I don’t disagree with a thing you’ve presented NoNukes, and perhaps like you, I’ve yet to see anyone at all suggest that a Federal ‘U.S. citizen’ was recognized within the original vision of the Constitution.
I think Dred Scott made it abundantly clear that such was not the case. But we don't live with the Constitution as it existed prior to 1865 and I don't pine for those good old days. I've heard pundits raving about how democratic this country was in the 1830s, but in my opinion those pundits are idiots.
We've done the experiment, and the original definition of citizenship was an abysmal failure. The original constitution had a lot of baggage in it, much of which was cleaned up with the 14th Amendment. And yet some fools want to remove it, or tinker with it in ways that could disenfranchise large groups of citizens.
These posts should be making it abundantly clear.
The diversity of citizenship rules expressed by the Federal courts weren't legally equipped to view slaves as people - artificial, natural or otherwise (no person=no citizen). That doesn't change the fact they were. Anyway, I’m inclined to disagree the electoral imbalance developed through Citizens United enhances democracy if that’s what your inferring.
It should not be an impossible feat for a nation such as America to establish their laws to reflect all people are human flesh and blood creatures - none of which are cows, and businesses are neither, considering all that’s been accomplished.
The experiment’s obviously not over. The failure of the definition of American citizenship was imminent given the racist slant imbued within the original definition of ‘people’ - you know that. The Constitution still has a lot of baggage, as that’s what political documents are comprised of, and the 14th amendment doesn’t change that, but rather contributes to it.
The potential to develop a framework for collective naturalization toward's national citizenship is always greater, and the process easier, once the notions that people are never cows or personal property become lawfully established. While the Emancipation Proclamation along with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments effectively nullified the Scott decision without explicitly overturning it, the result was simply the introduction of new challenges to face.
And while I understand some won’t be up to the challenge, and others will capitalize on it for personal and corporate greed, I don't perceive the few currently lobbying - for say, natural people's identities to be viewed as cattle, as a threat.
Creating an environment of ambiguity concerning artificial persons and natural persons in an attempt to grant a blanket amnesty of citizenship doesn’t seem to be a helpful strategy. Well, it does in the sense that corporations can now legally develop an electoral imbalance in an attempt to secure specific policy measures while, generally, hedging their bets.
Regardless of the present’s tendency to paint the past as simpler, rest assured, politics were no less mischievous and people no less crass. However, this argument that things are all ironed out seems to fly in the face of contradiction considering the widespread winds of political discourse swirling ‘roun.
In the end we all seem to agree they’re a later creation, gaining legal form and function through Amendments to the original document.
Yeah, and...
Annn dehn ..
One Love
Edited by Bailey, : title ..