Posted on 05/01/2012 9:32:22 AM PDT by GregNH
Here's the deal...
Many legal analysts and scholars agree with this take-- and until the Supreme Court weighs in.. this is how the law is interpreted:
The Constitution requires that the president be a "natural born citizen," but does not define the term. That job is left to federal law, in 8 U.S. Code, Section 1401. All the law requires is that the mother be an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for five years or more, at least two of those years after the age of 14. If the mother fits those criteria, the child is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of the father's nationality.
The brouhaha over President Obama's birth certificate -- has revealed a widespread ignorance of some of the basics of American citizenship. The Constitution, of course, requires that a president be a "natural born citizen," but the Founding Fathers did not define the term, and it appears few people know what it means.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You said 8 USC only applied to someone who was an alien first.
And? You haven't shown that it doesn't.
Did I call the child an alien or the parents?
That is, the people who are citizens at birth.
So how does that not make the law apply only to aliens?
They can't be citizens until they're born right? Is rain a cloud or is rain only rain after it falls?
Or are you saying that the section under discussion doesn't apply to children who are born to aliens?
As it is, I think the reply you're looking for is "I misspoke." Or maybe just "Oops."
I surely know how to say both of those and I have no need to.
“you used weasel words”
Like what, “questionable”? Gimme a break.
“Loyal men were allowed, not men with questionable loyalty.”
Ah, but according to certain original intenters on this thread, the intent to disallow people with split loyalties from being president alone is enough to establish that the Framers wouldn’t have written a constitution allowing the sons of British subjects to be president. That implies that the sons of British subjects are ipso facto of questionable loyalty.
My tactic, and my only point, really, was to point out that those covered by the Grandfather Clause—Washington, Adams, and all the rest until at least 35 years after ratification—were to the same extent sarcastically questioned in the previous post prima facie disloyal. In fact, more than that, they were not just the sons of British subjects; they were themselves born British subjects.
It was the original poster’s fault for not adding something like “disregarding those covered by the Grandfather Clause.” But even if he did, his point would be a weak one. Original intent arguments always are.
You just leapt into the realm of the absurd with that reply.
I just showed you where Madison said PRIMARY allegiance goes to the colony (or the society of which the natives were members). He makes a point that it would take an act of the British legislature to NATURALIZE the colonists. To be a natural-born subject of Great Britain requires perpetual allegiance to the crown, so in order to accept themselves as citizens of the United States, the founders had to reject common law. Second, this ignores that the U.S. signed a treaty with Great Britain that in effect (and underscored in Shanks v. Dupont) made citizens of those who were loyal to the United States and made subjects of those loyal to Great Britain even if born on U.S. soil. There's no way that the founders considered place of birth as the only factor which made someone a citizen because they signed a treaty that said otherwise. The children of loyalists born in the U.S were considered British subjects. Under this same principle, Obama is a natural-born subject, not a citizen ... and that's providing he could legally prove he was born in the U.S.
“Loyal men were allowed, not men with questionable loyalty”
By the way, it was the earlier poster’s point that the intent not to have president’s with dual allegiances meant that the Framers would exclude men with questionable loyalties up to the point of disallowing the sons of British subjects. This is a false inference, and is disproven by the fact that they explicitly allowed the sons of British subjects as well as British subjects from birth to serve as president under the Grandfather Clause.
My “questionable” was no weasel word. The entire point is that you intenters presume that dual allegiances from birth automatically mean questionable loyalty. It didn’t stop them from accepting Washington’s loyalty. He proved it by his works, which is all that I’d ask of born citizens like Obama. It’s not the Framers’ fault that the electorate was stupid enough to elect him.
Lets just be done with this fool. He is so far off base it is easy, very easy to destroy his argument.
Mr. Baier:
“They’re all natural born U.S. citizens. That also includes people who are born in Puerto Rico...”
Really?
Check this link....
Got to Chart N. (last page)
This is about COLLECTIVE NATURALIZATION. Where a group of people are considered NATURALIZED. Born, unborn, dead...this GROUP is collectivity NATURALIZED. And a NATURALIZED citizen is not a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
From the chart in the pdf:
Chart N: Individuals Collectively Naturalized The following individuals gained U.S. citizenship though Collective Naturalization. This is a process where a group of individuals are granted citizenship by treaty or by an act of Congress. Residents of the territories were collectively naturalized U.S. citizens.
First Group listed.....
Puerto Rico
Residents of Puerto Rico are NATURALIZED under Title 8 under COLLECTIVE NATURALIZATION Mr. Baier. Your statement is material, factually and legally incorrect.
Sorry Mr. Baier - FAIL. Complete and total FAIL.
“You talk like it’s all theoretical. You talk like it’s just an academic discussion. Guess who approaches problems and issues that way? Liberals do. Liberals ignore actual facts and speak theoretically as a default mode.”
Blah, blah, balh. Yeah, you’re right, us conservative learn the law by smashing our heads against books, the old-fashioned way.
“You and your ilk say he’s A-Okay from a NBC perspective. He doesn’t know how many states there are. He can’t pronounce corpsmen—which hardly matters, though; who gives a flip about the United States’ Marines? It’s not as if they’re important to our national heritage.”
You’re saying somehow magically he wouldn’t do these things had he qualified for NBC status? Because, what, no one who’s born in this country could ever mispronounce “corps”? Let me ask, if his ineligibility is so damn obvious, why can’t the electorate see it and shoot him down for being un-American?
“So yeah, you’re right. Obama is so good for America, he bloody proves your point. Let’s hear it for the anti-birther hero, Barack Hussein Obama-—mmm mmm good!”
You know, I didn’t vote for Obama, and I’m sad that he’s president. I don’t want him to get another term. I’m just not willing to deny him the chance by misconstruing his status.
The only way it can apply to citizens is if said citizen is having a child with an alien. The law governs aliens!
The overarching precept and principle is that the child has an alien parent or parents and has to be naturalized to be a U.S. citizen!
“In Minor v. Happersett and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.”
Okay, that’s why I asked why the post I was responding to only mentioned Minor.
“Both courts and ALL 18 justices voted on the same definition of natural-born citizen.”
They didn’t define NBC status, at least not exhaustively. I defy you to quote them saying native borns are not natural born.
“Yes, actually they did, because they said the 14th amendment, which applies to ‘native borns’ of resident aliens, does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens.That definition comes from outside the Constitution in a self-limiting defintion”
No, the 14th amendment does not define who’s an NBC. It defines people born on U.S. soil and subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. law as citizens. Combine that with our knowledge that, among other things, there is no such class as born but not natural born citizens, and we know that NBCs are born citizens.
Yes, they DID define NBC "exhaustively" ... Justice Waite gave every known way to become a citizen in the United States including naturalization of alien men, women and minors. Only one set of circumstances was defined as natural-born citizen: "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens." They used this definition to reject Virginia Minor's argument of being a citizen by virtue of the citizen clause of the 14th amendment. What other purpose did it serve to say anything about children of citizen parents when Minor didn't claim to be born to citizen parents??
This was a common view in that many early Americans considered themselves Virginians (for example) first and Americans second.
That wouldn't have made them anything OTHER than natural born citizens of the USA.
Nothing about being a natural born citizen entails perpetual allegiance. Robert E. Lee for example was a Virginian in his primary allegiance - and an American secondly - and not perpetually aligned.
Water droplets falling from a cloud can be virga.
“You already have admitted that”
No I haven’t, and what you quote does not speak to that issue. I went back so far as the British empire, though history goes back further. There was a time when there was no organized society, and therefore nothing of which to be a citizen.
“When natural law suits you, you use it. When it doesn’t suit you, you disregard it.”
I use natural law when it suits the situation. It does not apply to everything. For instance, you don’t have a natural right to free potato chips from the feds. That demands a claim on other people, which rights do not cover except the claim we have on government to protect our rights.
“BWHAHAHAHAHAHA”
Glad I could brighten your day. But you do admit that etymologies sometimes matter, and it could important that the word “citizen” has the same root as “city.” There were no cities before people cooperated enough for their to be surplus food to support city dwellers. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was no civilization before then, and no citizens.
“The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare.”
Yes, it does. But are all communities political? You know what a “polis” is, right? That’s it: a city. Does all interpersonal association result in a city? No, there were communities and associations before there were human beings, and long, long before there were cities or government.
“Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association”
If the association of people amounts to a nation, which prior to civilization is quite a claim. I’d never claim hunter-gatherer societies were “nations.”
“Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.”
Yes, and I wonder if you know how such reciprocal obligations came about, at a level more complicated than tribal loyalty. Conquest, that’s how. Herders and pirates subdued pastural farmers by force. Over time when the plunder grew regular, the masters were rendered tribute in turn for their trouble and protection from other conquerors. That is the basis of government, everywhere and anywhere it arose in human history. That is whence our sense of organized obligation and allegiance derived.
You did have obligations to your tribe, of course. largely this took on the form of filial piety, as they were by and large your extended family. Hence, probably, the habit of referring to civilized society as a family, with the government as your father (or Big Brother), and your fellow citizens as brothers and sisters.
But when you get to the point that you need “to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation,” you are beyond the tribe. Tribes have no need of titles the way agricultural people with their cities do.
“For this purpose the words ‘subject,’ ‘inhabitant,’ and ‘citizen’ have been used, and the choice between them is sometimes made to depend upon the form of the government. Citizen is now more commonly employed, however, and as it has been considered better suited to the description of one living under a republican government”
I see your point is that “citizen” is only one thing to call it. If civilizations had “subjects” and “inhabitants” as well, perhaps the connection between organized obligations and living in cities is tenuous. It is not. Government does not predate the subjection of farmers by herders and pirates. Government does not predate the agricultural revolution.
There was something before cities, and they had their allegiances and obligations. They had their leaders, their order, and even their version of systems of justice. But they did not have government as we know it. They did not have civilization as we mean it. They did not have cities, and they did not have citizens.
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