[extropy-chat] gay marriage

Major extropy at audry2.com
Thu Feb 19 02:51:05 UTC 2004


Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> writes:

> > After I have immigrated I should be as free as any other citizen to
> > engage in free speech or other legal political action in order to
> > make the place better.
> 
> Actually, the 13th Amendment (the original one, which will soon make a
> legal resurgence) disagrees with you. Turns out acting on behalf of a
> foreign power, receiving gifts or pay of any kind from a foreign power
> by any American is Constitutionally grounds for stripping one's citizenship.

I don't see how your reply follows from my comment.

To "engage in free speech or other legal political action in order to
make the place better" by a (new or otherwise) American citizen is
not necessarily, or even usually, "acting on behalf of a foreign power".

A person can "engage in free speech or other legal political action in
order to make the place better" because "making the place better" makes
it better for *them* not for some foreign power. No citizen in a
democracy should feel that if they point out their (and is *is*
"their" once they become citizens) country's faults the loyalty police
are going to chuck them out.

If you start treating people who have political opinions and express
them in a legal way as spies (which is what clause was apparently
about) you are right back in the McCarthy era.

Major

PS1: "receiving gifts [...] from a foreign power" is something which
  every US President and most members of congress have done. Be
  interesting to expel the lot of them and make a fresh start,
  wouldn't it?

PS2: I like "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
  punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
  shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
  jurisdiction" better anyhow.



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