You know, about the supposed “ad hominem” bit.
If you read enough, including everything that’s been written, and weigh everything on both sides, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that this entire claim is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
So why did it ever take hold?
It took hold partly because people thought, “Maybe there’s something to this. Yeah, that sounds plausible. Yeah, that sounds good.”
I certainly didn’t know enough at first to be able to say with authority that it was all BS.
So you have people making this major Constitutional claim. And it is all absolute BS. But nobody really slaps it down, because not very many people are sure whether it’s BS or not.
And it sounds good. Hey, if we believe this, then we can argue that Obama is ineligible! Hooray!
So people give this big FALSE claim credence, and before you know it, a bunch of people believe it.
And in fact, a bunch of people can’t be convinced otherwise. Because it’s such a PRETTY claim.
Well, I am telling you: the claim is absolutely false. It is supported by virtually no credible authority in history. There is not a single source close to the Founders or Framers that gives it any credibility.
There are HUNDREDS of quotes available throughout history of what people believed about natural born citizenship, and they ALWAYS believed that birth on US soil was the ONLY thing required.
It is simply a FALSE claim, and one which twists the Constitution, and for my part I think that if we value the Constitution it’s time we stopped indulging people who are twisting it and claiming it says stuff it doesn’t say.
LOL!
You mean like claiming the decision in Wong Kim Ark said he was a natural born citizen when not only did it not say that, it would have been legally impossible for the decision TO say that.
A court can only answer the question put before it.
I respect your right to your own opinion, but three times now you have ignored the grandfather clause problem. Granted, it may not be decisive in itself. But I would think if you had a real answer to it, if for nothing else to relieve me of my ignorance, you would at least acknowledge its existence. But you don’t.
And I do not limit the evidence collecting to the founders. DL makes the point, which you completely circumvented, that there were various opinions on the matter. It does not matter to your argument that Rawle was a legal expert. He was just one of many, and many of those had various and conflicting opinions, else you would not even have your quote farm for statements apparently dismissive of parentage. The matter was in discussion, parentage was being raised, and the issue was not settled in the minds of many. I am not asking for extraordinary proof regarding Rawle. I am asking for something which actually qualifies as proof.
You say the birthers have no evidence. But this is not true. What is true is that you have in one way or another dismissed that evidence and now hope that others, like myself, who are trying to give the question a fair hearing, either do not know of the conflicting evidence, or can read your mind and just innately know, as you seem to, that it doesn’t support the birther case, or else just meekly accept your “authoritative” assertion that we are all idiots. That simply isn’t good style in legal analysis. You could never win in a typical appellate court with an approach like that.
As for “absolutely false,” or even “absolutely true,” that is nonsense. We are not talking about divine law, but human law. Men err. Supreme Court decisions display repeated shifts and shades of meaning over time, and some of those shifts are clearly accidental, especially as it relates to what are called “terms of art,” words or phrases given a specific body of complex meaning over time. That is why I said at the outset, unless SCOTUS takes this on, we will not have final certainty.
Am I a birther? Probably, according to you. I am an old man and I was raised my entire life to believe that citizenship, natural born or otherwise, was far more than just being born on this soil. Any animal can do that. The grandfather clause would not have been necessary if that were the case. The quotes you have mined to invoke your reductionist view are noteworthy and valuable to the discussion, but I have learned over time to be wary of quote wars, and I do not consider any single quote to be decisive in itself. Filling in the gaps with rigorous context to achieve true understanding is not a trivial task, and is best left to those with the time, inclination, and ability to do so. Among such you will seldom hear talk of absolute claims of truth or falsity, because human law is shifting sand. Only the divine law endures over time, and human law only survives to the extent it relies on divine law.
So I think our conversation is at an end. My time is precious, and no one is paying me to write the definitive brief for this problem. I leave it to you and other dedicated volunteers and professionals. I do not believe Obama will leave office over a constitutional violation, real or imagined, of any sort. We are past that. His term will expire and he will either leave or find a pretext for remaining in power. My focus right now is gun rights. It is one thing to have a president whose lawless acts will never get him impeached. It is quite another for said lawless one to attempt to remove from us our last practical defense against his mounting tyrannies. That is where I choose to focus my energies.
So if birtherism is where you want to work, go for it. Not for me. But lose the paranoid ad hominem shtick. It’ll never sell in Peoria. Or even Springfield.
Just sayin …
I recall reading that Springfield Reformer has legal training. As the thread topic is whether or not Ted Cruz is a "natural born citizen" I would be interested in hearing Springfield Reformer's opinion of how Ted Cruz's birth circumstance differs greatly from that of Aldo Mario Bellei. (Rogers v Bellei)
I am of the opinion that being able to be stripped of citizenship (for failure to meet residency requirements) precludes someone from being a "natural born citizen." I argue that a "natural born citizen" cannot be held to any residency requirement because his citizenship is not operative on a law passed by Congress. (Citizenship act of 1934.) Natural citizens are not citizens by virtue of Congressional acts.
Care to wade in on this point Springfield Reformer?