Posted on 02/28/2022 12:40:27 PM PST by conservative98
WVUfan222:
Levin: the birther tactic is crap, here's relevant statute:
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8 U.S. Code § 1401 - Nationals and citizens of United States at birth....
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401
RDMercEER:
It didn't matter where Obama was born, it doesn't matter where Ted Cruz was born, it didn't matter where John McCain was born, it didn't matter where George Romney was born. The phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. If one of your parents was a US citizen, which is the case in all four examples, you are a natural born US citizen.
This has been Levin's contention all along. Dishonest leftists, such was Pruto and whoisyourdaddy may want to do a little research, before spouting our their Alinskyite lies. Can either of you provide a link where Mark Levin said Obama couldn't be President because he wasn't a natural born US citizen?
I still don't think Obama was born in Hawaii, but it is a moot point, because at least one parent was a US citizen (and with the possibility of Frank Marshall Davis being his real dad, perhaps both). By birth status, he has every right to be the president.
(Excerpt) Read more at 247sports.com ...
How do we even know for sure who his mother is?
We don’t know who his mother is. We were told who she was. Conveniently dead also.
Because an unanswered fraud was perpetrated on the population and we’re paying dearly for it, years later?
We don’t know who his parents are.
The subject cannot even be examined unless we know who the parents are. A fake birth certificate cannot establish that. I don’t care how many times we’ve been told who his mother was.
That has nothing to do with how the law itself should be interpreted.
Yes, I disagree. "Most stringent criteria" is ambiguous and completely open ended. Born here to no citizen parent? Born here to one? To both? But that isn't even enough. Because was at least one of your parents born here, or were they both born in a foreign land to which they may have developed some loyalty, and perhaps raised you that way? Or maybe both of your parents must have been born in this country for you to be considered a "natural born citizen"....
So no, I don't believe something as ambiguous and open-ended as "most stringent was intended, and it certainly wasn't actually stated anywhere.
For a wide variety of reason I don't wish to rehash, I also find the entire argument around de Vattel's Law of Nations to be wrong.
Rather than go with "most" stringent, I'll just go with "more" stringent, and focusing on the word "born". Which to me as plain reading breaks down to citizen at birth v. someone who was naturalized later in life. So at least as far as we're talking about those born on U.S. soil, the 14th Amendment controls that.
Putin as the noble Crusader for Justice. I see someone has drunk a lot of Kool-Aid recently.
Does Putin/Root really expect that wealthy Ukrainians who may have had business dealings with the Bidens to simply hang around and wait to be caught by Putin's goons? And to keep any incriminating evidence handy? Those would be the first people who would have used their money to get out of dodge to one of their overseas retreats. And the way Putin looks willing to flatten Ukrainian cities to take the country, I doubt any of that stuff would be recovered anyway.
This love affair with Putin by some on the right is simply gross. And it is handing a lovely campaign issue to Democrats.
It isn't ambiguous. We have the clearly defined Vattel example, and we have the English common law example. The founders, to my knowledge knew only of these two choices.
So no, I don't believe something as ambiguous and open-ended as "most stringent was intended, and it certainly wasn't actually stated anywhere.
When important details are left out, one possible reason is because everyone at the time already knew what was meant. For example, when we look at "arms" in the second amendment, we know they meant "guns", though they didn't say "guns."
For a wide variety of reason I don't wish to rehash, I also find the entire argument around de Vattel's Law of Nations to be wrong.
I perceive you don't want to debate this subject and that it is a waste of time so far as you are concerned because you like the understanding you have chosen and do not wish to be bothered by anything that doesn't fit what you already wish to believe.
We are all reasonable up to a point, and when we reach that point, we simply do not wish to reason further. I guess we are done with the Presidential eligibility side of the issue.
So at least as far as we're talking about those born on U.S. soil, the 14th Amendment controls that.
Now here is an issue that goes beyond Presidential eligibility, and it has more serious consequences in regards to "anchor babies." Can we discuss this one for a bit?
You may notice my tagline. This is an excerpt from John Bingham (primary proponent of the 14th amendment in the House) debating the intent of the 14th amendment on the house floor.
It explicitly says that the 14th amendment will not apply to people born here if their parents still owe allegiance to another sovereignty. He reiterates this notion in several other places in the debate, and even clarifies it further.
Other evidence indicates the 14th amendment was never intended to apply to illegal immigrants or transient foreigners.
Even George Will and Ann Coulter clarify this point.
https://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/2010/03/28/a-birthright--maybe-not-n1266764
https://anncoulter.com/2010/08/04/justice-brennans-footnote-gave-us-anchor-babies/
Perhaps you will give their ideas on the matter more credence than you will give mine.
I think his point is that if the birth certificate is fraudulent, we have no way of knowing anything about him, including whether or not he was even born here.
There is some circumstantial evidence to indicate he may have been born in Canada, and ordinarily this wouldn't overcome the perceived credibility given to a state and it's official documents, but Hawaii is unique, I believe, in that it is a state that will grant a birth certificate to the children of residents, even if those children were not born in Hawaii.
So far as I know, it is the only state in the Union that will do this, and this makes what appears to be a fake birth certificate all the more significant.
That is unfair, and you perceive incorrectly. I have had that exact argument on this very website more times than I can't count, and rehashing arguments that have been had many times in the past is not enjoyable. In fact, I'm pretty sure I already had that discussion with you here, or if not here, elsewhere.
To give you just a very short summary of one aspect of this, de Vattel's work covered a ton of topics, of which how citizenship is defined is only a tiny one. de Vattel's emphasis on jus sanguinas versus jus solis was one of the few where continental law differed from the English Common law. And as you know, English Common law was (and in some rare cases still is) the default rule in the U.S. unless specifically abrogated. It certainly was the law the Framers themselves actively practiced, and we use the common law all the time when interpreting the Constitution -- including the Second Amendment.
Therefore, I believe that tossing the common law jus solis out the window in favor of the continental variant of jus sanguinas isn't legally sound. The mere fact that some of the Framers found De Vattel useful or some purposes doesn't mean they adopted it wholesale. And whatever utility they found in de Vattel would have been dwarfed by Blackstone, with whom they all would have been even more familiar. And Blackstone's extensive writings on the common law adopted jus solis as the rule for citizenship.
I'm saying this not to restart an argument, but simply to show you that I have actually looked at this stuff in detail long ago. I've read all the counterarguments multiple times, and to me, this is by far the strongest. The reliance on de Vattel over Blackstone looks to me far more like confirmation bias than objective legal research.
Yes we have, and that's one of the reasons why I think you are tired of it.
And as you know, English Common law was (and in some rare cases still is) the default rule in the U.S. unless specifically abrogated.
It is now mostly due to the work of William Rawle. He appears to be ground zero for where this idea that citizenship came from the common law.
I have explored and discussed the reasons why he did this, but I don't think you want me to rehash them here.
It certainly was the law the Framers themselves actively practiced...
I can give you an example where this is not true. Specifically James Madison.
And whatever utility they found in de Vattel would have been dwarfed by Blackstone,
I have done word searches for the word "citizen" in the complete works of Blackstone, and what I found conformed to what I suspected.
In all usage of the word "citizen", Blackstone refers to members of a city. "City Denizen" is what he means. He does not use the word to refer to members of a nation. That is not his understanding of the word, nor was it the understanding of the word of anyone in the English sphere of influence until around the 1760s.
The modern usage of the word is not English, it is French, and specifically Swiss.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/citizen
The normally used English word to refer to the member of a nation was "subject." They didn't use the word "Citizen" in 1776.
So we have this word who's modern meaning specifically comes from 14th century Switzerland, and we substitute it for the commonly used, and common law based word of "subject."
Why make such a change, unless the intent was to change the understanding of the relationship between state and the individual?
I'm saying this not to restart an argument, but simply to show you that I have actually looked at this stuff in detail long ago.
Did you look at the etymology and history of the word "citizen"? I think the clue about where it came from is very significant.
The reliance on de Vattel over Blackstone looks to me far more like confirmation bias than objective legal research.
I think that without the advent of Vattel crossing the Atlantic, we never would have used the word "Citizen" at all. We would still be using the word "subject", because that was the English law norm in 1776.
It can't be a coincidence that we switched. That we somehow separated the meaning of the word "citizen" from it's origin.
Rawle is the guy who is most responsible for substituting the original meaning of the word "citizen" for the English common law meaning of "subject", and he did it for a very specific reason.
He had also been advised by higher legal authority that he was wrong on this, but he did it anyway.
“an unanswered fraud was perpetrated on the population”
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The problem for anybody still obsessed with it is that the population just doesn’t care. Certainly nothing wrong for having it as a idle past-time, if one enjoys speculations of the sort.
I hate to say this but “Pot meet kettle!”
That is the way that Birthers appear to other people. But you have basically answered my question - when people invent and believe in imaginary laws, there is just not a good way to interact with them.
Now this I agree with. These last few years it has been made quite clear to me that much of the public simply accepts whatever they are told without resort to any critical thinking of their own.
The Covid craziness demonstrates this, and so did the stolen election.
People simply accept what "experts" tell them.
Well, attention spans have gotten shorter, too. If the Dems lift things like mask mandates, people will need too reminded this fall.
Is there a different between the term "citizen" and being a "subject"? Sure -- one is applicable to those living in a Republic, and the others to those living in a monarchy. But the validity of the common law itself was never rejected on that semantic distinction.
Switzerland was the only Republic in 1776.
§ 10. Of states forming a federal republic.
"Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted."
I don't think Blackstone ever suggested any such thing, because it would be looked upon as Treasonous. In fact, if you look at all the natural law advocates of that era, precious few would have the balls to say such a thing, because in any other country than Switzerland, they could have gotten very crosswise with their monarchy.
Samuel Rutherford became a target of the monarchy, and he never said anything quite so detrimental to the monarchy.
You think searching for the meaning of the word "citizen" is a "red herring", while I think you can get a real understanding of things by looking at the roots of them.
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