Posted on 11/30/2011 4:54:22 AM PST by Natufian
The Constitution sets out three eligibility requirements to be President: one must be 35 years of age, a "resident within the United States" for 14 years, and a "natural born Citizen"
(Excerpt) Read more at scribd.com ...
It's pretty much a dead issue now and all that is left are mopping up operations to keep the stupidity from flourishing again on FR.
I apologize, I forgot about your reading comprehension problem. I know the SC decision didn't exist before the government counsel expressed their concern. That's why I said "something."
You continue to operate under the principle that if the court didn't explicitly say something, they must have implictly meant its opposite--at least when you want them to. The facts still remain that when the District Court declared WKA a citizen by birth, government counsel expressed a concern that that meant he was eligible for the presidency; and that when the Supreme Court upheld the DC, the dissent expressed the same concern. If it was clear to all that there was a difference between "native citizen" and "natural born citizen" and that declaring WKA one didn't mean he was the other, why would anyone have bothered to say anything about his eligibility? (Answer: they wouldn't.)
What you call "cherry-picking" I call focusing on one thread of your argument and showing how bogus it is. You are very good at misreading one thing, then misreading another to show how it supports the first, and misreading a third to show how it supports the first two. I only have to show that one is a misreading to bring the whole house of cards down.
My point was that you were doing it in a clumsy fashion, very much unlike someone who was really looking at things from their perspective. -Maladroit.-
In other words: "I disagree with you, so you're wrong."
In other words: "I disagree with you, so you're doing it wrong."
When you fail to cover alternative explanations that are obvious to others, you ARE doing it wrong.:)
Intellectual objectivity helps.
Does that mean you acknowlege that the government lawyers might have actually meant what they wrote, rather than simply saying it for effect?
As long as you defenders of Barack Obama and Anchor Babies are present, the stupidity will be inherent.
Having voiced their objection before hearing the verdict of the court, at the time they stated such it may very well have been a real concern to them. Perhaps they were much relieved when the court failed to use the term "natural born citizen"?
:)
Who knows? Perhaps their argument swayed the court AGAINST using the "natural born citizen" term.
There's no reading comprehension problem, just your poor ability to communicate. Your reply matched the construction of my previous coment which said "there is NOTHING in the majority opinion that says this ..." Either you're saying there's something in the majority opinion or you're making a redundant comment becuase I've already explained what the "something" was prior to your reply.
You continue to operate under the principle that if the court didn't explicitly say something, they must have implictly meant its opposite--at least when you want them to.
No, this is you making a intentional mischaracterization of my position because you can't refute what I actually said.
The facts still remain that when the District Court declared WKA a citizen by birth, government counsel expressed a concern that that meant he was eligible for the presidency; and that when the Supreme Court upheld the DC, the dissent expressed the same concern.
We have a unanimous decision in Minor that defines NBC to specifically satisfy the meaning of the term in relation to presidential eligibility. Unless the District Court give a specifc definition to disagree with this or unless the WKA majority disagreed, then it doesn't matter what the government counsel or dissent said. Neither establishes the legal precedent. The District Court does NOT trump the Supreme Court. In a full analysis of Wong Kim Ark, it cites and affirms the same definition of NBC from Minor.
If it was clear to all that there was a difference between "native citizen" and "natural born citizen" and that declaring WKA one didn't mean he was the other, why would anyone have bothered to say anything about his eligibility? (Answer: they wouldn't.)
Wrong. I'll explain this ONE more time for your benefit. Wong Kim Ark's attorney cited a case that errantly described a child born to Chinese citizens as natural-born. It's a face value claim that is supported by neither a previous legal precedent nor upheld in the holding of the district court. All we know is that government counsel questioned this term and possible implications because the District Court didn't address those implications. The dissent in WJA mentioned this and then gave a definition of NBC from Vattel that matches the NBC definition quoted by the majority from Minor. If there was a question, it was resolved by these phrases: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens. These are the natural-born citizens.
Your name-calling is false, as I didn't make my mind up until I'd given a thorough hearing to both sides.
And when I made my mind up, it was based on sorting out and carefully evaluating what was fact and what were bogus arguments.
Believe me, I've given far more honest consideration to what the birthers call "arguments" and "truth" than it's been worth. If any of them had been able to produce any argument that actually makes sense, I would have changed my mind - even after making it up - and I would be a birther right now.
They haven't, so I didn't, and am not.
All I've heard from the birther side is fallacy and fantasy followed by fallacy and fantasy. There are as many unicorns and mermaids on the birther train as there are on the Obama train.
...and a note that some people extend that definition further than you like, which you have to torture the syntax to ignore.
The dissent in WJA mentioned this and then gave a definition of NBC from Vattel...
Yes. Interesting, isn't it, that the losing side in WKA cites Vattel in support of his argument. So, to recap: the District Court said WKA was a citizen by virtue of being born in the US; government counsel, in their appeal, said, "But that means he could be president!"; the Supreme Court, in affirming the decision, said "Yep, he's a citizen"; and then the losing side said, "But that means he could be president!" and cited your boy Vattel to try and show otherwise. But after all that, you want us to believe that since the Supreme Court didn't explicitly say, "Yes, he could be president," that's somehow not what they meant. Really, you can say they decided the case wrongly, but to say that's not how they decided the case at all really takes some self-deception.
I'll explain this ONE more time for your benefit. Oh come on, explain it two or three more times. PLEEEASE?
WildSnail wrote: “For as long as I can remember, my understanding of nbC was always ‘born in the country to two citizen parents.’ And there have been plenty of other posts on these threads from other people who also have believed the same for many years. So please stop pretending that it’s a new idea. It’s not”
So why can you not show me a single one who expressed this view before they needed reasons why Barack Obama cannot be president? Civics textbooks, legal journals, /Blacks Law Dictionary/ stated that the native born are eligible, and no one can find any rebuttal. It may have been in doubt before the 14’th Amendment and its interpretation in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, but not in our time.
If I’m wrong, please cite. I’ll still disagree, but I acn respect a contrarian. What I don’t respect is people who start telling the rules different when they don’t like who is winning.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “I would like to see News executives facing massive fines for hiring biased reporters and attempting to skew elections with false reporting and failures to report derogatory information regarding their preferred choices.”
Sad that you hold such contempt for our Constitution.
“Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” — U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1
Please tell us when his contemporaneous documented definition was amended in the constitution to just “born a citizen”.
Go to Philadelphia. Walk the halls where the founders produced this document. This man is real. He was a president of congress. His portrait is probably in the building down the street. There is a building a block form Independence hall with all the founders portraits.
I'm telling you I was taught that it required two citizen parents, almost 40 years ago. The summer before Obama was elected, I was in shock that a dual citizen was running for president.
There are other people on these threads that say the same thing. They were taught that it required two citizens. I am not the only one. Did it come out of a text book? No. It came from a college educated woman's mouth who was an expert in US history. This “Theory” was documented fact by a founder, 200 years ago. It was repeated in the halls of congress. It is in a supreme court decision.
How do you erase all these men and documents, and call this a “New Theory” ?
Dittos. I went to grade school in the ‘50’s. Natural Born Citizen was the deal.
Thus Vattel, in the preliminary chapter to his Treatise on the Law of Nations, says: “Nations or States are bodies politic; societies of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage, by the joint efforts of their mutual strength.
Such a society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes resolutions in common; thus becoming a moral person, who possesses an understanding and a will peculiar to herself.”
Again, in the first chapter of the first book of the Treatise just quoted, the same writer, after repeating his definition of a State, proceeds to remark, that, “from the very design that induces a number of men to form a society, which has its common interests and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there should be established a public authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each, in relation to the end of the association.
This political authority is the sovereignty.” Again this writer remarks: “The authority of all over each member essentially belongs to the body politic or the State.”
By this same writer it is also said: “The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages.
The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the county, of parents who are citizens. as society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.” Again: “I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to settle and stay in the country.” (Vattel, Book 1, cap. 19, p. 101.)
Justice Daniel US Supreme Court
And no one gives a flying fuck about Vattel. Why? Because international law does not control US citizenship, nor does Swiss law.
See WKA. Oh, but wait - birthers aren’t smart enough to read paragraphs, let alone pages.
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