Posted on 08/19/2013 6:17:17 PM PDT by kristinn
The electors have to apply the Constitutional standard - natural born citizen. That's what they do.
No whims allowed!!!
Ted Cruz - 2016
There a few strictures on electors other than “honor”
Correction:
There are few strictures on electors other than “honor”
You said, “I believe that voters are also obligated to vote only for candidates that they deem to be eligible under the Constitution.”
Public whim.
No, I don't, because you're a birther.
If you weren't a birther, or the kind of person who becomes a birther, then you probably would. Because certainly all of the best evidence is completely and utterly against the birther position.
Ah, but birthers don't go by evidence. Birthers decide "this principle, or this idea, makes sense, and it's what I myself would do. I know the Founding Fathers were good guys, and I'm a good guy, so... therefore... my idea is what the Founding Fathers did."
And then you go about collecting whatever evidence you think makes the case, and ignoring or trying to discredit any and all evidence against your claim.
Not to belabor the point, but that's not what normal people do.
What a NORMAL person does is ask: "What exactly did the Founding Fathers actually DO? What did they actually SAY? What have all of our competent and professional and distinguished experts in the history, and the law, and the Constitution, had to say about the matter throughout history?"
And then the NORMAL person goes out and finds those things out. And whether they confirm or disconfirm his starting idea, the NORMAL person goes with the evidence, and with reality.
The reality, of course, is that virtually everything that has ever been said, by our Founders, our Framers, our early leaders, our early legal experts, and everyone with any stature at all, throughout all of United States history, including all contemporary legal scholars of any note, comments by Supreme Court Justices, all known textbooks that Americans have written for our schools throughout history, and all current CONSERVATIVE legal foundations such as the Heritage Foundation, and every major conservative commentator, such as Mark Levin, completely contradicts the stupid birther claim.
Oh, but those don't matter, of course. Because we have YOUR opinion. And that of the clown DiogenesLamp, who will shortly (wrongly) tell me that by citing all known Founders, Framers, early and contemporary legal experts, and every credible voice in history I am committing a "fallacy ad numerum," or a "fallacy ad populum."
Yes, that's true of anyone, even Judge Judy.
Your position is ridiculous..... When a voter sees a name placed on a ballot, that voter will reasonably assume that candidate has been properly screened and that name belongs there.
Most candidates are eligible. It would be a waste of time to run otherwise. If there are doubts, voters will hear about it and make the decision. And, after they decide, the electors have to decide, also.
I feel very comfortable about the process. It's worked for a long, long time. I'm not worried that Prince Charles is going to come over here and win any elections. ;-)
No one will ever win an argument with you because you are very stubborn. How-be-it Polite.
Citizens are not constitutional scholars and are not oath-bound to protect and defend the constitution. When a citizen sees a candidates name on an official ballot he will reasonably assume that candidate has been properly screened and that name belongs there.
No need to reply..... just let others read this and decide who is correct..... I am done with you today.... God Bless
That's right. Only the electors who select our presidents can apply the NBC standard and resolve the relevant factual issues.
At least, that's what the Constitution says and that's what we've always done in the past, every time. ;-)
Ted Cruz - 2016
Actually the door is jammed open already, your solution only closes the door to Republican candidates while the door remains wide open democrat non-Americans who pay to hide their background in a vault. A solution that's NOT good enough.
I suggest we start with recalling those republicans AND democrats who have held office during this whole Obama administration and failed to demand he prove his eligibility.
They're now as guilty as the fraud in the WH.
Very funny. /sarc
The definition of Natural born Citizen was carved in stone by the Supreme Court in 1875.
Read on for details but I will give you a hint: neither Ted Cruz, Richard J. Santorum, nor Marco Rubio qualify.
But first an explanation of citizenship.
Three types of citizenship are recognized by our government: native born; naturalized; and citizen-by-statute (derived citizenship from parents). All have equal rights. All can serve in Congress, either as a Representative in the House, or as a Senator in the Senate.
The following link will take you to the government’s own Immigration Service web page describing the three types of citizenship.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
Natural born Citizen is NOT a type of statutory citizenship. Natural born is ONLY an eligibility requirement for the U.S. Presidency per Article II, Section 1, clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, and requires, as per the Founders, the President to be born in the United States (jus solis) AND of two citizen parents (jus sanguinas).
The definition of natural born Citizen appears in the holding of SCOTUS’s unanimous decision of Minor v. Happersett (1874).
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote...
The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.
SCOTUS rejected Minor’s argument that she was a citizen under the 14th Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, and examined her eligibility, concluding that she belonged to the class of citizens who, being born in the U.S. of citizen parents, was a natural born Citizen, and not covered by the 14th Amendment. This holding has been used in 25 consequent SCOTUS decisions since 1875.
No one has the RIGHT to be President.
The eligibility requirement of Natural Born Citizenship (jus solis + jus sanguinas: born in the U.S. of U.S. citizen parents) must be viewed as a means to prevent split allegiance for any President of the United States.
The following is often used to support people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who seek to be President, but it was superceded centuries ago and is a false argument.
“The First U.S. Congress included in the 1790 Immigration & Naturalization Act language to alert the State Department to the fact that Americans born abroad are “natural born” citizens” and are not to be viewed as foreigners due to foreign birth. They were not granted citizenship via that US statute rather citizenship was stated as a fact that must be recognized by immigration authorities. These children were not citizens by any other means than natural law, according to Congress, and statutory law was written to insure that their natural citizenship was recognized.”
This was later scrubbed from consequent directives as this is not a reasonable explanation. It fails to recognize that Congress only has powers over naturalization and has no power to define “natural born Citizen”, which has nothing to do with naturalization. Furthermore, if Congress wants to tell the State Department something, they don’t have to enact legislation to do it.
But more important is that all of the following naturalization acts, 1795, 1802, etc., were also passed to naturalize the children of U.S. citizens born abroad. And the words “natural born” were repealed in the 1795 Naturalization Act and never returned again.
I can't say you're any more right or wrong than I am because I know that the NBC clause is inherently and incurably uncertain and imprecise. I just suggest that people study the matter, arrive at their own conclusion and vote accordingly. Our electors pick our presidents and these days we pick our electors. And, the Supreme Court is too smart to try to interfere with the process.
So, what we do is important and I want you to do what you think is right.
Thanks, again. ;-)
It’s not my opinion.
It’s the law.
I suggest you go to:
http://www.naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
Minor v. Happersett (1875) has been used 25 times by subsequent Supreme Courts to determine rulings in other cases. It isn’t dicta or someone’s rambling discourse.
It’s the law, and the Democrats who did this committed treason.
See if you can find in our Constitution some role in the selection of presidents. If, despite the lack of any textual support for the Supreme Court to become involved, you feel that they should do so anyway, ask yourself if the Court has ever shown any inclination to become involved. See if you can find any Supreme Court opinion in which the Court has ever even hinted that it has the power to disqualify presidential candidates because the Court does not believe the candidate is eligible.
Assuming that you believe that our current president is obviously not eligible to be president, ask yourself whether recent conduct of our Supreme Court indicates that the Court agrees with your analysis and also believes that it is empowered to disqualify candidates it believes to be ineligible. Would the justices have volunteered to attend the last two inaugural ceremonies if the justices believed that Obama is some sort of obviously ineligible usurper? Would the Chief Justice volunteer to administer the oath of office twice? What does this kind of conduct tell you about how the Supreme Court views its own role in the selection of presidents? How stupid do you think the justices would feel telling everybody now that they quietly stood by for five years watching an obviously ineligible person pretend to be president? And, that they attended his inaugural ceremonies? And, that they swore him in? Do you sense some sort of problem here?
I believe that the Constitution empowers electors to apply the eligibility standards and to choose our presidents. If you want the electors to apply your precise definition, then send them a copy of your argument. Don't waste any more time on Supreme Court opinions in this area than you spend on reading the other materials that many people here at this website have cited and linked. Remember that you help pick the electors who pick our presidents. So, keep reading and doing the other good things you're doing.
Just follow the Constitution and everything should work out fine. Prince Charles is not going to come over here and win any elections. You have my personal guarantee!!
Good luck! ;-)
“A solution that’s NOT good enough”
“Jimmy is cheating! We should let everyone cheat to be fair.”
The solution is simple. Don’t vote for someone who’s not born in America. Yes, it really is just that simple.
The power to remove a President belongs to Congress, not the Supreme Courts. Those seeking redress through the courts have been on a fools errand.
Pursuit of a judicial course to confront the eligibility issue of the man who calls himself Barak Hussein Obama II, delayed whatever serious corrective action could have been brought to expose this usurper.
Congress has in the past removed Senators from among its ranks who were usurpers and not eligible to hold a seat in that legislative body. The question concerning presidential eligibility is so politically explosive that Congress has wisely delegated that power to the Washington (D.C.) District Court, and can be pursued via Quo warranto. This action requires the accused usurper to prove that he/she is eligible for that political position.
This ‘coup d’etat’ of the United States was carefully planned and involved a great deal of money spent corrupting people in important positions. Much of what we assume to be rigid electoral qualification processes is based on principles of honesty exhibited by the respective political parties, a principle missing in both parties. Honesty has tough sledding when people/families are being threatened, or murdered.
I have been answering my door with a loaded shotgun nearby since February 2009, the result of researching BHO2’s background in 2008, particularly in Indonesia. The deaths have been piling up since the middle of the past decade and indicate how intent and serious certain people are in their single minded desire to control the United States government. Yep, a conspiracy, and the paradox is I never believed one was possible until the Democrat Party pulled this off, but they are just a greedy, power-hungry tool of a larger, more extensive powerful group.
I suggest for your viewing pleasure a DVD by Bill Still entitled The Money Masters: How Banks Create The World’s Money. When one gets to the point of all this, it’s simple: it’s all about money and power, and who is going to wield it globally.
What’s interesting is that he was a citizen of Canada, in fact, and that goes directly to the meaning and intent of “natural born citizen.”
Early in our history, there were at least three people who served in the Senate even though they weren't yet 30 years old (as required by the Constitution):
In 1806, Kentucky sent Henry Clay to serve as a Senator when he was just 29 years old.
In 1816, Virginia sent Senator Armistead Mason to serve as a Senator when he was just 28 years old.
In 1818, Tennessee sent John Eaton to serve as a Senator when he was just 28 years old.
Despite these blatant Constitutional violations, the United States just kept moving forward. The more things change, . . .
The two Senators who were expunged from the records were not even citizens of the U.S.
This past national election cycle, here in the State of Washington (where I live) a man from Nicaragua was on the ballot running for President of the U.S. It is obvious the several states must step up and take responsibility for verifying the eligibility of those running for national office.
This kind of crap, where foreigners are President, is unacceptable. We either have laws and uphold them, or we lapse into anarchy. Right now anarchy seems to be winning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.