Posted on 03/03/2016 8:35:22 AM PST by Ray76
Sure, but can we first get to the point I have been trying to resolve?
Do you agree that US Citizenship began July4, 1776? It seems like you are trying to dodge this question.
Interesting read, but did you have a particular point or something you were trying to make? Nothing directly in response to my post?
Well governor, show us the naturalization documents. You can provide those in conjunction with Trumps tax returns for efficiency.
Exactly what I thought when it was first mentioned. Where is this assertion established by contemporary documents?
Or does McElwee fail to provide a citation because he cannot back up his claim with the actual words that were recorded?
I don't think he made it up. I think he has a source, we just don't know what it is. When I first started researching this issue, I was shocked to discover how many significant documents have not been textualized and put online. There is a lot of stuff you just can't see without going to Washington and looking in the archives.
I actually looked into hiring someone from Washington to look up some docs for me. There are actually several companies that do this sort of thing.
In any case, I consider this to be a promising lead, and perhaps we'll find out McElwee's source.
The Inglis case reflected a complex and volatile legal environment during the transition to the revolutionary government. Ambiguities abound. I’m not in a position to respond to your question without some significant narrowing context, which you seem unwilling to provide, or when I thought you did provide it, you didn’t like my response, which was to your point as well as I could make it, though under the disability of insufficient information. So no, I’m not playing the game. If you have a theory, put your cards on the table and let me examine your assumptions in context. Then we can talk.
Peace,
SR
> they are defining who is a citizen at birth, i.e., who does not need to be naturalized.
You are stating your conclusion as if it were a proof.
I would certainly be willing to consider any verified authentic new information. I won’t, however, be holding my breath. But do feel free to let me know what you find. I’m always interested in new facts.
Peace,
SR
You commented on natural law. I thought I would illustrate the difference between the monarch’s view and that of the Founders.
Naturalization is the conferring of citizenship. Nothing more or less. The idea that a “process” is the determining characteristic of naturalization has no basis in history or law.
Your claim necessitates inserting words into every naturalization statute ever written except for one. That one was repealed by an Act authored by James Madison and signed into law by George Washington. That one, like all others, demonstrates that foreign-born children of citizens require an Act of Congress to grant citizenship to them.
Make no mistake: it is a grant, not a recognition of some preexisting condition. Citizenship granted can be taken away. (see Rogers v. Bellei)
I simply do not grasp what you are saying here.
You won't state a date to your liking, and you won't acknowledge the date that seems correct to me. How is this not playing a game?
Can we not just state plain facts as we see them? I've provided a source that supports my contention that US Citizenship began on July 4, 1776, and i'll dig up another one if I must.
If you don't think anything i've provided so far is conclusive, then perhaps you can tell me where are the goal posts I must reach?
What level of proof do you require to establish what seems to me to be a self evident fact?
Peace,
SR
It’s about not proof. Please just tell me what edifice you want to build on this foundation, and let me make up my own mind how best to respond. If you don’t want to do that, it’s the end of our conversation. I don’t like cloak and dagger. Put it out there. What do you want from this?
Peace,
SR
The Supreme Court sees naturalization as the conferring of citizenship. (See Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998); Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971); Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649 (1898))
LOL! Bellei does nothing to establish your implied assertion that naturalization can occur AT birth, when the statute in question specifically asserts to the contrary, that naturalization happens AFTER birth, as a matter of definition. It is what the word means.
BTW, if you read Bellei carefully, you will realize they never actually conclude whether he was natural born or naturalized. So how he acquired his citizenship is irrelevant to the outcome of the case. He had it, but lost it by not meeting a condition subsequent, because Congress has that authority.
Peace,
SR
Sure, when naturalization is defined as the statute defines it, something that happens AFTER birth, as Miller states explicitly. Did you read Miller?
Peace,
SR
I disagree. As far back as Aristotle it has always been the children of the father. The Latin word for Country was "Patria", and it meant "Land of my Father." We still have descendents of this concept in words such as "Patriot".
England was mostly a fluke, and as near as I can tell, a fluke that mostly began with "Calvin's Case." Had Calvin's case upheld the Original Roman law, it would have split Scotland from England, and so I have become convinced that this is exactly why they didn't do it.
But that undermines the point of natural law. If there's multiple variations of it, then it's not really natural law, is it?
Of course it is. It's just natural law stemming from different foundational assumptions. The Muslims even have their own version of natural law, but it emerges from different fundamental assumptions than ours. (And produces completely different results than our own.)
Think of it like Euclid's ten postulates. He couldn't prove any of them, but if they are assumed, many subsequent mathematical concepts automatically follow from them.
The English version of natural law asserts God, and makes the King his highest ranking servant. From this assumption it follows that it is the duty of lesser servants to Obey God's chosen man to rule them.
"Natural Law", is the process by which more complex proofs can be derived from simple assumptions. The "process" is the same, it is just the fundamental assumptions that make the difference between one version and another.
Obviously the founders wouldn't have used the term subject, as that word is loaded with the idea of someone owing fealty / being above another.
As does much of English Law.
I don't know their thought process, but there really aren't really that many other words to describe the people of a country.
In 1776, every European Nation used some form of the word "Subject" except for one. The entire world was governed by nothing but Monarchies except for that one little country. It was the only nation in the world at that time that used the term "citizen".
The lack of common usage of 'citizen' could mean that they either used that word specifically on purpose, with reference to the connotations it held, or it could have been simply a desire to not use the term 'subjects'.
But "Subject" was what they were familiar with. They even offered a Crown to Washington. The word continued to be used in Massachusetts up until 1798, though increasingly less as the years went by.
So why did they eschew the familiar "Subject" for this funny little word that isn't even in English law dictionaries?
National might be a bit more apt, but the founders didn't make a nation, they created a bunch of separate, independent states that together decided to form a nation. I can't think of too many other words that could fit, aside from citizen.
Ah, but in English usage of the time, the word "Citizen" only referred to City-Zens. Dwellers in Cities. This is how Shakespeare uses it, this is how Blackstone uses it, and it is even how the King James Bible uses it. You say it fits, but you have grown up in a society where it has always been used. In 1776 it was a lot rarer to hear this word.
The word betrays it's own origins. It is that deliberate change to the word "citizen" that tells us where the founders got their meaning for it.
I get the impression that you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. I want to pin you down in agreement so that your path is set and you are left with no choice but to follow where it leads.
Leaving it ambiguous allows you to walk back when you see something you don't like, and likewise needlessly multiply the variables that must be addressed. It allows choice by agenda, and I would rather have objectivity where more complex conclusions derive from basic facts.
I favor simplicity and clarity of thought. You know, Occam's razor stuff.
Apparently you have not read Rogers v. Bellei. It is uncontested that Bellei is naturalized at birth.
At oral argument, plaintiff’s counsel (Bellei’s counsel) conceded that “Congress need not vest a person in his position with citizenship if it chooses not to do so.”
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