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To: DiogenesLamp
Those people who were in a position to know and understand best what was meant by "natural born citizen" and the 14th amendment do not agree with the jus soli theory of citizenship. Again, John Bingham, Chief architect of the 14th amendment specifically stated it was not intended to apply to the US born children of foreigners.

You (or John Bingham) having an opinion doesn't change the fact that under the actual words of the law as written and interpreted by the bodies constitutionally empowered to do so, jus soli is the law of the land.

There is nothing arbitrary about the border. In your own land, you have a say. In our land, you do not.

Of course they're arbitrary. They're laid out by negotiation, or by a draftsman. There's nothing natural about the shape of Colorado. It was drawn by men with rulers. To go back to the example of hispanics in the southwest, why do they not have a greater right, since those lands were taken from them them by force, and an arbitrary line drawn to slice off half their land? Do they not have a greater multigenerational claim than some johnny-come-latelies who have only been there 150 years?

If you are a citizen, then you have a say, and children born to citizens are also citizens and they also have a say.

Citizenship is legal construct. Either a person has a natural right to self-determination or they do not. You really believe that your God-given rights depend on which side of a line someone drew with a ruler you're standing on?

Invaders and guests do not have a say in how the household is ran.

Tell that to the Indians.

266 posted on 12/09/2014 2:17:28 PM PST by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels"-- Tom Waits)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
You (or John Bingham) having an opinion doesn't change the fact that under the actual words of the law as written and interpreted by the bodies constitutionally empowered to do so, jus soli is the law of the land.

Says a court. Other courts have said that the words mean what the men who wrote them intended, not what we wish to believe they meant.

A prime example is the Declaration of Independence. If it meant what it said, slavery was abolished July 4, 1776, but we know for a fact that this was not the case. Here is an admonition from the man who wrote it.

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322)

Of course they're arbitrary. They're laid out by negotiation, or by a draftsman. There's nothing natural about the shape of Colorado. It was drawn by men with rulers. To go back to the example of hispanics in the southwest, why do they not have a greater right, since those lands were taken from them them by force, and an arbitrary line drawn to slice off half their land? Do they not have a greater multigenerational claim than some johnny-come-latelies who have only been there 150 years?

At the time these lands were taken, there were no notions of "natural rights", there was a universal philosophy of "might makes right" and those ideas of natural rights that later developed were never intended to apply outside of the society which created them. It is a modern notion to apply the idea to the larger world and especially outside of one's own tribe.

The people who did not live under such ideas at the time cannot be held to account for a philosophy of which they did not know and which they did not advocate, but those who came later and grew up within the society in which such ideas were taught and accepted should have know better than to violate these ideas within their own society.

The previous occupants may have a valid moral claim to the property, but at this point they will not get it back short of force or domination.

Citizenship is legal construct.

To you perhaps, but to adherents of the concept of natural law it is not a legal construct, but a natural condition. Man made law comes after nature in the order of moral precedence.

Either a person has a natural right to self-determination or they do not.

No one is arguing that they don't. The citizens of Mexico are entitled to any form of government they desire. They are not entitled to be in our country voting for changes to our government.

You really believe that your God-given rights depend on which side of a line someone drew with a ruler you're standing on?

Your point eludes me. Boundaries are primarily mental. The lines are just physical representations of the mental constructs. They are a convenient method of simplifying the concept and entirely consistent with the human notion of "territory."

Tell that to the Indians.

Conquerors may be invaders, but invaders need not be conquerors. One cannot be stopped, while the other cannot be permitted.

What we are dealing with in this country is a lack of will to stop it, not a lack of ability.

275 posted on 12/09/2014 3:06:11 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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