Birds of a Collectivist Feather Flock Together
This 1937 Austrian graphic depicts a social democrat, Nazi, and Communist. It reads, “And when they found each other, they understood each other immediately.“
Say Yes To Data Centers
Data centers, in a capitalist economy, is an issue of property rights. So long as a data center (or for that matter farm) does not affect the property rights of other property owners (say by pollution) the proper policy is laissez-faire.
Data centers are where your email is stored, where your Amazon purchases are handled, and where the computers that the military uses to defend the US are located. The quantity and the quality of human life on Earth depends on them.
The energy issue is one of supply and demand. Until recently, the United States has more or less pursued an anti-energy economic policy (most notably with clean nuclear energy) which is the reason why energy prices rise as a supply cannot meet demand.
Farmland versus data centers is a false alternative. Politically, both can coexist in an objective rule of law system where the rights of the owners of both are equally respected.
Economically, the computer power from data centers will help increase the quantity and improve the quality of produce in the future.
Those modern-day anti-progress advocates of statism that propose to ban data centers should take the no data centers pledge—they have nothing to lose but the benefits of the internet in the 21st century.
For those who oppose Data Centers they should take the NO DATA CENTERS PLEDGE:
Verifying Universal Mail In Ballots
The only way to confirm the validity of a mass mail in ballot is not by verifying its signature (as this can be forged or improperly “verified”), but only by having the actual voter who allegedly mailed in the unrequested ballot verify its authenticity.
This video shows what happened in one instance when you do.
Recommended Reading:
Chip Joyce: Fauci Document Archive
Chip Joyce has created a research tool to search Fauci’s publicly available data: emails, Slack messages, and diary. He will add phone records when they are released. Boolean search operators. Citation link created. Free to use. You can view it at fauci-archive.org
George Reisman: Western civilization is open to everyone
George Reisman on Western Civilization vs Barbarism:
From a historical perspective, Western civilization embraces two main periods: the era of Greco-Roman civilization and the era of modern Western civilization, which latter encompasses the rediscovery of Greco-Roman civilization in the late Middle Ages, and the periods of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. Modern Western civilization continues down to the present moment, of course, as the dominant force in the culture of the countries of Western Europe and the United States and the other countries settled by the descendants of West Europeans. It is an increasingly powerful force in the rapidly progressing countries of the Far East, such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, whose economies rest on “Western” foundations in every essential respect.
From the perspective of intellectual and cultural content, Western civilization represents an understanding and acceptance of the following: the laws of logic; the concept of causality and, consequently, of a universe ruled by natural laws intelligible to man; on these foundations, the whole known corpus of the laws of mathematics and science; the individual’s self-responsibility based on his free will to choose between good and evil; the value of man above all other species on the basis of his unique possession of the power of reason; the value and competence of the individual human being and his corollary possession of individual rights, among them the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness; the need for limited government and for the individual’s freedom from the state; on this entire preceding foundation, the validity of capitalism, with its unprecedented and continuing economic development in terms of division of labor, technological progress, capital accumulation, and rising living standards; in addition, the importance of visual arts and literature depicting man as capable of facing the world with confidence in his power to succeed, and music featuring harmony and melody.
The Universalizability of Western Civilization
Once one recalls what Western civilization is, the most important thing to realize about it is that it is open to everyone. Indeed, important elements of “Western” civilization did not even originate in the West. The civilization of the Greeks and Romans incorporated significant aspects of science that were handed down from Egypt and Babylon. Modern “Western” civilization includes contributions from people living in the Middle East and in China during the Dark Ages, when Western Europe had reverted to virtual barbarism. Indeed, during the Dark Ages, “Western” civilization resided much more in the Middle East than in Western Europe. (It is conceivable that if present trends continue, in another century it might reside more in the Far East than in the West.)
The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France to like French- fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European descent to admire Western civilization, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilization is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming “Westernized.” The rapidly progressing economies of the Far East are all “Western” insofar as they rest on a foundation of logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism–exactly the same logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism that are essential features of “Western” civilization.
Tracinski Loses Congressional Bid in Virginia
Anti-Trumper Robert W Tracinski comes in 3rd place in Virginia Democrat primary.
His NO KINGS. NO OLIGARCHS. NO RUBBER STAMPS. campaign connected with 6% of Democrat primary voters. The winner ran on: LOWER COSTS, HIGHER WAGES (end tariffs, govt medical care, etc).
Though I think his TDS is a problem (No Rob, Trump is not a king nor dictator) it would make RWT an electable *Democrat* candidate or as he describes himself:
I’m not a traditional Democrat. I’m a classical liberal and former Tea Party activist who understands rural values and can speak to independents and Republicans who believe in freedom, accountability, and the rule of law.
Hopefully he decides to run again in the next election (when Trump is out of office). His “No Oligarchs” approach will be a bulwark once the Democrats get back in power and perhaps he can have a positive effect on reforming the Party which has shifted towards socialism. – MDC
Minnesota ICE Resistance: Creating a powder keg of citizen vs. federal law enforcement
James Lindsay on X on what is going in Minnesota as “Classic Bolshevik moves using Soros’s media-based reflexive dialectic as the mechanism.”
“Your target’s reaction is your real action,”
Minnesota has provided us with yet another good example of the Communist and radical principle of “your target’s reaction is your real action,” which is a key strategic tactic for them.
For many months, ICE and other federal law enforcement, not to mention Trump himself, have been made out to be the kinds of tyrants that have to be stopped at almost any cost, including by reckless citizen actions, like obstructing law enforcement, resisting arrest, throwing things at police, etc.
All of it is framed out in ridiculous false narratives designed to “come true” at the moment of crisis, at which point they will seize control of the narrative to drive specific, pre-planned action. In this case, the false narratives are not just about the status of federal law enforcement and ICE but also about their alleged unwillingness to work with or coordinate with local and state police who have, behind the scenes, been ordered to be non-compliant, if not softly antagonistic.
This is called “Operational Preparation of the Environment” in the unrestricted or political warfare environment in which radicals today do their work. The model they’re using is called “reflexivity” and is George Soros’s “shoelace dialectic” (his terms) as a theory of change.
The goal was always to create antagonistic situations between citizens, who can be framed as fighting a noble anti-oppression cause, and ICE, who can be framed as engaging in unwelcome oppression.
By ordering local and state police to be uncooperative, not only do the operations fall more heavily on federal law enforcement, but also several other things are achieved. For examples,
a) Locals can be led to believe federal law enforcement is operating outside of the bounds of the more local law and against the wishes of their state/locality, which they are led to believe holds sovereignty;
b) This generates a conflict between the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution and local and state law enforcement that citizens are led to believe renders the federal LEOs out of line;
c) Local and state police aren’t usually openly antagonistic, therefore creating an illusion of resistance to the feds that they cannot actually fulfill because of their roles, shifting responsibility onto (activist) citizens;
d) Circumstances where local citizens are believed to be on the side of the rightful law against oppressive alien law (and may expect diminished or no consequences for resisting the “alien” law, even though it is actually supreme).
There are more we could think of, I’m sure, but a key point is that the leadership in states like Minnesota (and California, etc.) know they’re creating this powder keg of citizen versus federal law enforcement (here: ICE) while spreading various agitating narratives like about fascism, “protecting communities and neighbors,” etc. They are the primary willful bad actors in this situation, together with some professional and other paid agitators who take things to the next level on the streets.
Goal is to get citizens to create anarchy and chaos
The goal is to get citizens to obstruct and even threaten or attack ICE, which in effect creates a decision dilemma for ICE/federal law enforcement. Either the feds can stand down and thus negate the Supremacy Clause and fail to do their jobs, or they can act within their authority and seek to arrest and detail the people obstructing their lawful mandate that the states are resisting less directly and more through engineered fuckery (for lack of a better word).
Once that happens enough times, statistics kind of take over.
Some proportion of those antagonistic encounters will go sideways. Eventually, as happened yesterday, you’ll find a federal law enforcement (ICE) agent do something, either unreasonably or reasonably with sufficient ambiguity (as here), to frame it as an illegitimate overreaction and initiate the reflexive campaign on what looks like firm footing.
Soros’s reflexivity dialectic (his word for it) works by generating the conditions for chaos and then placing down “guideposts” through the chaos once it arises. He says that himself in The Alchemy of Finance (1992) in the first chapter. The goal is to generate chaotic environments in which “historical change” (his term) can occur and then to shape the outcome of that change when it arrives by leading people to believe certain things about the chaotic environment they’re in that gets them to take specific actions they wouldn’t otherwise take.
In this case, the points of the reflexive campaign are really obvious because they keep saying them over and over and over: get ICE out of Minnesota (and thus protect their rampant fraud racket) and impeach Secretary Noem (take down a political rival so they can demand a more compliant replacement). Classic Bolshevik moves using Soros’s media-based reflexive dialectic as the mechanism.
Tim Walz “creates a constitutional crisis and is, frankly, direct insurrection he should be prosecuted for”
Further, as Governor Tim Walz made clear, he’s willing to try to induce a profound crisis by naming Minnesota as being “at war” with the federal government and threatening to attempt to deploy the National Guard against federal law enforcement (in violation of their Constitutional oath), which creates a constitutional crisis and is, frankly, direct insurrection he should be prosecuted for. This puts the Trump Administration in a similar, higher decision dilemma: deal with Walz on these terms and trigger a huge falsely justified reaction on the Left or let him get away with what amounts to literal insurrection to avoid that trap. We called this same dilemma the “Trump Trap” back in 2020, but the stakes are actually higher now, even though the situation isn’t as heated.
So, there’s the Minnesota ICE Floyd psyop in a nutshell. They’ve used the reaction of the ICE officer (shooting a woman he believed for good reason was posing an imminent threat) to justify not just this campaign but the direct actions in the streets (which were also coordinated, funded, and ready to be activated in the same way the National Guard is on standby), and with a certain population, most of whom lean Left, it will work. That’s what’s happening.
Shooting of Renee Good: Irresponsible to Immediately Proclaim This a Murder
The CNN provided audio clearly shows that Renee Good accelerated her car at the office before she was shot.
IRRESPONSIBLE TO CALL THIS A MURDER, LET ALL THE FACTS COME OUT
Video shown by @CNN @AC360 ***WITH AUDIO*** shows that the car was moving before the officer shot.pic.twitter.com/JfMczCjXTo
(CNN guest's explanation may not be the correct one, and I'm waiting to confirm the… https://t.co/nYIiAADrc7
— Capitalism (@CapitalismMag) January 9, 2026
I understand that people are very emotional right now, especially those Objectivists who are virulently anti-ICE, but let ALL THE FACTS come out before we declare murder.
Also let me remind you what our fellow teacher, Leonard Peikoff, taught us: a picture — and may I add a video — is not an argument.
If one wishes to protest what one believes to be an unjust law, initiating physical force against federal agents is not the way to do it.
In principle, the violent actions against federal ICE agents today are just as wrong as the violence committed against the Capitol police on J6. The only difference is that the scope and extent of the anti-ICE violence is much worse than J6 — and is much more damaging to America, as Democrat state and local authorities are enabling the violence by not providing local police to maintain the peace, as governors and mayor threaten the federal government. It was only a matter of time that these constant scuffles with law enforcement would lead to someone’s death.
Minnesota Leftists now have their 2026 BLM George Floyd moment with the unfortunate tragic shooting of Renee Good.
Updates:
Justin Amash claims:
“Many people believe the legal threshold for self-defense is lower for government officers than for ordinary citizens. It’s not. There’s one simple test for evaluating whether an officer’s use of force was unlawful or justified as self-defense. Ask yourself: If you, an ordinary citizen, did the same thing the officer did, how would your actions be assessed? If someone were obstructing a street in your neighborhood, and you demanded they move, and everyone were in the same physical positions and took the same actions, would you be justified in shooting the driver of the vehicle? I can say, unequivocally, that if you did the same thing the ICE officer in Minneapolis did, you would be found guilty of a crime, and your claim of self-defense would be rejected outright.”
As Tara Smith observes in her book on Objective Law this is incorrect. In order for the government to operate it gains powers that a citizen does not possess – such as to force a witness to crime to appear in court.
Moreso, Amash’s analogy does not hold. The driver of the car was the one obstructing legal law enforcement. She was not merely using the street as a thruway to get to her destination but as an act of political disobedience. Videos of her behavior before the incident confirmed this. Renee Good (her and her partner) were the aggressor. Does this justify her tragic death? No, but neither does it make the officer’s actions cold-blooded murder (given the present evidence which is incomplete).
When she saw a federal officer who told her to stop and saw another officer was in front of her vehicle she should not have engaged it to accelerate in his direction.
***
As Colin Wright on X observes:
“These people put themselves in inherently dangerous situations, then cry when bad things happen.” That’s the entire point. Activist leaders deliberately encourage people to place themselves in risky confrontations, knowing that increased interactions with law enforcement raise the odds of producing a viral incident that can be used as a catalyst for a broader uprising. You can’t expect influential figures on the left to discourage this behavior, because it is one of the most effective tactics in their revolutionary playbook. The mass public mourning at vigils is largely performative. It is meant to generate sympathy, which is then leveraged to advance their desired revolution. They rely on the fact that calling all this out makes you look heartless. They count on that. It’s the reputational cost critics must pay, and it functions to shield their strategy designed to manufacture and weaponize victimhood.
***
NEW YORK POST ON “ICE WATCH” “WARRIOR”
“It was through her involvement in the school community that Good became involved in “ICE Watch” — a loose coalition of activists dedicated to disrupting ICE raids in the sanctuary city.” “…ICE Watch and adjacent groups can also turn confrontational — with numerous instances of activists ramming agents with their cars in the past.”
America Last: Fuentes’s Prime Supporters are Foreign Bots That Boost His Influence
Nick Fuentes’s surge into national visibility did not originate from a broad or sudden shift in American political sentiment. It emerged from a pattern of online amplification that was unusually fast, unusually concentrated, and unusually foreign in origin. This report examines the
structure of that amplification, the signals it produced inside the information environment, and the ways mainstream, legacy institutions interpreted those signals as indicators of emerging relevance. The goal is not to explain Fuentes’s ideology or his existing audience, but to assess
how synthetic engagement, real-world events, and media incentives converged to elevate a fringe figure into a central subject of national attention.– Algorithmic Amplification Far Exceeds Legitimate Reach: Fuentes received dramatically higher early retweet velocity than any comparator, including Elon Musk (the platform’s most-followed user). Within the critical first 30 minutes, Fuentes routinely outperformed
accounts with 10-100× more followers.– Early Engagement is Dominated by Repeat Actors: In a sample of 20 recent posts, 61% of Fuentes’s first-30-minute retweets came from accounts that retweeted multiple of these 20 posts within that same ultra-short window – behavior highly suggestive of coordination or automation.
– The Amplification Network is Overwhelmingly Anonymous & Ideologically Dedicated: 92% of repeat early-retweeters were fully anonymous (no real name, no real photo, no location, no contact info) and the majority are openly or functionally single-purpose “Groyper” / “AmericaFirst” accounts whose primary activity is boosting Nick Fuentes and related fringextremist messaging.
– Foreign-Origin Amplification Dominated Fuentes’s Viral Posts: In the months before Charlie Kirk’s death, roughly half of the retweets on Fuentes’s most-viral posts came from foreign accounts, heavily concentrated in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
These regions have no organic link to Fuentes’s politics but do match the known geographic footprint of low-cost engagement farms, making the pattern consistent with bot-farm amplification rather than genuine foreign audiences.– Mainstream Media Reinforcement: Since September 2025, mainstream media coverage increased more than threefold and high-status descriptions of Fuentes increased by 59.6%. Outlets also adopted markedly more polished visual treatments, including studio-grade portraits,
controlled lighting, shallow depth of field, and editorial framing that visually positioned Fuentes as a consequential political figure.– Fuentes Himself is Involved in Coordination: His manipulated reach is not accidental; full show transcripts reveal hundreds of real-time commands to “retweet this” and “retweet me,” establishing raid-style amplification as a core operating method. These directed raids built the
behavioral infrastructure of his account and laid the groundwork for consistent X policy violations by the anonymous and foreign network now amplifying him.
America is Not Fundamentally a Christian Nation
This fact is expressed by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, when he wrote:
“…an amendment was proposed…that…would read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected…in proof that they meant to comprehend…the Jew & Gentile, Christian & Mohammedan, Hindoo & Infidel…”
America is a nation of the Enlightenment founded on the philosophy that each individual has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that it is the government’s job to protect these rights.
“Warm Collectivism” vs. “Frigid” Individualism
Statists on “warm” – mystical – collectivism:
“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” — ZOHRAN MAMDANI
“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.” — MAO
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” — MUSSOLINI
“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.” — STALIN
And now from the “frigid” – rational – individualist:
“COLLECTIVISM holds that the INDIVIDUAL has NO RIGHTS, that his life and work belong to the group … and that the group may SACRIFICE him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of BRUTE FORCE—and STATISM has always been the political corollary of collectivism.” — AYN RAND, Virtue of Selfishness
CNN Scott Jennings on the “epidemic of political vigilantism”
“It strikes me that we are undergoing an epidemic of political vigilantism right now.”
“Why are people showing up in vehicles, in convoys, not just in Minneapolis, but all over the country in an effort to obstruct lawful federal law enforcement activities?”
“This is not an isolated incident. We’ve had hundreds of car rammings against ICE agents across the country.”
“According to DHS, this lady in this car today, along with other vehicles, had been tracking ICE agents around. Why are people believing that they can drive their car into a federal law enforcement situation, and that’s somehow appropriate?”
“I understand they don’t like the fact that these agents are enforcing existing immigration law… but that’s not how we change laws in this country.”
“If you don’t like the law, you talk to politicians. You don’t drive your car into the middle of a building or a law enforcement situation.”
“If I don’t like how much the IRS is charging me in taxes, I don’t drive my car into the Treasury Department. I call my congressman.”
“Political vigilantism is being encouraged by Democratic officials like Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who earlier this year told people to, quote, ‘put your bodies on the line.’”
“And Governor Tim Walz has been calling these guys Gestapo all year.”
“What do you think happens when you radicalize a base of people like this?!”
There’s a lot of noise out there about what happened in Minneapolis today.
But what @ScottJenningsKY just told the CNN panel cuts through ALL of it.
This isn’t about one incident. This is a dangerous pattern within modern society.
JENNINGS: “It strikes me that we are… pic.twitter.com/Ns5sQu6vbE
— Overton (@overton_news) January 8, 2026
The Complete Guide to Socialism vs Capitalism (Myths Explained)
Yaron Brook on the Arrest of Collectivist Dictator Maduro
I had a call with @yaronbrook today for background and quotes for an article I'm writing.
The conversation was so informative that I decided to share it here in full.
I haven’t heard Yaron’s nuanced take from anyone else. Worth the listen. pic.twitter.com/JQ8Y05dFqS
— agustina vergara cid (@agustinavcid) January 5, 2026
Related:
Venezuela—Indictments, Invasions, and the Constitution’s Crumbling Guardrails
Article I commits to Congress—not the president—the power to decide when the United States will initiate hostilities against foreign sovereigns.
Justice in Caracas
Venezuela has a chance at revival. America has removed a security threat. And autocrats everywhere just learned that no palace provides immunity from justice.
Smearing Andrew Bernstein Over His Praise for Sheriff Ivery
In his attempt to condemn Andrew Bernstein for his praise of Sheriff Ivey’s statements on how the Brevard Florida police will deal with law breaking violent mobs and those who wish to mortally harm police officers, Provenzo fails to objectively analyze the Sheriff’s statements line by line, which is what is necessary, but instead sloppily lumps Ivey’s statements all into one collective punishment that he can easily dismiss. Here is how Mr. Provenzo describes Sheriff Ivey’s statements:
“Sheriff Ivey’s threats include being run over, attacked by dogs, or killed—not for murder, not for terrorism, but for spitting, for blocking an intersection, for protesting. These are not capital offenses. The punishments described are not justice. They are theater—a call for violent spectacle in answer to serious matters.”
Is this an objective description of Ivey’s statements by someone who takes matters seriously?
Here are Ivey’s statements (taken from Provenzo’s article) line by line:
1. “If you resist lawful orders, you’re going to jail. Let me be very clear about that. If you block an intersection or roadway in Brevard County, you are going to jail.”
2. “If you flee arrest, you’re going to go to jail tired because we are going to run you down and put you in jail.” (I interpret that as the police running them down, not running them over with a police car.)
3. “If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the DRIVER leave, in our county, you are most likely going to get run over and dragged across the street.”
Ivey doesn’t say the police are going to do it. Ivey doesn’t say it’s always going to happen. Ivey says if you mob rule a car — which I take to be more than just blocking an intersection or blocking traffic (as this was covered in #1) you open yourself up to being run over by the driver.
(I believe this is the law in Brevard county, and possibly Florida. If a mob tries to essentially kidnap a person by blocking the movement of their car, and they feel threatened, they can run over the mob in the process of escaping the threat. For those who lived in the 1990s think of the Rodney King LA riots. I’ve attached a photo of a mob rule of a truck. I wonder what Provenzo would do with his family in a car in such a situation? Put his car in park?).
People should not have to be mind readers. The default should be when a mob of masked individuals break the law to interfere/block/restrain the movement of a law abiding citizen, that citizen can use sufficient force to safely get out of that situation. If that results in the injury of the mob then the fault lies soley on the mob, who if they survive should rethink their lives when they are in prison.
4. “If you spit on us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail.” *(This is a sentence I don’t agree with. It should read, “If you spit on us, you’re going to jail.” As a judge, if a police officer, or anyone for that matter, slapped someone for purposely spitting in their face, I’d probably let it slide with a reprimand.)
5. “If you HIT one of us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail, and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here.” Don’t assault a cop. If the dog sees it, the police most likely will not be able to stop them from biting you.
6. “If you throw a brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at because we will kill you, graveyard dead.” ALL THESE ACTIVITIES IN #6 SHOULD BE TAKEN AS ATTEMPTS TO MURDER A POLICE OFFICER.
As Florida Governor Ron De Santis notes,
“We have a policy that if you’re driving on one of those streets, and a mob surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee…if you hit one of these people, that’s THEIR fault. You don’t have to sit there.”
What’s interesting is how the organized “protesters” deal with this Florida law. When there is a red light the mob types will go near a car, but as soon as that green light hits they are off the road. There are actually videos of this.
Nowhere does Ivey say that you will be killed for peacefully protesting. I’m not sure where Provenzo gets that from. Are there additional quotes I’ve missed? If so please post them. Nowhere does Ivey say you will be killed for spitting.* He does go too far on that issue in my opinion, but he doesn’t say you’ll be killed for it. Nowhere does Ivey say you’ll be legally killed by the police for blocking an intersection. He says “you are going to jail.” This is a remarkably bad take by Provenzo who sadly demonstrates poor reading comprehension, and a level of journalistic integrity befitting Maddow on MSNBC. Provenzo should issue a correction, and an apology to Dr. Bernstein (and Sheriff Ivey).
No Free Market: Government Intevention in American Medicine
Excellent historical overview of Government Intevention in American Medicine By Amesh Adalja MD, FACP, FACEP, FIDSA.
Bezos: Washington Post Will Change Course To Defend Free-Markets
From Jeff Bezos on X: "I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:"I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.Jeff
Justin Amash on Birthright Citizenship: Only an Article V Amendment Can Change It
Justin Amash points to the problems with President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order on X:The Fourteenth Amendment reads, in relevant part:Notes:“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.”
Trump’s odd claim is that a child born in the United States without at least one parent who is a lawful permanent resident or citizen is not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.But this is simply false.Set aside that Trump’s EO would affect children whose parents are lawfully but not permanently here. Let’s look at the “harder” case: the children of illegal immigrants.It should be obvious that even individuals who are unlawfully present in the United States are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” “Jurisdiction” is just the applicability of legal authority to them and the potential exercise of state power against them.People who are unlawfully present in the country can, of course, be charged with crimes, arrested, etc., just like almost anyone else in the United States.There is not a person who doubts this, least of all someone in the Trump administration.I include the word “almost” before “anyone else” two paragraphs above because the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” does exclude certain children: mainly the children of foreign diplomats, who, in fact, are generally not subject to U.S. laws. They have immunity that may or may not be waived by their home country. [1]Now, you may not like the fact that the Constitution broadly grants birthright citizenship to the children of parents who are simply, perhaps even temporarily, present in the United States, but that is the law absent a constitutional amendment.We are a nation founded on the Rule of Law. The president cannot amend the Constitution (or laws) via executive order. Any unilateral effort by a president to change the Constitution is void. Only an Article V amendment can change it.
[1] Senator Howard was making my point. He says: “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 person.” He is describing one class of persons. This is evident from the phrasing. “Aliens” is being used as a further descriptor for “foreigners,” and he’s specifically referring to aliens who are foreign diplomats. That’s why the word “who” immediately follows the modifier “aliens.”