Last Call

Meanwhile, Tea Party Wingnuts who spend hours talking of freedom and liberty are planning in 14 states to directly challenge the 14th Amendment and take citizenship rights away from children born here who have undocumented parents.

Lawmakers in at least 14 states are collaborating on proposed legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, according to lawmakers, including the sponsor of Arizona's 2010 law targeting illegal immigration.

"We're taking a leadership role on things that need to be fixed in America. We can't get Congress to do it," Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, of Mesa, said Tuesday. "It's a national work group so that we have model legislation that we know will be successful, that meets the constitutional criteria."

The efforts by the state legislators come amid calls to change the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. Supporters cite costs to taxpayers for services provided to illegal immigrants and their children.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, the founder of a national group of legislators critical of illegal immigration, said the 14th Amendment "greatly incentives foreign invaders to violate our border and our laws." He had a news conference Tuesday in Harrisburg, Pa., on the multistate endeavor.

The effort could run afoul of the language in the 14th Amendment and lead to a court battle over the constitutionality of the law. But Metcalfe said providing birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants is an "ongoing distortion and twisting" of the amendment.

Metcalfe's office said lawmakers in at least 12 other states besides Arizona and Pennsylvania said they were making their own announcements about working on the citizenship legislation. Those other states: Alabama, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Legislators from a total of 41 states are involved in a Metcalfe-founded group concerned with immigration issues.

Liberty and freedom!  Only if you have the right parents, that is.  Otherwise, out you go.  I love how the Constitution only applies in ways the Wingers want that will benefit them politically, and not in any sort of objective, legal framework based on precedent and law.  Courts don't interpret the Constitution, the Tea-ranny of the Majority does.

If there's any unifying theme to these nutjobs, it's a desire to edit out the parts of the Constitution and the US Code and state laws that they don't like through threats of the angry mob in an effort to deny as much as possible to groups they don't like.  These guys really do want to go back to 1789.  And let's not disguise what this is:  an effort to rid the country of "undesirables".  We have a long and unfortunate history of that here in America.  These are the new Jim Crow laws.

Like I saw today, "They want to take their country back.  I want to take our country forward."  An angry mob is not a legitimate method for governance.