Article One, Section Eight

This, bumped from April 1 of '06. Seems like it was a hot issue at the time. Faded from view since then. And under the O Administration the very question will be unacceptable, being as it is so unfair. The thing to observe here, all these years down the line, is how hateful I was, and remain. As I've been known to affirm, I am a monster.

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I was browsing through the Constitution ... the Constitution ... looking for the passage that deals with ex post facto laws. Someone, somewhere, has said that the illegal immigration bill, that the illegal immigrants are so fired up about, contained language that would revoke the citizenship of children born to illegals in the USA. As the law currently stands, there is a positive inducement to pregnant women to cross, somehow, our borders, and have their children here - which makes the child, automatically, a citizen. This citizenship is obviously a loophole, since it is self-evident that the Framers of the Constitution could not have intended the reward, the Grand Prize, of US citizenship, to go to scofflaws.

But so the law stands, and we honor it. We honor the law. This is a nation steeped in the concept of the rule of law, and we honor it as a paramount principle. Otherwise, we'd have a culture of, say, corruption and bribery. Congress may act to close this loophole, so the illegal immigrant scofflaw pregnant woman will not be rewarded for her crime. For, of course, it is, technically, a crime to sneak cross the border illegally. Thus the usage of the word, "illegal," in the phrase "illegal immigrant." Thus the perceived need to "sneak."

The scare-mongers and rabble-rousers who promoted the ignorant (I use the word advisedly) and shameful demonstrations of contempt for our laws, last week, seem to claim that those citizens who have benefited by their mothers' crafty manipulation of the existing loophole, by being born here and thus attaining citizenship, will lose their citizenship, under the new law. (Yes, that was a long sentence.) But Article I, Section IX deals with, and dismisses the issue. Maybe these characters, these race-baiters, should read the Constitution they so disrespect and manipulate - I guess they think it is their whore. The language? "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." To revoke the citizenship of a child because of the crime of a mother, retroactively, would be an ex post facto punishment (and it would partake, somewhat, of the "corruption of blood" - Article III, Section III). The new law would and could apply only to the children of those gravid females who sneak across the border after the passing of the law. Lesson: do not listen to liars and ignoramuses. Simple.

But as I was reading, I noticed again some interesting things. In Article I, Section VIII, we find this: Congress shall have the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions". (In Section IX, we find "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it" - in case anyone was wondering if Lincoln suspended the Writ of H.C. unlawfully.) Congress has the power to call out the Militia to repel Invasions. This got me thinking about what an invasion is.

Must an invasion be an army? Must it be plotted by the generals of some foreign power? Or does the legitimate definition include alternatives? What if a foreign government were to plot and plan and provide not for a military invasion, but rather for a vast but informal horde to cross our border by night on foot, or by day crammed into trunks and wheel wells and vans? What if maps and manuals were printed, and comic books handed out, and water distributed, all urging indigent, uneducated and unwanted people to leave, say, impoverished Mexico, and sneak over into the United States, thus to enjoy its bounty and prosperity? What if these provisions were administered by governmental agencies of, say, Mexico? Does the gradual horde, mere thousands every day, day after day, year after year, sponsored and encouraged by, say, the Mexican government - to relieve the ugly effect of their own incompetence and corruption - amount to an invasion?

It surely is not a military invasion. Mexico would not send an army against us, just as the Islamists would not do so. The Islamists fight a war of attrition, setting their bombs against our soldiers, while their real aim, abetted eagerly by the Media, targets, of course, American popular opinion. That is the function of terrorism: not to win wars, but to change opinions and thus policies. Likewise, some foreign power ... say, Mexico, might pursue a cynical and entirely selfish goal, sloughing off unwanted population, pulling American dollars into its economy from the faithfully sent earnings of those self-same unwanted expatriates. Let the North Americans deal with our unwanted, uneducated, poverty-stricken unskilled surplus population - they might think. We can only benefit from this - they might say.

So. Is it an "invasion"? - an "intrusion or encroachment"? - an incursion into "a place in large numbers, usually when unwanted and in order to take possession"? - a spoiling of "a situation or quality that another person values with very noticeable and selfish behaviour"? And if it is an invasion, what shall Congress do? What does it have the authority, the "power," to do? Call out the Militia? Well, yes, clearly, in the event of an Invasion, Congress may call out the Militia. It may. It may. But only if it imagines there is some sort of Invasion going on. Hmm. If only there were some way to figure out what an Invasion is.



J