The Freedom Bulletin

House Minority Leader John Boehner just said that it is “worth considering” to change the policy of granting U.S. citizenship to everyone who is born in this country, even children of illegal immigrants. Right now, the Fourteenth Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” In addition to Boehner, Senators John McCain, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Sessions have expressed interest in the possibility of changing this amendment or interpreting it differently so that children of illegal immigrants are not automatically citizens.

I like this idea and am glad to see it being discussed by mainstream politicians. Where someone happens to be born is morally arbitrary – obviously, no one chooses where to be born – so there is no reason why being born in a country should automatically make one a citizen. It would make more sense for children to have the same citizenship as their parents, or have dual citizenship if their parents are citizens of two different countries. Being born in America does not guarantee that someone is going to be raised in the American culture or feel loyalty to America. Wouldn’t it make more sense for people to be, by default, citizens of the country whose culture they are raised in instead of the one where they happen to be born? Additionally, the last thing America needs is more incentives for illegal immigration, and revoking birthright citizenship would remove one such incentive.

This line of argument raises another question: Isn’t it just as arbitrary to base citizenship on who one’s parents are, as opposed to where one is born? To some extent, yes. A baby who is born in America to parents who have lived here their whole lives has not done anything more to earn citizenship than a baby born here to illegal immigrants. In a way, it doesn’t make sense to automatically make newborn babies citizens of any country at all. In an ideal system, perhaps people could be born citizens of no country and then as they mature they could decide whether they want to be citizens of the country they live in, the country their parents are from, or another country entirely. They could then take the required citizenship tests, if any. That way, people could freely choose which country to call home, and citizenship would be something that people earn instead of being automatically given based on arbitrary factors.

A radical idea, I know, but repealing birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants would be a step in the right direction.

The recent court decisions about S.B. 1070, Arizona’s immigration law, and Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning gay marriage in California, have something in common. They both involve people calling certain laws unconstitutional.

Last Wednesday, Federal Judge Susan Bolton ordered an injunction against some parts of Arizona’s immigration law in response to a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, which claims the law is unconstitutional because the federal government, not the states, should have the power to regulate immigration. This Wednesday, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8, calling it unconstitutional.

I have a question for judges, lawyers, the Department of Justice, and America as a whole: if you’re going to be calling laws unconstitutional, aren’t there better laws to call unconstitutional than these?

I am opposed to one part of the Arizona law – the part that makes illegal “the failure to apply for or carry alien registration papers.” Simply existing, legally, in this country but without registration papers does not hurt anyone or violate anyone’s rights. But the rest of the law isn’t bad. Illegal immigration is a serious problem, and I applaud Arizona’s attempt to deal with it.

I don’t think that Proposition 8 violates anyone’s rights at all, because I don’t think that marriage is a right, per se. If the government cared about equality, they would stop granting government recognition to marriages entirely and leave this to individuals and private organizations. Rewarding people for committing to a relationship, whether gay or straight, sends the unfair, false message that couples are superior to single people.

Now for some laws that are really unconstitutional and severely violate people’s rights:

• The Durham-Humphrey Amendment: Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given the power to ban people from taking medications without a doctor’s permission. Has this law ever been challenged in court? Not to my knowledge.
• The TSA’s use of full-body scanners as a primary method of airport security screening: To perform highly invasive searches on millions of people who aren’t even suspected of any crimes blatantly violates the Fourth Amendment.
• The individual health insurance mandate: The power to regulate interstate commerce does not mean the power to force people to engage in commerce.

I understand that obviously, the particular judges who made the rulings in Arizona and California have never, to my knowledge, had the opportunity to address these other laws…so the individual judges are not being hypocritical. But it says something about America as a whole that the government calls two mostly good laws unconstitutional while at least three horribly anti-liberty laws are currently considered perfectly constitutional. Hopefully liberty’s brave friends at EPIC and in Virginia will change this.

Further reading:

Court Order about Arizona law (PDF)

Photo credits: Prop 8 rally by 1FlatWorld (CC ASA 2.0); immigration law protest by Fibonacci Blue (CC ASA 2.0)

As you know by now if you haven’t been living under a rock, the state of Arizona passed an illegal immigration crackdown bill, which criminalizes illegal immigration and transporting illegal immigrants under state law and allows police, if there is reasonable suspicion, to question people about their immigration status and arrest them if they cannot prove they are legal residents.

Does this bill violate people’s civil rights as its opponents claim? Well, making illegal immigration a crime is a no brainer – that’s why it’s called illegal immigration. Cracking down on illegal immigration is something America needs right now. It’s never a good thing to have people benefitting from government services without paying taxes, and that is what most illegal immigrants do. I’m also not immensely worried that the bill will cause racial profiling, as it specifies that race or ethnicity is not sufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion.

However, I don’t like the idea of a law requiring people to prove their innocence instead of the state having to prove their guilt. The presumption of innocence is a central part of the American legal system, and it should stay that way. People should not have to carry papers around to prove to police that they are not illegal immigrants; the police should have to prove that they are.

If there is one rule that everyone, especially the government, should follow, it is this: Don’t punish innocent people. You can ban something without requiring everyone who is suspected of it to prove that they are innocent. Murder is illegal, but the government has to prove people’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This same should be true of illegal immigration. I strongly support cracking down on illegal immigrants, but requiring people to prove their innocence is not the way to do it.

This doesn’t happen every day. I think I just found the most preposterous statement I’ve ever heard or read.

According to Dr. Mark Einstein, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in New York,

“Quite frankly, from a science standpoint and outreach, everyone does ultimately as an adult have sex.”

This blatantly false statement came to my attention in an article from ABC about British girl Simone Davis, who wants to become a US citizen but can’t because she is celibate and doesn’t want the HPV vaccine Gardasil. Apparently, the 1996 Immigration and Naturalization Act requires all immigrants to receive all vaccinations recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, and Gardasil was added to that list in 2008.

This raises several questions, including…

• What is the rationale behind requiring all immigrants to get a vaccine for a disease that only people who have sex can get?
• Does the government even have a right to require vaccines to become a permanent resident or citizen?
• Why didn’t I know about this sooner?
• How could anyone with half a brain say that everyone has sex?
• How did such a moron become an associate professor?
• Why does someone so stupid have the name Einstein?

Obviously, requiring the HPV vaccine in order to become a U.S. permanent resident is outrageous. First of all, I don’t think the government has any right to require vaccines of anyone, for any reason. Second, they definitely don’t have a right to require a vaccine for a sexually-transmitted disease because, contrary to Dr. Einstein’s claim, not everyone has sex.

I am opposed to giving STD vaccines to children, let alone requiring them. No one should get such a vaccine against their will, and in the case of children it is usually the parents who make decisions about medical treatment, not the children themselves. People themselves, not their parents, should have to freely consent in order to receive an STD vaccine. Additionally, recommending Gardasil sexualizes girls and is extremely offensive to asexual and celibate people, because it sends the message that all girls will have sex, a message that is false.

Mark Einstein might just be my new least favorite person in the world. How could someone with an IQ above 10 possibly believe that all adults have sex? This is incredibly insulting to asexuals and other people who choose not to have sex. Just because Dr. Einstein has sex (and I assume he does or else he wouldn’t have said what he said) does not mean that everyone else does. I love flags, but do I assume that everyone else loves flags, too? No. I hate rainy weather, but do I assume everyone else does, too? No. I think you get the picture. Einstein is bigoted and intolerant to assume that everyone does what he does and to deny the existence of people who are different from him. Apparently Einstein thinks that Isaac Newton never existed, or Immanuel Kant, or Jesus, to give just a few examples. Also, no popes or priests or nuns or monks have ever existed either, I guess. To repeat a fact that should be obvious to everyone,

NOT EVERYONE HAS SEX.

I also want to criticize the mainstream media for not calling more attention to this story, both the requirement of Gardasil in 2008 and Simone’s experience. This is an atrocity, and all Americans should be outraged about it! Also, ABC erred, in my opinion, by writing that Einstein “debunks Simone’s claim that she doesn’t need the vaccine because she is not having sex.” This implies that Einstein is right and Simone is wrong, while the opposite is actually true. The article should read “incorrectly attempts to debunk,” or at least “attempts to debunk” or “argues against.”

Citizenship and Immigration Services needs to take Gardasil off the required vaccines list. Simone seems like a strong girl of good moral character, who thinks for herself instead of having sex and mindlessly agreeing with what everyone else says. We should be encouraging more people like her to come to America!

Is it just me, or is the Bush family turning into a bunch of liberals? I learned recently that both George W. and Jeb Bush, while serving as governors of Texas and Florida, respectively, have signed bills guaranteeing women the right to breastfeed their babies in public, something I completely oppose.

Now President Bush is saying he’s “happy” about Mary Cheney’s pregnancy with her lesbian partner, and Jeb is bashing Congressman Tom Tancredo for his brave comments, of which any conservative should be proud. Last month, Tancredo compared Miami to a “third world country” because it is filled with non-English speaking non-whites who refuse to look, speak, act, and think like true Americans. All I can say is that Tancredo is right on! Yet Jeb called him a “nut.” What a complete loser! Shame on you, Governor Bush.

Rep. Tancredo, however, seems like a patriotic, intelligent man. Therefore, he is my pick for Person of the Week! Visit his site at http://tancredo.house.gov.