Posted on 10/14/2009 9:50:04 PM PDT by kellynla
That is simply not so. Your education and/or powers of reason are lacking.
Oh mine are fine. Notice how I use them to discuss actual issues instead of bailing out on reason and just insulting people.
It is so. Anyone born in the United States that is not the child of a diplomat or invading soldier is a natural born citizen. It has been the rule for centuries, going back to England. It is not only me saying that, the US Supreme Court has said the same:
"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.""III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
One of the great weaknesses of Wong Kim Ark is that the second paragraph you quote: "The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established," is factually incorrect.
First it is simply stupid to say that the English rule was in effect in the English Colonies. Of course it was. That's why we fought a revolution.
And you can be sure, because I will tell you it is so, that this "same rule" was NOT in effect in all the newly independent colonies, which were very quick to set their own standards, most of which disavowed the English rule.
And it very definitely did not continue to prevail after the adoption of the Constitution as could have been determined by a very minimal amount of research, which the court at the time must have felt to be beneath its status.
And we're left with people like you who hew to a nonsense line so strictly as to make one wonder if such loyalty is bought and paid for.
I think it is possible that you are actually a paid operative of the Obama machine. How else to explain both your obstinacy on this point and your continued presence here?
You don't get to pretend a Supreme Court decision doesn't exist because you disagree with it. Doesn't work that way. And it is very much on point.
They were deciding Wong's status. That quote is part of the line of reasoning in reaching that determination. What they wrote there very much applied to Wong. More importantly, it appies to anyone born in the United States. It's quite clear. You can't claim somehow what is written there doesn't include someone born in Hawaii.
"First it is simply stupid to say that the English rule was in effect in the English Colonies. Of course it was. That's why we fought a revolution."
It's noted that you think a large number of judges that have served in the US throughout its history are "stupid", but that says more about Birther legal analysis than it does those judges.
We fought a revolution to be independent of British RULE, not the principles of Brithish LAW. Two different things. We did in fact inherit the traditions of Britain's legal system, and much of English Common Law. You may recall discussions about the historical meanings of "high crimes and misdemeanors" during Clinton's impeachment.
You are mistaken, and are basically taking the position that it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court says, you disagree, so you are right. I don't think so.
"And we're left with people like you who hew to a nonsense line so strictly as to make one wonder if such loyalty is bought and paid for."
The nonsense line is thinking that you overrule the Supreme Court. It makes one wonder if such loyalty is bought and paid for by Obama to make conservatives look bad.
Again, I believe you are profoundly wrong to put so much faith in Wong Kim Ark, perhaps the most notoriously wrongheaded Supreme Court decision of all time, but no matter how bad that decision might have been, it had NOT ONE THING to do with “natural born citizenship”.
In fact the Supreme Court has never had a case on point come before it, only tangential ones such as Wong Kim Ark and maybe a half dozen others, and NONE of the decisions support the notion that anything born in a catbox is, without further examination, undoubtedly a cat. Never.
Reading the words of the decision is not a matter of "faith". Your opinion may be that it is wrongheaded, but that doesn't make it so.
The plain words of the decision DO relate to "natural born citizenship". To claim otherwise it to be in denial. It's nonsense.
The court had to determine Wong's citizenship status by virtue of his birth. In doing so, they examined the whole question of citizenship at birth, in great detail. It goes for pages. The one passage I quoted directly speaks to natural born citizenship.
Natural born citizenship is MORE than the citizenship at birth you describe, it is citizenship by NATURE and not by mere statute. For you to ignore this is to be in denial.
And citizenship by birth is in fact not about a statute, so your point doesn't make sense.
A person born in the United States is a natural born citizen. It has been the case since the founding of this country, and before under the English system. There is not a single legal authority, no law, no court ruling, nothing, contradicting this. It is just something birthers have latched onto because it fits their desire.
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