When I was a little kid attending private Christian schools, one of our required readings (and this was common throughout the conservative world) was the late-19th-century short story, "The man without a country."

Its purpose was to impress on readers the importance of loving one's nation, of patriotism, of unquestioning loyalty to Patria.

The protagonist dared question some of the policies of the United States, and he was therefore sentenced to life at sea, never to hear of his country again. His grief and loss were the focus of the piece, self-imposed because he renounced his citizenship, extending even to newspapers being denied to him.

But what if real people aren't citizens of any country? That's what stuck with me from the story.

So, what happens to children the U.S. strips of their citizenship and who aren't eligible for citizenship elsewhere?

I don't think today's conservative movement cares. I think they're much more interested in punishing people for not honoring their ideas about borders and nation states. They're so focused on maintaining artificial exclusivity. Of defining others as outsiders. Of putting up fences and walls. Signs that say, "Keep Out !Your kind don't belong here!"

It's funny, when the United States was founded, the thought of closing borders to people because of where they lived hadn't even been imagined yet.

But now it's a "conservative" value. Conserved from where and what, I wonder.