Amending the U.S. Constitution
The formal process of amending the Constitution is cumbersome and slow. While this fact explains why relatively few
amendments have been adopted, it does not discourage advocates of constitutional change from proposing them.
Four amendment proposals that have gained considerable attention are the Balanced Budget Amendment, the
Birthright Citizenship Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the Overturn Citizens United Amendment.
Select one of these proposals as the topic of your initial post and use the assigned resources to inform yourself about
its purpose and the arguments of its supporters and critics.
In your initial post of at least 200-250 words, briefly summarize what the proposed amendment would do and the
problem its proponents say it will solve. Explain the main pros and cons in the debate about the amendment.
Evaluate the proposed amendment from two perspectives:
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Your own political philosophy, values or ideology. (Justify your assessment by clearly explaining your
political values and why they lead you to support or oppose the amendment.)
The likelihood that the proposed amendment will eventually be ratified to become part of the Constitution.
(Justify your assessment by explaining how the proposal will or will not, in your judgment, survive the
ratification process.)
Fully respond to all parts of the question. Write in your own words. Support your position with APA citations to two or
more different resources required for this discussion.
By Day 7, respond to at least two of your classmates' initial posts. Your peer responses each must be at least 75
words. They must demonstrate critical thinking (e.g., ask a relevant question about your peer's post while explaining
why your question is significant, or state a perspective that contrasts with your peer's while explaining or justifying
your position).
The Birthright Amendment states that if a person is born on American soil or naturalized on
American soil they will be an American citizen. This Amendment gives many immigrants that
were born in America a hope for freedom and endless possibilities on one day living out their
dream. Whether that dream is to become a business owner or owning land the dream is open for
all whom is a citizen of America; this would considered a pro. On the other hand the con to this
would be that it shown as being unfair to those immigrants who came to America legally and
went through the necessary steps to becoming an American. So, immigrants also come to
America just to give birth to a child to make the child an American, this is considered “Drop and
Leave” and this increases birthright tourism in which give an uneven amount of births in
American, all of these situations will promote negative effects on America.
I believe that there really is not any difference from immigrants wanting to come to America for
a better life than hundreds of years ago when Africans were brought to American soil to work.
Africans were brought to America for a purpose and that is what immigrants have in mind, to
come over to America for a purpose. Once Africans were brought to American soil to work their
children were born on American soil thus in turn making the children and the parents AfricanAmericans. With that said, I do not oppose the birthright amendment.
The proposed amendment I believe will survive the ratification process. The birthright
citizenship has been in effect for a long period of time and I feel that there would not be any real
way of trying to stop immigrants anyway of coming to America, there would just be more illegal
immigrants; better for them to be born in America and learn the ways on Americans and be
involved completely in American society than having to living in hiding basically.