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The Supreme Court has issued a ruling on Trump v. Barbara (birthright citizenship). 6-3 striking down Trump's executive order. You can find the ruling here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365_4hdj.pdf
I've only had enough time to skim the ruling thus far. Jackson wrote a concurrence which I won't bother to read because she's the second most retarded member of the court (Sotomayor still reigns supreme in retardation). Kavanaugh partially concurred on the basis that this needed to be done by act of congress as opposed to executive order, but otherwise generally agreed with the Trump admin's interpretation of the 14th amendment. Thomas and Gorsuch outright dissented. Alito had his own separate dissent. Thomas's opinion includes several historical examples of people born on US soil to people not lawfully in the US who were denied citizenship, and I was not aware of these examples previously, making his the most interesting. Well that and the fact that it agrees with my 100% objectively correct and indisputable view of the matter of course.
This is roughly how most court-watchers expected this decision to turn out, but it still doesn't change the immense disappointment I feel over this news. Someone here earlier this week or last week said that this decision will be our generation's Dred Scott regardless of how it is decided, and that it will tear the union apart in similar fashion. Demographic changes in the West generally are leading to ever increasing tension and dysfunction, and I fear this decision will ensure that a breaking point is reached soooner, rather than later.
This being anything other than 9-0 is an ominous level of partisan hackery. Like it or not, the Constitution is unambiguous with respect to birthright citizenship.
Expect future decades of the big issues of our time being decided by judges because legislatures have abandoned their responsibilities, and declining civic participation and partisanship frustrates any attempts to amend constitutions.
I think that literal interpretations of the Constitution don't work in practice though, because it almost unambiguously says that the government can't stop me from having nuclear weapons. I'm pretty sure that "arms" back then just referred to weapons in general. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
And if that's the case, we have had a very weird situation for a long time now where the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted in a very limited way even though the clear reading allows all weapons.
It could be argued that this is what the amendment procedure is for, though. I wonder if it would actually be possible for an amendment that limits the 2nd Amendment to certain types of weapons to be ratified in today's political climate. There would be obvious slippery slope concerns from many people.
I imagine that if the current regime of stretchy interpretations fell (i.e. the SC really came out and said that sorry, but the law as written says yes to personal nukes, deal with it), it would take between nothing and a single tiny backyard plutonium spill for bipartisan momentum for a constitutional amendment to circumscribe the 2nd to materialise.
But it would be really really hard for them to agree on an actual amendment. Somehow you would need to get 3/4 of congress to agree to one specifically worded amendment when all of them are going to have very strong opinions in opposite directions. I suppose the threat of random people having nukes would motivate people to compromise, but it still wouldn't be easy, and whoever was the most radical and stubborn about refusing to budge would get more of their way by making others compromise towards them.
If the Democrats win big in 2026 and 2028, most likely they pack the court. If they are feeling magnanimous, they may instead cordially invite the remaining Republicans in Congress to provide input to their amendment drafting sessions in exchange for political support back home to get the amendments ratified.
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I do have the feeling that politicians tend to be able to draw on remarkable reserves of ability to compromise and act cooperatively when their personal interests are actually threatened (as they would be by randos with nukes). The wild defections you are talking about seem to be the province of things the electorate may care deeply about, but the politicians themselves are happy to game.
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I'm still not convinced that this is a problem
You don't personally need the resources or know-how for most of this (besides operating but even that can be simplified by bad actors) so long as people can sell you or gift you one. Decentralized terrorist groups like 764 already grooms random local depressed nutjob kids to shoot up schools among many other types of crime, imagine what damage coordinated rival nations could deal if these nutjobs could have access to major weaponry.
And if we ban selling or gifting major weapons but not guns, then we have already established there is a distinction and they do not count as "arms" in the same way.
Then this is no longer a legal matter but rather one of foriegn policy.
We make it known that if material furnished by your nation is used in such an attack that attack will be treated as having come from your nation and let the rivals police themselves.
This has multiple flaws.
What does "material furnished" mean? Do all guns and bullets have to be exclusively made from minerals mined and put together in the US or else it counts as a shooting by a foreign power? If the gun is stored in a Russian made holster, is that a Russian attack? If we don't make it extremely strict, then there's lots of inevitable workarounds created to provide the "pieces" of advanced weaponry to be easily constructed and used.
What about proxy groups? Private organizations that go through deniability chains from those nations can furnish weapons for nutjobs. There will be sophisticated plans where building a convincing casus belli will be difficult. They won't be like al-queda taking credit for 9/11.
It doesn't even take rival nations, just sophisticated networks like the aforementioned 764. They spend some of their child porn money on materials and supply it to a crazed member. Gonna be hard to charge most of them. If giving someone a gun as a gift who just totally coincidentally proceeds to use it in crime can't be charged, then the same would apply to a missile or drone or anything else. "Oh we didn't know he would blow up that building with the rockets we provided him for his birthday". They can produce a lot for their own legal deniability, just like they already do. If we can't get them for shootings, why should I expect we can do it for anything else?
I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse.
Material furnished is exactly what it says, if a nation or any other organization gifts or sells that material outside normal channels they are on the hook for how it is used.
I also dont understand your preoccupation with deniability, we're not talking about citizens with consitutional rights, we're talking about sovereign nations. "Drop the act, we know it was you" is a perfectly valid realpolitik response to such behavior.
A hostile nation could make a genuine effort to frame another nation, though.
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In modern America you amend the Constitution thru the Supreme Court. I guess you could call that a common law system. And it’s still a hard thing to do.
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