Tommy Tuberville on Birthright Citizenship

I don’t expect much from Senator Tommy Tuberville. I disagree with his political views, even more his disrespect and language denigrating so many.

So I was surprised when I started reading a 4th of July email from Coach, titled “what does it mean to be an American?” I actually agreed with his answer:

Being American was not about ancestry, appearance, or religion. It meant adherence to a set of principles: the rule of law, individual liberty, personal responsibility, and equality under the Constitution. Those principles did more than define the country—they built it. Assimilation has been a cornerstone of our nation since day one.

Disarmed, I wasn’t prepared for the rest:

The Supreme Court had the opportunity this week to reaffirm the Constitution and align with our 250-year history. Instead, six gutless Justices folded to the woke mob and ruled in favor of birthright citizenship. I wish I could say I was surprised. Ever since the Communist Left’s meltdown over Roe v. Wade, some of our Justices have been scared of their own shadows. Thankfully, we have patriots like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito trying to hold the line, but it’s an uphill battle against the Democrat Communists and the Uniparty.

If the Supreme Court won’t do their job and stand up for Americans, Congress has to. Now’s our chance to pass the SAVE America Act, legislation that will preserve our country for generations to come. If we don’t, our 250th birthday may very well be our last.

Flagrant BS that needed a response, if only to lower my blood pressure.

Senator Tuberville,

Thank you for your email celebrating Independence Day and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I resonated with your description of what it means to be an American:

Being American was not about ancestry, appearance, or religion. It meant adherence to a set of principles: the rule of law, individual liberty, personal responsibility, and equality under the Constitution. Those principles did more than define the country—they built it. Assimilation has been a cornerstone of our nation since day one.

Then, you made a contradictory U-turn criticizing the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding birthright citizenship, claiming they didn’t affirm the Constitution. Unless you choose to redefine the meaning of words, five of the Justices did indeed affirm the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

That seems quite clear.

Your reference to the ”woke mob” must refer to Congress in 1866, when the 14th Amendment was written. The term “woke” was not a word in 1866, and I doubt that Congress was a mob.

If you wish to repeal birthright citizenship, the process is clear: amend the Constitution. Passing the SAVE America Act will not do so. It will only disenfranchise the legal votes of many American citizens, arguably far more than any illegal votes that may be cast.

I’m relieved Tuberville is not running for reelection to the Senate. Unfortunately, he wants to be Alabama’s governor. That’s another quagmire: whether a person who lives in Florida when not in Washington, yet claims to be a resident of Alabama, is eligible to run.

Are We At War With Narco-Terrorists?

Since September, the U.S. military has been striking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the Trump administration claims are transporting drugs to the mainland. The administration also claims destroying the boats and killing the crews are warranted because we are at war with "narco-terrorists."

The first boat to be struck, on September 2, left two survivors with the remains of the boat. They were killed in a subsequent attack, intended to kill them. Was killing them a war crime or murder, since they posed no imminent threat to the military or U.S. mainland?

Regardless of the legal determination, my view is that killing them and the crews of the other boats is immoral, which prompted letters to Senator Britt and Representative Rogers.

I am writing to express my horror and disgust at the Trump administration’s policy of attacking boats in international waters, boats it claims are ferrying drugs into the U.S.

The location of these strikes belies the claim that they threaten the U.S. and warrant such a severe response. The Coast Guard’s longstanding interdiction process of disabling a boat and arresting the crew could be adopted by the military, yet that wouldn’t create the machismo, reality TV show of force to glorify the administration’s fake narrative.

These strikes are counter to the American values of presumed innocence and due process. The administration’s justification for a double-tap strike on September 2, to kill the remaining two crew members floating in the ocean with the shell of their boat, is absurd. Located so close to the coast of Venezuela, they posed no threat to the U.S. mainland or our military. The action was explicitly counter to the DoD Law of War Manual. making it a war crime or murder. Regardless of the legal definition, it was immoral.

If we are indeed at war with “narco-terrorists,” Congress should formally declare war. That Republicans in Congress remain mum, except for Senator Rand Paul, reflects the party’s lack of integrity, placing fealty to the president over their oath to the U.S. Constitution.

During my 72-year lifespan, the Trump presidency poses the worst challenge to the American democracy, and Congress is failing the Constitutional test.

 

Hagiography

Hagiography. A new word in my lexicon.

I’ve heard it from several pundits who are responding to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. None is applauding or justifying the killing. Quite the opposite, they are decrying the use of violence as a means of disagreement. Invoking hagiography, they are noting that many of the responses to his martyrdom are diminishing the divisive and hateful messages he promoted.

A good example from Jamelle Boule worth reading:
Charlie Kirk Didn’t Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn’t Either.

A Broken America

I first noticed Donald Trump when he claimed Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. Seriously? It seemed like a racist publicity stunt.

Then, he came down the escalator and announced he was running for president, disparaging Mexico and Mexicans. Seriously?

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. (Source: Time, Here’s Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech, June 16, 2015.)

Donald Trump’s campaign was a rant of negativity about the state of the country, claiming he alone could fix the ills and “make American great again.”

I didn’t take him seriously, wondering how anyone could. So I was stunned when he won and became president — he actually lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, 65,853,514 (48.2%) to 62,984,828 (46.1%) but won in the Electoral College. Seriously?

Trump’s presidency was tempestuous, violating norms of civic discourse and ethical governance. He has refused to concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden and hatched illegal schemes to remain in office, culminating in the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021. Arguably, an attempted coup.

So I’m stunned that he’s back on the ballot after being impeached twice, convicted and accused in multiple indictments, and promising revenge and retribution if reelected.

That we’ve come to this crossroad truly reflects a broken America.

Post by @garylerude@mindly.social

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Independence Day

I am searching for America, a country divided.

I see one side hearkening to a time when people knew and accepted their place in this land of no castes, striving through independence and hard work to raise a God-fearing family and live a comfortable life, working in the coal mines and factories of American industry, the manufacturing engine that created the consumer society.

The other side wants to add chairs around the table, so all have a seat no matter their skin color, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, belief in God or no god. All at the table have equal dignity and the opportunity to pursue the fabled American dream through freedom and hard work.

Langston Hughes, the Black writer and social activist whose work spanned the first half of the 20th Century, movingly captured this divide in his poem “Let American Be America Again.” He begins,

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Hughes goes on to paint a vision of the country living up to its founding ideals:

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Come November, we’ll learn how America sees itself, our values reflected through the peoples’ votes.

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Read the entire poem Let America Be America Again.

The Wikipedia biography of Hughes describes his ancestry, tragically too common:

Like many African-Americans, Hughes had a complex ancestry. Both of Hughes' paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved Africans, and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners in Kentucky.

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Also posted to Medium.