citizenship

Chris Knight's avatar

For the past few days I’ve been working on an op-ed piece focusing on the current race for mayor in New York City.  And narrowing that focus down on Zohran Mandani – the radical Islamic communist who is among other things threatening to raise taxes on white people – in particular.

I’ve wound up with bits and pieces of material worth making at least two essays of.  There is soooo much that I am feeling led to say about this race.  About how the people of the Big Apple are poised to make the biggest mistake they have ever collectively done as a community.  About how most of them have blinded themselves because of party loyalty.
Recently I heard someone describe “democracy” as “the political theory that the common people know what they want and that they deserve to get it good and hard.”  Well, that’s what the citizens of
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Chris Knight's avatar

“Trump wants to deprive Native Americans of their citizenship!”

That’s what I’ve heard from a number of people since yesterday, so I looked into it.

Yes, it’s true: per the strictest interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment at that time, indigenous Americas were not counted as citizens of the United States.  They were instead citizens of their respective tribal reservations.

So the attorneys et al on Trump’s side are literally correct.  Up to the time that the Fourteenth was adopted, at least.

But the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 clarified that Native Americans who were tribal citizens were also American citizens, to be counted and taxed as much as any other citizen.

I doubt that anyone in this administration has even a passive thought to deprive any legal citizen in the United States of their citizenship.  Congress has already stated through legislation that indigenous Americans are fully American citizens.

President Trump ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I have had an idea, which may or may not address a myriad of problems affecting these United States…

We should begin letting all natural-born Americans be citizens.  But only at age
18 can they become full citizens, with all the rights and privileges that comes with such citizenship.


However, for that to happen a person must be made to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he or she is up to handling the responsibilities that comes with being a fully-functioning member of a democratically-elected republic.

Each individual would have to demonstrate
basic knowledge of the Constitution, some simple geography (i.e. be able
to find the United States in a world map) and basic English.  Perhaps along with some understanding of American history, economics and accounting.  Let the examinations be done in the randomly-applied style of the SAT, the GRE and similar tests.  It shouldn’t be too hard but neither ...

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