Posted on 10/19/2012 11:59:50 AM PDT by NTHockey
I visited the Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Wednesday. While on the tour, one of the staff members came up and asked me if I wanted to be President. I said that I was ineligible, since my mother was naturalized after I was born. He argued that since I was born here that I was born here that I was natural.
We went back and forth; he not knowing the difference between native born and natural born and I refusing to back down.
I plan to write the head and tell him that their staff needs to be a) better informed and b) less combative. Comments.
The council of fools is more dangerous the more of them there are. You have demonstrated that there are legions of fools.
Do not talk to me about post-Obama cases. What I am interested in is if you can present any argument which proves that I and others of like mind here are wrong. In other words, the battle is yours. Let’s see what you got.
If you are going to argue the “natural born Citizen” issue, it would be appreciated if you can rely upon historical and legal sources rather than on your own personal opinion about what the world should be.
Naturalization at birth is that citizenship status obtained from a constitutional provision, statute, or judicial decision which removes from the moment of birth the alienage of a person, either inherited jus sanguinis from being born to an alien parent or acquired jus soli from being born outside the United States, and declares that person to be a “citizen of the United States” from the moment of birth. Being declared a “citizen of the United States” automatically from the moment of birth, the person does not have to take any further steps after birth to perfect his or her naturalization as does a person who is naturalized after birth.
Again, here is what Ankeny said in Footnote 14: “We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a “natural born Citizen” using the Constitution’s Article II language is immaterial. For all but forty-four people in our nation’s history (the forty-four Presidents), the dichotomy between who is a natural born citizen and who is a naturalized citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment is irrelevant. The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 705, 18 S. Ct. at 478.”
(1) The Court admitted that Wong Kim Ark did not hold in words that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” But then it still forged ahead and used the decision as precedent for the notion that it changed Minor’s American “common-law” definition of a “natural born Citizen.” This really is a fantastic feat, even just considering that Wong did not address whether Minor’s American “common-law” definition was right or wrong or if right why it needed to be expanded to include children born in the United States to alien parents.
(2) Moreover, the Ankeny court is mistaken in concluding that simply because Wong analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment the question of whether Wong was a “citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States,” the Court gave us a new definition of a “natural born Citizen.”
First, the court begged the question. The Court relied upon Wong Kim Ark to come to its decision. Wong Kim Ark is a Fourteenth Amendment case. Ankeny assumed without analyzing the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment includes a definition of a “natural born Citizen.” This is amazing since the plain text of the Amendment speaks of a “citizen of the United States,” and not a “natural born Citizen,” the former being a class of “citizen” which Article II, Section, 1, Clause 5 expressly states was no longer eligible to be President in the future. Also, there is no evidence in the amendment’s debates which suggest that the amendment repealed or amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause.
Second, if the Wong Kim Ark was giving us a new definition of a “natural born Citizen,” it would have referred to Minor’s definition and told us it was expanding that definition to include children born in the United States to alien parents. The Court would then not have just held Wong to be a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States,” but also a “natural born Citizen.”
Third , under the American “common-law” definition of a “natural born Citizen,” mere birth in the country had never been sufficient to make one a “natural born Citizen.” Citizen parents had always been required as an additional factor. After all, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says “natural born Citizen,” not “born Citizen.” Even Wong Kim Ark recognized the difference between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen of the United States” at birth when it said twice in its decision: “The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [born in the country].’” Wong Kim Ark, at 665-66 and 694 (citing and quoting Horace Binney, The Alienigenae of the United States Under the Present Naturalization Laws (1853).
So what Ankeny did is amend the Constitution without a constitutional amendment. Needless to say, the Ankeny decision is unconstitutional and very bad law.
The definition of a “natural-born citizen” provided by Minor can be traced almost word by word to Emer de Vattel who at Section 212 said: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” The historical record is replete with evidence that the Founders and Framers were greatly influenced by the works of Vattel. Consider that
“[f]or James Otis, who was as well read as any American in both the English common law and the European theories of natural law, the conflict became especially acute. His frantic attempts to reconcile the two laws—Coke with Vattel—formed the crisis of his life and helped to tear his mind to pieces. Because he knew English history and the common law too well, because he clung too stubbornly to the veracity of seventeenth-century notions of jurisprudence and parliamentary supremacy, he was eventually compelled to sacrifice Vattel for Coke, to deny natural reason for the sake of historical truth, and to miss the Revolution.”
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, at 9 (1998) (citing Bernard Bailyn, ed. Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776 (Cambridge, 1965—), I, 100-03, 106-07, 121-123, 409-17, 546-52, and noting that Bailyn’s introductory essay to the Pamphlets, entitled “The Transforming Radicalism of the American Revolution,” has been elaborated and republished separately as “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution” (Cambridge, Mass., 1967)). Of course, we know that the Founders and Framers for sure chose natural reason, for they held “these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776). And we also know that they had a Revolution to “dissolve the Political bands which have connected them with another” [Great Britain] and to fight for those rights. Id. para. 1. So evidently they chose Vattel rather than Coke or Blackstone. Indeed, “It is therefore to be expected that, when terms of municipal law are found in the Constitution, they are to be understood in the sense in which they were used in Blackstone’s Commentaries; and when the law of nations is referred to, that its principles are to be understood in the sense in which Vattel defined them.” James Brown Scott, The United States of America: A Study in International Organization 439 (1920). It was, for sure, as Gordon S. Wood suggests, the writing and thinking of Vattel that was the primary motivation for them to have that Revolution and create the constitutional republic.
The Constitution does not define what a “natural born Citizen” is. But the Constitution at Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 does give to Congress the power to make uniform the naturalization laws. With the “natural born Citizen” clause being a provision that establishes a certain class of citizenship which has nothing to do with regulating immigration, Congress’s naturalization power does not include the power to amend or dilute the constitutional meaning of a “natural born Citizen.”
Seriously?
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
It's called the Rule of Exclusion.
If the power is not enumerated, it isn't there!
• § 207. XIII. Another rule of interpretation deserves consideration in regard to the constitution. There are certain maxims, which have found their way, not only into judicial discussions, but into the business of common life, as founded in common sense, and common convenience. Thus, it is often said, that in an instrument a specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals; or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. Lord Bacon's remark, "that, as exception strengthens the force of a law in cases not excepted, so enumeration weakens it in cases not enumerated," has been perpetually referred to, as a fine illustration.
Justice Joseph Story on Rules of Constitutional Interpretation
The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States.
Courts can only answer the question before the bar.
The question wasn't whether or not Wong Kim was natural born, but whether he was native born.
Your obviously well enough versed in the subject to be aware how judges like to 'waltz with words' in their decisions, so
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle. [p666]
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The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.
The desicion states Wong Kim was just as much a Citizen as a natural born, it never said he WAS a natural born.
A comparative statement would be - a car is as much a vehicle as a truck. It's a true statement, but the statement itself still doesn't turn the car INTO a truck.
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It's a very fine point of law, and unfortunately beyond the ken of some.
But I applaud you for attempting to educate them. :-)
We went back and forth; he not knowing the difference between native born and natural born and I refusing to back down.
I plan to write the head and tell him that their staff needs to be a) better informed and b) less combative. Comments.
He's correct. You are wrong. Maybe it is you who should be a) better informed and b) less combative.
Don't act incredulous that nobody's buying this birther garbage.
What you describe is native born.
Then say it is wrong! Keep repeating ad infinitum. Take a d@mn stand! Silence means assent. Rather than attacking those who wish to straighten this mess out, you should be helping the rest of us to do it! If enough voices are raised in contradiction, eventually the false edifice will crumble.
Unlike you, I don’t pretend to be omniscient or infallible, and I understand — unlike you — that, as far as the U.S. legal community is concerned, my personal opinion is worthless.
I understand that just fine, but the problem lies with them, not with we people who know better. The legal system runs on "precedent" and when a precedent is created, it rules the roost forever, or until it is overturned. People have been misapplying the precedent of Wong Kim Ark to Article II, when the Wong Kim Ark case was explicitly not an Article II case. The legal system is the victim of a herd mentality, and few if any amongst them will consider evidence contrary to their established collective assumptions.
What I am pointing out to you that all the judges say you’re wrong and none of the judges say you’re right. Whether you like it or not, judicial opinions have great weight in this country. There are plenty of court decisions that I dislike, but I don’t bloviate like a fool insisting that my opinions ought to be taken more seriously than those of the courts.
When someone is WRONG, it makes no difference how high and mighty they are. The truth is not subject to the whims of powerful individuals. It is our duty as Americans and seekers of truth to point out when our leadership is incorrect, and to keep repeating it until we change the social dynamics. This is how we overcame Slavery and Jim Crow, and this is how we will eventually overturn Abortion. Constant pressure till the opposition crumbles.
Calling you all the names in the book is the only sensible conduct that emerges from an interaction with you. You put so much concentrated idiocy into each sentence that it is virtually impossible in the space allotted to detail each and every point on which you are wrong. Calling you names is simply faster and more satisfying.
You are one of the great fools I have met in the years of online discussion. Stupid and un-knowledgeable, yet unaware of both conditions from which you suffer. The quintessential person "who Knows not, and knows not that they Know not." I feel myself growing stupider just reading anything you have written. When I see your attempts to string words together I say to my self "Stop it! Just Stop it!"
You may indeed sleep soundly, but the shit no one gives about is whatever your opinion may happen to be.
Doug - you seem to use the term “birther” a lot in your comments. What is your definition of “birther”? Is it:
A) someone who does not believe 0bama was born in the United States?
B) someone who thinks 0bama is not a natural born citizen based on the conditions of his birth, regardless of whether he was born in the U.S. or not?
The general use of the term “birther” is a pejorative to ridicule and diminish the credibility of those who believe, rightly or wrongly, that 0bama was not born in the U.S.
The “B” definition is someone who is interested in a point of law.
Your use of the “birther” term in the context of discussions about 0bama’s natural born citizen status is an attempt to diminish the credibility of (or ridicule) the person with whom you are discussing, and redefine the current definition of the word in the process.
You are practicing Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, rule 5 and rule 10. This implies that you are not really interested in winning the discussion, just discrediting the person with whom you are discussing.
For the record, I’m sincerely disappointed in Mark Levin (and the rest of the conservative commentators). For someone as Constitutionally-knowledgeable as he is supposed to be, his inability to have a civil discussion about natural born citizenship implies there is something else going on that we don’t know about. It should be easy for him to have a show that lays out why 0bama is a natural born citizen and, in his capacity as a Constitutional scholar, put our doubts to rest. Instead, he ridicules those who broach the subject. Can you imagine the listening audience he’d have with that subject, a civil discussion and callers such as DiogenesLamp, Mario Apuzo and Leo Donofrio?
Maybe he calls them “birthers” cause it’s the only sensible reaction to attempting to have a conversation with them?
“Scroll down and look at where here two infant sons were buried and when.”
I’m I reading that right. Obama’s great aunt lived at the US miltary base (Pepperrell Air Force Base) in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada. Had twin children in 1959 who died within a few days of birth in St.John’s but were buried in Wichita, Kansas.
If it was Pepperrell Air Force Base, that base closed in 1960.
How does that relate to Obama being born in Canada?
“There are two pieces of evidence placing Stanley Ann Dunham in Seattle in the later half of August. Her enrollment to attend the Washington University, and the testimony of her friend Susan Blake.”
The evidence is not definitive. Here is her college record from the University of Washington
http://www.theobamafile.com/_images/AnnaObamaUnivofWashingtonTranscript.jpg
In the bottom right corner she took two “Extension/Correspondence Courses” that ran from August 19 to December 12, 1961.
Here is an additional Univ. of Washington record,
http://www.theobamafile.com/_images/AnnaUWashington.jpg
She apparently didn’t take any regular classes at the U of W. until the Spring of 1962.
So did she take correspondence classes that in the 1960’s were handled by mail?
As to Susan Blake’s testimony:
“Susan Blake, another high-school classmate, said that during a brief visit in 1961, Dunham was excited about her husband’s plans to return to Kenya.”
http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2004334057_obama08m.html
A “brief visit” doesn’t suggest that she moved there in August, 1961.
And this:
“Blake recalls that Dunham, who was calling herself Ann Obama at the time, visited her at her house in Mercer Island during the last week of August, 1961.”
“She left Honolulu just as soon she had clearance from her doctor to travel with her new baby.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10313894/The-Myth-of-Barack-Obamas-Early-Life-Leahy-Cached
Here is the thing that I consider silly. These friends of Dunham are being asked questions about an event that occurred 47 years previously.
What would have been so remakable that they would have remembered inimate exact details of a 47 year old event?
There is. It's called the 14th Amendment. Despite the protestation it was to 'free the blacks', it actually created a third type of citizenship. A national 'federal' citizen.
It's why 'illegals' seem to have special rights.... they aren't citizens.
It's why every 'disadvantaged' person gets to go to the head of the line. As federal citizens, we are entitled to only that which the federal government allows us to have.
And it's why no one in government will touch the natural-born citizen issue.
There haven't BEEN any 'natural born citizens' since our 'citizenship' began emanating from the federal government instead of the States, because only State Citizens can be natural born.
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I'm secure in the fact I may be ridiculed, mocked, and derided by those who make no attempt to understand this, yet my conscious gives me no choice.
It is the only logical conclusion I can come to after 12 years of studying the matter.
§ 1218. The inhabitants enjoy all their civil, religious, and political rights. They live substantially under the same laws, as at the time of the cession, such changes only having been made, as have been devised, and sought by themselves. They are not indeed citizens of any state, entitled to the privileges of such; but they are citizens of the United States. They have no immediate representatives in congress.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
Legal cites concerning two classes of citizens
“Maybe he calls them “birthers” cause it’s the only sensible reaction to attempting to have a conversation with them?”
No. It’s an attempt to ridicule someone you can’t factually argue with. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Amazing, isn't it? Perhaps DNA tests should be required. What if the candidate was actually the product of mom's illicit affair with a Frenchman that dad never found out about? Vattel wouldn't approve of that.
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