This is fascinating stuff... really it is. I’m new here and I wanted to first tell you all that I appreciate the discussion here because it is pertinent to my situation in life generally. The legal background you are giving me here is extraordinary. It’s the first time I’ve seen or heard of much of it. So first off, thank you.
Let me tell you about my circumstances. As I alluded to in previous posts, I am English... in proper terminology, I am a UK citizen (technically the phrase British citizen is wrong). I was born in Singapore in 1964. Singapore had formerly been a British colony but attained independence in 1959, five years before I was born. I took UK citizenship when I was 10 years old, surrendering my jus soli Singapore citizenship at that point.
I moved to the USA when I was 23, in 1988. I married an American woman. We have, as I’d also pointed out in prior posts, two children aged 20 and 17. I’ve lived here 23 years.
I have two issues...
1) I recently discovered that my children, under British Nationality Law, are not entitled to UK citizenship. If I had been born in the UK, they would, but because I was born outside the UK, they are not. Citizenship by descent extends only one generation, and I used that up. So despite the fact that my father fought for his country in the war and was awarded the MBE for his service, his grandchildren, my children, are being ejected. You are the weakest link. Goodbye. I am infuriated by this.
(I should also add that in the reverse case, if I’d been American and gone to the UK, had children with an English wife, my children would be eligible for US citizenship as long as I had lived in the US for at least five years prior to them being born, and their right to citizenship would exist regardless of where I was born.)
2) I love the United States. It’s been very good to me. My wife is American, and my children are too. But I have never taken US citizenship for one reason only, that being that doing so involves raising my right hand and swearing the Naturalization oath that requires me to “renounce and abjure all prior allegiance” to my country. I can’t do that. And many of you American folks would have precisely the same heartburn if you were faced with the same thing in reverse. Friends tell me to cross my fingers and say it. But I can’t do that even.
So I am stunned and fascinated by the legal history of the concept of double allegiance. I’ve always wondered... why can’t you have allegiance to two things at once? Given the history of the United States, why does this oath even exist, especially when, back in the day, EVERYONE was English and supposedly irreversibly British subjects. So what happens if I take the oath? If the legal precedent in Lynch is right...
“We recognize its existence, because we adopt them as citizens, with full knowledge that by the law of their native country, they never can put off the allegiance which they owe to its government.”
What is stronger, the power of my naturalization oath, or the bonds that tie me in allegiance to my “former” country? Irresistible force and immovable object.
The two issues are related in that, if my former country is going to disown my children that quickly and that easily, that’s going to make it that much easier for me to disown them. Bring on the judge! I’m ready.
Also it’s relevant to the discussion here because there are analogies between my situation and the IMHO rather spurious claims that Obama is ineligible for the presidency because he’s basically a British subject. Although I have to laugh because strictly speaking it’s true. The thought that Obama has more claim to British subjectdom than my children is just weird to me.
Any and all comments and guidance is appreciated... I’ll tell you now, I’m not going to agree politically with many of you, in fact, I might just take this opportunity to say, concerning thecodont’s post earlier that anyone who goes around saying Hussein this, Hussein that and then follows it up with “(HINT: It’s NOT about skin color or race!)” clearly doesn’t know how much of a dumbass they’re making themselves out to be.
Sorry for the length of this post. And thanks again.
If you don't understand why we would mock someone who we feel is destroying the very founding principles of this country and have to attribute some hidden bigoted motivations to that mocking then you're too wrapped up in your own egoistic view of things to think straight.
That being the case I will skip responding to your other points other than to say that it is egoism to think that there is any personal affront to you that your children would not be eligible to be a president. There are many possible circumstances a person can be born under and it is neither possible nor desirable to accommodate every one of them in order to make each one feel good about themselves.
The natural born citizen requirement was put in the Constitution to protect the whole nation not to give ego strokes to every individual citizen.