Agreed, especially when you attempt to tell the teachers how they have to teach - aka Common Core. You have to start with teachers who not only are passionate about their material, but passionate about the learning process. Then you have to allow them to teach to their students, individualizing and accommodating the students. You can't do that with bureaucrats 200 miles away trying to look over your shoulder.

If you make "civics" class and history class as boring as possible, no one is even going to pay attention, including the teacher. Somewhere, I heard "class' defined as "Transferring information from the notes of the teacher to the notes of the student without passing through the brains of either". When the student "knows" the material is boring and pointless and he'll never use it, he doesn't learn it.
Making people ignorant is easy.
Helping people learn is difficult.

As a child of the 60's, I'll point out that if you have enough 'bread', you can buy all the circuses you want.

We can't afford all the welfare schemes now. It hasn't stopped them (they are accelerating). It just gets added to the debt. I fear that people will continue to vote themselves "bread and circuses" until the nation actually collapses and essentially ceases to exist.

Well said.

The constitution was designed to LIMIT government, so its no wonder our government doesnt like it and refuses to teach it. Take the 2nd amendment for example- it was written to protect us FROM an unpopular and unfair government. No wonder our government wants to ban guns (to disarm us and force us to do what it wants, no matter what). The guns are supposed to be available to the public to fight against an unfair government like the british at the start of our country. REgistering guns with the government is equally bad as taking them away- the government from which we are protecting ourselves then knows where to go to get them.

Okay, good points. If something is not privately owned, so you say nobody owns it, what prevents Mexico from claiming it as their own, even giving it to their private citizens to own? To own something means you have rights over it; practically, that ownership is meaningless unless you claim it and are willing to defend it. Mexico would be stopped at the point of a gun, because for all intents and purposes our "public lands" are claimed, defended, owned.

"A country only has the right to restrict entry in favor of self defense." Okay, I agree! But how can this be done when we don't even see people coming across, much less to we know who they are? Even if we decide not to limit immigration at all, we at least ought to know who is immigrating. Control it, even if we don't try to stop it.

Your last point is what bothers me every time I discuss this. I have a right to my private property. This is as fundamental as my right to life. You say man has a right to move freely? Even over my private property? You see, you are the one introducing a right that conflicts with my right. When someone's right to travel, right to "self-determine where to live," contradicts my right to private property, who wins? I suggest there are no contradictions between rights, and that the "right to travel" is not fundamental. A man has the right to leave a country (to deny this would be to condone slavery), but that does not translate into the right to trespass where he is not welcome.

Objectivism rejects the metaphysical existence of an such entity as "society" and therefore there is no entity to own the property known as a nation.
There can be agreement among a family unit, there can be no universal agreement among a nation, and so you end up with the tyranny of the majority when a nation makes such decisions.
What about the farmer who wishes to hire someone from across the border? Why would the collective have the ability to restrict his right of choosing who to hire?

Not necessarily that we abandoned it, but that we ceased teaching it to our children. How many public school classes teach the Constitution? None - not even AP History spends time on the content of the Constitution. How many civics classes even in college cover it? None I ever took. That it was passed and was a revolutionary document is mentioned in passing, but serious study?

How does government get away with its shenanigans? An unenlightened public. It is tragically ironic that while we have the most potential for information and connectivity ever in the entirety of human history, yet the most important things are those least discussed.

Only the owner of a piece of property has any rights over its use, and if a piece of property is unowned, no one controls it. Government ownership of anything is immoral, and I reject the concept as valid.
Therefore, "the people" do NOT have the right to say "no more visitors." And that is simply because they do not own the city, state, or country. There is no such thing as collective ownership. Shared ownership, like a marriage or corporation, yes. That's still private. But a country only has the right to restrict entry in favor of self defense, such as to keep out criminals or elements from enemy nations.
Such restrictions cannot be based upon whims such as race or religion, national origin, politics, or a desire to stay the population thy are. Those criteria are fine for a private business or residence, but not for a government.

Remember, rights are only freedoms to act, and they do not interfere with others rights. If your "right" prevents another from exercising one of their rights, such as freedom of movement or self determination, who to hire, or where to live, then it's not a right.

Are you in favor of completely unrestricted firearms ownership? That is a right as well, but most people favor some sort of system that identifies dangerous, unstable persons, to make it difficult for them to own guns. To be consistent, you need to maintain we should not restrict firearms ownership in any way, even if the owner is psychotic.

So "no representation without taxation". Reverse tea party?

Because voting is a right, not a privilege, like the other things you mention.

"Illegal immigration is the price we pay in America for being a free and prosperous nation."

I agree that people want to immigrate here because we are a relatively free and prosperous nation. Also because of our welfare state (which needs to stop). But that should not justify "illegal immigration." Immigration and Illegal Immigration are commonly confused in today's media. Will we ever get past that simple distinction?

It seems to me that most of the article argues in favor of immigration. I couldn't agree more. Immigration should be easy. But I also affirm a people's right to say "no more visitors, please." I disagree with that strategy, but I affirm their prerogative. Also, I affirm the importance of a nation to regulate, control, understand who is coming in to immigrate (legally). The regulation should be light, in my opinion, but it should be there. We have to know who is coming in, because the job of the Government is to protect us against those who would take away our rights. It cannot stop those people if it doesn't even see them enter. It is important that we are able to control the border.

And voting in the USA is not a "natural right" for just anyone on the Globe. It is a civil right reserved to USA citizens. Especially today, when it is clear that we are plagued with millions of illegal immigrants, I don't see why we wouldn't want people to prove their citizenship in order to exercise the privilege of that citizenship.

Again, if you're so concerned about having to have an ID to vote, why aren't you equally as agitated about all of the other circumstances requiring a personal ID?

As long as the predominant culture in the countries from where most immigrants come is antithetical to freedom, it is in the best interests of those on this side of the borders to restrict their entry. The culture here is getting bad enough already! If that is collectivist, so be it. I see nothing anti-collectivist in upholding the concept of borders within which the occupants seek and support properly limited government.

Yes, some people have done a lot to make people think that voter fraud is widespread so they can justify requiring a state-issued id to exercise your right to vote. But it's not true.

If there were no income taxation in perpetuity then it wouldn't matter if the whole damn nation voted for socialism unanimously. The nation simply could not afford it. What makes all these "welfare" schemes work or what makes them legal is the same thing that makes it legal for a state agency who has no lawful authority to denigrate nor derogate the rights of the people declare that driving is a privilege and not a right. In many states, that assertion is flat out unconstitutional and yet legal. How? By the voluntary signatures of the people - who hold the inherent political power. We are stuck with all these "welfare" schemes, not because of voters, but because of ill advised acquiescence to income taxes born of a tax code that declines to explain how it is most people are initially made liable to the tax to begin with. Voter ID cards won't even come close to fixing that problem.

Txs for finding that.

The existing system is a cluster-$%^(.
It doesn't define the requirements and the enforcement is non-existent, except likely for political reasons. The fact that the existing system is rotten does not negate the need for a rational system. Allowing the bureaucracy to interpret laws far outside the rational intent, and letting the executive branch decide not to enforce them at all are evidence of a system designed to fail.

Its as if we abandoned the constitution at some point, and the government just does what it wants at the time.

Yes, like NO voting rights while anyone is on the dole

What's wrong is that a small group of people, a government, has to decide how you qualify. Unacceptable.

That is the way things are supposed to be. The Fourteenth Amendment clarifies that citizenship only rightfully belongs to those born to parents who fall under the jurisdiction of the United States. The notion of anchor-babies is completely false and the author of the Fourteenth Amendment says as much in his explanations. Further, the Constitution specifically charges Congress with the duty to define the requirements for jurisdiction, which they did in 1795.