It's easy, so it's a short diary.
Right now, any person born in the US is a citizen per the 14th Amendment to the constitution.
Some people think it's wrong that an illegal alien or a tourist can have a child while in the US and that child is a citizen.
They suggest some other requirement in addition to being born in the US.
So let's pick one out of the air: the hypothetical NEW RULE is that one parent has to be a US citizen. YOu can plug any other requirment into a new rule for purposes of the following thought experiment if you want: it doesn't change anything.
Now: prove you are a citizen under the New Rule.
Right now, I can prove I'm a citizen with proving my place of birth. Proving place of birth can be done by My mom or dad or the hospital or birth certificate; or even just the fact I've lived in one place for a long time, or went to kindergarten, is SOME proof of birthplace.
But under the New Rule, I'd have to prove the citizenship of one of my parents, too. How would I do that? RIght now, I could prove their citizenship by showing their birth certificate, etc. Under the New Rule, I'd have to prove the citizenship of one of parents by proving the citizenship of one of my grandparents. Which means proving the citizenship of one of my great grandparents.
So is it unworkable? No, not if the government maintains a list of citizens with identification permanently so that I simply name my parents and they would be in the database. Then I'd be in the database and my kids would be able to meet the proof needed. And then their kids.
In other words, you'll need a national ID card to make it work. Maybe you wouldn't have to carry a card, but your grandparents...and ever other citizen.... are going to have to be in a database of approved bona fide citizens.
So that's what ends the debate. There's probably two of us in the country that wouldn't mind a national ID card and/or a database of who is a citizen with identifying info. Everyone else....and particularly a teabagger....is freaked out by the very thought of it. There is nobody that is going to allow the government to make judgments or maintain a database of citizens. They won't even allow us to know who has how many guns.
I know that the implicit assumption is that, like with the Arizona law, only brown people are going to be hassled in a change from birthright citizenship. But things like voting, or compensation from the government, are becoming real issues on the teabag front. Will you have to produce your national id and prove up your grandparents before getting a voting registration card or compensation from the 9/11 responders fund? And if you don't, then how do non citizens get kept out?
And before anyone says anything, grandfathering the New Rule would make more sense....because you could build the national database today with birth certificates and just maintain it for future generations. Just what nobody wants.