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Comment by blktiger | Hacker News Reader

I should be unanimous, it's what the constitution says. If you don't like it you need to go through the amendment process.

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>I should be unanimous, it's what the constitution says

Thats a tautology. “What the constitution says” is the thing in question.

Sure, but it leads to allowing for the possibility of interpreting "..the right to bear arms.." as "you are allowed to own the limbs of an Ursus arctos".

There's plenty in the US constitution which is vaguely worded, but you have to twist its words an awful lot to deny birthright citizenship.

Yes, and they can do that if they wanted to. The Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution.

If we live in a world where words have no meaning and the definition of the Constitution can be interpreted to be literally anything depending on today's mood of the Supreme Court, why even bother writing a Constitution at all?

Why not get rid of the whole charade and just replace it with "whoever is appointed to the Supreme Court can make up any law as they feel like it"? It has the same meaning, but it's an awful lot clearer!

In fact, I think there's a term for a ruler with complete power who's there for life, something like an "absolute monarchy"?

And if they do enough of that, the other two branches might eventually be motivated to take action to counter it, like packing the courts or impeachments. Or telling SCOTUS to enforce it, as one president did.

The language couldn't be any clearer. The fact that it was questioned by people with a stated motive doesn't prove otherwise.

"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."

> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof ...

It's the second part that is in dispute and is not clear from the constitution's text what exactly it means and who it excludes. And yes, it has always excluded some people born within the borders, it is not a meaningless statement.

Well, no, but almost everyone inside US borders is subject to US laws. The exceptions are rare: people in foreign embassies (which is "foreign soil"), invading armies, and indigenous tribes on tribal land.

So if you follow the logic of this administration (which I don't) you can construe the illegal immigrants as an invasion. You would assume that if there was an invading army that got dispersed and the stragglers were hiding out for years after the state surrendered, like some Japanese soldiers after WW2, as the law enforcement was trying to find and remove them, the jurisdiction would not apply to them. Then, there could be a wartime state sponsored guerilla force. Then, allegedly state affiliated guerilla force infiltrating without an official conflict, like Russians in Donetsk in 2015. You have to draw a line somewhere, and in theory it could be pretty far either way

> subject to the jurisdiction thereof

> A well regulated Militia

POV: you're about to hear the dumbest takes on the internet.

Seriously though, were the founding fathers just master ragebaiters or what? More ink has been spilled over these two lines than any other in modern history.

In the past decade, the Constitution hasn’t slowed down the courts from creatively interpreting its various clauses. Their decisions have effectively amended many of those fundamental (and arguably inalienable) rights. Repeatedly.

This trivial reading of the constitution doesn't align with the reality. Two simple exceptions and a third not so simple are children of diplomats, children of invading armies, and native americans, who required an act of congress to give citizenship at birth.

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