Sorry, RPA, I meant to ping VJ to post #43 instead of you. But I think you’ll appreciate the course of logic contained therein as well :-)
Why make it so complicted?
There are enough natural born citizens who hate this country and could be taken and programmed to be a pawn to a foreign power.
You don't need all these crazy ideas.
The ultimate check on who is elected President is made by the electorate.
1) visit a U.S state, 2) hook up with an American girl (underage even), 3) father a child (marriage optional), 4) take the child back to Iran during its formative years for indoctrination, 5) re-introduce the child to the United States at a later date, 6) wait for the child to reach 35 years of age, 7) use the financial resources of Iran to market this child for POTUS, 8) thereby usurping the highest seat in this nation for his own purpose.
No, because as a foreign dignitary, neither he nor his child would not be subject to US jurisdiction, unless he abandoned her and high-tailed it off to Iran before she was born.
Your scenario would not happen under our U.S. Constitution UNLESS they ran on the Democrat ticket.
You wrote-
“So ... following that logic ... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could legally
1) visit a U.S state,
2) hook up with an American girl (underage even),
3) father a child (marriage optional),
4) take the child back to Iran during its formative years for indoctrination,
5) re-introduce the child to the United States at a later date,
6) wait for the child to reach 35 years of age,
7) use the financial resources of Iran to market this child for POTUS,
8) thereby usurping the highest seat in this nation for his own purpose.
Nice. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Vladimir Putin is kicking himself for not thinking of it first.
Of course, this is quite similar to what the Founders feared Britain would do in retaliation for the Revolutionary War in order to return the States to British rule. That *is* why the “natural born” requirement was written into the Constitution, after all. Surprisingly, it draws an eerie parallel to Mr. Obama’s circumstance today as well.
It seems many of us are so overwhelmed by legal prose, spin, and word redefinition that we can’t even see the dangers from which our Founders were trying to save the inheritors of their nation. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
I’m a birther — I believe I’m good for “Conservatism”. If the Founders weren’t birthers, after all, your coinage would likely have the heads of British Royalty on it today.”