[Tublecane]

“You already have admitted that”

No I haven’t. What you post is beside that point.

“Where has that ever existed? Even something so small as a tribe has a leader and, henceforth, government.”

Leaving aside whether or not tribal eadership constitutes proper government, you do realize that the term “citizen” has its roots in “inhibitant of a city,” right? Cities stretch back to time immemorial, but not forever. You don’t imagine there were always cities, do you, nor that hunter-gatherers recognized eachother as citizens of the tribe. That’s a distinction which comes with civilization at least.

“And the positive law Constitution recognized natural law as you well know,
that being your recognition of the natural law to keep and bear arms”

Yes but, and this is at least the third time I’ve made the point, while you theoretically have the right to bear arms by nature, you cannot be a citizen by nature alone. You must wait until the thing you are a citizen of has come into being. At which point those who naturally come into the world according to certain qualifications are natural born citizens.

“But what does that matter, for our purposes?
To illustrate that natural law existed before any law was written. I thought you understood that.”

Yes, I do. But once again, to be a citizens requires positive law of some sort, or at least custom. There is no British constitution as there is a U.S. constitution, for instance, but there does need to be such a thing as Great Britain before there are British subjects.

“I’ll take that as rhetorical. Nobody was forced to sign the Constitution just like nobody was forced to sign the Articles of Confederation. Coercion isn’t principled and nothing based upon coercion is legal.”

Yes, but not everything that is voluntary is legal, right? Forget about guns to the head. Let’s say Obama held a national referendum on overhauling the Constitution, which people voted on like they vote for American Idol. Would that be legal under the Constitution? No, for it would violate the amendmnet process laid out in the document.

Likewise, the manner in which the Constitution was ratified violated the amendment process laid out by the Articles. It was illegal in the eyes of the Article government. The way to justify it is to say that the states did not sacrifice their sovereignty, and were free to replace the Articles with a different form of government if they saw fit. If with no other justification, this is the old Right of Revolution, as used in the recent past against Great Britain.

However, if the states asserted their sovereignty against the Articles, then the resulting new government was not the same nation as that under the Articles, was it? The same union of states, perhaps, with the same name. But not the same government, and not the same thing of which to be a citizen.

[philman_36]

No I haven’t.
Yes, you have.

People are never without citizenship as you readily admit.
I don’t admit that.
You already have admitted that.

Before the Constitution you were a citizen of the Confederacy or the state in which you lived. Before the Articles of Confederation, you were a citizen of your state and informally I guess of the quasi-nation under the Continental Congress. Before the Continental Congress, you were a British subject.

What you post is beside that point.
It directly relates to the point. When natural law suits you, you use it. When it doesn't suit you, you disregard it.

Leaving aside whether or not tribal eadership constitutes proper government, you do realize that the term “citizen” has its roots in “inhibitant of a city,” right?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA...http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen
How about something a bit more substantial!
Minor v. Happersett

The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.
For convenience it has been found necessary to give a name to this membership. The object is to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. 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, it was adopted by nearly all of the States upon their separation from Great Britain, and was afterwards adopted in the Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution of the United States. When used in this sense it is understood as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more.