Throwing Rocks in a Glass House

It seems the simpler and more obvious the facts of a case, the greater the refusal of the gravity-deniers to accept them.

So we're just going to have to keep beating them over the head with this - not in any expectation it will penetrate those concrete skulls, but in the hope the pain will distract them at least a little from destroying what's left of this country.

Attention: The only Real Americans are full-blooded Western Hemisphere Indians. Unless you can trace every single one of your ancestors back to this continent before 1492, you are an immigrant.

And you can cut it out with the Mayflower/Cavalier/Royal Grant geneology bullshit: The reason 99 percent of immigrants left their homelands for America - whether in 1607 or in 2009 - was to escape grinding poverty. At minimum, they were ragged beggers seeking the "economic betterment" for which the mouth-breathers condemn hispanic immigrants today; more likely they were criminals fleeing prison or hanging, as were my very own forebears.

That's cause for celebration, fellow anchor babies: our ancestors were the smart ones, the daring ones ... OK, just the desperate ones. But they made it! And because of their desperation, we enjoy exactly the benefits of civil and economic liberty they sought.

Every single generation of immigrants to this country has made it a better place for everyone - and done so against the fierce opposition of the previous generation. Thirty percent of Americans of European descent have Irish and/or German ancestry. Vicious attacks on both those nationalities by their fellow Americans happened within living memory. For their descendants to be repeating against Hispanics the same discrimination they themselves endured must have them spinning in their graves.

Zandar nails it:

Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans disagree with the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause.

I wonder how many of the people who are against the 14th Amendment would have their citizenship revoked because at the time of one their ancestor's birth, both parents were not U.S. citizens?

I'm guessing down the line, quite a few.

Ahh, gotta love our long tradition of hatred for immigrants in this country. Melting pot my ass.

And Digby pounds it home:

Regarding the news that one of the activists killed in the flotilla was an American citizen, Powerline writes:

The facts are not entirely clear, but it appears that Dogan was born in the United States to Turkish parents who returned to Turkey not long thereafter. (The ABC story says he was two years old.) Apparently Dogan had lived in Turkey with his family since that time. He apparently was, in other words, a "birthright citizen," solely by virtue of the fact that his parents were residing in the U.S. when he was born.

SNIP

Wow, there's a lot to consider in those paragraphs. First there is the idea that actual American citizens under current law, shouldn't be called Americans. I don't know who will decide which Americans deserve the designation, but perhaps the next teabagger convention could set up a system for the press so they'll know what's appropriate and what isn't. (No profiling please!) This is followed by the use of the phrase "birthright citizen" which I haven't heard before. Is it the politically correct version of "anchor baby?" If so, why would proudly politically incorrect right wingers bother? Call 'em all terrorists and let's be done with all the subterfuge.

And it sounds as though he is suggesting that it's dangerous for people to be having children in this country. Is this because terrorists are planning ahead for future invasions from within? Or is it just that Hispanics are "dangerous" by their very nature? Either way, the idea of tying this particular story to the anchor baby issue is a bold new step in the right's overarching narrative. I'll be looking for more of it.

Probably the most amazing statement in all this is the last paragraph which says that it's "reasonable" to infer that that this person was attacking one of the Israeli commandos with a knife and was shot in self-defense? I suppose it's possible, but one would hardly naturally assume that in the middle of a melee someone amazingly gets shot four times in the head. I knew those IDF commandos were skilled but I didn't know they were that skilled. Indeed, the reasonable inference is usually something quite different. (I'm not making a judgment about the facts in this particular case beyond the four shots to the head, which I don't know, only whether or not it's obvious that a "reasonable inference" of self-defense can be made of that.)

The old neocon "spreadin' democracy" we're all one big happy family of wingnuts is really out of fashion if even the Bush loving Powerline is pushing the 14th amendment repeal line.In fact, even the Bush administration didn't try to make the argument that American citizens who were born of foreign parents shouldn't be accorded their rights. We are seeing a joining of the neocons and the teabaggers in the spirit of shared nativism. It figures. When you strip them down to their essence they are all garden variety paranoid, neo-confederate birchers and not much more. It's all a matter of emphasis.

Let's see your papers, assholes. The ones proving your pure pre-Columbian blood. Every anti-immigrant motherfucker with a single drop of non-Amerind blood, pack your bags and get the fuck out.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....