The 14th amendment’s “born or naturalized” clause makes perfectly good sense when one understands the concept of subset. Natural born citizens are a subset of “persons born... in the United States”. But there is some overlap between “citizen at birth” via statute, who may be born outside the US, and “citizens at birth” via the 14th amendment’s “born in the United States” clause. Someone born of a US Citizen parent and a foreign parent, where the US parent had met the necessary residency requirement, would be “citizens at birth”, but naturalized, since naturalization is all Congress has the power to define via statute. While persons “born in the US” are “citizens at birth” via the 14th amendment, no statute law required.
**
Do you have a cite for your post? I’m interested in it because I’ve had to fashion my understanding of all this on my own, and could not find the proper information to quite grasp what I think you’re getting at.
But again, your view presupposes an understanding of the meaning of natural born that does not seem to be undisputed. There are those who say what I’ve been saying, but I find my own position less than completely satisfactory because of the “no statute” thing, and I even forget where that comes from. I knew once, but I’ve forgotten. Was it part of a decision?
So what you said lights up a question in my mind that I had extinguished because I couldn’t get an answer, and eventually I just thought well, it makes sense that you have to have SOMETHING to define who is and who is not a citizen, so that must be natural born, absent anything ELSE that says otherwise. And in the light of the Supreme Court evidently using the terms interchangeably, which it does, it seemed that I had reached the right conclusion. But your post awakens that old question in me, so if you have some references, I’d appreciate knowing them. Thanks.
I hope I’m making sense. I think I know what I did. I said, “OK, if nobody can tell me what natural born means, I am going to read it as plain English.” And that’s what I did. Nobody can provide an undisputed legal definition, a definition that has the authority of the United States government behind it.
That is certifiably insane. That is just crazy.
So I am left to my own devices to find an answer that is NOT insane. I’ve done what I’ve done so far, but if you have a better answer, I’m all ears.
I don’t give a flying fig WHAT the answer is. I just think a society that cannot get its act together to determine definitively what legal requirements need to be met to be president of the country is a sick society that probably deserves to be extinguished.
I have never been so angry before.
Does anyone but me see the total
I N S A N I T Y
of this?
Why do we take it?
Arghhh.
I’m gong to bed. Holy garbanzos! It’s three-o-friggin-clock!