Great nations would never allow their enemies to illegally invade, drop a couple million babies, and them immediately declare that the enemy’s progeny magically have the exact same rights as the soldiers fighting to protect the homeland. That is not something a great nation would ever do. The acceptance of the Trojan horse offering from the Greeks is viewed as the perfect emblem of how a nation can be doomed by its own strategic ineptitude. But recall that the Trojans were tricked by the Greeks. Of course Troy never would have allowed the Greeks to enter the city had they know the gift’s true nature. Only a laughable nation full of morons destined to be a footnote of history would have intentionally invited its enemy inside to destroy it from within. Yet that is exactly what Chief Justice John Roberts argued by implication today during oral arguments over birthright citizenship. Roberts suggested that America—the greatest nation in history—enacted a law (which its own authors say did not apply to foreigners or aliens) effectively telling the Greeks they didn’t even need to go to the trouble of building fake horses. All they had to do to eventually outnumber and conquer Troy was make sure enough Greek woman had their babies inside the city’s walls. Why defeat a nation militarily when you can just slip across its borders, birth an army that magically has the power to determine who runs your enemy’s government, and take over the whole thing without firing a shot in anger? A great nation would never be so stupid as to do such a thing. And America never did. The 14th amendment’s text makes it clear. The statements of its author at the time make it clear. The legislative and judicial history at the time make it clear. A great court would never sentence a great nation to its own demise by declaring that an enemy can unilaterally make its own children full citizens of its foe simply by invading and bearing children there. And a great chief justice of a great court of a great nation would never allow such an absurdity to rule that nation.