Posts: virginiabeef | One Political Plaza

Kevyn wrote:

Education and intellectual curiosity has been the downfall of every great nation. The secret to success is blind loyalty to a strongman ideologue, and demonization of the educated. A great example is Cambodia under Pol Pot.

Kevyn, I suggest you visit the K*****g Fields in Cambodia.

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Should Birthright citizenship be illegal???

dongreen76 wrote:

The question of whether they are citizens of count... (show quote)

I believe the issue under discussion was "Birthright Citizenship." To my knowledge there are no provisions anywhere in the statutes that grant dual citizenship status to newborn children of illegal people. The fact that the parent(s) might be fleeing persecution or tyranny from their home country is a separate issue from the matter of birthright citizenship. You are certainly entitled to your opinion that the idea of considering country of origin constitutional provisions is "irrelevant and mundane as hell" but the notion has never been adjudicated as far as I know.

As to the balance of your reply. "When and if this country changes it's birthrite laws it will be a dismissal of the ever on going fight and total disregard of the balance of power battles.Which is what the Korean war was about, and also Vietnam. ... and is Trumpish by it's nature,and his ideas is simply a reflection of his eneptitude so far as not having a clue or a caring of about the governing and the leadership role the United States place in it." I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Sorry, but it makes no sense to me. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

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Should Birthright citizenship be illegal???

proud republican wrote:

I say yes....Why should American people pay for s... (show quote)

I have long held the view that the solution to our i*****l i*********n problem does not rest in Washington, DC. Rather, the solution rests in the countries from which the i******s originate. Most of those countries have rich natural resources, like Mexico, but corruption and a peon mentality of the citizens make it difficult if not impossible for the people of those countries to change their respective governments.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to review the basic laws of the land of other countries in order to define what constitutes citizenship. The widely held view that i*****l i*******t children born in the US automatically derive US citizenship is in fact not the case at all.

The constitutions of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador all state that persons of those countries born to their respective parents in foreign lands are, by law, citizens of those countries of origin. Below, I have included the relevant sections of those constitutions.

Given that no automatic dual citizenship provisions exist in any of the constitutions of those countries, or in the 14th Amendment to our own Constitution, then the basis for claiming US citizenship for i*****l i*******t children is bogus.

Simply put, US birthright citizenship does not extend to the offspring of i*****l i*******ts. The respective constitutions of the countries of origin for citizens of those countries prevail – not the 14th Amendment. We have a national responsibility to respect the constitutions and laws of other countries.

Perhaps a judicial review of other i*****l i*******t countries of origin constitutions is in order to learn what those documents state about their citizen's nationality and the respective citizenship of the children of those countries born on foreign soil.

I have submitted this information to members of the US Congress and have been completely ignored. No surprise there.

Here are the t***slated constitutional extracts from the countries mentioned:

T***slation Extracts of National Citizenship For Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala

Mexican Constitution

Chapter II Mexicans

Article 30. Mexican nationality is acquired by birth or by naturalization:

A. Mexicans by birth are:
I. Those born in the territory of the Republic, regardless of the nationality of their parents;
II. Those born in a foreign country of Mexican parents; of a Mexican father and a foreign mother; or of a Mexican mother and an unknown father;
III. Those born on Mexican vessels or airships, either war or merchant vessels.

Honduran Constitution

TITLE II
NATIONALITY AND CITIZENSHIP HONDURANS

CHAPTER I

Honduran nationality is acquired by birth or by naturalization. Article 23
The following are Hondurans by birth:

1. Those born within the national territory with the exception of the children of diplomatic agents;
2. Those born abroad of a Honduran father or mother by birth;
3. Those born on board Honduran vessels or aircraft of war, and those born on merchant vessels while they are in Honduran territorial waters; and The infant of unknown parents found on the territory of Honduras.

El Salvador Constitution

TITLE IV NATIONALITY

Article 90

The following are Salvadorans by birth:
1st—Those born in the territory of El Salvador;
2nd—Children of a Salvadoran father or mother, born in a foreign country;

3rd—Natives of the other States that constituted the Federal Republic of Central America, who, having a domicile in El Salvador, declare before the competent authorities their desire to be Salvadoran, without requiring them to renounce their nationality of origin.

Guatemala Constitution

CHAPTER II
Nationality and Citizenship

Article 144. Nationality of Origin.

Those born in the territory of the Republic of Guatemala, Guatemalan vessels, and aircraft, and the children of a Guatemalan father or mother born abroad are considered native Guatemalans. The offspring of diplomatic officials and of those who perform legally comparable duties are excepted. No native Guatemalan may be deprived of his citizenship.

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This question requires some careful thought, especially for trump supporters

B*****e wrote:

I think it would be very difficult to amend the constitution to do this. The smaller states need some protection from the larger states over-running them. The six largest states COULD be in control of everything legal thing that happens or doesn't happen in the United States.

I think a lot of anti-Trumpers would agree to this. After all one day democrats will be in office as a result of the e*******l college. I think we should leave the constitution alone

You are correct about leaving the Constitution alone. The New Democratic Socialist Party knows that making a change to the Constitution would be nearly impossible. The E*******l College process has been in place and worked well since it was created and helps ensure fair representation for less populated regions of the country. It balances size with fairness and helps protect against tyranny.

However, in recent times The E*******l College process has been under attack. There is an ongoing movement led by Progressive Democrats in numerous states to circumvent The E*******l College.

A change to the Constitution is required to get rid of the E*******l College and such a change is highly unlikely. As an alternative several states are taking matters into their own hands to try and bypass the E*******l College system. They have concocted a workaround that will circumvent the requirements to abide by the Constitution. That workaround is called the National Popular V**e (NPV).

The following is from the National Popular V**e website:

“The National Popular V**e bill will take effect when enacted into law by states possessing 270 e*******l v**es (a majority of the 538 e*******l v**es). It has been enacted into law in 16 jurisdictions possessing 196 e*******l v**es, including 5 small jurisdictions (DC, DE, HI, RI, VT), 8 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, NJ, NM, OR, WA), and 3 big states (CA, IL, NY).”
“The bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing an additional 74 e*******l v**es.”

“The National Popular V**e bill has now passed a total of 40 state legislative chambers in 24 states. It has also passed at least one legislative chamber in 8 states possessing 75 e*******l v**es (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK). It has been unanimously approved at the committee level in 2 states possessing 27 more e*******l v**es (GA, MO). The National Popular V**e bill has been introduced in various years in all 50 states.”

While the NPV action doesn’t do away with the E*******l College, it does circumvent the purpose of the E*******l College and assigns the e*******l v**es of each of the NPV states to the winner of the popular v**e. If enough states sign on to total 270, which is the necessary number of e*******l v**es to win, then the protections afforded small population states will be gone. It remains to be seen whether or not enough state legislatures will veto or rescind the NPV bill and return The E*******l College process to its constitutional mandate.

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The Second American Revolutionary/Civil War is coming.

MR Mister wrote:

The Second American Revolutionary/Civil War is coming.

The first step in fixing a problem is to identify it. The second step is to understand it. Blaming others for a problem is not the way to fix a problem, but we may need to identify those responsible and how they caused it so that we can understand it. We must go deeper in understanding our national crises and those responsible for them in order to know how to fix them. However, this is not just to assign blame. Our goal is to find solutions that will help us to not make the same mistakes again.

There are now three major crises threatening the collapse of our Republic. The first we have touched on—it is what Jefferson called “judicial tyranny.” This came from the Judicial Branch usurping authority it was not given in the Constitution. This “mission creep” by the judiciary has now increased to the degree that it can effectively control or paralyze the rest of the government. No government can last long with a judiciary doing what ours has begun to do.

Recently, federal judges have assumed the authority to cancel Executive Orders by the President and even legislation by the Congress. This is a clear violation of the “Separation of Powers” in the Constitution and has recently crossed the line from judicial tyranny to judicial anarchy. A good example is the recent P**********l Executive Orders on immigration.

Whether or not we agree with the President’s order is not the point. This is something far more serious: it concerns an authority clearly given to the President and the Congress in the Constitution. The judges that recently put stays on the President’s Executive Orders on immigration did not cite any law, or the Constitution, as a basis for their actions; they simply disagreed with the President’s policy. The President’s authority in this is clear in the Constitution and was codified into law by Congress. Yet, by their actions, these judges declared their opinions to be above the authority of the President, the Congress, and the Constitution.

Think about the consequences of allowing this assumption of authority over the other two branches of government and the Constitution if not confronted and put down. There are over five hundred federal judges. How could either the President or Congress function if any of these judges decided to cancel an action or law with which they disagreed? Conservative judges could block liberal actions, and liberal judges could block conservative actions, and nothing could be done by the Executive or Legislative Branches. This has gone far beyond judicial overreach and has become madness.

As Don Brown pointed out, if this kind of judicial madness is upheld as acceptable, then there could be a major crisis in the world. The Commander in Chief—the President—could order the dispatch of an aircraft carrier to meet the crisis, and a single federal judge could block it. This judge could block it with something as silly as the carrier’s possible negative impact on the environment. It has gotten that crazy.

Under the Constitution, even the Supreme Court does not have the authority to block actions by the Congress or the President. The Supreme Court is not “the Supreme Law of the Land,” the Constitution is. For the courts to have taken the actions that they have, they are in violation of the Constitution and their oath to defend it and should be immediately impeached. That has not happened because of inept leadership in the Congress that alone has the authority to impeach.

So the Judicial Branch has fallen to the judicial tyranny that Jefferson and other Founding Fathers considered the greatest threat to the Republic. The voices that have risen up to challenge this untenable overreach have been quickly crushed. One example is Tom DeLay, the former Republican Congressional Whip. When he began to speak out about this judicial tyranny, he was indicted under a law that did not even exist. Because of this, he was forced to resign from the House and it took ten years and over ten million dollars to clear his name.

We may think that this is not happening in our country, but it is and worse things are now unfolding. Judicial tyranny is the most imminent threat to every freedom we have, but there is another crisis that is also about to bring the government down. It is the second major threat that the Founders warned would be a threat to the Republic, and we will cover this next week.

As we look at the dire situation our country has been put in, always keep in mind that we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. For this reason, we must face every crisis with the resolve to 1) stand up, 2) lookup, and 3) rejoice that we have been given the honor to stand for our King in these times.
Sadly, I do not see much effort in stopping judges from breaking the law. Under these acts our Constitution is moot.

The Second American Revolutionary/Civil War is com... (show quote)

I recently compiled a personal essay titled: The Rise of Social Tyranny in America

In that essay I cited the work of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), who was a British philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament. He was an influential British Classical liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works about “liberty” justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.

Mill used the phrase “tyranny of the majority,” in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule as a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be actively oppressed, just like the oppression by tyrants and despots.

The idea surrounding the "tyranny of the majority" goes back at least as far as Plato's Republic, while the phrase itself originated with Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America (1835, 1840) and was further popularized by John Stuart Mill, who cited de Tocqueville, in On Liberty (1859). The Federalist Papers frequently refer to the concept, though usually under the name of "the violence of majority faction," particularly in Federalist 10.

From the archives of the Weekly Standard, September 25, 2016:

“In Federalist 10, James Madison argued that the soon-to-be-ratified Constitution would serve as an effective bulwark against what John Adams, amongst others, called "the tyranny of the majority." The Founders believed this danger arose chiefly through democratic government. But John Stuart Mill realized that a "social tyranny" of the majority could be "more formidable than many kinds of political oppression."
An argument can be made that limits on the decisions made by these majorities can be controlled by constitutional limits on the powers of congress and the use of a bill of rights in a republican system, and thereby potentially reduce the problem of potential tyranny.

The central question here is whether or not social tyranny, which includes judicial tyranny, and other tyrannical practices, can be effectively controlled in the 21st Century and the era of explosive social media? There are multiple instances on various social media sites where individuals are banned because their written words are deemed offensive to the purveyors of those social media platforms. Further, various political views and events and propaganda are rapidly spread across social media sites encouraging actions and activities many of which are violent in nature. The Democrats and Left Wing Progressives use social media to incite people to act – sometimes without warning them about possible negative outcomes.

It is clearly possible and very likely that the Democrat Party, the Socialists, and Left Wing Progressive liberals will collectively use their majority population to implement social media attacks as social tyranny tools against the conservative minority in the quest to achieve totalitarian one-party rule in America. This approach is quite similar to the judicial tyranny we now witness in our courts. Given the political Left Wing ideologies of existing social media platforms, there will unlikely be any constitutional safeguards or protections available to help overcome being shut down, banned and unable to speak or defend conservative political positions. John Stuart Mill would recognize this issue and would be appalled.

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Our Current Civil War

buddy42 wrote:

(From my email and dead-on) br br Our Current Civ... (show quote)

As a matter of information, this essay was not created by the late Dr. Jack Devere Minzey. It has been incorrectly attributed to him in several places. The essay is actually a shortened version of a speech delivered by Daniel Greenfield in January 2018. Here is a link to a video of Greenfield's speech, https://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2018/01/this-civil-war-my-south-carolina-tea.html . A printed version is also available. Here's a link to Snopes fact check: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-jack-minzey-modern-civil-war/ The Left will h**e this video and the message it sends, but then what else is new?

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Viet Nam War Facts, Stats & Myths

Roger non Dodger wrote:

WE LOST... Get over it.

Clearly written by someone who wasn't even born during the time of the Vietnam War. Someone who has never worn a military uniform. Someone who doesn't recognize the difference between military and battlefield successes and political betrayal of a nation by our politicians.

Most likely written by a 47 y/o Section 8 loser. Like I said Bozo, We didn't lose. We left. Your pea-sized brain probably can't discern the difference. "Get over it" Tell that to the survivors and descendants of unarmed family members and innocents who were slaughtered by the North Vietnamese. Roger non Dodger would like us to believe that he's some sort of a political independent, but he writes like a middle-aged dipstick.

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Viet Nam War Facts, Stats & Myths

karpenter wrote:

Fact: The American military was not defeated in Vi... (show quote)

You are absolutely correct about America not losing the Vietnam War. We did not lose! We left!

As a MACV Advisor to an ARVN Combat Ordnance Battalion I saw the war from a different point of view than most folks. I spent a lot of TDY time in country in 1967-1968, including I Corps (MR1) and a full tour in 1969. Based outside DaNang with operations from DaLat to the DMZ. I spent time in Hue and also in the 121st Evac Hospital in DaNang. Think the TV program MASH. Wasn't too far off the mark in those days.

The reason most guys don't talk about the war is because it causes them to relive events they have long tried to put away. Talking to another combat vet who can relate is usually easier than talking to a civilian. BTW, some of the bravest people in the war were the Dust Off pilots and their crews. The Jolly Greens weren't far behind. Talk about balls of steel -- those guys qualified and they saved a lot of lives. For those of you who don't know about Dust Off missions here are a couple of YouTube video links to give you a little insight as to what it was like: https://www.onepoliticalplaza.com/b-209646-e-2013 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwYKbzFZjXk

The first rule of battle is to "know thy enemy." In Vietnam, the US command structure did not know the enemy. Even worse, the command structure did not understand nor respect the enemy's strategies and tactics. The Viet Cong and the NVA used strategies and tactic like the Swamp Fox. Hide, Hit and Run. The command structure tried to overlay land mass army strategies and sandbox tactics onto a guerilla war. Doesn't work.

Also, the US military leadership and the politicians were completely ignorant regarding who their opposition leaders were. My counterparts and I h**ed the VC and the NVA, but we did respect their tenacity and ability. When Uncle Ho was replaced by the Chinese, things changed. Uncle Ho's war of reunification became something much different. The Chinese wanted and needed the bread basket of Southeast Asia. They got it.

In 1969, the US had 469,000 troops in country, plus the allied forces. The South Vietnamese had about 1.5 million troops available. The combined total of armed forces on our side was over 2 million folks. We were fully armed and supplied with everything we needed to move north and take Hanoi. We had just defeated North Vietnam in Tet of '68. Yes, they were demoralized and nearly at the point of surrender.
There was nothing in the way to stop us from taking Hanoi and putting an end to the war.

But, what was in our way were the US politicians, the war protesters, and the US media (well fed with Hanoi propaganda). Kissinger, Nixon, and all their incompetent pals were hell bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The US Congress cut all funding and support for South Vietnam, while the Chinese made sure that North Vietnam had lots of new stuff. The US command structure never sought nor listened to those of us who were on the ground and had a first hand view of what was going on. The only thing they seemed to care about was "body count."

My counterpart was a battalion commander. He h**ed the c*******ts more than you can imagine. He lost several members of his family during the war. When Nixon announced the "Vietnamization" of the war, all of us on the ground knew the US was getting ready to cut and run. Rule number two of combat: Don't stick your nose into somebody else's war if you don't intend to win.

What the Vietnam War protesters, Hanoi Jane, the media and the politicians never talk about is what happened after our pullout in 1975. By some estimates the North Vietnamese k**led more than 2 million people starting in 1976-1979. They k**led anyone who was known to be in the South Vietnamese armed forces who resisted the takeover and wouldn't become a c*******t. They k**led anyone who worked for or supported the US and allied forces, including cooks, interpreters, drivers, etc. They either k**led them, and often their families, by direct execution, through re-education camps (think starvation and exposure to the elements) or through s***e labor death. They executed my counterpart.

Ken Burns and his l*****t friends will never make a movie about what really happened in Vietnam. They don't have the courage. The Hollywood gutless wonders and those on the Left cannot handle the t***h, which is probably another reason why Vietnam vets don't talk about the Vietnam War. It's like talking to a wall.

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Socialist health care in the US?

EmilyD wrote:

I was just talking to a relative of mine who lives... (show quote)

And, just as a reminder that in addition to paying into Medicare our entire working life, those of us who have retired still continue to pay our monthly Medicare health care premiums. Medicare For All is not a right, it is forced charity.

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Is Health care really a right???

Why is Healthcare NOT a Right? A "Right" comes in one of two forms. It is either a "Natural Right" (that is you are born with it; life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) or it is a "Constitutional Right" (think the Bill of Rights; free speech, right to own and bear arms, etc.).

Medicare For All, Universal Healthcare, and such offerings are neither a natural right nor a constitutional right. The free healthcare for everybody idea being touted by politicians is not a "right" at all, but rather a form of "forced charity".

Such plans simply amount to fiscal coercion of the people who pay taxes by a government body that takes by legal force the funds from those people in amounts needed to pay for other peoples' healthcare.

It is not a matter of taxpayers not being compassionate of caring about those who are sick or destitute. Instead it is a matter of confiscating taxpayer wealth without permission for programs that are often unsustainable or wasteful.

America is the most charitable and compassionate country in the world. Until government and politicians got their noses into the healthcare issue, those among us who needed healthcare charity were served and received it from many non-governmental sources (community base healthcare centers, church and civic organization charitable programs, hospital healthcare outreach programs, and so on).

What Medicare For All and other such schemes do is negate true healthcare charity programs and promise free healthcare charity for everyday medical services for everyone doing so using forced contributions to the government charity pool.

Medicare For All will be Medicare For None, and will become government charity paid from the wallets of those who will eventually become charity cases themselves. The issues are government coercion and government control of you and your healthcare.

Think about it.