Posted on 08/29/2013 6:32:41 AM PDT by Lakeshark
The Presidential Eligibility of Ted Cruz
Got your attention yet? I have a modest proposal for ALL FReepers concerning this issue, but let me explain why there is a proposal at all.
The last couple of weeks our venerable and sainted media (peace be unto them) has decided to, after all these years of silence, bring up the issue of Presidential eligibility. The strange appearance of article after article would make you think they were about to expose the birth certificate of messiah Bambi from a Kenyan hospital and show proof of a renouncement of his citizenship while in Indonesia .
Alas, no it’s not about the eligibility of our current fearless reader, instead it’s about the eligibility of Senator Ted Cruz. For those of us hiding under rocks, Ted Cruz just happens to be one of the finest conservatives to hold office. He’s smart, engaging, persuasive, handles MSM traitors journolists like pathetic kindergartners begging for more candy, presents conservatism naturally as a compelling counter to totalitarian leftismliberalism, plus he really wants to move the country to the right normal place of excellence it once was.
Right now, Ted Cruz is trying to rally the GOP to try to defund Bambicare. He is lobbying for it in the Senate, the House, and more important is rallying the GOP voters to sign a petition urging all GOP members of Congress to join the effort to defund this monstrosity. He is in the breach, fighting the good fight, he is the spearhead of this effort. With this and other efforts he appears to have risen to the top of the leadership of conservatives in America. He has the ear and confidence of most conservatives at this point.
So, does anyone hear believe the MSM is interested in simply following the Constitution when they bring up the question of his eligibility? If you do, read no further. If you don’t believe the MSM wants us to be fighting amongst ourselves at this point, read no further.
Based on what I’ve said above: Here is my proposal:
As conservatives, as FReepers, let’s no longer do what the MSM/Soros/democrat complex wants us to do on this issue, namely fight over the eligibility of Ted Cruz and divide the conservative movement at this crucial time. For those of you who believe he is not eligible, understand these two facts:
1. Senator Cruz has not declared for a presidential run at this point, so there is NO issue. Kindly stop making it an issue, particularly right now. Stop. Cease. Desist. It is not important, he’s not running yet. Kindly don't post articles from the MSM or comment on said articles if they are only about the eligibility of Ted Cruz.
2.You are doing the bidding of the MSM/Soros/democrat complex when you do so. They’ve made it clear they want to divide us on this issue, don’t take the bait. Also, see 1. above. Kindly realize that when the Wa ComPost runs 12 articles in 2 days about this issue, it’s not to help conservatives unite.
For those of us who think he is eligible. Remember number 1. above: He is not yet running, there are more important things to do right now. If you see someone on the opposing side, I suggest you link them to this proposal and ask them if they want to continue to divide conservatives during this crucial time, ask them if they really want to carry the water of the media/Soros/democrat complex.
So here again to all: Let’s call a truce on this issue. Not to surrender your beliefs, no one has to do that yet, he is not running. Rather, let’s unite behind the conservative principles that Cruz is pointing us all to, particularly let’s unite to ask the GOP to defund Bambicare. It’s important to do so rather than to quibble over what is at this time, a nonexistent issue ginned up by our domestic opposition.
Thank you for your support.
Thank you for allowing this discussion. I don’t envy your position or the decisions you may have to make if Cruz declares.
No less than the liberal, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz said that Ted Cruz was one of the smartest men to have EVER gone through Harvard, so I happen to think that Ted Cruz himself, is fully cognizant about his own eligibility and would not be entertaining a run for the presidency, if he thought for one minute that he was not constitutionally qualified..
Thanks for the information. I did not know the origin of “factoid” and was a little unsure of the exact connotation of the word.
Service guarantees citizenship. ~ Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers.
Five times? When was the first one?
The opinion of a lifetime bureaucrat from the department formerly headed by Hillary Clinton carries no weight.
What matters to me is whether we as Freepers are going to go to war on this issue in order that Chris Chrisie and Lindsey Graham will sneak in under the tent and grab the nomination.
If anyone is so willing to die on this hill and let the country slide further towards tyranny, then we should let them die on the vine before the battle begins.
Right now Free Republic appears to be THE gathering place for those who are so intent on dying on the NBC hill, even if it results in the destruction of our Liberty and taking as many people as they can down that road.
The issue is at best an esoteric exercise in the interpretation of an archaic expression which never had a uniform definition before the Constitution was drafted and is now even more subject to varied opinions as to what was meant. The clause was inserted to prevent a president from having divided loyalties. No one on this forum can possibly state that Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada while his parents were working under a US work Visa has ANY loyalty to the country of his birth. There is no possibility that the founders would have allowed the country to go to hell in order to prevent a person in the shoes of Ted Cruz from becoming President at a time such as this.
Ted Cruz is in every sense of the word a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America. The burden to show otherwise is not only on those who claim otherwise, but if their arguments must legally rise to the level of Clear and Convincing proof that Ted Cruz is not included in the definition of NBC both in the literal sense of the words as they were understood at the time of the drafting of the constitution, but also that it was the intent of the framers to specifically exclude all citizens in the same situation as Ted Cruz, even if it meant that it would result in the election of someone who had no regard whatsoever for the preservation of the Constitution itself.
Ted Cruz may be our last best hope to save the Constitution. If we get an NBC like Chris Christie or Lindsey Graham, then the Constitution will surely find its final testing place as a dead letter.
That’s a very good question, and here is where you and I approach this whole process very differently. I’m coming at it big picture and with intent...your approach seems to emphasize the bureaucratic detail and the hypothetical. Both have their place, and I’m only pointing this out to say the following:
I cannot answer your hypothetical, but what I can do is state with certitude that the Founders were only worried about split loyalties, and they were dealig with a nation that at the time was barely more than an idea - and therefore, Ted Cruz, coming along some 240 years later, with a very established nationis in no way, shape or form the target of their restriction, even though they were vague enough to cause some bureaucratic consternation.
Your hypothetical, valid as it may be, is not the issue here and it would be wrong to conflate the Cruz problem simply because doing so does not answer every conceivable case going forward.
I did not mean to imply that there was a question about your place of birth. If I did so, it was unintentional and I apologize.
I meant only to say that (IMHO) your circumstances deserve a special exception to any strict legal interpretation of NBC.
” I happen to think that Ted Cruz himself, is fully cognizant about his own eligibility and would not be entertaining a run for the presidency, if he thought for one minute that he was not constitutionally qualified..”
I see this the same way. I only hope he runs.
Yup.
He was born of two citizen parents.
He was born on US soil.
If you'd like, I can produce a birth certificate every bit as valid as the one The Won uses to prove his bona fides to prove it.
Im avoiding these threads..
the other day the RomneyBots beat us up claiming if we thought Ted Cruz was not NBC and might not be eligible for POTUS then we were for ObamaCare...and/or trolls..
the usual old craziness...
Every law on the books ever passed by the US Congress has Ted Cruz eligible to run for the presidency.
I hear ya.
No offense, but what you consider is irrelevant. You are talking about an extra-legal and extra-Constitutional test that is not supported by anything other than personal interpretation.
Now, as far as deciding whether or not to vote for a particular individual, you are quite welcome to apply any test you like - in that capacity, you may discriminate on any factor you like, whether it is on a Vattel-style "natural born citizen" definition, race, religion, political views, marital status, hair style, you name it. As an individual you're perfectly free to base your vote any anything. But none of that matters to legal eligibility.
And that supposed to convince me of what, exactly? They gave us obamacare!
They, themselves, ignore their own laws, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
Are you saying: "If you can't beat them, join them"?
It may come to that, for the sake of appearance, just like for any in occupied territory.
Understood and agreed.
I began my mostly adversarial relationship with FR birthers in 2008 (after having been one of them for a short time) because I thought some of their conclusions and theories damaged the reputation of FR and conservatism. I spent months disputing demonstrably false Internet rumors. It was brutal at times and a lot of fun at other times.
Then I came to the realization that I had reached those I could and mostly left them alone. I agree with them on some points and disagree with them on others. In the process of getting to this point, I came to know many of them. Most of them have pure intentions and do not want to betray their principles.
I’m hopeful that both sides can come to respect the position of the other so neither side has to die on hill, so-to-speak.
FWIW, that part of the Foreign Affairs manual was written long before Hillary Clinton. It’s been the official position of the U.S. government for a long time.
U.S. Supreme Court,The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)
Chief Justice John Marshall:
"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."
Well, when push comes to shove, you can bet your sweet bippy that I’ll be doing some mighty fine pushing!! The people attacking Ted Cruz when and if he’s our strongest conservative candidate can KMA on the way out the door!!
I just wonder what is going to happen and what all these people are going to say, unless we get a determination from the USSC when the GOP itself brings this up to blunt Cruz’s momentum.
People who claim the argument isn’t legitimate are going to have a problem. And if the GOP does not, the DNC will. Obama is out come 2016 and history shows us that history begins daily for Democrats. They WILL push this to stop him.
Best solution is for the base to demand clarification once and for all from the Supremes however we can, BEFORE it comes down to another cluster at election time. Should they rule he’s good, Great.
I think you and I agree on a rational approach to this issue. I’m not hung up on bureacratic details. My hypothetical was just that - a hypothetical. It was intended to prove a point.
Lakeshark is right. This issue can’t and won’t be resolved at FR. Both sides need to accept that those on the other side have come to their conclusions after careful thought. We’ve got to unify behind Cruz’s current efforts without discounting the concerns of FRiends with whom we may disagree.
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