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To: brothers4thID
Curious here. You are asserting that a person has to be born in the United States to be trusted, correct? What if the person was born overseas to a military father and spent half of his/her life overseas due to extended deployments? Can that person be trusted? What about the person born in Britain to British and American parents who immigrated to the United States within two weeks of the child's birth? Exactly what are the limitations on your crass xenophobic generalizations?

A naturalized citizen could be very trustworthy and a 44 year old flaming liberal could become a qualified conservative nominee for SCOTUS at 45 years of age but why promote that person over someone who has been a solid conservative for with a conservative record when "loyal conservatism" is the main concern? Why promote a naturalized citizen over someone who was born in the US if the top concern is loyalty to the US?

Do you believe the constitution is xenophobic? There must be naturalized citizens who would make a fine President, no?

471 posted on 10/06/2005 6:32:58 AM PDT by Jim_Curtis (How do we prevent someone from torching his city if he will be rewarded as a lottery winner?)
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To: Jim_Curtis
Being born in the US is not a guarantee of loyalty.
And yes,for the founding fathers to require the President to be born in the United States but not have the same requirement for members of Congress of the judiciary seems very odd, archaic, and xenophobic. One of the stated goals of the Constitutional convention was to prevent the establishment of an imperial leadership with a rubber stamp legislature. So why were they so concerned about the birth place of the President but not about the birth place of the people who declare war, raise taxes, and confirm federal appointments? An argument can be made that there's a dilution effect in the Congress that you wouldn't have in the Presidency, but there's not even a requirement that the Speaker of the House or the President pro-tem of the Senate being born in the United States.

That fact, the lack of requirements for the Speaker of the House leads to an interesting potential Constitutional crisis. The original articles state the President must be born in the United States, but the 20th Amendment delegates the succession. What happens when the Speaker has to succeed the President and VP but the Speaker was born overseas?
474 posted on 10/06/2005 7:07:20 AM PDT by brothers4thID (Do you stand with us, or are you going to just stand in the way?)
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