Posted on 04/05/2013 11:44:55 AM PDT by kreitzer
Get ready for the last straw.
First, though, Id like to suggest that anyone reading this column in a local newspaper or news site pat the editor on the back for publishing what in our neo-medieval world of fear amounts to a forbidden column.
Yup, I am about to say something about the Great Barack Obama Identity/Eligibility Scandal again. I know that this is one rich and urgent topic that doesnt see the light of day in certain so-called news outlets and I say that from the experience of watching my own syndicated columns fail to appear when covering news of the White House press conference where the presidents long-form birth certificate was unveiled, news of courtroom proceedings in various states on Obamas ballot eligibility and news of Sheriff Joe Arpaios investigators presenting evidence that the online Obama birth certificate is a forgery (and much more).
So be it. This was, as noted, the last straw.
(Excerpt) Read more at dianawest.net ...
Yet all of the founders had "British paternity." Clearly they wanted to ensure against foreigners coming here to take the country over electorally.
It's less certain that they'd exclude anyone who was born here to one American parent from holding office because the other parent may have been foreign-born.
We have already had presidents who fit that description (Arthur, Wilson, Hoover). While Wilson's and Hoover's mothers received US citizenship at the time of their marriage according to the law of the times, it's not clear to me whether they lost their British citizenship under British law.
The early constitutional commentator William Rawle has become controversial because of his views on secession, but he was clear about his reading of the natural born clause, writing:
The citizens of each state constituted the citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. The rights which appertained to them as citizens of those respective commonwealths, accompanied them in the formation of the great, compound commonwealth which ensued. They became citizens of the latter, without ceasing to be citizens of the former, and he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.
I'm not saying Rawle is right about this. I certainly would disagree with some of the views I've heard attributed to him on other subjects, and I'm pretty sure he didn't say the last word on citizenship law, but Rawle was writing at a time (1825-1829) when a few of the founders were still alive and able to argue with him if they disagreed.
I think people with dual citizenship today should be disqualified from the Presidency. They are more likely to give preference to another country than where someone happened to be born because it was their decision.
NBC
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