That's Okay. We're Nuts

According to John Derbyshire:

My issue is: To award citizenship to any person born on your territory, without any regard whatsoever to the status, background, or intentions of the parent(s), is SHEER GIBBERING LUNACY.

Of course, the prophet Robert Heinlein said:

Americans are considered crazy anywhere in the world.

I was underwhelmed by the legal arguments cited. It leans strongly on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” If you were born in the United States and your parents had income tax withheld by the United States or if they could be arrested by American cops, you should be counted as American. (They had to go digging for the example of jury duty … and I suspect that putting non-citizens on juries will be suggested soon enough.)

Another source cited mentioned a potentially-real problem: the declining diversity of immigrants. There is a simple solution: give everybody in China and India a ticket to the United States.

While I'm on the topic, is there any real difference between a liberal complaining about “over-development” and a nativist conservative? They're both backing policies that have the effect of excluding the supposedly undesirable.