Posted on 03/26/2013 7:02:12 PM PDT by Cold Case Posse Supporter
42-year-old Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father. By dint of his mother’s citizenship, Cruz was an American citizen at birth. Whether he meets the Constitution’s requirement that the president of the United States be a “natural-born citizen,” a term the Framers didn’t define and for which the nation’s courts have yet to offer an interpretation, has become the subject of considerable speculation.
Snip~
Legal scholars are firm about Cruz’s eligibility. “Of course he’s eligible,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tells National Review Online. “He’s a natural-born, not a naturalized, citizen.” Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and longtime friend of Cruz, agrees, saying the senator was “a citizen at birth, and thus a natural-born citizen — as opposed to a naturalized citizen, which I understand to mean someone who becomes a citizen after birth.”
Federal law extends citizenship beyond those granted it by the 14th Amendment: It confers the privilege on all those born outside of the United States whose parents are both citizens, provided one of them has been “physically present” in the United States for any period of time, as well as all those born outside of the United States to at least one citizen parent who, after the age of 14, has resided in the United States for at least five years. Cruz’s mother, who was born and raised in Delaware, meets the latter requirement, so Cruz himself is undoubtedly an American citizen. No court has ruled what makes a “natural-born citizen,” but there appears to be a consensus that the term refers to those who gain American citizenship by birth rather than by naturalization
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I don’t believe he is a conservative. I did originally but I have altered my view.
Being a conservative is partly about how you think & reason. Conservatives use common sense, in addition to other types of analysis. From a common sense perspective, I once asked myself, ‘What advantage would the Framers have seen in inviting persons w foreign allegiances/divided loyalties to seek the highest office of the land?”
Put another way, I wondered what advantage to the Republic the Framers would have envisioned if a person w natural foreign allegiance to a country other than the USA was not only free to seek the highest office, but actually won the election. How would that have worked out for the Republic?
Obviously it would work out exactly the way it IS working out. Obama set out to destroy this country, and he has succeeded to an irreparable degree. Of course the Framers envisioned nothing less, and sought to debar such individuals from gaining the power to destroy the union (from w’in) in the first place.
Jeff Winston cannot provide a simple, concise answer to the question, ‘What advantage did the Framers envision from opening the WH to persons w foreign allegiances by birth?’ He will go to any length to avoid giving a short, coherent answer to that question. In fact, he responds to that question exactly as a liberal would.
Yes, there are Republicans who think those w foreign allegiances by birth should have access to the WH. But not everyone who thinks this way is a Republican by a long shot.
Sure. A "Natural born Subject" is anyone the King can claim through his divine right to rule. A natural born citizen is someone who cannot be claimed by a Sovereign.
You really are too funny. In one sense. Although I do agree with Kansas58 that in most senses, you're not funny at all.
You contradict yourself in the same sentence. Wadda ya know? You're good for entertainment too!
No. Marshall quite obviously isn't making a point regarding citizenship at all.
Obviously. I always quote my best definition regarding citizenship when I am talking about something completely unconnected with it.
Again, he doesn't even mention "natural born citizen" or "natural born citizenship" at all!
Considering that his usage of the word "Citizen" requires citizen parents, you must be arguing that "natural born citizen" requirements are even worse! I shudder to think what degree of Patriotism must be necessary to meet these even stronger requirements you are suggesting!
What a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal you have made by pointing that out.
So wait. Now you're telling me that alien residents are a kind of citizen? Doesn't this screw with your silly theory just a tiny little bit?
I believe I am simply using the words Justice Washington used. Obviously he didn't mean it in the sense you are attempting to use it. Here is what Justice Washington actually said:
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, but is nevertheless united and subject to the society without participating in all its advantages.
I guess you'll have to take it up with Justice Washington as to his use of the statement "kind of citizen of an inferior order". To answer you're question, No, it doesn't screw with my theory at all. It dovetails nicely with it.
Really? So the United States does and should bow to international law to define for us who our citizens are and are not?
Sophist, rhetorical, not worth addressing.
Personally, I believe that WE define who our citizens are.
It is patently obvious that JEFF would like to define who our citizens are. The rest of us prefer the Founders thinking to yours.
Wow. So because English law said we had no right to secede, that means we threw away every other precedent of law that we had had for centuries.
No, but we did quite specifically throw away that Section of English law which decides who are subjects, and what are their responsibilities to the crown. That's what the war was about in a nutshell. Two of em, in fact.
No, I haven't done that to either. In fact, it was the larger argument that caused me to understand that Bingham WASN'T saying what you claimed.
Yes, you would have us believe that Bingham lies with his very own words rather than that you lie with yours. I prefer to think Bingham told the truth when he was alive.
Who are natural-born citizens but those born within the Republic? Those born within the Republic, whether black or white, are citizens by birth — natural born citizens. There is no such word as white in your constitution. Citizenship, therefore does not depend upon complexion any more than it depends upon the rights of election or of office. All from other lands, who by the terms of your laws and compliance with their provisions become naturalized, and are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens.
Okay you littel turd burger.
Is that part of your official argument?
If by "official argument" you mean "is it true?", then the answer is "Yes."
I am glad to see Donofrio’s blog back up! I couldn’t get to it for a long time until you put this link up.
Conservatives value adherence to the Constitution, and traditional values. I value adherence to the Constitution, fidelity to the Founding Fathers, and the TRUTH.
Not what you wish the truth were. And not what I wish it was, either. What it actually is.
Jeff Winston cannot provide a simple, concise answer to the question, ‘What advantage did the Framers envision from opening the WH to persons w foreign allegiances by birth?’ He will go to any length to avoid giving a short, coherent answer to that question. In fact, he responds to that question exactly as a liberal would.
As someone else has said, I don't think they thought about it very much. There were FAR bigger fish to fry: The question of slavery, for one. The balance of power between small States and large States.
If you don't understand what an enormous problem the issue of slavery was to those trying to put a real country together out of 13 largely-autonomous States, you haven't done much reading.
Secondly, I don't think it ever OCCURRED to them that someone born whose parents were immigrants who had not naturalized might have any lack of allegiance. People didn't travel internationally in those days anywhere near as much as we do, and even to get news from Europe took literally months.
Third, this particular kind of "foreign influence" wasn't their only concern. As one of the Framers pointed out in the discussions regarding our legislators, the real problem wasn't so much people of foreign birth - or even further away from that, people whose PARENTS had foreign birth - it was native-born Americans being BRIBED by foreign powers.
Like the Clintons getting campaign contributions from the Chinese.
Beyond that, what "advantage" did they contemplate? If there was one, it was only the same "advantage" by which James Madison, Father of the Constitution, said that citizenship requirements for our legislators ought properly to be kept OUT of the Constitution itself. Madison felt (in that case, at least) that it lent a "tincture of illiberality" to our Founding document.
And beyond that, what advantage? None at all. Just because they didn't forbid a thing doesn't mean they thought it was ideal. They didn't expressly forbid swindlers from being President, either. That doesn't mean they condoned them.
Now I know that's not a "simple, concise" answer. I suppose I could try to dumb it down for you. But that's THE answer, whether you like its simplicity and conciseness or not.
I’m not going to deal with your Mr. Rogers like text bomb. From what I saw as a glanced through it, most of your references are subsequent to Rawle, and therefore are probably tainted by his stupidity. I can’t say I fault him. He missed the great Renaissance in this country. He came back after it was pretty much over.
Thanks for proving my point.
Was it asked "Is Wong Kim Ark a natural born citizen"?
No
Did it affirm "Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen"?
No.
-----
The continued assertion is that the court proclaimed him a natural-born citizen is false.
All of the 'rationale' reasoning' and 'examples' in the world are moot because none of them can change the words contained the final determination.
Wong Kim Ark was a 'citizen of the United States'.
The other statement from Wikipedia is one which was made by John Bingham. (Father of the 14th amendment.)
It seems the preponderance of court rulings favor the latter interpretation. But, I can see the wisdom of avoiding dual allegiances specifically for POTUS.
Yeah, the courts are full of lawyer types who somehow think "Precedent" is more important than common sense or facts. That's how we get decisions like Roe v Wade, Kelo v New London, Lawrence v Texas, Obamacare, Wickard v Fillburn and other brain rotten verdicts.
The courts operate just like the Thunder Birds Air force flying team. When the leader flies into the ground, the rest of them fly into the ground with him.
Seriously, the courts are literally that stupid.
Okay, here’s the dumbed-down version.
They simply weren’t as worried about it as you are.
“The only people in creation who don’t agree are a bunch of quack law theorists, virtually none of whom have any legal training at all.”
All:
Many FReepers will remember this brave 2011 article by Charles Rice who at least points to Minor v Happersett. As Zullo and the Posse swarmed over Capitol Hill last week, they appear to be trying to follow Professor Rice’s recommendation of getting congress to investigate the facts.
“Charles E. Rice is professor emeritus at the Law School of Notre Dame University in South Bend IN. He is the author of What Happened to Notre Dame?”
“Barack Obama: Is he or Isn’t he an American citizen?”
http://www.speroforum.com/a/49420/Barack-Obama-Is-he-or-Isnt-he-an-American-citizen
“Numerous lawsuits challenging Obama’’s eligibility have been rejected by every court involved, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Some are still pending. The rejections have been based on various grounds, including the plaintiff’’s lack of standing to sue and other specified and unspecified procedural grounds. No court has agreed to decide any of those suits on the merits.”
There is no reason to analyze those lawsuits here in detail. Their lack of success cannot be ascribed simply to a hyper-technical evasion of judicial responsibility. For example, the rule requiring a plaintiff in a federal court proceeding to have a sufficient personal interest, or standing, to bring the suit provides needed assurance that suits will be seriously contested and will seek more than merely advisory opinions. On the other hand, it is fair to say that the Obama controversy involves significant issues of fact and law that deserve some sort of official resolution.
I suggest no conclusion as to whether Obama is eligible or not. But the citizens whom the media and political pundits dismiss as “birthers” have raised legitimate questions. That legitimacy is fueled by Obama’’s curious, even bizarre, refusal to consent to the release of the relevant records. Perhaps there is nothing to the issues raised. Or perhaps there is. This is potentially serious business. If it turns out that Obama knew he was ineligible when he campaigned and when he took the oath as President, it could be the biggest political fraud in the history of the world. As long as Obama refuses to disclose the records, speculation will grow and grow without any necessary relation to the truth. The first step toward resolving the issue is full discovery and disclosure of the facts.
The courts are not the only entities empowered to deal with such a question. A committee of the House of Representatives could be authorized to conduct an investigation into the eligibility issue.
Or, to put it into five very simple words:
They just weren’t that afraid.
It clearly *IS* the case. The alternative is that the founders put an inoperative or pointless clause into Article II, and that they were too stupid to foresee "anchor babies" even though they had many thousands of them to deal with after the war.
The Founders just didn't consider that the influence of British trained lawyers would screw up their work so badly a hundred years later.
Or, to put it a different way: If you don't like the Constitution, amend it. That's been done 27 times already.
And most of the ones subsequent to the 10th, were either badly written, or just stupid. The exception being the 27th amendment, which was in fact, written by the founders.
The 14th, in particular has been the cause of much Mischief and destruction to American society.
They were unafraid to turn the Republic over to an enemy agent who intended to destroy the country from w’in?
If you don’t like the term enemy agent, then explain this. Why has the first and only POTUS [since the original generation of grandfathered citizens died off] w foreign allegiances by birth acted purposefully to destroy the country. I.e.: acted as an enemy agent.
It’s not a coincidence; what Obama has done he has done precisely because he pledged loyalty to his non-American half. & you’re telling me the Framers had no fear of such an agent destroying the USA from w’in, exactly as Obama has done?
[Oh, & the idea that conservatives fear Obama is a mainstream liberal talking point. One of their most obnoxious. I don’t fear him. I regard him as what he is: a self-professed foreigner who hates the USA. You do the math.]
The Constitution does not and cannot guarantee that there will never be any mistakes made by those who are charged with making the decision as to a presidential candidate's qualifications. No matter who is charged with making the decision (whether it be the voters and their electors, a court or some committee), errors can be made. A proposal to turn the matter over to a court is not a proposal to eliminate all possibility of error.
Our Constitution empowers the voters and the their electors to select our presidents. It does not empower courts to try to interfere with the process by attempting to become a "Qualifications Committee."
For 57 elections in a row, the voters and their electors have chosen our presidents without any court even once attempting to interfere by attempting to disqualify a candidate because it felt that a candidate might not be qualified. The courts have not so interfered and they will never so interfere because they have no constitutional basis for doing so.
I've commented on this more elsewhere.
It is a stupid point. No one gives a rip about Honorary citizenship in another country. Two states gave the Marquis De La Fayette Honorary citizenship. Big whoop.
The argument that having honorary citizenship bestowed upon them would somehow make them subject to foreign influence in their own country is so laughable that one would have to be a fool to even consider it.
The main concern was with royalty from Europe swooping in and taking or. Or actually being invited, by some here, to come and take over (e.g., Prince Henry of Prussia, or the one Bishop in England who I think was one of the King's sons.
Most of Europe was subjected to leadership by Incestuous Royals who were constantly marrying this or that cousin. The Custom of obtaining favoritism for one's country by putting a member of it's Royal family into another country's Royal family was quite well known to the founders. They were having none of it. They wanted no one in Governance who had strong ties to another country, and they created Article II to accomplish this purpose.
And then people like you come along and undermine it with sophistry and bad authority.
True, they didn't "proclaim" him a natural-born citizen. That doesn't mean he wasn't one, any more than my not proclaiming my Texan example to be from Houston doesn't mean she isn't. The fact remains that in order to find he was a citizen, they examined the meaning of "natural-born citizen" and decided he was one--as the dissenters acknowledged.
Rubio and Ted, Los Amigos Cubanos, have been in the Senate, what, 15-17 minutes now? And already they're worying about moving into Reggie Love's WH quarters?Not one word of this was about Constitutional eligibility. It was racialist twaddle assuming that all Cuban-Americans support amnesty.
I sincerely advise both of these Ricky Ricardos, whom I happen to like a little bit if they cut this Presidential shiite, to STFU and to 1st master, and then do the job to which they were elected.
Senator is pretty high on the food chain, or so I had been led to believe in Civics class.
Are you sure you’re not reading too much into the post? It strikes me as more about settling in as a senator for a while before setting one’s sights on bigger things, than about racism.
The vast majority of people now, like the vast majority of people at the time of our founding, have never heard of Vattel or what a relatively few people sincerely believe would have been Vattel's thoughts on the "natural born citizen" standard if he had ever thought about the matter.
A commitment to popular elections rests in part upon a belief that sound and sensible decisions will emerge from a democratic electoral process, i.e., that the consensus of 130 million voters is superior to the consensus of 9 elitist judges or 1 elitist politician. A few voters may attempt to channel an 18th century Swiss philosopher and a few may even turn to a ouija board. Fortunately, most will do neither.
A democratic republic may sound like a crazy idea, but it is the American idea. And, our Constitution is worth defending.
Sadly true. And they keep pumping them out. Can't wait for the 2nd Amendment rulings.
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