November 30, 2019
MY CORNER by Boyd
Cathey
TWO ESSAYS Published
by LewRockwell.com
Friends,
I pass on two published essays which showed up on
LewRockwell.com earlier this year. Both are taken from original pieces that I
put out as installments in the MY CORNER series. I am pleased that Lew Rockwell
picked them up and gave them far wider distribution than they would otherwise have had:
BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP and the Future of America
Kamala Harris is very angry with Donald Trump.
With her
usual condescension and scorn, she tweeted out on Thursday, August 22,
that Donald Trump should go read the 14th Amendment—the implication being that when the president brought up, once
again, the possibility that he might issue an Executive Order regulating
birthright citizenship, he was woefully misreading the application of that
Reconstruction amendment.
Of course, for a supercilious Leftist elitist like Harris, Trump
will forever be that ignorant, brash, illiterate, racist New Yorker who is just
way out of his league. It doesn’t really make any difference that he graduated
with a B.S. in Economics from the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the
University of Pennsylvania. You see, he doesn’t have all the fineries and
veneer of the self-proclaimed East Coast-West Coast Brahmin Elites who have
controlled this country, its economy, its foreign policy, and its government
for more than a century. Despite the fact that he has—in my view—given in far
too often to those same Elites, nevertheless, they will only accept 100%
obedience and compliance. Upsetting the apple cart, thwarting the advance of
globalism in the slightest will get you—the Russia Hoax, the White
Nationalist/Racist Hoax, the Gun Control Hoax, endless investigations and
multiple mini-impeachment efforts, plus the extreme and active (even violent)
hostility of almost all the media, academia, Hollywood, and the political
class.
You can’t
get off the Deep State reservation, even a hair, and expect any mercy.
So, when once again the president declared that his administration
was looking into ending “birthright citizenship” through a presidential
Executive Order—something he had suggested back in October of 2018—all hell
broke loose, and the officious and ideologically crazed Harris jumped like a
famished black snake on a defenseless toad. Once again it was the Trump
template of “full blown racism,” “appeals to white supremacy,” “undermining and
attacking our democracy,” and, of course, since Trump is an illegitimate
president, an interloper—then almost any type of resistance is permissible.
What such
an Executive Order would do is clarify the application of the 14th Amendment and, essentially, end
birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens who come across the US
border and then produce offspring who, then, as if by magic become American
citizens.
Recall
that the amendment was enacted after the War Between the States to guarantee
the rights of citizenship to manumitted slaves and their offspring. And, indeed,
there is a serious legal question about whether the amendment itself was ever
legally and legitimately ratified. But be that as it may, it has applied ever
since 1868.
Here is
how Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads:
Section
1. 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. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Harris
and other open border zealots always quote the first section: “All persons born or naturalized
in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein
they reside.” But the leave out, either by mistake or by
direction: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
It’s a
key phrase, critical to understanding what the authors of the amendment
intended and what for nearly 100 years was settled law up until the 1960s when
leftist lawmakers got into the act simply by de facto practical
applications. In other words, between the very clear and forthright intention
of its authors that the 14th Amendment only applied to slaves and their offspring born
in the United States who are necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction
thereof,” andthe imposed practice we now have which enables a
foreign woman to illegally slip across the Rio Grande and have a child who
then, by that simple act, becomes a citizen and an “anchor baby,” permitting
its illegal relations to all come across—between these two interpretations and applications there is an
absolute irreconcilable difference.
The key
figures in drafting the amendment at the time were clear: Senator Lyman
Trumbull, pivotal in the drafting the 14th Amendment, declared “subject to the
jurisdiction” meant subject to “complete” jurisdiction of the United States,
and “[n]ot owing allegiance to
anybody else.” Senator Jacob Howard of
Michigan, responsible for the critical language of the jurisdiction clause,
stated that it meant “a full and complete jurisdiction,” that is, “the same
jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the
United States now.” In other words, a non-citizen simply by giving birth on
this side geographically of the Rio Grande does not produce a new citizen of
the United States.
Presented
with this history, those defending the current practice, including Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox, appeal, like Harris, to constitutional practice and to the
courts.
But,
actually, the Supreme Court has spoken on this question, at least indirectly.
In 1884,
sixteen years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, an American
Indian, went to court to argue that he was an American citizen due to his birth
in the United States. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant
Indians citizenship. As Ann Coulter cites that decision:
[The] “main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth
Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of
opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it
beyond doubt that all persons, white or black … should be citizens of the
United States and of the state in which they reside.”
And she adds:
“American Indians were not made citizens until 1924. Lo those 56 years after
the ratification of the 14th Amendment, Indians were not American citizens,
despite the considered opinion of Judge Napolitano.”
Ending
birthright citizenship, based on a false and specious reading of the 14th Amendment, is an idea whose
time has come, in fact, is far overdue. At the very least, an Executive Order
would force the courts, including the Supreme Court, to take a serious look at
the historic abuse of our immigration system and the definition of American
citizenship.
Let us
hope that this time—nearly a year since he raised it—President Trump will follow
through on his consideration: birthright citizenship has been and
is an Achilles’ Heel in American immigration policy. Ending it would be a major
step in securing our border and preserving the integrity of our culture.
**************
I believe
I passed on to you last year the following legal essay by Professor of Law, John Eastman. It is a succinct but
thorough restatement of the points made in my commentary.
Reprinted
from My
Corner by Boyd Cathey.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Who
Wins the Culture War, Wins Everything!
Most installments in the MY CORNER series, in addition to a
stated concentration on the South, address deeper cultural issues: questions
about what is happening in our educational system, how Western culture is being
transformed before our very eyes, the attacks on the visible symbols of our
past, and, perhaps more insidiously, examining assaults on our history, on our
memory and on our very language, that is, how we communicate with each other.
For up-to-the-moment, blow-by-blow accounts of the latest
attempt—indeed, conspiracy—by the Deep State to take down and impeach President
Trump, there are such voices as Rush Limbaugh, John Solomon, and others. From
time to time, I can provide such information, or a certain slant or focus, but
given the nature of what is transpiring and the headlong rush, my attention is
drawn to what I consider more basic, more fundamental questions that underpin
and shape our current conversations and debates.
I have
heard it said that it was the great English prelate and author, Cardinal John
Henry Newman, who declared that “all political issues involve basic religious
questions.” But while studying in Spain I read something very similar written
by the Spanish traditionalist, Juan Donoso Cortes (d. 1853): “The momentous
political questions of our time, when examined closely, reveal deeply
philosophical and religious roots. Unless these foundations are understood,
debate will be like fighting the symptoms of a disease but not the cause.”
Knowing how to fight our enemies, knowing how to react and what
to say and what, finally, to do, involves as the late Southern writer Mel
Bradford used to say, first, “knowing who we are,” that is, knowing that
we are creatures made and given life by a Creator, that we are given
stewardship over this planet, that there are both Natural and Divine Positive
Laws that govern us and our existence; and that to transgress them will bring
disastrous consequences, perhaps not at once, but certainly eventually.
And that is why the cultural and essentially religious
battles—the conflict over who we are and our place in Creation—are so critical.
It is why I have a very poor view of much of what passes for “modern kulchur,”
including much of the architecture, the so-called literature, the cinematic
excrescence, the painting and sculpture, and the music that is spewed forth by
our contemporary society.
Certainly such products reflect our current dominant culture,
for art follows and is inspired by reigning beliefs and standards in any
society, while at the same time helps to shape that society’s future vision and
conception of itself. And, no doubt, most of the artists in our society today
fancy themselves just like artists of the past, using their creative
intelligence to create works of art. Has this not been the self-appointed role
of such persons throughout history?
The arts, in their major role, reflect a society’s beliefs and
aspirations—think here architecturally of the Acropolis in Athens, the
incredible monuments in Rome, the great cathedrals of Chartres and Rheims in
France, representing the aspirations and thought of those foundations of our
own civilization. Think of the great artwork of a Giotto, a Michelangelo, a
Rubens, a Gainsborough; and in music, of Gregorian Chant, plainsong and
polyphony, the great symphonic and liturgical works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven and Bruckner.
Some of
you may recall the great BBC series, “Civilization,” hosted by the late Sir Kenneth Clark and then shown in
American theaters (circa 1970) and later on television. Lord Clark attempted,
quite successfully, to connect the dots and illustrate both the complexity and
the unity of our cultural inheritance and its organic development. As Bernard of Chartres declared nearly 900 years ago, “we are as dwarfs standing on the
shoulders of giants.” Our ancestors built upon and added to what was vouchsafed
to and inherited by them, as a trust, as a precious legacy. And traditionally,
this was thought to be the essential role of the artist: to create based on
what he had received, to make it finer if possible, to enhance it, but never to
disparage it or destroy it, and always to preserve it.
But since at least the early twentieth century artists have more
significantly emphasized the radically transformative, even revolutionary, at
times highly political element. Of course, artists throughout history have used
their talent to advance new ideas with social and political import; that’s
always been the case.
But, I
would suggest, not with the same demonic fervor or determination, not with the
same ideological commitment and involvement that we have witnessed in our time.
And not with the same type of influential dominance by the Marxist Frankfurt School and its votaries in almost every field of knowledge, a dominance which
fully comprehends the role of culture in the success of the revolutionary
activity it advocates.
Whether in such enterprises as “critical theory” in literature,
deconstructivism in architecture, or the use of music as a weapon to undermine
societal mores and standards, too often it seems that “the arts” have been
weaponized and have become critical elements in the destruction of our
civilization, rather than estimable and valuable additions to it.
Where—what—are
today’s monuments to rival the cathedral at Chartres, music to compare with
Mozart’s Requiem or Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, or paintings to be set beside
the work of a Rembrandt or El Greco? And even more recently, where are the
architects to rival a Ralph Adams Cram (d. 1942) or a Daniel Burnham (d. 1912)?
Some of
us are old enough to remember when the “Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS featured the
then-new English sensation, the Beatles (1964), at almost the same time that
NBC cancelled the long-running, classical music standard “The Voice of Firestone” (1963). Irrespective of the talent, or the inventiveness,
or the catchy tunefulness of the Fab Four—something most of us would readily
acknowledge—that appearance and what then followed like an avalanche
represented a seismic cultural shift, and the opening of the floodgates, as it
were. Soon, weekly national broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera were also off
NBC, relegated first to public radio, and finally to a few private radio
stations. And I am old enough to recall all sorts of rock groups which soon
crowded out almost all other musical programming from national networks and
local stations, largely exiling both country music and classical music to niche
markets. (The country musical variety show Hee Haw only
lasted on CBS for two years, 1969-1971, before cancellation and going into
syndication. Other non-Rock programming soon followed.)
The most
egregious offense in all this was the disconnection of citizens, of the
populace, from our civilization’s very rich musical inheritance. While my
parents were not what I would call “classical music experts,” they at least
understood and appreciated its value and importance in our society and to our
culture. Just consider some of the scores (and subjects) of films of the 1930s
until the early 1960s, think about the music used in early popular television
programs like “The Lone Ranger” (1949-1957), or “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon”
(1955-1958), think of those memorable Warner Brothers cartoons,
especially Elmer Fudd’s “I Killed the Wabbit,” or those Woody Woodpecker cartoons we also grew up with.
How many of us still associate Rossini’s William Tell Overture
with “Hi-Yo Silver!” any time we hear the final gallop of that piece being
played.
And, sure, the use of such music has continued in film, but
certainly not with the broad influence or significance it once had. Nor with
the role of connecting average, everyday citizens with their inherited culture.
In our day the classical tradition occupies, it seems, a niche which grows
smaller by the year, with fewer listeners and devotees, and with music
impresarios attempting frantically to remedy the situation by heavy mixes of
“pop” cross-over concerts, neither truly classical nor truly rock.
It has
been a great accomplishment of cultural Marxism and its adepts in the arts to
separate in large measure our population from its heritage—a major step in the
conquest of our culture and the transformation of our civilization. And the
resulting atomistic individualism—a formless anarchy—is the exact condition
desired by the enemies of our civilization. In the words of the late T. S.
Eliot our foundations have been destroyed, made largely inaccessible or beyond
our reach, “to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the
future will encamp their mechanized caravans.” [Notes towards the Definition of
Culture, 1948]
At the very base of our conflict today is this imperative: to
recover those bonds which unite us to our heritage, for it is in retrieving
that inheritance (and the faith which accompanies it) that we gain strength and
renewal for the battles that lie ahead of us.
*****
With
these thoughts in mind, I pass on a link to my latest essay published by The New English Review.
It’s titled, “Richard Strauss and the Survival of Western Culture.” I hope you’ll see the connections and even relevance in what
I’ve written.
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