You gotta be crazy to think the founders intended this.

Gateway Pundit ^ | April 12, 2013 | Mara Zebest

[Ray76]

Many of those state court cases cite Ankeny. Ankeny is ludicrous. The judge makes a cite, acknowledges that it doesn’t support his claim, and then makes the claim anyway.

Zero cred.

[Rides3]

Ankeny is ludicrous. The judge makes a cite, acknowledges that it doesn’t support his claim, and then makes the claim anyway.

Zero cred.

It IS patently absurd. How can anyone with any integrity whatsoever do that or fall for that?

[DiogenesLamp]

You're obfuscating.

My simple question as to why it takes 14 judges to decide if "Calvin" was born on the soil is obfuscating? There is definitely obfuscating going on all right, but it isn't me.

The case was not about the principle of birth on the soil of the country, which was already established, but about whether a person born in another country which had the same King as England should be treated as an alien for the purposes of inheriting an estate in England, or not.

Calvin's case is also known as "the Case of the Postnati". "Postnati" in this case (I know how you hate Latin) Means after-born, or in better English, "Born- After". It refers to the fact that "Calvin" was "born-after" King James I became King of England, so there is NO QUESTION about "Calvin" being born in another country. He wasn't.

Let me repeat. "Calvin" was BORN-AFTER James I ascended the throne of England and thereby Uniting England and Scotland, so under the rules of English law, anyone born in Scotland AFTER James I became King, was born as a subject of the King.

So why did it take 14 judges and much deliberation to figure this out?

[DiogenesLamp]

States generally tended to adopt the English common law, and then change whatever parts of it they liked.

How about the Federal Government, did they adopt the English common law concept known as "ad fidem Regis" ?

According to Lord Coke himself:

Whatsoever is due by the law or constitution of man, may be altered; but natural ligeance or obedience to the Sovereign cannot be altered .

Why thank you Lord Coke for clearing that up. Yes, I can see the principles of American law established quite clearly there in your statement. Hooray! Our Citizenship is based on English Subjugation! Who knew?

I wonder how long it will take for you to eventually realize that the concept of Jus Soli is a bondage chain.

[DiogenesLamp]

Thank you!

You're welcome.

Of course, we already knew that.

Some of us did anyway. Some of us still think we are ruled by England and it's Monarchical based laws.

Jeff doesn't get it. In a monarchy, it makes perfect sense to grab everyone you can. England did exactly that. "You were born here? You belong to me!" You were born elsewhere of my subjects? "You belong to me!

Subjects is synonymous with Servants. Of COURSE the King will grab anyone he can. Why would he not? "Soil" is just an excuse to put the King's claim on your loyalty. It is an automatic servant machine.

[DiogenesLamp]

Our basic citizenship law was not a statutory law. It was a COMMON LAW DEFINTION, AND A COMMON LAW RULE.

The Common law requires perpetual allegiance to the King. Our very existence is a renunciation of English common law. If we had adhered to it, we would not be an independent nation.

But of course, you will argue that we rejected THAT part, but we KEPT the other part. Sure we did.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, they didn't.

Yes, they did. Dred Scott was the case which was the polar opposite of Wong Kim Ark in terms of legal theory. Dred Scott was passed with a larger majority than Wong Kim Ark, and was regarded as the settled law of the land up until the 14th amendment.

In the debates on the Civil Rights act of 1866, they even mention that their intent is to rebuke and repeal the Dred Scott decision of 1857. They didn't say "let's pretend it isn't the law.", They said "let's overturn it with an Amendment!"

And in this particular case, I've read quite enough by now to know that their ruling IS in line with our history, Constitution and law, and YOU are absolutely, categorically, totally, completely, full of ****.

Their ruling (Wong Kim Ark) is in line with the politics and social policy they wished to advance. It is contrary to previous law, and the proof of this is the status of Indians, Slaves, and British Loyalists who are all obvious violations of this "so-called" previous law.

[Jeff Winston]

Calvin's case is also known as "the Case of the Postnati". "Postnati" in this case (I know how you hate Latin) Means after-born, or in better English, "Born- After".

I STUDIED Latin, you idiot. What I hate is your pretentiousness in bandying it about as if you know what the hell you're talking about, and are some kind of authority, when you don't, and aren't.

[DiogenesLamp]

Natural born citizen is a unitary phrase, no part of it can be changed without changing the meaning of the whole.

And it does not equate to "English Subject". It has a very different basis of principle. It may be analogous to English Subject, but this is very different from being the same thing. Jeff likes to equate Subject with Citizen, but they are not equal, just analogous.

English Subjects are not permitted to inherit land from their Foreign parents. (Until after 1870 when they changed that "common" law.) It doesn't matter how many oaths of Fidelity were uttered, or what documents were signed, English Subjects could not inherit (English) land from Foreign parents or through any other Foreign relative.

[DiogenesLamp]

WHY do we, being Americans, speak the ENGLISH language? Because THAT'S WHO WE GOT OUR LANGUAGE FROM.

That applies equally well to our LEGAL language as to our daily language. The language of the Constitution is the language of English legal terminology.

You are trying to make what was customary, compulsory. It is not. We chose NOT to follow English law in many areas, and most of all we chose not to follow the law regarding English Subjects. We also threw out the Debtors Prisons, the Church of England, and Lèse-majesté laws.

In fact, we pretty much threw out all the trappings of Monarchical law, and we did so successfully, that is until rubes who didn't get (or perhaps intentionally ignored) the memo started writing about American Law and ended up confusing subsequent students of law.

[DiogenesLamp]

And where do we find the meaning of the terms used in the Constitution? Alexander Hamilton told us that we should look to the legal language of the country that we derived our legal system from - England, and the English common law.

So when the Constitution says "natural born," the definition of that term, according to Alexander Hamilton (as well as due to the fact that it occurs NO PLACE ELSE) is to be found in the English common law.

That's it. Period. It's not that hard.

No, it's pretty easy to get stuff wrong, especially for you.

In a letter to George Washington, James Madison disagrees with your thinking.

“What can he mean by saying that the Common law is not secured by the new Constitution, though it has been adopted by the State Constitutions. The common law is nothing more than the unwritten law, and is left by all the constitutions equally liable to legislative alterations. I am not sure that any notice is particularly taken of it in the Constitutions of the States. If there is, nothing more is provided than a general declaration that it shall continue along with other branches of law to be in force till legally changed.

Since the Revolution every State has made great inroads & with great propriety in many instances on this monarchical code.

What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & antirepublican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law. If they had undertaken a discrimination, they must have formed a digest of laws, instead of a Constitution.”

[Jeff Winston]

But of course, you will argue that we rejected THAT part, but we KEPT the other part. Sure we did.

Of course we did.

We threw out what we didn't want, and kept what we did.

We didn't go and adopt the French language just because we gained independence from England.

We didn't go and rewrite the entire legal system, either. In fact, every single state either adopted the English common law in general, except for the changes they legislated, or adopted the same rule for citizenship as the common law.

Heck, one or two of our States didn't even adopt a Constitution at first, but continued to operate for DECADES under their original ENGLISH charter.

So your claim that we must necessarily have come up with some new way of determining citizenship (though you never can produce any actual evidence whatsoever that we did) is beyond idiotic.

[Jeff Winston]

Yes, they did. Dred Scott was the case which was the polar opposite of Wong Kim Ark in terms of legal theory. Dred Scott was passed with a larger majority than Wong Kim Ark, and was regarded as the settled law of the land up until the 14th amendment.

The point was that you claimed, falsely, that a previous Court had said the "exact opposite" of Wong Kim Ark.

They didn't. There was no such ruling in regard to citizenship as what you claimed. Ever. Not even in Scott v. Sandford.

Scott v. Sandford never said the children born here of aliens weren't citizens, or weren't natural born citizens, or had to have two citizen parents in order to be natural born citizens or eligible to the Presidency.

Scott v. Sandford said black people were regarded by the Founders as an inferior class of beings, not included in the "people of the United States," and that therefore they were not and could never become US citizens.

It was a bad ruling from the very beginning, as the claim violates the very first sentence on which our entire Republic was founded: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

And that ruling was recognized as garbage pretty much from the very beginning. Lincoln's Attorney General Edward Bates wrote an Opinion in which he basically said that their comments on black people not being able to be citizens were garbage dicta, and the Lincoln administration was simply going to ignore them.

[Jeff Winston]

Once again, you argue fallaciously by leaving out the CONTEXT of Madison’s letter.

Madison’s letter was in response to George Mason’s COMPLAINT that we had failed to adopt the common law, or at least its guarantees of freedom, at the national level. He and others maintained, rightly, that the common law also had so many unacceptable things in it that it was simply impossible for us to adopt it wholesale at the national level.

That doesn’t mean the terms in our Constitution mean something other than what they ALWAYS meant, both in the common law of England and in our own law. And it doesn’t mean we didn’t adopt the same rule for how citizenship was established.

So once again, another fallacious argument, like pretty much everything you say.

Do you never tire of twisting out history and our law, and of looking and acting like an idiot?

[DiogenesLamp]

YOU'RE the one who denies every significant early authority, the opinions of the United States Supreme Court and every individual Supreme Court Justice who has spoken on the matter in the past 100 years, and every significant authority through United States history, including every significant conservative constitutional organization (e.g., the Heritage Foundation, National Review), and who has no real evidence showing that we ever adopted any definition for "natural born citizen" other than what history and law SAY the definition was.

And here is Jeff repeating this absolutely absurd claim, which he oddly seems to believe despite the various examples we have shown him. He seems to think that if he repeats it, that will make it true. I'm not going to bother addressing all the numerous and sundry ways in which Jeff's claim is wrong, but I will point out one. (it's the least I can do.)

Here is a rebuttal under the Heritage Foundation's banner.

[DiogenesLamp]

By the way - chill with the insults.

Really? I thought those were his best efforts. Without them what has he got?

[DiogenesLamp]

Okay. But YOU'RE the only who has been ridiculous. Pretty much all of our history, and all of our law, is against your claim.

And here Jeff Repeats his ridiculous claim again. NO JEFF, pretty much all of our history and all of our law has been against YOUR Claim. Slaves, Indians and British Loyalists are all examples of the law being against YOUR Claim.

Millions of people were affected because the law did not operate the way YOU think. They had to create the 14th amendment to GET the law to operate the way you think. (And the Subsequent Indian Citizenship Act, the Cable Act, and the Women's citizenship act of 1934.)

It took a lot of changes in the law to get things to resemble what you think.

[DiogenesLamp]

How about we add his picture to it? This is the guy that Jeff wants to have as an authority on American citizenship.

Sir William Blackstone

“there could be only one sovereign, Parliament, in the British empire”

[Jeff Winston]

And here is Jeff repeating this absolutely absurd claim, which he oddly seems to believe despite the various examples we have shown him. He seems to think that if he repeats it, that will make it true. I'm not going to bother addressing all the numerous and sundry ways in which Jeff's claim is wrong, but I will point out one. (it's the least I can do.)

Another idiotic argument from you. This is getting to be a habit.

Since my interpretation of "natural born citizen" is supported by all known significant legal authorities from early America, our state courts and Supreme Court, and virtually every real legal expert in US history, and yours is genuinely supported by virtually NO legal authority in all of history, it's YOUR claim that is absurd. And yes, repeating it again and again doesn't make it true.

Here is a rebuttal under the Heritage Foundation's banner.

I have said again and again that there is some argument to be made against birthright citizenship for children of aliens only temporarily in the country, and especially against children of illegal aliens, but no case to be made that the children of resident aliens aren't natural born citizens.

What point is the author of the referenced article making? That exact point.

The widely held, though erroneous, view today is that any person entering the territory of the United States-even for a short visit; even illegally-is considered to have subjected himself to the juris­diction of the United States, which is to say, sub­jected himself to the laws of the United States. Surely one who is actually born in the United States is therefore "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and entitled to full citizenship as a result, or so the common reasoning goes...

Children of parents residing only temporarily in the United States on a student or work visa would also become U.S. citizens. Children of parents who had overstayed their temporary visas would like­wise become U.S. citizens, even though born of parents who were now in the United States ille­gally. And, perhaps most troubling from the "con­sent" rationale, even children of parents who never were in the United States legally would become citizens as the direct result of the illegal action by their parents. This would be true even if the par­ents were nationals of a regime at war with the United States and even if the parents were here to commit acts of sabotage against the United States, at least as long as the sabotage did not actually involve occupying a portion of the territory of the United States. The notion that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, when seeking to guaran­tee the right of citizenship to former slaves, also sought to guarantee citizenship to the children of enemies of the United States who were in its terri­tory illegally is simply too absurd to be a credible interpretation of the Citizenship Clause.

Not once does the author of the referenced article attempt to make the claim that the children born here of resident aliens here legally are not citizens or are not natural born citizens. Elsewhere, the Heritage Guide to the Constitution makes clear that such people ARE natural born citizens.

So once again, FAIL.

[DiogenesLamp]

I STUDIED Latin, you idiot. What I hate is your pretentiousness in bandying it about as if you know what the hell you're talking about, and are some kind of authority, when you don't, and aren't.

I find it amusing that of all the aspects to which you could have responded, it is my needling you about Latin that you thought the most important. (Narcissism much?)

And thus do you completely dodge the point. But hey, I can simply repeat it without leaving you a side issue behind which to hide.

Let me repeat. "Calvin" was BORN-AFTER James I ascended the throne of England and thereby Uniting England and Scotland, so under the rules of English law, anyone born in Scotland AFTER James I became King, was born as a subject of the King.

So why did it take 14 judges and much deliberation to figure this out?