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To: panthermom

Not fine with it at all.

The plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment is obvious. If the Supremes were to invalidate it, they would be acting in direct opposition to the document that is itself their source of legitimate authority.

But I’m not willing to go to war over a legitimately debatable point such as the definition of “natural-born citizen.”

In fact, if you were to actually read the decision I’ve posted several times, it is obvious that the term was a familiar common-law one to the Founders. Its meaning as such does not support your position. Under common law the primary method by which citizenship was acquired was place of birth. Only a few very minor exceptions existed. None apply to Obama.

Excluding Obama as not being a “natural-born” citizen, assuming he was born in the USA, would require applying new meanings to the term that would not have been familiar to the Founders. They are meanings that come from Roman and French law, not English common law.

Applying new meanings to terms used in the Constitution is not good originalist doctrine. In fact, it’s exactly how we got into our present mess with activist courts. I’ll take an Obama presidency over more Constitution-twisting.


273 posted on 12/02/2008 5:40:13 AM PST by Sherman Logan (Everyone has a right to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.)
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To: Sherman Logan

The founders did not want to have the traditional birthright citizenship that the British used as a way of determining citizenship.

During the War of 1812, the British impressed Americans into fighting under the definition of common law. Even though, these citizens had renounced their British citizenship and pledged their allegiance to the United States.

Our Founders did not want to exude it’s power over people who did not want to be part of this country like the British did.


274 posted on 12/02/2008 5:52:26 AM PST by panthermom
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