I don’t think people pretend not to understand.
As we can see by so many responses in the comments here, there are conflicting opinions as to what natural born citizenship means.
Some Freepers say that both of your parents must have been citizens at the time of your birth , for you to be a natural born citizen.
Other Freepers say , that being born in America makes you a natural born citizen regardless of the citizenship of your parents. Those Freepers believe that since a citizen by birth did not have to be naturalized to become a citizen, that this status makes one a natural born citizen .
I think people on both sides have sincerely held beliefs. I disagree that people are pretending not to understand.
Apparently the term natural born citizen is not defined anywhere in our laws. This adds to confusion. You can be genuinely confused or unsure without it being a situation of pretending not to understand.
“Apparently the term natural born citizen is not defined anywhere in our laws.”
No law is defined in the Constitution. The Constitution has no glossary. The writers used commonly accepted legal definitions in vogue at the time, and they are still being used today. One of those legal terms was natural born citizen. You think they just pulled it out of their ass? The term is defined in the Naturalization Act of 1790, one year after the Constitution was adopted.
Historically, the entire population believed that natural born citizen meant a citizen born in the United States of citizen parents.
The Congress issued a ruling about John McCain being a natural born citizen since he was born in Panama because his parents were stationed there. The ruling said that since his parents were citizens, he was a natural born citizen. That makes perfectly good since. But that short time ago, people knew about natural born citizenship was different than just citizenship.
As far as the debate on Free Republic, well, yes, plenty of posters here have their heads up their asses.
I've had this discussion about the naturalization statutes starting with the one in 1934 and ending in the one from 1952. (Also occasionally the Cable act of 1922.)
I point out that they all say "naturalization" in their title, and people say, "well it isn't naturalization."
As I mentioned before, if you read the debates on the 14th amendment, the very congressmen who created it say it is a "naturalization."
Some people cannot grasp that congress can create a law that naturalizes people "at birth." I beat my head against the wall trying to make them understand that just because congress set the law to take effect "at birth", it is *STILL* naturalization.
People just believe what they want to believe.
And while I am at it, i'm going to mention the expatriation act of 1907 which stripped the citizenship from women who married aliens.
I think it deserves a mention because a lot of people are unaware of it.