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The legality of stripping terrorists of citizenship — 34 Comments

  1. Since Hussein O already executes Americans without due process and Reid chases them off their land in his fiefdom of Nevada, a lot of the negatives with stripping citizenship don’t even matter now. It’s not like it provides any particular benefit, if you lack pull and influence in DC.

  2. Could just shoot them. That, actually, is probably much more legitimate, legally. It is currently being done, usually using drones but not always. Just… a thought.

    My only problem is, as a vet, a conservative, a party to the 2nd, I’m considered a terrorist. No matter, I was speaking solely of the legal recourse solution set. Technically, they can simply kill them, legally, as things stand. Cheaper too. What does a .45, 9mm, or .223 round cost? How much does detention, revocation of citizenship, a trial, lawyers, and such, cost? Pound for pound, and legally available, shooting them is the more suitable legal practice.

    Won’t be done, but…

  3. Let’s recount the angels dancing on the point of the pin, too.

    We have a zillion illegals parasitically living off of us and we are supposed to be concerned about the legalities, pro and con, of taking citizenship away from a few hundred jihadis whom the State Dept imported to the Twin Cities from Somalia to start with?

    I just can’t get my knickers in a knot over this.

  4. Cruz’s suggestion of stripping citizenship of American who are terrorists is actually milder or more conservative (in the degree sense of the word) than the current policy that it’s okay to kill Americans who are terrorists. Both are controversial options, but both take as premise that these are people that need to be killed, and the question is what other ramifications will we attach to the action.

  5. Don Carlos:

    First of all, it’s not either/or. The border is of huge concern (and I’ve written about it time and again).

    But that doesn’t mean this issue about taking away citizenship of ISIS fighters isn’t also an issue of interest. You certainly don’t have to care about it, if you wish. But it’s especially interesting if you consider the potential for ISIS members to use their US citizenship towards all sorts of nefarious purposes, as well as the potential for abuse of such a bill by the government wanting to extend it in various other ways to people who are not fighting with ISIS.

    It’s not a bad idea to think about what power and limits the government should have in stripping citizens of their citizenship.

  6. If they return and are apprehended they need to be put on trial for treason, convicted, and executed immediately by firing squad

  7. There are maybe a million “issues of interest”, Neo, and this one ranks pretty near the bottom, along with whether or not Medicare should pay for sex-change operations….which I would rank higher!

  8. Given the lefts penchant for treating everyone the same, including those who are not citizens, what difference does stripping them of such mean? after all, if a foreign soldier of a religious jihad gets their rights read to them and due process in a court rather than a summary execution in the field, what does saying, you have not citizenship mean to them?

    then the other side of it.
    remove their citizenship, and they HAVE to fight harder to win to have a place… ie. as with so many of the lefts ideas, their soltuions make the issue worse not fix it. as the people they are up against are not half as weak willed as they are.

    take the NFL issue with hitting your wife.

    think a wife in a 10 million mansion and all that will confess her husbands actions and so,lose that all, and have to move to some slum? (not to mention the reverse where the wife blackmails him or else)

  9. Here’s the question I would ask… if this statute were to be put into play, who would the liberals be able to target and strip the citizenship of for “intentionally targeting nationals of the United States for acts of terror.”

    Recall how loosely and liberally these people bandy around the word “terrorism”. In their eyes, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Bill of Rights could be considered terrorism. Wearing an American flag to a public school, posting a pro-Second Amendment message on Facebook, participating in a Tea Party rally, using a free and open operating system like Linux, consuming or selling raw milk, really the list of things that could and would be considered “terrorism” by the Left is endless.

    The real test of a law is not its intent, which is this case is valid and good, but how it will be twisted by people who have no respect for the Rule of Law except as a weapon with which to persecute their foes. In that regard, I could see this law, as described, being incredibly dangerous.

  10. Reminds me of Rome ca. 50BC. Immediate, permanent exile with forfeiture of all property was the punishment for crimes against the Roman State. The only more severe punishment was death by garroting or crucifixion.

    Darn good point you make, ConceptJunkie.

  11. Right now the Left doesn’t need laws to break you. That was for when they were still playing around with a bunch of children interested solely in what flavor lolipop they got from the gov sugar daddy.

  12. mf:

    Let’s see: the Nuremburg Laws were based on a person’s ethnic and/or religious background.

    This Cruz proposal is based on a citizen’s voluntarily joining and fighting on behalf of a group dedicated to murdering people of a different religion (or even apostates of their own religion), and vowing to use terrorism against the US. In other words, crimes against humanity and destructive acts against innocent citizens of his/her own country. Plus, the Cruz law is based on a statute that has already been in force in this country for 75 years, and which Cruz is only asking to be extended to include murderous Islamic terrorists like ISIS.

    The Nuremberg Laws and this law are exactly the same! Why didn’t I think of it before!? [slaps forehead]

  13. ConceptJunkie:

    The statute has already been “in play” since around 1940. In fact, it seems it used to be even easier to strip someone of citizenship before some of the later SCOTUS rulings. So there is nothing new here except the terrorism angle.

    The only thing Cruz is proposing is to include in the statute the act of fighting for terrorists such as ISIS, rather than just a bona fide “foreign state.” And yes, I know ISIS calls itself a state, but it has none of the actual trappings of a state and is not recognized as such by either the US or the international community. Cruz’s proposal would close that loophole in the statute.

    You are correct that if the government decides to apply this to local terrorists or people it defines very loosely as terrorists, it could be dangerous. But the language could be drafted very carefully to avoid that. In fact, don’t you think the language already covers it when Cruz includes, “a political subdivision thereof, or a designated foreign terrorist organization” as well as “becoming a member of, or providing training or material assistance to, any designated foreign terrorist organization…”? That language is added to the already-existing “taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof…” and would merely add “or a designated foreign terrorist organization.” Seems pretty clear to me that it could not apply to, say, a US militia group or the Tea Party. If the government were so twisted as to call those groups “designated foreign terrorist organizations,” then the country would be way too far gone for this law to matter.

  14. neo-neocon:

    It’s the penalty that’s the problem. Without a state, a person has no rights which means they are fair game for anyone to do anything to. Not a precedent I want to see set in any country. Set a penalty and enforce that without taking away their statehood.

  15. mf:

    The precedent was already set in this country 75 years ago, which is how long this law has been in force in terms of depriving people of citizenship.

    You know what? I have no concern about people who fight for ISIS being stateless. I think they have forfeited their rights to be a member of any state on earth except ISIS, which is the enemy of humanity.

  16. mf:

    If you cast your lot with ISIS, then you can be a citizen of ISIS. Works for me, because ISIS calls itself a state and has pretty been declared war on the rest of the world. Why would any state any earth owe them citizenship? As for the US, ever hear the expression “the constitution is not a suicide pact”?

  17. neo-neocon:

    The way I look at it the Nuremberg acts laid the groundwork for all the things that later happened to the Jews which I will not list as they are well known. The same can happen here. Our current bad guys can be changed into some others, perhaps even obvious innocents like the Jews just because the political winds might change. If I still trusted the rule of law here, I would be less careful but even that would be a mistake. I do hope this nation never finds out what it is like when the rule of law turns into the rule of a man but we are headed in that direction and it is what the left’s goal is.

    Not sure of the status of the laws we currently have but if they apply and effect the outcome you desire, that would be fine.

    You see, if we’re going to have a war, let’s have a war. There is no doubt that after a period of revitalizing ourselves, there is not an entity on the planet who can stand up to us.

    If we’re not gong to have a war, let’s come home and build ourselves a fortress.

    What we do not need is anymore half-way measures because if you haven’t figured it out by now, that will kill us.

    Sorry this is a little late. Left my computer for a while. 🙂

  18. There is no avant guard mf, there is only those who already not about those who have been left behind If this is beyond your imagination, It is beyond your imagination. Whimper and slowly die. RIP.,

  19. parker:

    Appaently I hit a sore spot with you. But if you don’t tell me what the problem is, you ensure the problem will remain.

  20. “neo-neocon:

    Then we disagree.”

    Actually, mf, that’s not exactly the case here. The case is that, frankly, you are wrong. It’s hard to admit but, to paraphrase, if someone doesn’t tell you what your problem is , they ensure your problem will remain.

  21. cant tax me if i am not a citizen..

    and if i am not a citizen of another state, they cant either.

    ie. i can claim it all to myself, as i am a country unto myself, and my country does not require taxes as i have no schools, bridges, politicans etc.

    welcome to artfldgerstan

  22. Neo:

    Of course your reasoning is fine, and on the surface I think Cruz’ proposal is imminently good. At this point however, I remain acutely aware of something I’ve been saying for years, “If it weren’t for unintentional consequences, Congress would be of no consequence at all.” which betrays, I suppose, a fundamental mistrust of our system of government to act in the way it was designed, or that reasonable people would expect. In other words, I don’t trust the consequences of a law in the post-rule-of-law period. I don’t trust that anyone in charge is actually doing what they are claiming to do, even when what they are claiming to do isn’t itself patently insane and stupid, which isn’t so often these days.

    Am I being too cynical? Perhaps. Am I merely jumping the gun on a trajectory that we are clearly on, but which has not yet been fully completed? More likely.

    I guess I should be more trusting of simple, plainly-worded language, which is what we are talking about here, and not the incomprehensible and incomprehensibly huge bills that have become the standard MO for Congress these days. It’s hard to trust in the government when a majority of the electorate either don’t understand, or more likely, flatly reject the principles upon which our Republic and its government were founded. I worry that even the proposals of one of the few people I tend to trust (such as Cruz) won’t be distorted and twisted into a political weapon, as opposed to a tool for combating the sworn, mortal enemies of the United States and indeed all of civilization, which is the intent.

    So as far as the spirit of this law goes, I’m all for it.
    I think it’s long past the time we started taking people at their word (and that includes countries, and not just individuals). I think merely giving vocal support to someone like ISIS should be enough to declare someone an enemy of the state. Declaring your intent to harm someone is a threat, and we put up way too much of that nonsense. Claim your goal is to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea? That’s a declaration of war. Claim your goal is the violent overthrow of the U.S., which is certainly the intent of folks like ISIS, had they the capacity to do so, then you’ve declared war. Off with their passports… if not heads.

  23. ConceptJunkie:

    My point is that the language is plain, and it protects us against what you fear. And if that language is going to be abused, and the power usurped, by a government, it could be done without the bill and without the language.

    You can’t protect against power seizures by not passing reasonable legislation, drafted as well as possible.

  24. Without a state, a person has no rights which means they are fair game for anyone to do anything to.

    Tell that to the mercenaries some of the Left’s allies got killed at Fallujah.

  25. “mfer: if someone doesn’t tell you what your problem is , they ensure your problem will remain.

    mf Says:
    September 9th, 2014 at 10:38 am
    vanderleun:

    How so?”

    I rest my case.

  26. My discomfort is that a terrorist group is not like a state. A state is as concrete and fixed an identity value as a notion can be. A state-based formula is straightforward. However, a terrorist designation, while concrete in the near view with the enemy in front us, is less clear with more long-term potential for confusion and abuse.

    I’m open to it, but at this point, I’m comfortable enough with an American terrorist being assigned an outlaw value or an enemy value when engaged in hostilities.

  27. I see you want to drag the conversation down with your slyness. It is unimpressive.

    An opinion cannot be factually wrong. You can disagree with it and you can make points to that affect and you can try to change it.

    I suggest we drop this as I feel that it is dragging down the tone of this site. I would also suggest that you recognize that disunity amongst us is what the left savors and that is another reason for dropping this.

    Fair enough?

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