For all of us that must have just fell off the turnip wagon, please show any Constitutional evidence of this “positive” law. Don’t believe I have heard that term previously. Not looking for what you say it means, I would like references to the term’s use as it relates to the Constitution and specifically to NBC.
Sure.
Here are links to some online legal dictionary websites, I've included links to the definitions of both 'positive law' and 'natural law'.
Positive Law -
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Positive+Law Natural Law -
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Natural+Law
Posiitive Law -
http://research.lawyers.com/glossary/positive-law.html Natural Law
http://research.lawyers.com/glossary/natural-law.html
Positive Law -
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1552 Natural Law -
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1307
Positive Law -
http://www.yourdictionary.com/positive-law Natural Law -
http://www.yourdictionary.com/natural-law
Positive Law -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_law Natural Law -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
I've provided a number of links describing the legal definitions of both 'natural law' and 'positive law' - now what about 'natural born Citizen'.
First one of the rules for interpreting the Constitution is
Verba intelligi ut aliquid operantur debent which means "words should be interpreted to give them some effect" -
http://www.constitution.org/cons/prin_cons.htm. What this is saying is that
EVERY word in the Constitution is there for a reason, and can not be ignored.
So, if we looks at the phrase 'natural born Citizen', what does each word mean? First, let look at 'Citizen'. That is fairly obvious, since the 'C' is capitalized, it is a proper noun, and they were talking about a specific type of citizen - a US citizen. The word 'born', is also obvious, and means at or from birth. But what about 'natural'? It needs to provide meaning.
Have you ever gone to a little league game, and seen a child that was much better that the rest, and someone said - "That boy is a natural born hitter!"? What did they mean? I interpret what was said (and I believe you probably do to) as, the child's ability to hit well was innate, and not something that he needed to be helped with by a coach.
Like the natural born hitter, who does not need the help of a coach to be a hitter, the natural born citizen, does not need the help of a man made (positive) law to be a citizen, he is innately a citizen through 'natural' law.
This idea of natural law vs positive law makes little sense when applied to citizenship matters, as all political entities are created by men through laws. Therefore, all questions of citizenship of those political units MUST be determined by laws created by men who also create the political unit.
There can be no natural born citizen except one recognized by the laws of that political unit, so ALL citizenship is granted through laws.
This is different from ideas of free speech or self-defense, which do NOT require the existence of any political unit.