make no law respecting immigration" -- that is the Constitution's position on the matter. But I don't read that, you say? It doesn't have that in there? It doesn't need to. I'll put it this way: there is, at the end of the Constitution, a very long list of provisions. It goes something like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting mining
Congress shall make no law respecting housing
Congress shall make no law respecting fishing
Congress shall make no law respecting logging
Congress shall make no law respecting plastics
Congress shall make no law respecting schools
Congress shall make no law respecting construction
Congress shall make no law respecting computers
Congress shall make no law respecting wages
Congress shall make no law respecting prices
Congress shall make no law respecting gay marriage
Congress shall make no law respecting wealth redistribution
Congress shall make no law respecting bread production
Congress shall make no law respecting milk pasteurization
Congress shall make no law respecting marijuana consumption
Congress shall make no law respecting old-age pension schemes
etc.

It goes on into infinity. Congress can make no laws in any areas whatsoever other than about 17 specific powers granted to it, in Article 1, Section 8. That's the key belief to being a strict contructionist Constitutionalist. Otherwise, how are you going to say that Social Security, Obamacare, drones, or anything are unconstitutional? You aren't. You can't.

Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then sure make up whatever stupid junk you want and say the gov't can do that. Whee! I, though, think that if the Constitution is to have any meaning at all, if we're going to show any respect to it at all, then the words that are actually written in it have to obeyed, as opposed to whatever words might pop into your head which you think should have been there.

Also, I happen to think simply following the Constitution would be a pretty acceptable compromise position to most here. Maybe -- feel free to set me straight if not. But AntiFederalist mentioned that he's fine with immigration, just as long as they can't vote. Many others have mentioned them getting various gov't handouts. Others have expressed the sentiment that the law should be followed. Well this addresses all of that. Immigration and citizenship are two separate issues. Separate them out properly, and a lot of these controversies go away. Obviously only citizens should be permitted to vote -- no question. And also, very clearly no non-citizen should be permitted to receive any gov't handouts. Settled. And if we care about following the law, the Constitution is the biggest law of them all. No "law" which violates the Constitution is even any law at all -- it's illegal, it's null and void. Laws about "illegal immigration" are themselves illegal. Let's follow the Constitution.

It's a nice thought, but nobody's actually come up with an enforcement mechanism. Want to exercise your rights of nullification or secession? You'd better be able to outgun the Feds (which is highly unlikely unless you can get a foreign military to cover your ass). As far as I can see, this is mostly an academic exercise/thought experiment until you can force the Feds to back down in the event of a standoff. If you have compelling evidence otherwise, I'd gladly consider it.

 

[Occam's Banana]

It's a nice thought, but nobody's actually come up with an enforcement mechanism. Want to exercise your rights of nullification or secession? You'd better be able to outgun the Feds (which is highly unlikely unless you can get a foreign military to cover your ass). As far as I can see, this is mostly an academic exercise/thought experiment until you can force the Feds to back down in the event of a standoff. If you have compelling evidence otherwise, I'd gladly consider it.

Actually, it doesn't have to go as far as being able to fend off the Feds in an outright standoff.

In order to successfully exercise nullification (or even secession), for example, you don't actually have to be able to "outgun the Feds", as you put it (although being able to do so certainly wouldn't hurt). You only have to reach a point at which it would be imprudent for the Feds to take action against you. In order to force the Feds to back down, you don't have to confront them physically - you just have to be in a position from which it would cost more to the Feds to impose their dominance than they would stand to gain (or retain) by doing so. If this were not the case, then there could be no real hopes for non-violent revolution.

A specific (and very important) example of what I am talking about here is manifested in one aspect of the gun control issue. Defenders of the right to keep and bear arms argue (or should argue) that gun rights are a bulwark against tyranny. Critics of this argument say that it is rendered moot by "jets and tanks". They claim that the argument is outdated and invalidated by the (alleged) fact that it would be easy for the the federal government to militarily "outgun" any armed citizens who stood up against it. Setting aside entirely the issue of whether this assertion is actually true (examples such as Vietnam and Afghanistan seem to militate against it), the claim fails to account for the fact that the matter is not nearly as simple as "jets and tanks beat assault rifles - game over, end of story!" The domestic application of "jets and tanks" against American citizenry is *extremely* problematic in its political ramifications [1] - so much so that the military aspect of the matter almost becomes irrelevant. This is *especially* true when it comes to any significant degree of general popular discontent - in that case, the Feds may very well make matter even worse (for themselves) by employing a "jets and tanks" approach.

[1] Would were it only so when it comes to the application of such against foreign citizenries abroad!

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

Looking back through the posts, I see NO ONE is able to show constitutional "authority" for the feds controlling immigration. Since it seems we are all in agreement that it's NOT IN THERE, does this mean that those of you who are for immigration control do not "believe" in the constitution???

 

[No Free Beer]

This is the very same Constitution that didn't recognize blacks or indigenous americans as fully Human, and thus they didn't have the same rights as White civilians.

Prove