The first thing I want to do is reject Michael Gerson's manipulation of history.  Gerson, a supposedly "conservative" columnist at the Washington Post - oxymoron? - recently appeared on PBS television, where, smitten with Judy Woodruff, he badly mischaracterized the 14^th Amendment.  

Addressing Lindsey Graham's call to end the policy which makes the United States the only nation which allows foreigners to crash its borders and be rewarded for procreating, Gerson said that Republicans want "to turn infants in hospitals into criminals," while agreeing with fellow Wapo pundit, Ruth Marcus, that Republicans are "crazy."   

This isn't the first time Gerson has left the universe.  Earlier, he wrote that "revoking birthright citizenship would turn hundred of thousands of infants into criminals" (as if anyone is calling for retroactive repeal), and "make a whole class of people grow up knowing that they are hunted aliens through no fault of their own."

According to Gerson, this is "political suicide" (endorsing the Holy Grail of "immigration restrictionism"), because the authors of the 14^th amendment INTENDED to take citizenship out of politics, to have it "rooted in birth."

What he fails to mention is that it was written for SLAVES.  In 1868, the year it was ratified, it was sensible to grant citizenship to native-born children.  Bravo!   The authors wanted birth citizenship.  What they did not foresee is that millions of people would illegally cross our borders and bear children for the purpose of attaching non-citizen family to the umbilical cord. 

They could not have fathomed a time when vast numbers of illegals would enter this country with no money, no job and no home, and expect American taxpayers to give them social services, including health care and education. 

They could never have predicted that our nation would become so ignorant as to require services be provided to people who break laws we refuse to enforce.  And given the absolute sacrifices our Founders made, to suggest that people here illegally should somehow demand money and goods that legal Americans must provide, and cry "racist" to those who question this, is insane.   

Message to Gerson: DO NOT revise history.  To leave out the context in which the 14^th was written is to out yourself as a liberal.  To suggest that conservatives want to criminalize babies is, quite simply, a purposeful lie. 


Greg Halvorson is the founder of Soldiers Without Boots, and hosts Freedom Warrior Radio on Blog Talk Radio.