Birthright citizenship.

Author: Greyparrot

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#1
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Birthright Citizenship was upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898.
In that decision, the court borrowed heavily with old English law regarding Scotsmen and English lands.

The British Nationality Act of 1981 officially ended birthright in the UK when they realized anchor babies were not just Scotsmen born in English lands, rather, it was creating incentives to bring in people who had no blood connection to the soil and thus forcing UK government to take on the burden of assimilating the anchor babies as the parents would be unable to do so.

45 years later, America still thinks it's a good idea to have millions of babies with no path to real assimilation.
This disconnects legal status from cultural integration. A child born here becomes a citizen, but if their parents aren’t part of the cultural or linguistic fabric of the country, then assimilation doesn’t happen naturally. Schools, welfare programs, and local governments become the stand-ins for that missing link, and from my own experience plus available data, they’re just not built to raise citizens from scratch.

This also undermines national cohesion. Citizenship should imply a cultural bond, shared values, shared language, shared obligations, priorities on liberty etc. When the government hands out citizenship automatically with no expectation of integration, you eventually get a patchwork society where people live in America but not as Americans. And when a critical number of de-facto non-Americans populate America, it turns from a cultural melting pot into a balkanized buffet.

Thoughts?
#2
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@Greyparrot
UK has conditional birthright citizenship. The condition is at least 1 parent needs to be a long term resident, preferably working, at the time of birth (conception and pregnancy are ignored).

This incentivises immigrants to be productive if they want to secure their offspring British citizenship.
#3
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@Greyparrot
You can be a 2nd gen immigrant to UK and be born with unbreakable British Citizenship. The difference with US is it is conditional on at least 1 parent being deemed a long-term resident of UK at the time of birth.
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#4
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@AdaptableRatman
Correct, in the UK, at least one parent is responsible for assimilating the child. Hence the blood connection to the soil.
#5
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I'm glad you can have kids that are citizens if you came here from a foreign country on an Einstein Visa even if you were a sex worker.
#6
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@Greyparrot
No. Both parents can be 1st gen immigrants and the child can be born British. It is about settlement, not blood.
#7
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@Greyparrot
Citizenship should imply a cultural bond, shared values, shared language, shared obligations, priorities on liberty etc.
We don't give noncitizens most rights that would be considered "inalienable" for citizens. If being a citizen isn't an inalienable right for anyone, then no rights are inalienable for anyone, since they are conditional on citizenship. Is there anyone who, in your view, has the "right" to be a citizen? If it's based on their parents being citizens, then do their parents have the "right" to be citizens?

If someone is born with one parent living in Country A and another parent living in Country B, do they have a right to live anywhere? If neither country wants them, should they just throw themselves into the ocean? What if their parents aren't citizens of any country? And if someone is born to parents in an extremely tiny country, do they only have inalienable rights on 0.01% of the globe?

I guess it could be argued that countries are like private property to some extent, but if 99% of roads, public spaces, lakes, etc. were privately owned by corporations and people could only access them at the permission of the owners, I think you would probably object to that. But that's kind of how countries work. And by extension, no rights are really considered inalienable, they're based on a bureaucratic designation that can be taken away at any time.

For reference, the American colonists weren't considered British citizens, which implies that a lot of the grievances they had against the British government weren't really justified. Presumably if they didn't like paying taxes to the British crown with no representation, they should have just left British territory.
#8
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@Greyparrot
The sole reason Rishi Sunak was able to end up Prime Minister vs never being eligible is that he was a 2nd generation Indian immigrant born British.

It is also irrelevant that India was British Commonwealth.

That proves to you, surely, how legitimately it is the case that UK has a variant of birthright citizenship that is seen as fully valid legally.

The US has a more literal and extreme variant. You are correct about that.
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#9
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@Savant
I notice you quoted me, and then provided not a single word addressing or resembling "cultural"

You drop all contention?
#10
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@Greyparrot
You drop all contention?
I thought the contention was implied. Are inalienable rights dependent on cultural beliefs? I mean, if free speech is based on what opinions you have then it's not really free speech.
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#11
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@Savant
What's the point in granting free speech to a culture that wants to ban free speech? That's a suicide pact you are describing.
#12
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@Greyparrot
What's the point in granting free speech to a culture that wants to ban free speech?
Does free speech include the right to oppose free speech? If not, why is that an exception?

granting free speech
If it's an inalienable right, you don't grant it.
#13
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@Greyparrot
What's the point in granting free speech to a culture that wants to ban free speech?
Transformation demands it.
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#14
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@Savant
If it's an inalienable right, you don't grant it.
It's objectively not. A John Lockean natural right to free speech can only exist within an enlightened culture. If you apply that idea to a culture that rejects rights like free speech, it's no longer natural, but granted.

Does free speech include the right to oppose free speech? Why wouldn't it?
Because then the country is gone. Replaced by a culture that grants no rights. Suicide pact.

#15
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America still thinks it's a good idea to have millions of babies with no path to real assimilation.
I think its more a matter of how difficult it is to amend the constitution rather than it being that people thinking its a good idea.
#16
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@Greyparrot
If it's an inalienable right, you don't grant it.
It's objectively not
Are any rights inalienable? You strike me as generally libertarian, so surely you believe there are some rights that exist without a government granting them.

Because then the country is gone. Replaced by a culture that grants no rights. Suicide pact.
So you want to limit speech but also deport other people for wanting to limit speech?
#17
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@Savant
If it's an inalienable right, you don't grant it.
Not exactly correct.

This is the problen for atheists; no secular rights are from anything other than popular consensus.

Even within Theistic mindset, legal rights stem from human consensus instead of true inalienable authority necessarily.

Also you mean inviolable instead of inalienable. It is obvious how you can deem a right inviolable and it stem from granted constitution or similar granted authoritative document.
#18
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@Greyparrot
Is the debate about UK's approach being ideal or is it about Fascistic approach vs fully open birthright?
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#19
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@Savant
Are any rights inalienable? You strike me as generally libertarian, so surely you believe there are some rights that exist without a government granting them.
Only within a John Lockean culture can that idea exist.

So you want to limit speech but also deport other people for wanting to limit speech?
I want to reserve rights for a culture that preserves those rights. This is the urgency and importance of cultural assimilation. We had an intergenerational cold war over this only to lose it in 2025 by declaring cultural assimilation pointless. I am not calling for censorship, I am calling for preservation. There’s a huge difference. We spent decades holding the line against authoritarian cultures precisely because they crushed free expression, dissent, conscience, and civic liberty. And now, somehow, we’re expected to import those same ideologies, tolerate them in the name of ‘diversity,’ and abandon the expectation of assimilation?

No thanks to that suicide pact.
#20
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@Greyparrot
Only within a John Lockean culture can that idea exist.
What's wrong with a John Lockean culture?

I want to reserve rights for a culture that preserves those rights.
Should anyone who disagrees with you on which rights ought to be preserved be censored or deported? No one is going to be in alignment with you all the time. Also, restricting speech and Lockean rights is already failing to preserve the culture you're describing. Locke is quoted in the Declaration of Independence.
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#21
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@Savant
The Constitution was never meant to protect ideologies that openly reject the Constitution itself. That’s not liberty. That’s suicide by appeasement.

Does everyone on the planet deserve free speech no matter what?
Only if they’re not using it to abolish the very thing they’re exploiting. When you use liberty to dismantle liberty. Otherwise, it’s not a right, it’s a weapon of control. Either the American culture that created these guarantees of liberty is worth preserving, or it is not.

#22
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@Greyparrot
The Constitution was never meant to protect ideologies that openly reject the Constitution itself.
The constitution has a process for amending it, so yes it was. Every amendment was a rejection of the previous version.

Does everyone on the planet deserve free speech no matter what?
As long as they aren't directly inciting violence, threatening someone, or violating privacy rights. They can have terrible ideas, but you need to let people advocate for changing the laws in a democracy. Otherwise what's the point of even having a process to change laws?
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#23
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@Savant
The constitution has a process for amending it, so yes it was. Every amendment was a rejection of the previous version.
I specifically said eliminating constitutional rights, not adding more. Not a single right has been written out of the constitution by Americans. That will most certainly change if we import and embrace a culture predisposed to abolishing those rights. The Constitution isn’t self-sustaining. It survives only as long as the culture upholding it believes in its values. If you flood America with a culture that sees liberty as a threat instead of a gift, it’s only a matter of time before “amendment” becomes “abolition.” The founding fathers always said a Constitution can only exist within the fabric of a moral society with a culture for liberty. Specifically John Adams.

They are still correct.
#24
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@Greyparrot
eliminating constitutional rights, not adding more
Rights can be eliminated through an amendment. Like the right to drink alcohol or the right not to have income taxed.

Not a single right has been written out of the constitution by Americans.
The right to own slaves.
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#25
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@Savant
The right to own slaves.
Like the right to drink alcohol or the right not to have income taxed.
Was never in the constitution.

I specifically said eliminating constitutional rights, not adding more. Not a single Constitutional right has been written out of the constitution by Americans. That will most certainly change if we import and embrace a culture predisposed to abolishing those rights. The Constitution isn’t self-sustaining. It survives only as long as the culture upholding it believes in its values. If you flood America with a culture that sees liberty as a threat instead of a gift, it’s only a matter of time before “amendment” becomes “abolition.” The founding fathers always said a Constitution can only exist within the fabric of a moral society with a culture for liberty. Specifically John Adams.

They are still correct.

#26
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@Greyparrot
Was never in the constitution.
There were protections for the slave trade. Also every amendment eliminates the right of states to decide that thing.
#27
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@Greyparrot
If you flood America with a culture that sees liberty as a threat instead of a gift
So you feel threatened by the prospect of giving liberty to those people?
#28
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@Savant
Can you please give a title to the debate? It is obvious this is beyond birthright citizenship alone.
#29
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@AdaptableRatman
Can you please give a title to the debate?
I'm not a mod.
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#30
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The last century was a brutal lesson in Constitutional suicide pacts: you can’t export freedom to cultures that don’t want it, and you definitely shouldn’t import those cultures here and expect different results. Over a hundred years of exporting liberty to the Middle East, and nothing to show. Why? Because we ignored John Adam's warning about the fabric of a moral culture.

We thought in our ethnocentric bubble liberty was a global idea. That the Constitution was a magical owner's manual.
Actually, it’s generational, cultural, and painfully rare. And the Constitution was simply a heart monitor for the culture of America.