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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Just something I feel tiresome since it's World Cup season and inevitably every major Western democracy is getting some variant of 'Don't like foreigners, what about RANDOM AFRICAN who kicked a goal for NATIONAL TEAM' spammed across social and news channels.

Am I the only one who finds it somewhat absurd that the native underclasses of most Western countries are essentially getting kicked out of a rare but real pathway to winning the athleticism lottery and becoming a professional Soccer or whatever-else player? I feel similarly about trying to outsource this kind of job as I do about outsourcing the bullshit bureaucracy non-revenue admin jobs at a Fortune 500 company in which, sure they could technically be done better but they're more about distribution of societal spoils than actually value driven.

I predict that if the USMNT has an all time run (for them) with the world's most accidental American, birthright citizenship will be upheld. The man is scoring goals for the national team because his mother was refused air transport home because she was too pregnant with him at the time. This wasn't even birth tourism: they just didn't want her giving birth over the Atlantic.

If they embarass themselves, birthright citizenship will be rescinded.

Potential issue with your crystal ball: the next game isn't until June 19, but the final opinions day this year appears to be June 18.

A) The cosmic power of the USMNT making even the semifinals of a home world cup is so tremendous that it is actually supertemporal in nature, the vibrations would echo back into the near past.

B) One SCOTUS opinion isn't the final word on it. Trump won't accept an opinion upholding birthright citizenship and will seek to undermine it in some other way. And a pro-Trump opinion would merely be that the Constitution doesn't guarantee birthright citizenship, not that it forbids it, so at a later time it would be possible for Congress to write a more orderly birthright citizenship law into effect.