He's like an amoeba that only knows how to eat and poop.
Samba, Samba, Samba!
Posted on 07/28/2013 6:13:04 PM PDT by drewh
Sen. Ted Cruz hasn’t said whether he has presidential ambitions, but Sunday he won one of the first straw polls for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
The Texas Republican captured 45 percent of the 504 votes cast by attendees at the Western Conservative Summit, a day after drawing several standing ovations during his luncheon speech at the fourth annual conference.
“We shall see what sort of crystal ball summiteers have in awarding that decisive nod to Sen. Ted Cruz, who was so magnificent from this platform,” said John Andrews, founder of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, which hosted the event.
Placing second was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who delivered the keynote address Friday at the three-day summit, with 13 percent of the vote.
Tied for third were Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, and former Rep. Allen B. West, Florida Republican, with 9 percent each. Mr. West was the conference’s featured speaker Sunday, while Mr. Paul received the most votes among those on the ballot who didn’t attend the conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Well then... there you have it. BTW, thanks for taking the time to look that up.
LLS
Second, I don't allow myself to get all tangled up in acts of Congress when dealing with this issue. The Constitution prescribes the standards for a president (35 years, 14 years residency, and a natural born citizen) and prescribes who (the electors) is to utilize those standards in selecting our presidents. I infer from those provisions that those who select the electors (voters, nowadays) are also bound by the same standards. The fact that I may not trust the judgement of this voter or that elector is not dispositive. I understand and accept that the Constitution has bestowed upon these constitutional decision-makers great power and responsibility.
In every one of the last 57 presidential elections, the voters and the electors have been provided with the same constitutional eligibility standards. Those standards are written in the words that were chosen by our founding generation. The drafters said neither more nor less than what they said. They stopped writing when they stopped writing for reasons that they didn't feel necessary to explain. They left terms that were not precisely defined and I suspect that, if any of them thought about it at all, they realized that electors in the future (whenever it would first become important) might not all define the terms exactly alike. To the extent that any of them thought about it at all, I suspect that they believed that they provided enough guidance to bind electors to an acceptable range of precise definitions. Drafters cannot anticipate every possible scenario. Perfection is simply not attainable. It's clear that they wanted the president to be closely connected to the United States by heritage and experience (residency).
I don't think many folks in our founding generation had ever even heard of Vattel or his hero Grotius. This was a revolutionary generation and I think it's a mistake to assume that they felt an obligation to tie themselves to technical definitions in foreign books printed in languages that very few could read. Justice Scalia had this to say in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008):
"The Second Amendment provides: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that '[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.' United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation."
So, I try to avoid straying from the words as they were written in the Constitution and I am reluctant to add details that its authors declined to add. The absence of any constitutional provisions for judicial review of the decisions of electors suggests strongly to me that no such review was contemplated. I think a choice was made to trust the electors with the selection of presidents.
So, I can't honestly tell you that your view of the matter is more or less "correct" than the views of those who interpret the NBP term so as to encompass a Ted Cruz candidacy. The varying definitions that I've read on these threads all seem to be within the acceptable range of definitions. So, in my view, you won't go to Constitutional hell if you adjust your view to accommodate voting for Ted Cruz (as you have indicated you will).
Get ready because I think he could easily be nominated and, if nominated, elected. ;-)
He's like an amoeba that only knows how to eat and poop.
Samba, Samba, Samba!
You AREN'T following our logic, because if you were, you would understand that "natural citizens" are not made by laws, they are made by natural allegiance.
It simply cannot be explained more simply than this. If it requires a law to make you a citizen, then you are not a NATURAL citizen.
Looks like an album cover... brings back memories of vinyl! :-)
Done for now. I have more important responsibilities than poking ridicule at Kansas58. He does a pretty good job without my help.
Natural law and the Constitution: It's like apples and oranges!
Good job!
Can’t use “Scottish Law” anymore, Arlen Spector is no longer with us.
Wow. You are certainly not a birther true believer.
It is very, very refreshing to run into someone for whom the facts and the opinions of our early legal experts actually matter.
Thank you.
There is no such category of “natural citizen”. So your very starting position fails.
There are only naturalized citizens and natural born citizens. Further, it is law, as we are a nation of laws, that define who is and is not a citizen and who has citizenship at birth. It has been so since the VERY FIRST Congress.
Further, the fourteenth amendment limits recognition of citizenship to “born or naturalized” citizens.
Hey, you forgot the third type of citizenship. That is derived citizenship through the naturalization of a parent. I will now return to my bunker.
Sorry, that is not a third type as it is a case of naturalization.
The writing and opinion of a 19th century U.S. Congressman will not trump CURRENT U.S. law:
8 U.S.C. § 1401 : US Code - Section 1401: Nationals and citizens of United States at birth
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person:
(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or
(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date;
My money is on no court in the land ruling that Senator Cruz is ineligible, based on what has happened with the more than 200 lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility.
Thank you for your post.
And of course, in these matters, CONGRESS is the final legal authority, not the Courts.
Correct, if we look at that as lawyerly as we can, you're right, not at that time.
The Blood in the "Blood and Soil" requirement to satisfy the "Natural Born" definition, as opposed to defining "native born", more likely would have been defined as Father, rather than mom and dad.
I don't know if mom's citizenship would have mattered in the 1700s unless there was no father(?), I haven't researched it or had reason to, since obama's daddy supposedly was still alive enough to convey whatever citizenship he had to his baby boy Barry.
So...speaking of research, self proclaimed resident researcher, perhaps you can help us all with your talents and find out the legal and historical answers to that and some other questions. Such as:
Where do the rights and privileges, as well as the responsibilities and obligations, of citizenship, whatever they may, material or otherwise, come from?
Who or what has claim to them such that they can pass them, whatever they may be, along?
Or what gives you or me right to them or to be obligated by them? Why?
Is it place? Is it a parent, which? Both? What comes from which? Why?
While you're busy with that, here's my explanation and understanding regarding the genius of our FFs' choosing the highest standard possible:
By requiring Natural born, both blood and soil, citizenship, the FFs avoided all known contentions, arguments, disagreements, among each other and other nations, laws, treaties, you name it, then or in the future, whether our now or our future, too for the single most powerful individual in their new government.
See, the ONE thing we can all agree on is, someone who is born here to citizen parents at the time of his or her birth is a citizen of here and nowhere else. Whether we love them or hate them, we agree that they are one of US.
That's what the FFs were shooting for and, as a practical matter, would require for the sole person who commands each and every citizen soldier.
That person had better be one of us or we ain't taking/following his/her orders.
You could love or hate Clinton or Bush, but they were natural born citizens and eligible for the office, though not necessarily competent, and you had to follow their orders.
obama is neither eligible nor competent, and his skin color and/or which group of US claims him doesn't change either one.
It thus remains questionable if his orders should be followed, a situation the FFs would not understand nor tolerate.
At least Cruz seems to be very competent so far.
me thinks that somebody who just joined Freeper this year for the purpose of birthing Cruz .... probably joined this year for the sole purpose of birthing Cruz.
I am not referring you to the 14th Amendment. I am referring you to the fact that the father of the 14th Amendment clearly defines that to be a natural born Citizen, EVERY HUMAN BEING born MUST BE BORN WITHIN the jurisdiction of the United States OF PARENTS NOT OWING ALLEGIANCE TO ANY FOREIGN SOVEREINTY.
I would argue former attorney and House Representative John Bingham was well aware back then what a Constitutional Article 2 Section 1 natural born Citizen was.
Do you agree with the framer of the 14th Amendment? Yes or No.
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