Timothy Birdnow

What does it mean to be an American?

That is what isn't being addressed so often in the debate over birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court arguments seem to have largely missed this important question. Granted, the Solicitor General touched briefly on this by saying the matter doesn't involve English Common law, not blood nor soil, and he was right. But I fear he was a bit opaque for some of the Justices, notably the liberal wing, but also for John Roberts, alas.

So what does it mean to be an American?

Well, why do we call it the "Revolution" rather than rebellion?

Because we made a radical, fundamental break from the traditional way government and it's citizenry relate. And it is that difference in how we relate compared to the rest of the world that sets our experiment apart from other "democratic systems" which are usually the same old same old as the monarchial systems with a corrupt parliament holding the power rather than just the monarch. We are different, or were anyway, and our system holds that the People retain all rights NOT EXPRESSLY GRANTED to our elected representatives in Congress and the Executive branch of government.

America is an idea, not just a nation, and what makes an American is an acceptance of the kind of liberty which we were endowed with by our Creator, not by our government. Natural rights impose a serious restriction on the power of the state in America, or is supposed to at any rate, and being an American means recognizing that and bowing to the sacredness of the individual as made in the image of God Almighty. As such everyone is autonomous, and supposed to be self-governing, a nation unto himself in a society that is ruled by common agreement but that agreement in no way obligates others to anything except not intruding on your rights.

This is very different from the old order which presupposed the king was not just your chief executive officer but actually your owner "my king" and you had better obey or else.

This was also at odds with the new ideas coming out of Rousseau and the nineteenth century about "the collective will" meaning a radical democracy where what the People demand, no matter how unfair or stupid, is law and the individual must subsume himself into the collective or else. That is the guiding principle in most of the rest of the world these days and indeed here in many ways.

But America was supposed to be different and that's why we have the ninth and tenth amendments in the Constitution, and why the Constitution itself stated plainly "any power not expressly granted by this constitution devolves to the states or the People". Our government was intended to be quite limited in it's power over the public. It was supposed to honor the autonomy of the people (small p) and at the same time guarantee the rights that were theirs by Divine gift.

So what does this mean to immigration, especially illegal immigration?

The people coming here are not culturally American and most have no idea what America is or is intended to be. They only know it's rich and they want to get as much as they can grab from her.

As such the children of illegal immigrants (and many of the legal immigrants these days such as Ilhan Omar) have no connection with the concept of America.

It's one thing for them to come here legally; we agreed to let them in (even though we need to rethink THAT too as we take in far too many immigrants than we can enculturate and we aren't enculturating them anyway with modern Progressive education). But illegals are outside the jurisdiction thereof; they bring their home country with them. Just being born here does not in any way make them Americans, any more than it makes them Puritans if they settle in Massachusetts or Mormons if they settle in Utah. It's not the where or the blood but the philosophy, the doctrine, the belief. America is a belief system. Strip her of that and it's just an empire full of disparate groups that will eventually tear it to pieces as each and every group fights to get the biggest share of the pie.

Time was immigrants came here with the hope of joining us, and not just for what they could grab. There was a real desire to become American, to adopt our customs and beliefs and to find the FREEDOM that being a soverign citizen, master of your own destiny, offered. But now we are letting a host of peoples invade here with no connection to this fundamental idea of America and use us as a cash cow and nothing more. In fact many are here to do us harm one way or another. Certainly many Chinese and Iranians and the like are not becoming American out of love of liberty. And a lot of Hispanics are coming too with the intent of a "Reconquista", to steal American land and make it part of Latin America, no more freedom but instead the same rotten institutions that drove them to leave home in the first place.

But again, America is not so much a place as a thing you carry with you. It's an idea. And letting in people with different ideas means ultimately erasing America and replacing it with the tired, exhausted visions of the past, the ones that did not work and everyone hated.

These are, in short, barbarian invasions. The Germanic tribes invaded the Roman empire peaceably, by and large, and as Rome became more and more corrupt it enforced enculturation less and less and near the end there were two civilizations occupying the same space, one Roman the other Germanic. Guess which one won? The Romans had forgotten who they were and stopped enforcing their culture and the Germans never forgot who THEY were. Rome died not because they were beaten militarily or because of economic or other collapse but because Rome as an idea faded away, and was replaced by alien concepts - which gave us the Dark Ages.

America is being erased, fading away, and is being replaced by alien concepts. What will the resulting dark age look like, and when and how will we emerge from it?

I hope SCOTUS ponders THAT before they write their legal opinions. They are only in their position in the first place because America is an idea that created their roll.

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