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The Republicans want to demonize illegal immigrants so much that they want to repeal the idea that if you're born in this country then you're an American citizen. So, how would you become an American then? What would the new Republican approved definition of an American citizen be? Would your parents have to have been born in America first? Well, what about your parents parents? What if they were not born in the United States and its territories? What if they were illegal aliens too? How far back will they go?
Now it's unclear to me if McConnell just wants to repeal the first sentence of Section 1, all of Section 1, or the entire amendment. The second sentence is important also and would negate what they're trying to do. If the Republican party is able to define who is an American then they would control what rights and privileges all American would share, if any.
The "liberty clause," is extremely important. It is through the liberty clause that the first ten amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights apply to you whether you are a defendant in federal court or state court, and thus Gideon, and everybody else ever since, was entitled to an attorney even if he could not afford one. You should have learned that when you read Gideon's Trumpet in high school. Do you want that right taken away from you?
Then there's the concept of due process, your right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, the right to face your accuser in open court. Do you want to lose all of that? Do you want to be treated like the detainees in Gitmo?
Do you want state legislatures deciding who the president and vice-president will be?
Section. 1. 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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