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Red Steel wrote: “You know, citing Wong Ark doesn’t make your case that Obama is a natural born citizen. You can cut and paste all you want...”

Agreed! To me, citing the Kim Wong Ark decision to justify the definition of “Natural Born” is like citing the Dred Scott decision to justify slavery. Everyone instinctively knows that both of those decisions were about Justices legislating their own personal biases.

In fact, for some reason or other, I’ve noticed that many After-Birthers completely overlook the Dred Scott decision when pulling out SCOTUS rulings that discuss the Natural Born Citizen issue.

So, let us look at a ruling that I feel is as contemptuous and politically motivated as the Kim Wong Ark decision; The Dred Scott Decision:

” By this same writer [Vattel] it is also said: ‘The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society [60 U.S. 393, 477] cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.’ Again: ‘I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to settle and stay in the country.’ (Vattel, Book 1, cap. 19, p. 101.)

From the views here expressed, and they seem to be unexceptionable, it must follow, that with the slave, with one devoid of rights or capacities, civil or political, there could be no pact; that one thus situated could be no party to, or actor in, the association of those possessing free will, power, discretion. He could form no part of the design, no constituent ingredient or portion of a society based upon common, that is, upon equal interests and powers. He could not at the same time be the sovereign and the slave.

Gee, look at that; The SCOTUS is using Vattel’s definition when discussing citizenship!

Not only that, but the Dred Scott Decision mentions Vattel no less than five times in their decision.

On the other hand, the After-Birthers’ much ballyhooed Blackstone only gets mentioned once. And, not only that, but it was not in the context of citizenship, but rather in reference to Missouri’s adherence to certain statutes and the “law of nations.”

Now, I’m not saying that the Dred Scott decision is a monumentally beautiful moment in the history of the United States, but what I guess I am trying to say is that when After-Birthers cite a terribly “Progressive” and obviously logically flawed decision like Kim Wong Ark to use as some sort of “proof” against us Constitutional Disciples, well...it is like me quoting the Dred Scott decision to them to justify slavery before the signing of the emancipation proclamation; it doesn’t change what I, and others, instinctively know to be proper and just.

I think we all can agree that it is a verifiable fact that Our Founding Fathers’ intent with inserting the Natural Born
Citizen requirement for the Office of the President of the United States was to help insure that the office holder’s allegiance was solely, and undividedly, to America and her citizens.

Logically, it is only proper for the President of the United States to have sole, undivided allegiance to We the People of the United States of America.

And, I’m just not sure that is proper for a person having been born with dual-citizenship and then going to Kenya to actively campaign for a politician who is now the Prime Minister of Kenya (after a blood-bath and UN interdiction) fits the category of “undivided allegiances.”

Cheers