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Jon and Stephen didn’t agree with Tom Nichols’ strategy of voting D in the midterms to save the GOP — so we invited him on the show! Tom Nichols is a professor at the US Naval War College and the author of the best-selling book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. We also discuss the midterms and what it means for both parties as they prepare for 2020.
The intro/outro song is “Ray Purchase” by Peeping Drexels. Stephen’s song of the week is “One Trick Ponies” by Kurt Vile and Jon’s is “Narcissus” by TVAM. To listen to all the music featured on The Conservatarians, subscribe to our Spotify playlist!
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Just the small one that he’s willing to think about.
I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page here–it’s not half the problem of an Obama who did the like.
There are not unconvincing (to me, a layman) arguments that the 14th amendment can be read to not require birthright citizenship for people illegally in the country. The principles of the Constitution is that powers are overlapping and will be tested by each branch trying to expand theirs and being checked by other branches. It is also a falsehood that the Supreme Court is the only legitimate judge of Constitutionality. All three branches have the right and responsibility to judge Constitutionality for themselves (I still believe W should have been impeached for signing McCain-Feingold after saying that he thought it was Unconstitutional).
It is certainly within the Executive’s power to decline to issue passports for a class of people it does not believe are covered by the 14th Amendment and test the case.
It’s not like Trump spent two years saying he didn’t have the power to do anything about Birthright Citizenship before turning around and issuing such an executive order, as Obama did with DACA. *That* was reckless lawlessness. I can’t say I was paying attention to Mr. Nichols at the time, but I can’t help wondering if he was as exercised about that “authoritarianism” as he is with Mr. Trumps.
MWF, I dig on all points! You’re preaching to the choir, and the choir says “Amen.”
Only one minor concern. A Congressional statute on birthright citizenship puts limits on the President’s power to issue executive orders.
I reject the premise. The executive order could simply clarify the understanding of birthright citizenship to its intended purpose by, say, insisting that geography of one’s birth is inconsequential. It’s the citizenship of one’s parent(s) that matters. Birthright citizenship was never meant to make anchor babies for people who are citizens of another country and give birth after they’ve crossed the border illegally. That’s just absurd. I’m no lawyer, but I’m willing to bet there’s a way Trump could get us back to a sane understanding within the law.
But it’s the President’s job to execute Congressional statutes. He can only go so far without violating the statute that currently mandates birthright citizenship.
I dispute that’s what the statute actually does. From what I’ve read, it has been wrongly interpreted under changing immigration conditions over time. Writers at the time understood “under the jurisdiction of” to be the complete jurisdiction, not the temporary, partial jurisdiction applicable to visitors while they’re here, nor ambassadors and their children. Illegals are not under the complete jurisdiction of the US (they don’t have the right to vote, to a prompt trial by jury (they can be processed out of the country without benefit of a jury), to seek elective office…). They must obtain citizenship first. It makes no sense to grant automatic citizenship to their children when their native country is where they owe their allegiance and where they can seek out the full rights of their citizenship. I seriously doubt any other country in the world grants automatic citizenship to the babies born to Americans while they’re in-country, whether legally or illegally. We’re the only ones with such an insane interpretation of our laws.
It looks like you’re talking about the Constitution (on which I make no objection), not the Congressional statute to which I was referring.
If the statute is in violation of the Constitution, the Constitution supersedes it, and Trump would not be “lawless” in rectifying the law — he’d be upholding his duty to the Constitution.
I dig.
But the Constitution does not forbid birthright citizenship, does it? So if the Constitution does not require it and the statute does, the President is limited by the statute.
Which statute are we talking about?
I wondered if this would come up. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s the one I’ve heard them talking about them on podcasts!
The links in the first paragraph here might help:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States
Best I can do on a phone!
There’s nothing in there that states a legislative statute that interprets the 14th Ammendment.
Even Epstein notes that the often cited Ark case does not do so, as it was concerning the child born to legal residents of the US.
This appears to be an interpretation issue and all branches are equally allowed to weigh in.
End of the day, without legislation, the president has full ability to interpret the law for enforcement.
In all this, I had also heard an EO enshrined our current interpretation post-ark, but can’t find anything supporting that. There appears to be a lot of misinformation out there right now.
As a general rule, I enthusiastically agree. I just think there are limits to the President’s ability to interpret if there is a statute.
But if there’s not, then there’s not. I was pretty sure I’d heard them say there is on podcasts.
If it’s there but not in that link, hopefully someone else can find it.
I’m not sure, but I think you might be talking about precedent, not statute.
I’m definitely talking about statute. If our podcasters botched that, it’s on them.
Remembering the podcasts wrongly–that would be on me. It coulda happened! I give it at least a 25% chance. Sometimes 25% is enough–that’s why we have Trump.