Breaking the Duopoly: Ranked Choice Voting and the American Solidarity Party

It is true I have not posted anything for quite a while, but it doesn't mean this blog has been abandoned. The truth is I have a number of planned articles, but it is taking me quite a while to get them to a stage where I am satisfied with them. But in the meantime, I offer some thoughts on the American political situation; specifically, the duopoly that controls it, and how to possibly break free of it.

The US has what is called a two-party system, which is when, as the name implies, there are two parties that dominate political discourse, in the US the Democrats and Republicans. Not only that, the US is a particularly extreme form of a two-party system. The United Kingdom is considered to have a two-party system, where the Labour and Conservative Parties are the clear frontrunners and frequently either is able to make a majority by itself. But there are other parties represented in parliament and sometimes neither Labour or Conservative have over half of the seats and as a result must form a coalition with another party in order to achieve a majority. In the US, however, it is a rarity to have even one person from a third party be in the United States Congress. One may point to Independents, but not only are they rare, they generally are for all practical purposes a Republican or for all practical purposes a Democrat. For example, the two Independents in the US Senate right now are Bernie Sanders and Angus King, who are essentially Democrats (certainly, they caucus with Democrats). Yes, they may not be your "typical" Democrat but a good number of those who are officially listed as Democrats would not be considered your "typical" Democrat either.

What exactly causes the dominance of these two parties? There are various reasons, but one of the biggest is first-past-the-post voting being used almost everywhere in the US. If you are unaware, first-past-the-post voting essentially says that whoever gets the most votes in an election wins. In other words, if one candidate gets 42%, one gets 32%, and another gets 28%, it means that the person who got 42% will win despite not winning a majority. It also means that something has gone horribly wrong in the world of math because they all total to 102%. Such a system, while not guaranteeing a two party system, strongly favors it, primarily due to concerns of your vote being "wasted."

There are various suggestions on how to change this up, but in my view the simplest would be to implemented Ranked Choice Voting in all elections, where one ranks the candidates in preference. A key point here is that  even if someone doesn't understand the mechanics underlying it, they can easily grasp the idea of ranking candidates in how much they like them.

Here's how it works. After everyone votes for the candidates by ranking them, all of the first choices are then added up. If a candidate wins a majority, they win the election. If not, whatever candidate got the least votes is thrown out, and anyone who voted for them instead has their second choice counted as their vote. If someone gains a majority, then they win; if not, the remaining candidate with the least votes is thrown out, and anyone who had them as their first choice will have their vote re-assigned to their second choice (or their third choice, if their first and second were the two eliminated candidates). This continues until one candidate has a majority and is declared the winner.

The way this breaks the two party system is fairly obvious: Under the current system of first past the post, one worries about throwing their vote away for a candidate. Under the above system, however, that no longer happens. Let's illustrate.

Suppose there is Candidate A, Candidate B, and Candidate C. A and B are the clear frontrunners, with C being very unlikely to win. You like Candidate C the most, are ambivalent on Candidate B, and hate Candidate A. So you face the dilemma: If you vote for Candidate C, there is a high probability your vote won't do anything at all, and you risk handing Candidate A the win. So do you vote for Candidate B, who you don't particularly like but will help prevent Candidate A from winning? Under Ranked Choice Voting, you don't have to worry, because if Candidate C is unable to win, your vote will be "transferred" to B.

Now, this would likely not end the two-party system in the United States. Australia has ranked choice voting and, like the US, has two major parties that are significantly ahead of the others in terms of electoral success, the Labour Party and Liberal Party (due to political shifts, the "Liberal Party" is ironically the conservative one). But they don't control discourse to the extreme extent that the Democrats and Republicans do.

Ranked Choice Voting is not the only other possibility. Perhaps some kind of proportional representation could be used. But I favor Ranked Choice Voting for several reasons. First, it's the easiest to implement. Proportional representation requires a major shift to how officials are elected--Ranked Choice Voting is relatively small. Second, it is simple and easy to grasp.

If you are wondering about the President, note that one does not even need to get rid of the electoral college under RCV, as you simply have the RCV apply on a state-by-state basis. Granted, I know many would like to see the electoral college go away, but to do so would require a constitutional amendment (very hard to accomplish!). The point is that you can do Ranked Choice Voting within the current constitutional framework of the electoral college, as it allows states to decide how to allocate the electors--they can easily do this via ranked choice voting, should they choose.

Unfortunately, implementing this could be difficult. If there's one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on, it's that they like staying in power. Maine managed to implement Ranked Choice Voting, but to get it done they had to essentially bypass their legislature via referendum; not all states have that ability. Still, one state implemented it, so perhaps others will follow.

There are some reasons to be hopeful. For about a century, Senators were not elected by the people of the state, but by state legislatures, but a constitutional amendment was passed to change that. Passing a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of the Senate (and House) and 3/4 of State legislatures to agree to pass it. In other words, despite the fact this could result in all of the Senators losing their positions due to the change, and despite the fact state legislatures were giving up power through this change, people were able to convince them to pass the amendment. Further, this isn't a full loss for Democrats or Republicans. Ranked Choice Voting all but eliminates the possibility of a third party candidate being a "spoiler", which would be to their advantage. Thus, there is at least hope for this to happen in the US.

But in the meantime, what to do? Well, even beyond first past the post, I feel there are some ways to help break the duopoly. A major problem with many third parties is that they tend to just be more extreme versions of Democrats or Republicans. When you are pulling from only one party, it's difficult to win. So to become truly viable, a third party has to be offering something that's a mixture of both of their positions.

There are two major categories that political positions fall into. There is social, and there is economic. Republicans have conservative social and conservative economic positions, whereas Democrats have liberal social and liberal economic positions. But what about those voters who have conservative social and liberal economic positions? Or liberal social and conservative economic positions? They are not being represented by those two parties. What third parties are there?

Socially liberal, economically conservative is represented by the Libertarian Party. Socially conservative, economically liberal is represented by the American Solidarity Party. (note that these descriptions are oversimplified, but give you the general gist of their parties) While the Libertarian Party is the much larger of the two--indeed, it is the largest third party in the country--I feel the American Solidarity Party has the potential to be much bigger and provide a real alternative to the duopoly we have.

Why do I think that? Well, a picture tells us a lot:

Source

As we can clearly see, a very substantial portion of the electorate falls into the socially conservative, economically liberal quadrant (upper left). That is the portion of the population that the American Solidarity Party has appeal for. Meanwhile, the socially liberal economically conservative quadrant (lower right) that the Libertarian Party represents has the smallest amount of the population.

Why is the Libertarian Party currently more successful than the American Solidarity Party, then? I feel it's because the LP has been around for decades whereas the ASP is relatively recent (founded in 2011). It takes time and effort to build up a political party, especially when the odds are stacked against you. But the amount of strides they've managed to make in that time are actually impressive. The mere fact that any member of the party has been elected somewhere already puts them ahead of about 99% of the third parties in the country.

So if you want to break the duopoly, the best way in my view would be to implement Ranked Choice Voting. In the meantime, I believe that the Libertarian Party or American Solidarity Party are our best shots at a third party rising up to become a real contender. The Libertarian Party has the advantage of being much more entrenched and with a greater level of electoral success, but I believe the chart shows the American Solidarity Party has more potential to rise up.

But all of this is a bunch of musings. What can people actually do about this?

I am not sure of the right path to take for Ranked Choice Voting, unfortunately. But when it comes to third parties, the options are fairly simple on how to support them. The obvious thing is to vote for them, but an issue with that is that (1) they may not have a candidate on your ballot, and (2) it's the time before the election that ends up making the most difference.

What's more beneficial is to actually join up with one and work to promote it. But not everyone has the time or zeal to do so. Bumper stickers and yard signs can also help, but those can feel awfully tacky and one may be hesitant to broadcast their politics in such a way. So if you are uninterested or unwilling to do those, I submit the following: Make a small donation to them. A party needs money to be able to get itself known--and to get ballot access!--but in order to have that money, people need to donate.

Indeed, consider how many people complain about the duopoly. If every single one of those people made even a $1 donation to a third party, that third party would instantly become a real force in politics. Certainly not to the extent of the Republicans or Democrats, but I expect they could elect at least a few people to the House of Representatives, and in doing so would raise their profile and could reach further success in the future.

So if you have actually read all of this, here is my request: Go to the website of a third party and donate at least one dollar. This should take no more than a few minutes and, of course, the monetary charge is minimal. I think the American Solidarity Party has the best odds of making real change (donation page available here), but if you have major problems with them you can try a different third party. Now, you might think that's not much, but every bit helps, and again: If everyone who complained about the duopoly would do even just this, we'd start seeing real change. So that is my request to you: Go over and donate one dollar or more to a third party. It'll take less time to do so than it did to read this post!

Easter is Not Ishtar

Sometimes you come across claims that are so silly you wonder if it's even worth arguing against. But you also know that people not familiar with such things may fall for it, so you want to put out a correction anyway. And here I will tackle the claim by some groups that the celebration of Easter is based on the pagan goddess Ishtar (and therefore pagan itself) due to the similarity in their pronunciation.

The first problem with this is that the original writing of Easter, as we see in Old English writings, often had the e and r reversed. Here are some examples we see from the Oxford English Dictionary:

Ælfric De Temporibus Anni (Cambr. Gg.3.28) (2009) iv. 84 On sumon geare bið se mona twelf siðon geniwod, fram ðære halgan eastertide oð eft eastron.
Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) anno 1101 To Cristesmæssan heold se cyng Heanrig his hired on Westmynstre & to Eastranon Winceastre.
MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 101 (MED) Þe þre dage biforen estre [ben] cleped swidages.
Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1978) l. 9230 He ferde to Lunden. He wes þere an Æstre.

Obviously, the spellings weren't exactly standardized, but we can clearly see that we were seeing an R immediately after the T, not an E. So even appealing to a supposed similarity in pronunciation doesn't necessarily work very well, because -re is obviously pronounced differently than -er. Some modern British spellings do pronounce a -re as -er, such as theatre being pronounced as theater, but to my understanding this pronunciation oddity (like English pronunciation oddities in general) came about much later in English, and thus Eastre would have still have a pronunciation rather different from Ishtar.

That already poses a problem for this hypothesis. But claims of the Easter holiday being related to Ishtar due to Easter and Ishtar sounding similar fall apart even more when one looks beyond English. Let's look at how Easter is written in various languages.

Dutch: Pasen
German: Ostern
Italian: Pasqua
Portuguese: Páscoa 
Spanish: Pascua

As we can see, in most languages, Easter isn't written anything like it is in English, and instead starts with a "Pas" sound. Easter sounding like it does in English is limited to only the Germanic languages like English or German, as the term Germanic implies (and even in German, "Ostern" is noticeably different from Ishtar). Other languages have stuck closer to the original Hebrew term of פסחא for Easter (pronounced Pskha). Indeed, this root form is still found in English in the word paschal, which means to be related to Easter. 

This of course brings us to another major issue with this idea: If the name Easter came from Ishtar, why is this only the case in English? Ishtar was a goddess from the Middle East; if Easter comes from that, how in the world did it get all the way over to the British Isles from the Middle East without leaving traces in all of the countries and languages in between?

A slightly more plausible claim is to claim that the English word of Easter may be derived from Eostre, the name of a pagan goddess apparently associated with spring. I say slightly more plausible because while even if that was the origin of the English word Easter, which it may not have been (our only source for this claim is a writer named Bede mentioning it in passing, and there is no proof anywhere else this goddess ever existed), it still doesn't matter. Why? Because those who celebrated Easter were not in the areas where Eostre is alleged to have been worshiped at all, and spoke languages like Greek or Latin, entirely different language than English or even proto-English. Before the word Easter ever existed in English, it was a known and celebrated holiday. So even if this etymology is true, one cannot conclude any pagan influence on the Easter holiday itself based on it. Furthermore, it should be noted that this supposed derivation, even if true, may have been indirect. It is not clear (from what I can tell) whether Bede said that Easter was named after Eostre, or whether it was named after Eosturmonath, which was named after Eostre. So even if Bede's claim about Eostre is correct, Easter may not have been named after Eostre, but named after a month that was supposedly named after Eostre, giving no more of a direct name than "Fourth of July" does to Julius Caesar. (as an edit long after this post was originally made, I should note this post argues that the "based on the month" interpretation is the one that makes the most sense)

Some have attempted to still connect this to Ishtar (or Astarte) by claiming that Eostre was just the English version of that deity. But this is simply complete speculation. But even if it is true, we still have the same problem noted above, that this name came after the holiday had already been created and celebrated.

As should be obvious at this point, the claim that the holiday Easter has anything to do with Ishtar or even Eostre due to sounding similar simply does not add up. This similarity only exists in English (and to a more limited extent German), languages that only existed well after the holiday was already being celebrated. The languages people did use back then were Greek and Aramaic, and the words for Easter and Ishtar in those languages sounded nothing alike. It's a claim so blatantly false that it shouldn't even need refutation, but as noted sometimes you have to point out the errors in even the weakest claims to make sure no one falls for them.

As long as I'm at it: "Luck" and "Lucifer" are other words that you might see a few people claim are related. However, it is complete coincidence that they sound similar at all in English. The origin of "Luck" in English comes from German, and the origin of "Lucifer" in English comes from Latin. And just like Easter and Ishtar, as soon as you slip into another language the similarity completely disappears. For example, in Spanish the words are "Suerte" and "Lucifer," which sound nothing at all alike.

For a more in-depth examination, you may read this follow-up post.

The Fourteenth Amendment and Citizenship Clause

Several months ago, there was a big discussion concerning the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument was spurred on by President Trump arguing that the Citizenship Clause did not guarantee citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and that the policies stating as such could be revoked by a law by congress or possibly just an executive order. Since then, the whole issue has fallen off the map and not been brought up, making some believe it was just a stunt for the midterms. But regardless of whether it has been forgotten or not, there was a lot of discussion at the time and I wanted to weigh in on a few errors I was often seeing.

For reference, here is the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment in which the Citizenship Clause is to be found:

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.

The bolded is the pertinent portion, and its meaning has been debated. Now, the errors I mentioned seeing were specifically the usage of quotes from two Senators, which actually ties in a bit with the previous post of the importance of looking up quotes and seeing context. Here they are:

"This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." -Senator Howard

"The provision is, that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." That means "subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof." Now, does the Senator from Wisconsin pretend to say that the Navajoe Indians are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? What do we mean by "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?" Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means." -Senator Trumbull 

Alternatively:

"It is only those persons who come completely within our jurisdiction, who are subject to our laws, that we think of making citizens; and there can be no objection to the proposition that such persons should be citizens." -Senator Trumbull

Both of these were stated during the debates on the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, with the first being the most important given that Howard was the one who proposed the amendment. Indeed, it is the one most cited, I believe, so let's examine it in context.

The most key phrase, of course, is "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." Not infrequently, a bracketed "or" is added between "aliens" and "who" to supposedly clarify the meaning. However, that is simply reading one's assumptions into the text.

This sentence is confusing in structure. It is not properly constructed and leaves it unclear whether he's saying someone who fulfills all three of those categories is excluded, or if he's listing three separate categories, or if he's using the word "aliens" to clarify the meaning of "foreigners" and thus he's ultimately just saying "foreigners who belong to the families..." and there aren't categories to his statement at all. I have seen various arguments on what he meant by that.

However, this quote did not occur in isolation, and thus there is little need to speculate based on just the language. Its meaning can be proven quite decisively by looking at its context. This quote comes from page 2890 of the Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Session. One may find that here or alternatively if you'd prefer it in text rather than image, archive.org has put it all into text form here (a quick search for "Mr. HOWARD. I now move to take up House joint resolution No. 127." will pop up the right part). Do note that the second seems to have been a machine scanning it and converting it into text, so a few words are mixed up, most particularly constantly rendering "born" as "bom."

Now for the full context. This begins with Senator Howard giving the above quote. There is a brief aside where Senator Doolittle suggests a change to specify Indians are excluded (while Native American is the more common term nowadays, I will use Indian as that is what is used in the congressional discussion), which Senator Howard essentially blows off. Now we come to the critical part, which is something often skipped over by those who use the above quote from Senator Howard.

Senator Cowan starts talking at this point to complain about the amendment. His reasoning? He thinks it would be a bad idea, because it would allow foreigners to become citizens. His entire speech makes no sense if he believed that Howard meant to exclude children of foreigners. But this particular section of it makes it even more explicitly obvious he believes the Citizenship Clause confers automatic citizenship to children of foreigners:

"Therefore I think, before we assert broadly that everybody who shall be born in the United States shall be taken to be a citizen of the United States, we ought to exclude others besides Indians not taxed, because I look upon Indians not taxed as being much less dangerous and much less pestiferous to society than I look upon Gypsies."

Note also that he suggests excluding others "besides Indians not taxed", showing that this is a separate issue from Indians, who he regards as excluded under the current text. This pertains to a later point. In the meantime, Senator Conness after this begins speaking and argues against what Senator Cowan just said. He does not say that Cowan's interpretation is wrong. He simply says that his worries as to the result of automatic citizenship of children of non-citizens are unfounded. His speech, much like Cowan's, makes no sense if they did not believe that all children of foreigners became citizens. And, like Cowan, he gives a particular quote that erases all doubt:

"The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States."

The reason for the emphasis on Chinese and California here is because Senator Conness was from California which had a lot of Chinese, but he is clearly indicating that this applies to other foreigners in other states.

Both of these Senators clearly believed that children of non-citizen foreigners were included in the Citizenship Clause as shown by their entire argument on it. No one else came forward to claim their interpretation was wrong, including Senator Howard who has two perfect opportunities: A brief interruption during Conness's speech, and the fact he talks immediately afterwards. It is incomprehensible that if children of foreigners were meant to be excluded, Senator Howard wouldn't simply point that out to end the argument quickly in the multiple opportunities he has.

The simple bottom line is that it despite how you might feel the quote looks by itself, it is abundantly clear from both how Senator Howard's quote was reacted to as well as his own reactions to those reactions that he was saying that only those who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign sovereigns are excluded. Other foreigners living in the United States qualify.

Now we come to Trumbull's quote, which comes afterwards. After Conness finishes his speech, the matter of foreigner's children being citizens is essentially tabled for a lengthy argument about whether or not Indians are excluded by the text and a big debate starts over it. I will now give fuller context of Trumbull's quote. I beg the reader's indulgence for the length, but it is necessary to make the point. For the context of the context, this is concerning the suggestion that the words "excluding Indians not taxed" be added to the Fourteenth Amendment to leave it clear that "wild Indians" are not counted. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Of course my opinion is not any better than that of any other member of the Senate; but it is very clear to me that there is nothing whatever in the suggestions of the Senator from Wisconsin. The provision is, that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." That means "subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof." Now, does the Senator from Wisconsin pretend to say that the Navajoe Indians are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? What do we mean by "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?" Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means. Can you sue a Navajoe Indian in court? Are they in any sense subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? By no means. We make treaties with them, and therefore they are not subject to our jurisdiction. If they were, we would not make treaties with them. If we want to control the Navajoes, or any other Indians of which the Senator from Wisconsin has spoken, how do we do it? Do we pass a law to control them? Are they subject to our jurisdiction in that sense? Is it not understood that if we want to make arrangements with the Indians to whom he refers we do it by means of a treaty? The Senator himself has brought before us a great many treaties this session in order to get control of those people.

If you introduce the words "not taxed," that is a very indefinite expression. What does "excluding Indians not taxed" mean? You will have just as much difficulty in regard to those Indians that you say are in Colorado, where there are more Indians than there are whites. Suppose they have property there, and it is taxed; then they are citizens.

Mr. WADE. And ought to be.

Mr. TRUMBULL. The Senator from Ohio says they ought to be. If they are there and within the jurisdiction of Colorado, and subject to the laws of Colorado, they ought to be citizens; and that is all that is proposed. It cannot be said of any Indian who owes allegiance, partial allegiance if you please, to some other Government that he is "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Would the Senator from Wisconsin think for a moment of  bringing a bill into Congress to subject these wild Indians with whom we have no treaty to the laws and regulations of civilized life? Would he think of punishing them for instituting among themselves their own tribal regulations? Does the Government of the United States pretend to take jurisdiction of murders and robberies and other crimes committed by one Indian upon another? Are they subject to our jurisdiction in any just sense? They are not subject to our jurisdiction. We do not exercise jurisdiction over them. It is only those persons who come completely within our jurisdiction, who are subject to our laws, that we think of making citizens; and there can be no objection to the proposition that such persons should be citizens.

It seems to me, sir, that to introduce the words suggested by the Senator from Wisconsin would not make the proposition any clearer than it is, and that it by no means embraces, or by any fair construction — by any construction, I may say —could embrace the wild Indians of the plains or any with whom we have treaty relations, for the very fact that we have treaty relations with them shows that they are not subject to our  jurisdiction. We cannot make a treaty with ourselves; it would be absurd. I think that the proposition is clear and safe as it is.

As is clear, this is only in discussing Indians, who (especially if you read the entirety of the debates) it is obvious were regarded as a special exception to the Citizenship Clause. Indeed, consider this portion: "If they are there and within the jurisdiction of Colorado, and subject to the laws of Colorado, they ought to be citizens; and that is all that is proposed." This is clearly showing that an Indian who is not living under tribal sovereignty and is under the laws of Colorado would qualify under the Fourteenth Amendment to have their children be citizens. It should also be noted that his explanations for why Indians under tribal sovereignty do not count does not apply to your regular illegal immigrants that are living in the United States: Treaties are not made with them, you can sue them, and if one murders or robs another illegal immigrant they can be prosecuted. It should be further noted that this is all backed up even more by Senator Cowan's quote above, in which he suggests they exclude people other than just Indians from the Citizenship Clause, showing a distinction between Indians (under tribal sovereignty) versus foreigners living in the United States itself.

So attempting to quote anything Trumbull says here, or even to bring up the general question of the fact Indians weren't given automatic birth citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment (this didn't occur until the much later Indian Citizenship Act of 1924), is to completely ignore what was actually stated in the debates. Children born to foreigners living in the United States (excluding ambassadors or foreign sovereigns) become citizens. Children born to Indians living under tribal sovereignty are the only other exception (aside from occupying armies, but that is not at stake here).

There are still arguments one could use to claim that the Fourteenth Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship to illegal immigrants. One could argue that the intentions of the drafters do not matter, only what the text says, though given that illegal immigrants are subject to the laws of the country (otherwise why would they be illegal?), that seems like an uphill battle. One could try to argue that there was no such thing as an illegal alien at the time it was passed (laws restricting immigration, surprisingly as it may sound, were not passed until later), so their statements cannot be used to apply to them. I do not personally find such arguments persuasive, but they can be attempted. For a larger defense that the Citizenship Clause gives citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, one may read an article by James Ho here, which goes into additional detail concerning legal precedent. Ironically, James Ho was later appointed as a federal judge by President Trump.  I should also note the article "Originalism and Birthright Citizenship" by Michael Ramsey. This runs from page 405 to 473 in Volume 109 of the Georgetown Law Journal, and was not yet published at the time I originally made this blog post. Much of this actually focuses on the question of what qualifies as "in the United States" (not directly relevant to this blog post) but it still offers much good information in regards to the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" which is discussed on pages pages 436-461. See particularly pages 447-451 where the debates are discussed.

But any attempt to appeal to the aforementioned quotes of Howard or Trumbull, or to bring up the question of the fact Indians born under tribal sovereignty were excluded from the birthright citizenship, is doomed to fail because when examined in context, it is obvious that the quotes mean the exact opposite of what those using them want. Those quotes prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to give birthright citizenship to anyone born within the United States, excluding Indians living under tribal sovereignty (which is, as stated in the debates, a quasi-foreign nation) or ambassadors/foreign sovereigns. It is highly frustrating to see people who say that original intention is what matters above all else, and then ignore what the clear original intentions of the Citizenship Clause even were.

Again, this is all perhaps several months too late to be relevant. But it is something I wanted to put up somewhere.

Arguing By Quotes: Check Them!

Something not uncommon in the Internet is what I term "arguing by quotes." This is when, in the service of an argument, you pull up a quote from someone.


Obviously, there is nothing wrong with doing this! If you want to argue that George Washington had an opinion on something, a quote from him is a great way to do it. The problem is the frequency with which quotes can be thrown around that aren't verified as accurate.


Here's an example of such a case. Consider this quote attributed to St. Alphonse (or Alphonsus):

“How thankful we ought to be to Jesus Christ for the gift of faith! What would have become of us if we had been born in Asia, Africa, America, or in the midst of heretics and schismatics? He who does not believe is lost. This, then, was the first and greatest grace bestowed on us: our calling to the true faith. O Saviour of the world, what would have become of us if Thou hadst not enlightened us? … We would all have perished.”


I've also seen it posted in this form:

"What would have become of us if we had been born in Asia, Africa, America, or in the midst of heretics and schismatics? He who does not believe is lost. . . . We would have been like our fathers of old, who adored animals and blocks of stone and wood; and thus we all would have perished!"


These are generally used in the service of arguing that he had the viewpoint that those who had no opportunity to hear the gospel are inherently lost. Perhaps he did--but does the above quote show that? In both forms, they are attributed to his book "Preparation for Death." The problem is that this quote is not, as far as I can tell, found in the book (if you wish to verify, examine the book here, you may need to scroll down for the English links).


This quote rather appears to come from a different work of his entirely, a meditation for January 1 which can be found here; it does not cite specifically where it is from, but it seems to be from page 256 of volume 4 of "The incarnation, birth, and infancy of Jesus Christ" which can be found here. While part of the above quotes can be found, their post-ellipses portions are nowhere to be found. So let's see what the actual quote is:


"How thankful ought we not, then, to be to Jesus Christ for the gift of faith! And what would have become of us if we had been born in Asia, in Africa, in America, or in the midst of heretics and schismatics? He who believes not is lost: He that believeth not shall be condemned. And thus probably we also should have been lost."


The wording differs slightly but this is presumably the result of a different translation. As we can see, however, we have the phrase "probably we also should have been lost." This specific quote indicates the view that such people have the possibility (though not apparently the probability) of being saved.


This is a demonstration of the importance of checking quotes. In this case, the quote was not only not where it was supposed to be, but when found, it said something different than what was claimed.


Indeed, all of this applies to indirect quotes as well. Here is an example. It is often alleged that Akira Toriyama (the author of the famous Dragon Ball series) was forced to keep the series going past the Freiza arc against his wishes due to its popularity. What is not stated in the many claims of such is where he said such a thing. This site goes into some details in debunking this idea:
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/


So whenever you see a quote that seems possibly iffy, look to see where it comes from. If no source is offered at all, that is a red flag that the quote isn't real, especially if you attempt to search online for the quote only to find further source-less citations. If a source is given, look the source up to verify this was actually said. Even obscure sources can often be found with the aid of places like archive.org. This will also allow you to look at the context in order to determine whether it is being taken out of context or not. This applies not only to the reader, but also to the writer. If you are planning to use a quote in an "argument by quotation," verify that the quote (whether direct or indirect) is correct before using it. Don't perpetuate false or misleading quotes.


The First Post

This blog exists basically as a way for me to be able to get some stuff off my chest. Sometimes I see things on forums from long ago I want to make some comment on, but I can't due to it being so long ago. I don't know how many people will actually read any of this, but I want to put them somewhere. These will probably be of a variety of things, some more serious (religion or politics) and some more silly (thoughts on things like Star Wars).

Not the most interesting first post, but who knows where this blog will go?