the birthright clause was not just written to wipe dred scott off of the books, it was written to repudiate the *idea* behind dred scott, you might say the larger *ideological project* of dred scott. and the whole of section 1 of the 14th amendment is a constitutional statement of political equality

If you want to tell me the plain language of the Constitution means something entirely different, you ought to have a heavy burden. But because we've allowed the public practices of folk constitutionalism to atrophy into lawyerly monopoly (see below), there's a brute appeal to authority available.

The thing to understand about all these network states is:

(1) they require a permanent underclass to do all the labor that keeps cities functional,

(2) they have no answers to how or why free people en masse would sign up to be that permanent underclass

And

(3) that’s because they want slaves.

Here’s the piece by @kashhill.bsky.social www.kashmirhill.com/stories/bitc...

And here’s Aaron Krolik’s great piece that came out today about how the illegality that crypto has always enabled has been absolutely accelerated this last year in this direction

2/2

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/t...

The social spending bill would have put hundreds of billions into programs that people would have seen before 2024.

-extended Child Tax Credit increase
-20 workdays of paid family and medical leave
-child care, universal pre-K
-health care subsidies

The Blue Dog Coalition Dems delayed the bill.