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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   29468 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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I think it’s more of a “this was the situation before mass travel was trivial.” Its aim was people born in the USA to former slaves who had been in the USA for generations. While it mentions immigration, it mentions people naturalized as citizens, they’re not why the amendment happened. The 14th amendment was about citizenship for slaves and the children of slaves being given full citizenship.

And at the time, most immigrants were coming on boats legally. It’s wasn’t a mass of people walking across the Rio Grande in the dead of night. Mass migration of the scale seen today didn’t happen in 1870 when travel was by steamship or trains or horses. Trying to figure out what the writers of the bill mean about a situation that they absolutely never anticipated does no Justice to the law itself.

To be fair the same argument applies to the second amendment (and others). The founding fathers couldn’t have foreseen in 1791 the developments of unwieldy muskets.

couldn’t have foreseen in 1791 the developments of unwieldy muskets.

Muskets have been around since the 16th century. What are you talking about?

Presumably by "developments" he means how muskets would develop in their future, not the contemporaneous state of their development.

Though IMHO this argument doesn't apply extremely well to the Second Amendment. Some of the Founding Fathers thought it was just Common Sense that private merchants should be allowed and encouraged to own their own warships. I don't think "maybe they can have a ship with fifty cannons on it, but surely they can't have a semiautomatic rifle!" would be the devastating argument that some people imagine.

Ah, fair, I guess I misread that.

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