Craziest Republican of the Day: Duncan Hunter

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The crazy keeps coming.

Speaking at a teabagger rally (aka "tea party") over the weekend, California Rep. Duncan Hunter agreed with a questioner that the children of illegal immigrants who are American citizens should be deported:

You can look and say, "You're a mean guy. That's a mean thing to do. That's not a humanitarian thing to do." We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now.

It's not just mean, it's despicable. What Hunter is saying is that American citizens born in the U.S. should be deported. No matter that it's hardly their fault that their parents were/are in the country illegally. And no matter that they themselves are legally American who likely have never lived anywhere else.

And just for the record, Hunter thinks the draconian Arizona immigration law is "a fantastic starting point." But to what end? Are racial/ethnic profiling and the establishment of a police state not enough?

All the more reason to keep these increasingly crazy Republicans out of power.

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In response to Hunter, Paul Krugman is right on the money:

So Rep. Duncan Hunter wants to deport people born in America -- if their parents were illegal immigrants.
As everyone who knows anything about the Constitution knows, this would be unconstitutional: if you were born here, you're a citizen, no matter who your parents were.

But it's not just a matter of the letter of the law: it's about who we are as a nation. What America means to me is a land in which you are judged for yourself -- not by your race, your ethnic origins, or what your parents do. Saying that citizenship depends on whether your parents were here legally crosses a fundamental line; it's not far from there to making all kinds of rights hereditary rather than inherent in the simple fact that you were born in the USA.

It fits in, of course, with the idea that people can be arrested if they aren’t carrying the right papers -- or be implanted involuntarily with microchips.

Anti-immigration fever is deeply un-American -- at least as I understand America.

That's true, and do think these Republicans deserve the un-American tag, but such fever, such nativist zeal, plays very well in Republican America, and there's way too much of that for comfort.

I would also note that for all their supposed fidelity to the original intent of the Founders (as they define it), conservatives certainly like to play fast and loose not just with the spirit of the Constitution but with its very letter. Ultimately, they don't really give a damn. Talking up "original intent" is just a political ploy, a way to come across as fundamentally American (according to their gross misinterpretation of what it means to be American). What they want is power, and, with power, to be able to impose their "America" on America. And that would be an "America" that is deeply un-American, an "America" that is simultaneously libertarian (for the ruling oligarchy) and theocratic (to keep the masses down).

(For more on the microchipping craziness, see my CRD post from yesterday.)