Posted on 10/07/2011 9:05:25 AM PDT by edge919
It has been claimed by Obama apologists that in relatively recent cases, circuit courts have given their opinion on the term "natural-born citizen" as meaning nothing more than being born in the country. Supposably this would presume that Obama, if it can be legally proven that he was born in the United States, as he claims, is a natural-born citizen in spite of being born of a foreign national father and NOT being born to citizen parents, as the Supreme Court defined NBC in Minor v. Happersett, etc.
One example of such a recent decision is Diaz-Salazar v. the INS (1982), in which it says:
The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States.
But, there's a problem. Following the guidance in this case, the children, despite the claim of being NBCs, would have been deported with their father.
In the case at hand, no special circumstances are presented sufficient to bring petitioner's situation within the extreme hardship standard. His children are still of pre-school age and thus less susceptible to the disruption of education and change of language involved in moving to Mexico. There are no unique reasons why petitioner, in comparison with the many other Mexicans in his situation now resident in the United States, will be unable to find employment upon returning to Mexico or why he or any member of his immediate family requires health care available only here. Thus, although we recognize the unhappy prospects which the petitioner faces, we cannot hold that the BIA abused its discretion in denying the petitioner's motion to reopen deportation proceedings.
(Excerpt) Read more at openjurist.org ...
You still haven’t posted anything that declares Obama to be eligible. You’re certainly showing a great example of the composition fallacy.
I say, YOUR'E certainly showing a great example of the DEcomposition fallacy. . .trying to reason after you have suffered Brain Death!!!
Tee Hee! Tee Hee!
"Brain Death."
"Decomposition Fallacy."
"Tee Hee."
"Vattle Birthers."
"I am going to go tinkle first, so I don’t have a accident when I read what you are going to say."
"I am NOT your froggie."
"Quick, call 911!!! Your pants are on fire!!!"
"Are you addicted to being wrong???"
"Because they all of them, every single one, disagree with you googy gibberish."
"Sooo, this is LOL No.1 on you."
"There was 127 pages in that one report and there were no spaces or anything between the cases or lines."
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Number 14! Count! Count! Count!"
"It is like you gave a monkey some flash cards with parts of sentences on it, and then trained the monkey to hold up two cards. (For a banana.)"
"You don’t get to go back to the cases that are quoted and add stuff to the case they are quoted in."
"I am NOT irrational!!! I even have my very own Think Tank!!!"
"These were mammals, or common sense mammals, as distinguished from critters like platypuses or weird animals."
Please. Don't. Stop. Making. Me. Laugh. So. Hard.
Nope. I never disputed that Vattel wrote a book called Law of Nations. Just debunking your idea that every time "law of nations" is mentioned it refers to the book. It doesn't.
that aside, your quote from the case undermines your argument because it talks about "retaining their original character or partaking of the character of the nation in which they reside" ...
It undermines nothing - he cited a chunk of Vattel and went on to discuss what related to the case - with citizens living in another country. Read the case and see the point of the case.
when this is coupled with the Vattel citation on natural citizenship, it still says that the condition of a child naturally follows the political status of the father.
Once again, he quoted several paragraphs of Vattel, and discussed citizens living in another country. He did not deal with "natural born." You may notice that several things are quoted in cases (WKA with many quotes on common law, but briefly mentions the Napoleonic code) but the judges do not always decide the way the quote argues. In this case, part of the quote had nothing to do with the case, so he could scarcely affirm it in the decision. (In WKA, the judge did affirm it in accord with common law. In Rogers v. Bellie, and in Ankeny as well.)
This still means Obama would be a British-Kenyan and not a U.S. citizen by any natural means.
Do you seriously believe this? There are so many wrong parts to this piece of idiocy, I don't know where to start
They went on to say, "Such a person, says this author, becomes a member of the new society, at least as a permanent inhabitant, and is a kind of citizen of an inferior order from the native citizens, ..."
Note, the court is careful to attribute the opinion to the author, the court does not say it adopts this opinion.
Under this doctrine, even if Barak Sr. had expressed an intention to live permanently in the U.S., at best he would be a kind of citizen of an "inferior order" of which his child would naturally follow. This would make Obama an inferior citizen, on which we can all agree.
WE can definitely agree on the "inferior" as a matter of his ideas, politics, behavior, etc. However, US law does not provide for "inferior citizens."
I said his parents had NO domicile as was defined by the SCOTUS. Barak Sr. was kicked out of this country. His mother married a second foreign national and left the U.S. Where do we find any parent with an intention to have a permanent abode in the U.S.???
His mother was a citizen. She did not need (obviously not by US law, but also not by your Vattel standards) to meet any such conditions. It also sounds like you're arguing that she knew in 1961 that she was going to remarry and leave the US. Forgive me that I don't bow before your time machine mind reading of what Stanley Ann knew in 1961 about her future.
"Common law gives jus soli."
But it does NOT define NBC. The only "common law" we have is through the 14th amendment and later statutes, but these comes with exception and/or other stipulations.
Jus soli does define NBC. Common law is that jus soli = natural born. As to your last sentences, that makes no sense whatsoever, and one fairly recent SCOTUS decision (Rogers v Bellei) disagrees with you, in addition to the very recent Ankeny decision. Oh, and Justice Scalia also diagrees with you. He says much of our law is based on common law
And what they understood when they ratified this Constitution was that they were affirming the rights of Englishmen. So to know what the Constitution meant at the time, you have to know what English law was at the time.So who do I think knows more of what the law is? You, or Justice Scalia? I'll go with Scalia on this.
Sorry, but never made the claim that every time it is mentioned that it refers to the book. You keep falling back on a strawman. Vattel's influence is pretty apparent and we have other citings that match-up almost verbatim with what he's written. This is simply fact.
It undermines nothing - he cited a chunk of Vattel and went on to discuss what related to the case - with citizens living in another country. Read the case and see the point of the case.
This is still a strawman. This case was only cited to show that Vattel is positively linked to uncapitalized citations of law of nations. This means that law of nations does NOT have to be capitalized to be linked with Vattel. The fact that the SCOTUS relied so much on Vattel for principles of citizenship is a nice bonus. The same definition of natural citizenship Marshall used is recast in Minor, minus a specific citation. Otherwise, all the criteria matches. This is simply fact.
(In WKA, the judge did affirm it in accord with common law. In Rogers v. Bellie, and in Ankeny as well.)
All these cases affirmed was that the 14th amendment follows common law (up to a point). WKA affirmed that NBC = born in the country to parents who were its citizens.
Do you seriously believe this?
Why would I not?? The definitions speak for themselves.
If 0bama was born in Hawaii, he's a natural born US citizen. The courts say so, the 14th amendment says so.
Absolutely false and you know it.
He could not, in any case, be a British citizen.
This is false and Obama's own website said his citizenship was governed by British law at birth.
He could not be a Kenyan citizen, since he would have to formally declare Kenyan citizenship at the age of 21 and renounce US citizenship. No one has yet shown any indication this happened.
Wrong. He had until age 23 and, by some accounts, Obama was in Kenya when he would have been old enough to preserve his Kenyan citizenship.
Note, the court is careful to attribute the opinion to the author, the court does not say it adopts this opinion.
Wrong. The court refers to this "opinion" as a guiding principle to follow:
In deciding whether a person has obtained the right of an acquired domicile, it is not to be expected that much if any assistance should be derived from mere elementary writers on the law of nations. They can only lay down the general principles of law, and it becomes the duty of courts to establish rules for the proper application of those principles.
The "inferior order" of citizens citation is used TWICE in this case. Evidently, it was not just a passing citation.
However, US law does not provide for "inferior citizens."
Yeah, actually it does. It separates persons into citizens and "nationals" ...
Sec. 308. [8 U.S.C. 1408] Unless otherwise provided in section 301 of this title, the following shall be nationals, but not citizens of the United States at birth:His mother was a citizen. She did not need (obviously not by US law, but also not by your Vattel standards) to meet any such conditions.
It depends on where Obama was born. If he was born in Hawaii as is claimed, then his citizenship is due to this statute:
A person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900, is a citizen of the United States at birth.
If he was born outside the U.S., then his mother needed to be age 19 or older to pass on her citizenship to him OR she needed to be legally unwed.
It also sounds like you're arguing that she knew in 1961 that she was going to remarry and leave the US.
Well, no. We know from when she alleged to have married Barak Sr., she didn't plan to stay in the U.S.
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.
"We all had June Cleaver as our role models, and she was blazing new trails for herself," said Blake, a former Mercer Island city councilwoman.
link to story.
Barak Sr.'s immigration file also mentions there were plans to return to Kenya.
Jus soli does define NBC.
Only when accompanied by jus sanguinis. This is how the Supreme Court defined it in at least TWO landmark cases. Your Scalia quote is not specifically about citizenship. It's hypocritical for you to complain about The Venus citation and then for you to rely on out-of-court statements made by Scalia on his very general philosophy. I believe I've found Scalia citing law of nations or Vattel in other threads. Bellei also does not undermine the Minor definition of NBC. Insisting that Wong and Bellei do so is a matter of two Wongs that don't make you right.
Wow. Now that’s a retort. We’ll add that to the list of ridiculous squeezizms:
That one should read “Your goofy gibberish”
Now, you should ask yourself what causes people (me and others) to say these things to you???
Let’s see,
1. You don’t think the 14th Amendment applies to most Americans, those who are born here to two citizen parents.
2. You don’t think the Ankeny court thingy applies to Obama, because he is not called “Obama” in the two sentences of the holding.
3. You don’t get that the holding is on what a NBC is, which includes kids of foreigners, which does not apply to the other person, McCain.
4. You ignore 99.9% of every case to focus on minor grammatical issues, to try to prove your point.
5. You repeat the arguments about NBC, that LOST the first time way back in 1844.
6. You give quotes, and leave off the links and websites.
7. You quote stuff from cases, then leave off part of the quote to mislead people.
8. You quote losing arguments from old-timey cases and don’t tell people this stuff has already lost.
9. You get one sentence from page 655 and another sentence from page 702, cram them together, and try to mislead people.
10. You do number 9, while skipping all the stuff in between which shows how wrong you are, in pretty simple language.
Sooo, I could go on and on about the stuff you screw up, but really, you are just absurd in what you say, and even when people correct you,you keep on doing it.
Sooo, my question is WHY to you. WHY do you work this hard to mess people here up about the law??? You are way past not knowing any better. Are you a Obot just screwing with people here??? Because I have seen them do this kind of stuff at the old gretawire forum, just because they hated conservatives. Or, do you have brain problems??? I don’t think so. I think you are doing it on purpose and you should be ashamed of yourself.
If you were just some crazy person who thinks the moon is made out of green cheese, who would care. People would just let you ramble. But what you are saying has a real effect on people like Rubio and Jindal trying to run for office. Is that what you are up to??? Trying to mess them up???
It's not what I think. It's what the court said:
In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens."2. You don’t think the Ankeny court thingy applies to Obama, because he is not called “Obama” in the two sentences of the holding.
No, I said the Ankeny court did NOT declare Obama to be eligible. You still have not found ANY citations from this decision to say that he is. There's a reason for that.
3. You don’t get that the holding is on what a NBC is, which includes kids of foreigners, which does not apply to the other person, McCain.
I've shown how this court contradicted itself several times, particularly in undermining its own legal rationale. The one decision that it says provided "guidance" failed to declare its own defendant to be a natural-born citizen. McCain is irrelevant to that.
4. You ignore 99.9% of every case to focus on minor grammatical issues, to try to prove your point.
No, this is simply a deflection you've introduced out of laziness.
5. You repeat the arguments about NBC, that LOST the first time way back in 1844.
None of the arguments I've presented ever "lost." Minor was a unanimous decision: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens ... these were the natural born citizens.
6. You give quotes, and leave off the links and websites.
Supreme Court cases are posted at several cites: law.cornell, justia, umkc, etc. I link to everything that is not part of a well-established case.
8. You quote losing arguments from old-timey cases and don’t tell people this stuff has already lost.
Nonsense. This is another one of YOUR lazy mischaracterizations. You have nothing to refute what I've posted, so you invented nonsense. The OP, for example, does NOT consist of so-called "old-timey cases." Second, legal precedent does not expire.
9. You get one sentence from page 655 and another sentence from page 702, cram them together, and try to mislead people.
Sorry, but this is a nonsense whine, plus it's hypocritical. You were quoting the Lynch case and pretending it was controlling precedent in the conclusion of the which would be 30 pages apart. You'd still failed to explain why Gray wrote an extra 32 pages of decision. I'm waiting on that and for a direct quote from Ankeny saying Obama is eligible. Hop to it, lazy squeezy.
10. You do number 9, while skipping all the stuff in between which shows how wrong you are, in pretty simple language.
More nonsense. You IGNORE that I've quoted multiple citations from WKA that all support my point and I've explained in DETAIL why your misinterpretation fails based on the dicta. For example: I gave you about 12 citations of Gray using the term "citizenship at birth" instead of "natural-born citizenship" and shown exactly how these terms differed. You rhetorically stuck your fingers in your ear.
WHY do you work this hard to mess people here up about the law???
NBC is based on neither Constitutional nor statutory law. I'm not messing up any people except those who are too ignorant and stubborn, like yourself, to admit they are wrong, when you clearly are. These decisions are clear. All children born in the country to parents who were its citizens. These are the natural born citizens. If that messes you up, it's YOUR problem. I'm only here to help fix your problem.
You said, falsely again:”I’m only here to help fix your problem.”
No you aren’t. You are here to mislead people. Plus, you have serious reality issues. You have quoted nothing that backs up one word of your stupid theory. You play some stupid word games and try to act like that is being a lawyer, but you are fooling no one except yourself and the other Vattle Birthers.
With “edge919 law”, Ankeny did not declare Obama eligible. Yet, the Vattle birthers who sued under YOUR theory, lost, and the court said those two little sentences that you Vattle Birthers can’t stand. Sooo, now you want to pretend it didn’t happen. You think if you blabber enough then you will fool people, but you won’t. Not when there are people here to clobber you WITH LOGIC.
If you are a Obot, here punking people, then I feel sorry for you that you spend your time this way. If you are not a Obot, then I feel sorry for you that your mind works, or to say it better “doesn’t work”, the way it does.
But, you have given me another idea for a Internet Article!!! Oh, this will be a great one!!! I will have a picture of a puppy, and underneath it, it will say “See Spot Run!”
Then, I will have a anonymous Vattle Birther (because I will not use your name in case you really are mentally ill or something) and it will say:
Vattle Birther: That doesn’t say the dog is running. How do we know “Spot” is a dog??? Couldn’t Spot be a “spot” on somebody’s clothes??? Couldn’t Spot be a “spot” on Jane’s dress??? On on Dick’s jeans???
Then, rational people will try to explain it to you, while you keep pretending not to get it, and have “you” claiming you have proved them wrong.
Because one silly story will do a better job to show how you are behaving and “thinking”, then 100,000 words quoting the law to somebody who won’t or can’t understand it.
I have already done a “Loop Guru” one based on your way to debate.
1. You don’t think the 14th Amendment applies to most Americans, those who are born here to two citizen parents.
It's not what I think. It's what the court said: In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens."
Now, LOGICALLY, this is where you first go wrong:You said,"It's not what I think. It's what the court said:
Actually, a better way to say is, "It's not what I think. It's what I think the court said."
Because if you look at it that way, you can see the intermediate step between what the court said and your conclusion, is your way of reading and understanding stuff.
Most people, if they come to a conclusion that leads to bad results, or illogical stuff, will start to question the way they are reading and understanding stuff. Like if they read something and come to the conclusion that the 14th Amendment does NOT apply to most of the nation, then they would start questioning their ability to read and comprehend. They would question their own skills.
If such a person had a habit of coming to conclusions that were weird and bizarre, like you do, then there is even more reason they should start to question the way they are reading and understanding things. Especially, when people on your supposed side of the political fence are telling you that your thinking is screwed up real bad. But look at you.
1) The Indiana court is wrong and they are all Hillbilly Hoosiers.
2)The Lynch Clarke judge is wrong.
3)The Wong Kim Ark judges are wrong, or they didn't really say what every body think they said.
4)The Minor judges defined NBC, and the "doubts" and "we aren't dealing with this" don't count, when everybody else is asking, "Gee, why wouldn't "doubts" and "we aren't dealing with this" mean they didn't do it.
5)Thinking all the conservative judges and lawyers are in on a conspiracy.
6)The Indiana court didn't say Obama was eligible.
This list could be a lot longer, but do you see the common thing in all of them??? It is the way YOU read and understand things that stands between what the court says, and what YOU CONCLUDE the court is saying.
My father used to ask me, when I blamed someone or something else for my screw ups, "If you stick your tongue in a light socket are you going to blame electricity for what happens???"
Well, with you, I think you would. You'd say, it's not supposed to happen that I fried myself. I'm not a light bulb. What's wrong with that lamp and electricity? And people would try to tell you that you were wrong and pretty stupid to do it, and keep doing it, because you kept getting bad results that didn't feel good. But you would blame the lamp, the house, the wires, the power company, and never see that the thing that wasn't working right, was YOU.
We all, on occasion, overlook things. :)
This is an extremely salient point. Of all the things which have gone on with this fellows efforts to hide all his particulars, Alarm bells should indeed have been going off in everyone's heads. That he was given a pass at every critical juncture is just unconscionable. And that there are actually people who are standing up in his defense? Incredible.
I feel like I am living in Germany in the 1930s. We even have anti-semitic mobs protesting Jews in New York with the backing of the American Nazis and the American communists. Propaganda from Obama's digital warriors is so constant and prolific that it would make Minister Goebbels proud.
Alarm Bells indeed!
There's no "intermediate step." The quote I provided is an exact quote. "In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.""
Second, the context of the Minor quote is consistent. Justice Waite rejected the 14th amendment as being needed for conferring citizenship on women who were born in the country to parents who were its citizens. The Constitution does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens ... which includes the 14th amendment ... not necessary for natural-born citizens = does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens.
And ... here's another challenge, ez squeezy. Justice Gray said that Waite " ... proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision." Notice he doesn't say that Waite resorted to common law as an aid in saying who shall be natural-born citizens. It was aid in the construction of this "provision" ... "provision" is referring to the 14th amendment: "the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question" ... soooooooooooooo the challenge is to go to the Minor decision and find where Waite used common law to aid in the construction of the birth provision of the 14th amendment. He didn't use common law to define NBC. That, as I have shown, is a verbatim match of the law of nations quote.
Like if they read something and come to the conclusion that the 14th Amendment does NOT apply to most of the nation, then they would start questioning their ability to read and comprehend.
Sorry, but this is an ignorant strawman. Nobody said the 14th amendment does NOT apply to most of the nation. You're overreacting. I've only pointed out that Waite rejected the citizen clause for NBCs. The rest of the 14th amendment is still applicable. Citizenship is NOT the only thing the 14th amendment deals with.
1) The Indiana court is wrong and they are all Hillbilly Hoosiers.
You ignore that I showed several contradictions including the killer contradiction where the Hillbillies admit that WKA didn't declare WKA to be a natural-born citizen. Only Hillbilly Hoosiers ... and apparently people like you ... can be stupid enough to think a decision defines something it didn't do.
2)The Lynch Clarke judge is wrong.
And again, you ignore that I showed this court burying its head in the sand regarding a very clear SCOTUS case that said children naturally follow the condition of their fathers. This decision undermines Lynch's rationale on common-law. The Lynch judge cited the decision but said he read it differently, even though there's a direct quote that contradicts this judge's belief.
3)The Wong Kim Ark judges are wrong, or they didn't really say what every body think they said.
Wow, you're struggling to articulate your whine. Obviously you know that I haven't said the Wong Kim Ark judges are wrong. I've cited Wong Kim Ark repeatedly to show that YOU are wrong. The words are clear. The only confusion is on YOUR part.
4)The Minor judges defined NBC, and the "doubts" and "we aren't dealing with this" don't count, when everybody else is asking, "Gee, why wouldn't "doubts" and "we aren't dealing with this" mean they didn't do it.
You're getting less and less coherent squeezy. Yes, Minor defined NBC: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens. The court said some authorities go farther and declare some persons to be citizens (NOT natural-born citizens, just citizens) without reference to the citizenship of the parents. For this class there are doubts. That's WHY people like Julia Lynch and Wong Kim Ark went to court ... to resolve the doubts about their citizenship.
5)Thinking all the conservative judges and lawyers are in on a conspiracy.
Never said this. Now you're just making up stuff.
6)The Indiana court didn't say Obama was eligible.
It didn't. You were challenged to find a direct quote from this court saying Obama is eligible. You have failed. Why won't you be honest and admit your failure?? I'm right about this and you know it. It's time to quit pretending otherwise.
My father used to ask me, when I blamed someone or something else for my screw ups, "If you stick your tongue in a light socket are you going to blame electricity for what happens???"
How come you didn't learn this lesson?? You blame me for YOUR screw-ups. You have failed at the simple challenges I have given you. You've shown that you cannot read. You've invented fictitious gripes about conspiracies and "intermediate steps." You've acted like a child (which was clearly illustrated in post #503). Like I said, I'm here to help.
No worries. Understanding is something that occasionally escapes even me! :)
You argued that the historical situation had changed--that because we now have "loyalty lacking transients," we have to look at the Founders' historical context to determine what they really meant, rather than interpret what they said in light of changing circumstances. "It makes no sense to use a standard that had a very different meaning during a prior age," you wrote.
Yes, I stand by that. I have long argued that what is important is the PRINCIPLE involved, not what meaning can be wrung out of the words.
I'm just pointing out that this is exactly the same argument liberals often use against the RKBA. To wit, the arms the Founders were familiar with were muskets and single-shot pistols, so we should look at the context to determine what arms they meant people could own. "It makes no sense to use a standard that had a very different meaning during a prior age," they say to support their efforts to ban semiautomatic weapons.
But this is a nonsensical effort on their part. It is indicative of a lack of understanding as to the purpose of the Second Amendment. That purpose is likewise spelled out in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, and various other writings and acts by the founders. The point isn't to make sure everyone possessed flintlocks, the point is to make sure the population could scare the government away from tyranny. Apart from that, we can also look to it's purpose as described by Vattel's law of nations, the blueprint for our national constitution. :)
So I was asking: do you agree with them? Or is the only principle you go by that of whether you like the result (and then try and call that the "conservative" position)?
The only thing that matters is the purpose for which the law was created. Words are often a poor way to communicate a principle, but that is all they had to work with. The words themselves are not particularly important (A Concept which is in direct opposition to what many judges seem to think) it is the principle which is embodied by the words that matters. For example, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press meant Speaking in front of an assembled audience, and publishing newspapers or pamphlets as Thomas Paine did. As Radio and Television came into being, the purpose/principle remains the same. To communicate with other members of the society. If we eventually develop "telepathy waves" that too will be a protected form of speech.
As the purpose of the Second Amendment is to deter Federal Tyranny, and to enable people to protect themselves, the type of weapons used to accomplish this are irrelevant to the salient principal involved. To argue that a militia armed with flintlocks could serve the purpose for which it is intended against a modern Federal Army is just absurd.
"A Well regulated militia, Being necessary to the security of a Free state..."
By the same token, to suggest that an Anti-American Son of a Foreigner with multiple citizenships, who lived many of his formative years in a hostile and wildly different culture and who's only claim to even basic citizenship is the (yet to be established as fact) occurrence of his "birth" within the boundaries of a radically different and barely just made a state culture, (and even THAT is a misrepresentation of the intent of the 14th amendment) should somehow comport with the purpose of Article II (Which is to guard against foreign influence) is likewise absurd.
Everyone that voted for it was led to believe it meant something very specific because they were told so by it's authors. Since you and your crowd are so influenced by the opinions of Judges, let me have Justice Black Explain it to you:
My appraisal of the legislative history followed 10 years of legislative experience as a Senator of the United States, not a bad way, I suspect, to learn the value of what is said in legislative debates, committee discussions, committee reports, and various other steps taken in the course of passage of bills, resolutions, [p165] and proposed constitutional amendments. ........ Professor Fairman's "history" relies very heavily on what was not said in the state legislatures that passed on the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead of relying on this kind of negative pregnant, my legislative experience has convinced me that it is far wiser to rely on what was said, and, most importantly, said by the men who actually sponsored the Amendment in the Congress. I know from my years in the United States Senate that it is to men like Congressman Bingham, who steered the Amendment through the House, and Senator Howard, who introduced it in the Senate, that members of Congress look when they seek the real meaning of what is being offered. And they vote for or against a bill based on what the sponsors of that bill and those who oppose it tell them it means.
Clear enough? When a bill is seemingly ambiguous, they look to what the authors TELL them it means. Unfortunately, the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not. I consider that incompetence or worse, malfeasance.
I am glad you have finally conceded that the 14th Amendment incorporated the jus soli doctrine into the US Constitution.
It does indeed, but it's usage in defining the word "citizen" does not result in it's equivalence to the term of art "natural born citizen." Not a single former slave could have been considered a "natural born citizen" because they did not gain their citizenship as a characteristic of their nature, but instead by the intervention of the 14th amendment. You cannot become a "natural citizen" retroactively.
The authors could have easily limited the application of the 14th amendment to your claimed purpose, with one sentence, but they did not do so. SCOTUS has only the language to apply to the facts of a specific case.
And what sentence would that be? They intentionally sought to avoid the mention of the word "Slave" or "Slavery", because they considered it Embarrassing to have acknowledged it was legal in the first place. Without mentioning the fact that the beneficiaries were specifically to be former slaves, or black, how would they have granted them citizenship and equal rights in one sentence? It is also noteworthy that Senator Howard was absolutely not going to allow Indians to be considered citizens under his proposal. (Read the Debates on the 14th amendment.) That Obstinacy sort of blows the whole theory doesn't it? Are they not also born within the boundaries? It wasn't until years later that congress granted them citizenship through statute, but it remains that they did not receive it by application of the 14th amendment.
Good luck with your project of overturning the 14th Amendment. I am a realist, so I wont hold my breath waiting for you taking your crusade from the internet to real life.
I intend to make no effort in overturning the 14th amendment. Rather, I would urge people to comprehend it's purpose, and demand that it be applied accurately. That effort would be easier if not for people like you who insist on obfuscating the truth by the massive addition of contrary noise.
Some reading on this issue from two prominent conservative scholars might help you better comprehend what is correct regarding the 14th amendment's intended purpose.
You harp on that trivial point when the larger point is that Congress granted "natural born citizen" status to the Children of American's born abroad, while refusing even basic citizenship to the children of non-resident foreign fathers.
Lest you have difficulty with the simplified logic of this act by congress.
2 citizen parents = Natural born citizen, soil unimportant. Ergo, Natural born citizen status not tied to soil.
Non-Resident father, no citizenship at all!
The corollary is that if the soil is not required for attaining natural born status, it makes no sense for it to be regarded as granting it in other cases.
That well may be, but you won't change it unless you clarify the law. It may be your opinion, my opinion that cases are wrongly decided, but that won't change the existing decision. It took the first civil rights act and the 14th amendment to change the Dred Scott decision.
That and a civil war. As repugnant as the Dred Scott decision was to modern sensibilities, from what i've read it appears to be technically correct within the applicable laws of that time. Lincoln cited Andrew Jackson in his refusal to accept the Supreme court's decision. (Jackson refused to accept the Supreme court's decision regarding the Cherokee Indians.)
I thought you were better at connecting the dots than that. I mentioned bringing up Kelo the way you keep bringing up abortion. Did you not take from that how much I disagree with the Kelo decision?
Apparently I am not always as astute as I would prefer. No, I missed that completely. Kelo was indeed a HORRIBLE decision, and would not have happened if not for the occurrence of completely unqualified Democrat appointees, and squish Republican appointees. This is why I castigate people who think there is some higher truth to be learned from the decisions of the supreme court. They are just another political body that falsely pretends to be above politics.
And this is where we disagree. The decision was made, therefore in the eyes of the law it's "legitimate." You can't pretend the decision wasn't made, or that it says something other than what it says. Instead, you need change the laws or part of the Constitution that allowed the erroneous ruling. Or work to get better judges on the bench. One more Conservative justice would have done it.
And with that last sentence you make my point for me! It isn't TRUTH or LAW being decided, it's POLITICS disguised as LAW! Why you think we should accept and respect this bastardized process I cannot fathom.
The Supreme court rightly declared in Minor v Happersett that "As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. That there were doubts was in my opinion due to the fact that so many people kept trying to shove that English Law jus soli principle back into American Law, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was not the criteria for "natural born citizen" even if it was ever the criteria for being a citizen of a particular state. In any case, you acknowledge that we absolutely rejected English Common law regarding the Children of Englishman always being an Englishman as they tried to apply it to Americans. Good, that's progress. :)
And American children born anywhere are American citizens - or do you disagree? The court has affirmed in Rogers v Bellei that we follow jus soli (with modifications by statute.)
My personal opinion is that Children born anywhere of American Parents are indeed "natural born citizens." This is consistent with the 1790 act of naturalization which was created by the first congress, made up of many delegates to the convention, and who ought to have known what they meant in 1787 when they wrote article II. As for children born to only one American parent, they are not a "natural citizen" but instead a mixture of allegiances with which they can chose to be one or the other. A "natural citizen" is not faced with such a choice at birth. They are born into a single "natural" allegiance.
Prior to the Cable act of 1924, split nationality births were not even possible, except in very rare cases.
That makes no sense whatsoever. "Useful idiots" was the term for Soviet sympathizers. Why would the Soviets shoot their own supporters? I'm pretty sure you're not quoting Bezemnov correctly here. Big surprise, I know: a Birther's memory is faulty.
What incredible audacity to state that those questioning Obama’s eligibility are not rational!
Is 'rational' the word you usually use to describe people who allege massive ongoing conspiracies? Particularly ones that involve allegations of bipartisan cooperation, 200-year legal coverups, secret celebrity baby-daddys, and forgeries that can only be detected by amateurs on their home computers?
Fact: Obama deliberately posted forgeries when it would have been **easy** for him to have provided straight forward and completely certifiable proof. And....Alarm bells are not going off in your head?
No. Obama did provide straightforward proof...which Birthers promptly declared was forged. If Birthers keep claiming all the evidence against them is forged, exactly how **easy** can it be? I have zero doubt that if Obama actually obtained and published his mother's 1961 hospital records, Birthers would declare THOSE to be forgeries or inconclusive too.
Fact: Several respected licensed private investigators ( completely independent from each other) state that Obama has multiple social security numbers
That's a "fact" to the extent that they "state" it. It's less than a fact when you append "respected" and "independent" to it.
Fact: It is a **simple** and very inexpensive matter to prove one’s natural born citizenship
Amuse me: what would this "simple and very inexpensive" route entail? For years, Birthers said Obama could end the whole shebang by releasing his long-form. He posted his long-form on the internet for anyone to see, as well as all the documentation showing how it was obtained. He allowed reporters to handle it, including WND's own reporter. And that wasn't enough. Where are your goalposts now?
Fact: Several military officers requested that Obama prove his natural born citizenship. A **REAL** natural born American would be **honored** to promptly prove that he was eligible to be president and Commander in Chief
He did. In June 2008, before he was President. It's not his fault that some soldiers are conspiracy theorists. Also, when you're Commander-in-Chief, you don't take orders from soldiers; they take orders from you.
Fact: The night before he was to be deposed on Obama’s passport, Lieutenant Quail Harris was shot in the head. And....Alarm bells are not going off in your head.
I believe you misspelled "Lie" as "Fact." Virtually none of that is true. He wasn't a Lieutenant. There was no deposition. Harris had nothing to do with Obama's passport, as confirmed by Bush's own State Department. So no, alarm bells aren't going off in my head, because I don't believe stupid false rumors. The fact that you would include something this blatantly wrong on a list of compelling evidence just demonstrates how crappy your 'evidence' is.
I am absolutely certain. Please listen to Yuri Besmenova’s interview. It is easily found using Google.
So what you're saying is you have no instances of the English phrase "natural born citizen" prior to 1787. You have a French phrase that you admit was translated as "indigenous." And you have the claim that because some Founders spoke French, they must've all personally translated the French phrase as "natural born citizen," even though none of them wrote it down that way.
Actually, there are. Read through this thread and learn how ubiquitous Vattel's "Law of Nations" was during our Founding era. I would have thought you had already read it before you decided to pop off in your ignorance.
I'm sorry, I forget how difficult reading comprehension is for Birthers. I wasn't asking about references to Vattel, or to his several-hundred-page book. I was asking about references to the English phrase "natural born citizen." Just because someone had read Vattel doesn't mean they subscribed to what he wrote about "indigenes" any more than it means they subscribed to what he wrote about monarchies.
I have little doubt that you live in a world of amazement.
It doesn't hold a candle to the Birther/Truther/Moon Hoaxer world of bizarre conspiracies. Have you seen your fellow Birthers claiming that Obama's baby photos have been altered to make him look different from a baby in a photo from a Malcolm X rally that must really be baby Obama and that he's secretly the son of Malcolm X? And that because the woman in the photo has short hair then that means that the photos of Ann Dunham must have been Photoshopped to give her long hair?
Seriously, do you not see how crazy that is?
The Birth certificate was merely the first part of this issue. (And I don't think we've seen a REAL ONE yet.)
Of course not. Moon hoaxers say the same thing about all the photos that prove them wrong too.
For years, I had heard that Obama was from Kenya. It wasn't until he started running for President that I heard differently, and we were all supposed to disregard what we had heard before?
I don't believe for a second that you had heard for years that Obama was from Kenya, and had never heard otherwise. You do know the whole 'Born in Kenya' rumor was started by a guy here at FreeRepublic, right? In 2008? I'd point out all the books and news stories that referred to Obama's Hawaiian birth, but you'd probably just claim they've all been faked too.
"Nothing" can convince "birthers", and that is exactly what you bring. Nothing evidence, nothing arguments, and nothing but noise.
Yep. A short-form birth certificate, a long-form birth certificate, two newspaper birth announcements, two official statements from Hawaii, various references in FOIA documents, multiple news stories. All "nothing." Meanwhile, Birthers have rumors and ambiguous comments and a handful of foreign news stories. And a reputation that makes 9/11 Truthers look like critical-thinkers by comparison.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.