Replies

Mr Rogers said:

"Odd. Birthers keep telling me they have different meanings..."

If they were telling you they have different meanings, they would be incorrect. Emmerich de Vattel was very clear on its meaning. They are interchangeable. Natives, or Natural-Born Citizens, are those who have a right to citizenship to which no law can suppress, redefine, nor qualify. It is an inalienable right. It cannot be granted by a government. It is absolute, and it is certainly not granted via statute such as the 14th Amendment. It is more than where you were born. It is who you are and how you live, your place, your identity. It defines the nation and its people. Without the special nature of people and their society, there is no nation. It is more social than geographical. It is your roots.

In the case of Obama, his roots are clear. His roots lie in Africa. He has returned to his roots and claims these as his roots as he has claimed his father as his roots. He represents a country with a lost identity. Roots are very powerful. Without roots, a nation will fall. Our national roots are no longer clear today. The United States has allowed tangled roots. It has allowed the government which is supposed to represent its identity to dictate who is a natural born citizen instead. We have allowed ourselves to be governed with absolute jurisdiction over a right granted to us by God. This is a dangerous method to identifying our nation, and it is a direct threat to our identity. Hence de Vattel's discussion on this very topic.

Vattel also says it is different in England than where he is - that the King grants the children of aliens natural born subject status. My main point is that birthers tell me native born and NBC are different, because they don’t like the implications of what it means if native born and NBC are the same.

In the end, the Supreme Court has argued that the meaning of NBC is found in the analogous term natural born subject, and not in Vattel. That is a big hurdle to clear if you want a court to rule that someone born in the USA of parents here legally is ineligible.

"A nation, or the sovereign who represents it, may grant to a foreigner the quality of citizen, by admitting him into the body of the political society. This is called naturalisation. There are some states in which the sovereign cannot grant to a foreigner all the rights of citizens,—for example, that of holding public offices,—and where, consequently, he has the power of granting only an imperfect naturalisation. It is here a regulation of the fundamental law, which limits the power of the prince. In other states, as in England and Poland, the prince cannot naturalise a single person, without the concurrence of the nation represented by its deputies. Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner."