Compact⁠77%

A Supreme Mistake on Birthright Citizenship ⁠96%

By Daniel McCarthy⁠0%

7/2/2026, 11:00:14 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Biased Writer Voice, and Pessimism Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 64% saturation with 244 hits. Analysis detected 2,539 faulty-reasoning hits from 381 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 93.4% and a BS Rank of ⁠96% (933 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 95.70% of the article peer group.

Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court was championed by conservatives who wanted to end the injustice of Roe v. 
Wade . 
It’s a sad irony that she’s now joined a decision that will have similarly far-reaching ill-effects on American politics and jurisprudence alike. 
Trump v. 
Barbara , the “birthright citizenship” case decided this week, is a travesty of Roe ’s magnitude. 
The decision’s defenders point to its long pedigree, with precedents dating back more than a century. 
But Roe had its precedents, too, and the justices who invented a national right to abortion were not shy about claiming there were centuries’ worth of grounds for their desired policy, too. 
Birthright citizenship, as liberals like the six-justice majority in this case interpret it, allows for absurdities no one had imagined at the time of the 14th Amendment’s drafting and ratification. 
That enemy combatants in the Middle East could be entitled to the full rights of American citizens if their mothers happened to give birth in the United States; that foreign espionage agencies could create cadres of dual citizens by booking flights to our territory for “birth tourism”; that illegal immigrants in the process of breaking our laws could be rewarded for doing so by being allowed to confer the priceless gift of American citizenship on their offspring—none of this was intended by the authors or ratifiers of the 14th Amendment, which was intended quite simply to ensure that after the Civil War black Americans could not be denied the only citizenship they could possibly have. 
The children of enemy combatants, foreign spies and terrorists, and illegal immigrants are all born with allegiances inherited from their parents, just as natural-born American citizens inherit the allegiance and citizenship of their parents. 
If the American people think that the progeny of illegal immigrants or even hostile aliens who happen to give birth here do deserve automatic American citizenship, then the proper mechanism for expressing that intention within the framework of constitutional self-government would be legislation or an executive order. 
The American people routinely elect representatives, senators, and presidents to make and unmake laws and policies according to need. 
Nothing is more fundamental to democracy or republicanism than citizenship itself, which is quite simply the “self” of “self-government.” 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 8.4%Daniel McCarthy: 3.9%Compact: 8.0%Confirmation Bias8.4%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.5%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 4.2%Daniel McCarthy: 12.4%Compact: 3.1%Availability Heuristic4.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 1.5%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 1.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.6%Compact: 3.0%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 29.9%Daniel McCarthy: 27.1%Compact: 5.2%Framing Effect29.9%This article: 12.3%Daniel McCarthy: 3.1%Compact: 0.3%Loss Aversion12.3%This article: 17.3%Daniel McCarthy: 5.0%Compact: 0.5%Status Quo Bias17.3%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 5.0%Daniel McCarthy: 1.9%Compact: 2.7%Optimism Bias5.0%This article: 49.6%Daniel McCarthy: 6.9%Compact: 1.7%Pessimism Bias49.6%This article: 59.1%Daniel McCarthy: 30.8%Compact: 7.2%Negativity Bias59.1%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.6%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 30.2%Daniel McCarthy: 6.0%Compact: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error30.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 5.5%Daniel McCarthy: 2.1%Compact: 2.6%In-Group Bias5.5%This article: 47.0%Daniel McCarthy: 15.7%Compact: 2.0%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias47.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 1.9%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 4.2%Daniel McCarthy: 1.6%Compact: 1.3%Recency Bias4.2%This article: 12.9%Daniel McCarthy: 1.6%Compact: 0.8%Primacy Effect12.9%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 8.4%Daniel McCarthy: 2.1%Compact: 1.6%Ad Hominem8.4%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 16.4%Compact: 2.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 4.2%Daniel McCarthy: 1.7%Compact: 3.6%Appeal to Authority4.2%This article: 21.3%Daniel McCarthy: 11.5%Compact: 2.8%False Dilemma21.3%This article: 30.2%Daniel McCarthy: 29.9%Compact: 1.7%Slippery Slope30.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 2.8%Compact: 0.5%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 4.2%Daniel McCarthy: 15.9%Compact: 13.1%Hasty Generalization4.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.6%Compact: 0.8%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 64.0%Daniel McCarthy: 34.2%Compact: 4.8%Appeal to Emotion64.0%This article: 25.2%Daniel McCarthy: 4.9%Compact: 2.1%Begging the Question25.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.7%Compact: 4.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 3.2%Compact: 0.3%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 36.0%Daniel McCarthy: 9.8%Compact: 0.6%Burden of Proof36.0%This article: 30.2%Daniel McCarthy: 3.8%Compact: 0.9%Appeal to Nature30.2%This article: 8.9%Daniel McCarthy: 5.1%Compact: 1.0%Composition/Division8.9%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 2.1%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 1.0%Compact: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 10.5%Daniel McCarthy: 2.4%Compact: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)10.5%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 30.2%Daniel McCarthy: 7.6%Compact: 0.5%Genetic Fallacy30.2%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 1.9%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 55.6%Daniel McCarthy: 62.2%Compact: 13.0%Biased Writer Voice55.6%This article: 30.2%Daniel McCarthy: 7.2%Compact: 2.5%Indoctrination30.2%This article: 16.3%Daniel McCarthy: 9.2%Compact: 1.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias16.3%This article: 5.5%Daniel McCarthy: 35.2%Compact: 5.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias5.5%This article: 0.0%Daniel McCarthy: 0.0%Compact: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

381 words analyzed.

Speakers

No attributed speakers were identified in this analysis.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.