[Lurkinanloomin]

http://usnaturalborncitizen.com/

[rlmorel]

I have read many of your posts over the years on this subject, and I think your focus on this is laudable and very important (it should have been KEY back in 2008, IMO) but am trying to understand your views on this, because I feel there is a key point we disagree on and that is the requirement to be born on US soil.

That article you referenced is fine and generally makes sense to me (and is how I have always viewed it) but I was specifically trying to understand your stance on "natural born" citizenship as a component of "Natural Law", and I couldn't make the connection. (This is distinct from the term "Naturalized Citizen" which is the process by which a foreigner becomes an American citizen. I dislike that term, and think it is to easily confused with "natural born".)

I don't understand why people had an issue with McCain's "citizenship". I came through the first decade of this century with an increasing distaste, then dislike, and finally, open and unmitigated detestation of him. I had personal reasons for taking that long to view him in that light, but I eventually did.

That said, there is plenty of ground to despise him, but I have never, ever thought his citizenship was in question.

Both his mother and father were American citizens, there is no question about that. That he was born overseas is of no consequence to me. I grew up in a military family and travelled all over the world, and saw pregnant women who were wives of military personnel giving birth on bases overseas. If my mother had been pregnant and given birth to me overseas, is someone going to say I am not an American citizen, or ineligible to run for President? Of course not.

What if a pregnant American citizen married to another American citizen was visiting relatives just over the border in Canada and gave birth prematurely? I don't think that means her child is not a naturalized citizen.

In that light, I fully recognize and accept that a child born to two American Citizens whose allegiance to the United States is not in question that is born anywhere in the world is a full American citizen up to an including running for President of the United States. To say otherwise requires complicated and messy bureaucracy and red tape to take into account diplomatic or military personnel, Americans traveling abroad, etc.

However, I am fully and unequivocally onboard on four specific items:

1. No person who was not born to a mother and father who were U.S. citizens with full allegiance to the United States at the time of their birth should be allowed to run for the Presidency. Period, Full Stop. The framers of the Constitution had very specific and valid reasons for including this in the Constitution.
   
   
2. Full documentation and certification of this requirement should be MANDATORY as a checklist step at a FEDERAL level for a candidate to be eligible to appear on any State ballot for the Presidency of the United States. This is NOT a "states rights" issue. This is a FEDERAL issue and should be treated as such. It is unconstitutional to NOT require this at a Federal level, in my opinion.
   
   
3. I do not believe in the concept of dual citizenship. You must be a citizen of one country or another.
   
   
4. Being born on US territory (Jus Soli) should not qualify someone as an American citizen and should be outright abolished. I have never believed in this concept, and think it gives rise to a large range of unwise and unhealthy dynamics, such as Chinese nationals traveling to the Marianas Islands to give birth to children who can claim dual citizenship, people walking across the border from Mexico to give birth, and so on. It is insanity, and is not rational to me.