The Top Ten “Birther” arguments against Ted Cruz, and why they are completely wrong

This says it all for me:
“In conclusion, not a single argument put forth by the eligibility challengers holds up. Each is either a misinterpretation at best or an outright falsehood at worst. Arguing over this issue has become a waste of time much better spent on other things. Unfortunately, there are a few folks who continue to cling to this view, and equally unfortunate is the often venomous attitude they display toward anyone who disagrees with them. Most of the arguments you may encounter will consist of one or more of the claims we have covered above. And most of the time, they will count on you not bothering to actually try to research or verify what they claim a particular court case says. Consider this your “Cliff Notes” on all their arguments—a concise, documented reference to all that is wrong about their claims.”

I guess now that I have a few moments with nothing better to do, I can bother with you.

The French had an understanding of "citoyen" at this time that held to a jus soli view.

Yeah, I looked that up. That appears to have started in 1515 by Royal Decree, and ended with the Napoleonic code in 1802. Presumably the older and subsequent understanding based on Roman law was jus sanguinus, but you can have your trivial little point. It doesn't greatly impact the larger point of whether or not the citizenship created by the Declaration of Independence was informed by Vattel.

Since the parallel between "natural born subject" and "natural born citizen" was amply made both before and after the framing of the Constitution, salvation has arrived.

Commensurate does not mean "equal." That one thing can be compared with another does not make them the same. The deliberate and intentional change of the word "Subject" into "Citizen" is pointless unless one postulates an intention to change the meaning and character as well.

Social inertia would have us continuing to use the word "Subject." Changing it to "Citizen" was deliberate and intended to represent a change in the relationship between the Governed and the Government. It was not innocuous or a whim.

What that term meant in 1787 is the issue.

No it isn't. The root of the meaning of "natural born citizen" does not lie in 1787. It comes from an earlier time. By 1787, it appears obvious that everyone already knew what it meant, and so therefore it had already been established. Court records and common sense point to 1776 as the date on which American Citizenship, as distinct from British Subjects, was created.

The US Constitution did not create citizens. The Articles of Confederation did not create citizens. The Declaration of Independence is what created citizens, therefore the meaning of the word "citizen" must be derived from the natural law principles informing the Declaration.

There is nothing in the Declaration supporting English Common law. The very document is an explicit rejection of the English Common law premise of "Divine Right", the legal and moral basis on which the Jus Soli nature of English Subjects is founded.

And I'll wager they mention Montesquieu and Blackstone even more. So what's your point?

To rebut your ignorant and stupid point that because you didn't find Vattel mentioned in the Federalist papers, he has no significance. Don't you remember your own ignorant and stupid points that you put forth?

Why are you citing to the "modern court?" According to you, the Wong Kim Ark court in 1898 was "modern." You are nothing if not inconsistent.

I have no trouble believing modern courts can search through files and figure out how many times someone has been cited. That is a comparatively simple task, but as far as getting "original intent" correct after a hundred or more years, they have had a very poor track record.

You are once more demonstrating your level of idiocy in comparing the one thing to the other. It is the sort of childish argument that you make a habit of putting forth.

What you don't have in either the Convention or Ratifying debates is anyone citing to Vattel on citizenship. All you have is one great hand-wave that because you see Vattel cited on other points that he was the influence on Article II NBC.

Because at the time it was considered to be such an insignificant and trivial detail that no one saw the need to discuss it at any length. They all knew the Declaration created citizenship, and they were all well aware of the natural law foundation of it. It wasn't debated because it was assumed they were all in agreement, and weightier things needed to be discussed.

And again, you are once more ignoring the fact that your stupid @$$ made it a topic by noting that you didn't see Vattel in the "Federalist Papers." If you thought it so important as to mention the "Federalist Papers", you can now take your stupid lumps for having it pointed out to you that he was mentioned in a context more significant than that one you seemed to think was relevant.

I'd act aghast that you cannot possibly be this dishonest (or this stupid) as to hold up Joseph Story on this point, but you've got a long track record of pulling these stunts.

You are so predictable. I knew when I did that you were going to go back and get the rest of his quote. I originally put the whole thing in there, but I told myself "Captain PounceTrifle" will ignore the larger point, and focus on that tiny bit which he will try to warp into agreement with his position."

I then thought, "Wouldn't it be cute for me to leave that out, and watch the little snake go get the rest, just so he CAN ignore the point made in my quote?" (That Justice Story specifically acknowledges you can be born in this country without being a citizen.)

You are dancing to the strings I pull, you stupid ignorant little puppet! Ha ha ha ha ha...

Story lays out the same rule enunciated by Z. Swift 8 years after the Constitution was drafted.

And he immediately points out that it doesn't work like that in the case of a child born in the US to British citizens. This is doubly damaging to your claim, because he's one of the ones you claim to be on your side.

You can run your big mouth all you like, but Story is telling you that a Child who's parents owe allegiance to another nation, is *NOT* an American citizen.

This is where the G**D@mn collection of liars on your side always go. You take ambiguity in the specifics of the general rule (that someone born here is generally a citizen) and you push way past a common sense understanding of the meaning into a technicality based sophist assertion that this is the only thing required.

Story is bitchslapping your stupid theory in a very clear and precise way. He is directly contradicting your assertions.

Of course anyone who is not a f***ing idiot, knows that we had something like 100,000 British Loyalists and their Children who remained British Subjects after 1776, because the "born on the soil" rule did not actually apply. They retained loyalty to the allegiance under which they were born, not Allegiance to the Nation owning the Soil under which they were born.

Again.

Your quote:

‘I prefer to look at facts: what has happened and what is happening now.
Based on what has happened with Obama and the theory that he was not born in the U.S., the challenges to his eligibility helped him with undecided voters more than it hurt him. That’s why he wanted to keep the issue alive rather than resolving it.’

Here are the problems. First, you state something as fact that you have zero evidence to support.

Second, the thing you state as fact is a mainstay fairytale direct from the moonbatiest of obot enclaves. It is NOT a fact. It is part and parcel of the ideology that drives the blindest Obama supporters to worshipful obeisance of their idol.

Here’s how it works. Obots—you included—begin with the following premise: Obama is liked and respected in general. More specifically, he is looked up to as a man of honesty, integrity and decency. *Therefore* when his truthfulness re his birth narrative is challenged, it helps him with voters.

Iow, voters hold Obama and his integrity in such high esteem that when someone challenges his truthfulness, it redounds to Obama’s benefit.

This is no more than moonbats projecting their own exalted and adulatory attitude toward Obama onto others who share not a scintilla of it. Rather, what you have is an electorate that was willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but which was only too receptive to revelations of Obama’s lies and fraud.

The facts bear this out. The only effective tactic McCain ever tried on Obama was to expose his arrogance. That ad hurt Obama measurably and helped McCain by the same token. (Which is why McCain immediately dropped that attack and never used it again. Throughout the campaign he eschewed success and embraced failure—with foregone results.)

When Trump first launched the BC attack on Obama in 2011, he (Trump) shot to the lead in every poll. This is not bc attacks on Obama’s veracity re his birth helped O; it is bc they hurt Obama and helped Trump. That is a fact. It is also the reason Obama rushed out an amateurish forgery: Trump was eating him alive, and he had to do major damage control ASAP.

None of this, of course, registers with obots. They live in their own, separate reality. In that world, Obama is set high on a pedestal, and challenges to his integrity only make him greater and stronger.

Fine. You and your fellow obots can go on believing that as long as you like. Just stop spreading that garbage here. It stinks.

That appears to have started in 1515 by Royal Decree, and ended with the Napoleonic code in 1802.

Which is what I pointed out several posts ago. It's good you're catching up.

It doesn't greatly impact the larger point of whether or not the citizenship created by the Declaration of Independence was informed by Vattel.

Greatly impact? No. Though you still lack a direct argument.

But insofar as you and others try to paint a dichotomy between a jus soli subjecthood cast off in the Revolution and jus sanguinis citizenship informed by Vattel, it much weakens your argument. Apart from England, France is the nation best known to the Founders and Framers. Franklin was ambassador there during the War. France assisted the U.S. The nations engaged in commerce. Your repeated point about there being some profound distinction between "subject" and "citizen" is rendered all the more trivial when at the time that well-known nation of citoyens held to a jus soli rule as well.

Commensurate does not mean "equal." That one thing can be compared with another does not make them the same.

They don't need to be equal for it to be accepted the relationship to the sovereign via birth follows the same rule. It suffices they are seen as analogous, which the courts and commentators have acknowledged.

The deliberate and intentional change of the word "Subject" into "Citizen" is pointless unless one postulates an intention to change the meaning and character as well.

Or one can as well postulate that the change is driven simply by recognition of the change in government -- that "citizen" became the more precise, more appropriate term. Given that such is the view espoused by the legal commentators and SCOTUS, your simply repeating "but I can come up with another reason" gets you nowhere.

In any case, "citizen" by no means necessarily signifies jus sanguinis. See explanation above.

The root of the meaning of "natural born citizen" does not lie in 1787. It comes from an earlier time. By 1787, it appears obvious that everyone already knew what it meant, and so therefore it had already been established.

I'll agree here. Prior to 1787 there is a several hundred year usage in English of "natural born" having the meaning "having the nature or characteristic at birth." And there are documented instances between 1776 and 1787 of "nbs" and "nbc" being used in interchangeable fashion.

By contrast, I've seen no usage in English of "natural born" before 1787 meaning "from like parent(s)." Even to this day "natural born" is used as then. For example, we may speak of a person being a "natural born athlete," meaning gifted with innate athletic talent from birth. Does that signify or require that one or both parents were gifted athletes? No. They may be, but often enough they are not.

That's how English usage works.

There is nothing in the Declaration supporting English Common law.

This is stupid. The Declaration is a litany of Colonists' grievances that their common law rights were unjustly being denied.

The very document is an explicit rejection of the English Common law premise of "Divine Right", the legal and moral basis on which the Jus Soli nature of English Subjects is founded.

That "Divine Right" concept already had been tossed aside by the English when they executed Charles I. That was his argument. It failed rather spectacularly. Which means you need a better one, too.

To rebut your ignorant and stupid point that because you didn't find Vattel mentioned in the Federalist papers, he has no significance.

Strawman alert. I never said he had no significance. To the contrary. My point is that his absence from the Federalist Papers and relatively fewer references elsewhere greatly weaken your argument that Vattel was just SO preeminent that it points to him as the foundation of the Article II citizenship terms.

They all knew the Declaration created citizenship, and they were all well aware of the natural law foundation of it.

Yes, but here you're intimating the Vattel-birther conceit that "natural law foundation" means "from Vattel." This extraordinarily stupid example of selective sampling and tunnel-vision should have ended long ago.

There were MANY influential writers who discussed natural law. Burlamaqui wrote a treatise on it. And as my prior post notes, he was the first to speak of man's happiness being the end of the natural state. (Declaration, anyone?) Montesquieu wrote on natural law and natural rights. Locke wrote on it. Blackstone wrote on it. Here, chew on this one, Chief. Blackstone's View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

You need more than just a reference to "natural law" to get clearly into Vattel territory.

You are so predictable. I knew when I did that you were going to go back and get the rest of his quote. I originally put the whole thing in there, but I told myself "Captain PounceTrifle" will ignore the larger point, and focus on that tiny bit which he will try to warp into agreement with his position."

I then thought, "Wouldn't it be cute for me to leave that out, and watch the little snake go get the rest, just so he CAN ignore the point made in my quote?" (That Justice Story specifically acknowledges you can be born in this country without being a citizen.)

You are dancing to the strings I pull, you stupid ignorant little puppet! Ha ha ha ha ha...

This whole schpiel smacks of "Methinks the DumbDumb doth protest too much." You've rarely exhibited the talent to think even one step ahead. I seriously doubt you planned this one.

In any case, this one required you to think two steps ahead. And you didn't. So your histrionics are setting the stage for your epic fail.

A reminder of how Story articulates the general common law rule:

If he was born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776, he was born an American citizen, whether his parents were at the time of his birth British subjects or American citizens. Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.

Story lays out that under the general common law rule, birth in the realm suffices to make one a citizen, irrespective of the citizenship (ultimate allegiance ) of the father.

Got that?

And he immediately points out that it doesn't work like that in the case of a child born in the US to British citizens.

No, DumbDumb, that is NOT what he writes. You are over-reading his words. Justice Story is a lot smarter than you, and it's not to be supposed in the next sentence he contradicts what he just said in the sentence I quoted.

If he was born after 15 September, 1776, and his parents did not elect to become members of the State of New York, but adhered to their native allegiance at the time of his birth, then he was born a British subject.

So he doesn't say "a child born in the U.S. to British parents is NOT born a citizen." Nope. Nothing that broad. He says "if the demandant was born after 15 September 1776," then he may not be a citizen.

Now why is the September 15 date significant in Story's mind? Why does the outcome on citizenship of John IngIis shift potentially at that date? I'm sure you had absolutely no clue when you first brought up this case nor even in this last reply. If you had, you wouldn't have run your mouth so as to display such ineptitude.

But I'm not going to tell you at present. Let's all see if you can figure it out yourself.

Two examples of how some Latinos viewed the Obama is ineligible movement.

“Birthers/Latinos shouldn’t mix.”
http://www.beinglatino.us/uncategorized/birthers-and-latinos-shouldn%E2%80%99t-mix/

“Birthers to Obama: Show Us Your Papers”
http://www.newstaco.com/2011/05/02/birthers-to-obama-show-us-your-papers/

The following is a comment on a political science research paper entitled “Why Do Asian Americans Identify As Democrats? Testing Theories of Social Exclusion and Group Solidarity”.
“One possible reason that Asian-Americans have been such strong supporters of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 is that they perceive more commonalities between themselves and Obama than they do with Obama’s detractors. As the experiment results showed, Asian-Americans who believe that their American citizenship has been questioned are more likely to identify strongly with the Democratic Party. The Birther movement, which promoted conspiracy theories arguing that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, is strongly associated with the Republican Party, and basically nonexistent in the Democratic Party. Since Asian-American tend to be pissed off when their citizenship and their “Americanness” is questioned, the Birther movement could be a major reason why Asian-Americans have strongly supported Barack Obama.”
http://www.quora.com/Why-do-Asian-Americans-tend-to-vote-Democratic

Obama was faced with a huge demographic problem in running for reelection, his own polling data showed that he was going to get smaller percentages of the white vote and the black vote. We now know in hindsight that his white voters totals decreased in 2012 by 4% and his share of the black vote decreased by 2%.
He was able to make up for those decreases with increases in the Latino and Asian American segments of the electorate. In 2012 he increased his share of the Latino vote by 5%(66% to 71%) and his share of the Asian vote by 11% (62%-73%).
In both of those ethnic enclaves Obama successfully used his identification with recent immigrants to his advantage.
We all know that Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky and Rules For Radicals. In that book Alinski advises “take what your opponents think is your weakness and make it your strength.” The Obama campaign never dealt with ineligibility challenges from a defensive position, they used it to attack conservatives as racist, vindictive and unhinged.

This is just more of your leftist trash. It is all speculation: leftists believing what they want to believe.

Btw, how much of Obama’s ‘12 vote was due to fraud? Until the widespread corruption associated with Obama’s ‘victoria’s is exhaustively investigated and analyzed, the leftists’ speculation and daydreams are meaningless.

Oh btw, you do realize this entire post is no more than a riff on the putrid leftist meme that conservatives are racist bigots?

From you I would expect no less.

Of course.
Conservatives didn’t vote for Obama. Explaining and understanding the election and reelection of Obama requires examination of the “riffs on putrid leftist memes.”
The topic under discussion is how the Natural Born Citizen/ineligibility movement might have factored in to those two election outcomes.

You have presented no facts. Shockingly enough ( /s) liberals believe the racist bigotry of conservatives propelled Obama to victory.

Or maybe it was wholesale fraud. There is far more evidence of fraud in the ‘12 election than there is that people voted for Obama bc of questions re: his integrity.

It is a fact that in 2008 Obama got 66% of the Latino vote and 62% of the Asian vote. In 2012, exit polling data showed that he got 71% of the Latino vote and 73% of the Asian vote.
Those aren’t rumors or opinions, they are facts. The other racial/ethnic demographc groups showed less support for Obama in 2012 than in 2008.

You moonbats are just about too much for me. I can only wade so deep into the craziness; after that, I just leave it all to you.

There are two possible explanations for the uptick in south-of-the-border foreign invader votes, and one impossible explanation. First, the actual possibilities.

Far and away the most likely is that The Obama/Soros cheat machine was four yrs worth of work improved over ‘08. For Obama’s first election it was up and running and did yeoman’s work. But practice makes perfect, plus the extra four yrs were not wasted.

A freeper who lives in LA posted just a few days ago how it works. Dem operatives visit EVERY Latino household. Their preference is to get them to vote absentee—a straight Dem ticket, of course. Barring that they either physically haul them to the voting place on the day of the election, making sure the ‘immigrant’ [haha] understands their self-interest in voting ‘D’, or, as the election day winds down, Dem operatives vote the ballots of those Latinos they were otherwise unable to coerce. (But only to the degree that the vote is needed. Once they’ve won the precinct they stop, so as to conserve resources while not making their racket overly obvious. (Though they have been known to cast more votes in some districts than there are registered voters. If it takes 110% to win, then that is how many votes they cast in critical races.))

Option two, dramatically less likely. The ‘immigrant,’ having lived longer in the US, comes to understand the connection between voting Dem and enjoying a never-ending flood of taxpayer largesse. (Immigrants receive ‘gov’ benefits in far greater percentages than homegrown US citizens.) There was just yesterday an article posted about how quickly and irrevocably ‘immigrants’ become addicted to public assistance. Once addicted, they will do whatever is required to keep the spigot flowing. Thus, an uptick in Latino votes for the Welfare Party.

Now, to the possibility that never happened. In the perfervid, unmoored-from-reality mind of the moonbat, there was a Latino who was neither contacted by a Dem opperative nor aware that amnesty and a cornucopia of other goodies stood a far greater likelihood under Obama than under the guy who had written off 47% of the electorate—i.e.: the part our ‘immigrant’ belonged to. So with no bias of any kind, this innocent Latino just happegned to be paying very close attention to the election.

And what do you think happened next? Why, he heard that Trump—not Boehner, not McConnell, not the RNC, not the House, not the Senate, but Trump—challenged Obama re: his BC. The nerve!!

And so upset was this innocent Latino that then and there he vowed to vote for Obama. It was his big chance to get even, and man oh man was he jumping on it!

Sorry, Nero Germanicus, but you have to be borderline psychotic to believe that’s what happened. [Which, it just occured to me, goes far in explaining why moonbats believe it.] It is all a figment of mentally skewed obot adult-children. They finally gave up on the tooth fairy, but they still believe Latinos so worship Obama that they would surge to the polling places to avenge The Won’s honor. It’s too delusional for words.

But as I said before, you go right on believing it. Wouldn’t want the splodey head syndrome to set in, if you actually attempted to divorce yourself from the obots’ favorite fairytale.

Now that Fantasywriter has shared a point of view on Latino support for Obama, I’d be most interested in an explanation of the Asian-American vote for Obama going from 62% in 2008 to 73% in 2012.

Of the racial groups in the U.S. Asian Americans have: the highest median household income ($66,000 vs $49,800 for the U.S. as a whole), the lowest rate of welfare dependence (2.4% of persons on welfare are Asians vs.15.7% are Latino), the highest rate of educational attainment (61% of Asians have at least a Bachelor’s degree compared to 41% for whites and 22% for blacks), the lowest divorce rate (22% for Asians vs. 40% for whites), the highest marriage rate (59% vs. 51% for all Americans), the lowest unwed mother rate (16% vs. 72% for blacks) and the lowest unemployment rate (4.4% for Asians vs. 4.7% for whites).
And yet Asans were second only to blacks in their support for Obama among racial and ethnic groups.

Please stop bring SO overt about your liberalism. You’ve already demonstrated a hundred times over that you are far left lib; no need to strain yourself making the point again and again and again.

‘While liberals love to pile massive groups into an undifferentiated pile based on race or skin color, such a strategy is racist and ignorant. Much has been made of the Asian-American vote coming out for Obama. But Asian-Americans consist of a variety of groups, many of whom have nothing in common except regional distribution. They are not a race, because any number of non-Asians are also classified as Asian-Americans, including Bangladeshi Muslims.

So what did account for the Asian category vote shift toward Obama? One answer may be that two groups, Chinese and Indians, that Republicans perform badly with, increased as a larger share of the Asian electorate.

Republicans poll very badly with Chinese and Indians in the United States. Chinese and Indians are currently the largest two groups of registered Asian voters in the country. Republicans do better with Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino voters who are the next three largest groups. But this is more than offset by how badly Republicans do with Chinese and Indian voters.

In the last decade, the Chinese population increased by a million. The Indian population increased by over a million. The Filipino population increased by 700,000. The Korean populated by 400,00. The Democrats may not have increased their popularity among Asian voters, as much as the proportion of the Asian vote that Democrats are already popular with increased.’

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/166221/did-gop-lose-asian-american-vote-or-chinese-and-daniel-greenfield

bring = being

Or one can as well postulate that the change is driven simply by recognition of the change in government -- that "citizen" became the more precise, more appropriate term.

That is not your argument. Your argument is that the meaning and character is precisely the same, and that the nature of both derive from English Common Law. That there is no actual difference between them, and that it was just merely a whim to start using the term "citizen" and to eschew using the term "subject."

In other words, your argument is that between them there is a distinction without a difference.

Given that such is the view espoused by the legal commentators and SCOTUS, your simply repeating "but I can come up with another reason" gets you nowhere.

This is where you and I differ in methodology. I do not believe something merely because people unconnected to the events express an opinion. I care not what the opinions of "experts" happens to be, because I see this as the fallacy of false authority. We have seen numerous examples throughout history where the legal "experts" are just dead wrong, the latest example being "Obergefell v. Hodges".

Unless they have first hand personal knowledge regarding the events in question, or some reasonable connection to the same, their opinion is just an opinion, and may very well be wrong. I also believe that many later day "experts" deliberately steered the nature of "citizen" towards English Common law because they had an agenda, and not because it happens to be true.

In any case, "citizen" by no means necessarily signifies jus sanguinis. See explanation above.

You have not demonstrated this. There is more evidentiary support for the claim that it does than there is for the claim that it doesn't.

I'll agree here. Prior to 1787 there is a several hundred year usage in English of "natural born" having the meaning "having the nature or characteristic at birth." And there are documented instances between 1776 and 1787 of "nbs" and "nbc" being used in interchangeable fashion.

"Natural Born" is an adjective in this context for both "Subject" and for "Citizen", which are the nouns. The distinction in character is dependent upon the meaning of those, not on the modifier "natural born." As for interchangeability in public records, the usage of the term "citizen" does not appear to have began before 1776, where it slowly replaced the word "Subject" thereafter.

Again, the original "default" was "subject." It is foolish to believe they deliberately changed the word unless they intended to signify a change in the character described. Changing it without purpose does not make sense. Everyone was already accustomed to using the word "Subject."

This is stupid. The Declaration is a litany of Colonists' grievances that their common law rights were unjustly being denied.

And their solution to this problem was to break from the Common Law principle of perpetual allegiance to the King. To deliberately reject the "Divine Right" based principles of the Common law, chief among them being the feudal nature of land based allegiance to the liege lord. The principle that the soil ties subjects in a perpetual bond to the Lord on who's land they were born. In effect, a form of Ownership of people.

That "Divine Right" concept already had been tossed aside by the English when they executed Charles I. That was his argument. It failed rather spectacularly. Which means you need a better one, too.

Oh, didn't you hear? They put it back after Cromwell died.

Strawman alert. I never said he had no significance. To the contrary. My point is that his absence from the Federalist Papers and relatively fewer references elsewhere greatly weaken your argument that Vattel was just SO preeminent that it points to him as the foundation of the Article II citizenship terms.

Strawman alert yourself. You substitute the Constitution as the document most closely related with citizenship, when this is in fact incorrect. By 1787, the meaning was already defined. Citizenship was created by the Declaration, and *THAT* was heavily influenced by Vattel.

Yes, but here you're intimating the Vattel-birther conceit that "natural law foundation" means "from Vattel." This extraordinarily stupid example of selective sampling and tunnel-vision should have ended long ago.

Yeah, except for the Fact that Thomas Jefferson's copy of Vattel is littered with notes on the Declaration in the margins. That the very notion of States forming a Republic of "perpetual union" is right out of the pages of Droit des Gens.

There were MANY influential writers who discussed natural law. Burlamaqui wrote a treatise on it. And as my prior post notes, he was the first to speak of man's happiness being the end of the natural state.

Burlamaqui was also Swiss, and he had a few things to say on this topic.

And this:

Locke wrote on it. Blackstone wrote on it. Here, chew on this one, Chief. Blackstone's View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Sure, but the most influential was Vattel.

The fourth of the Four Horsemen of American liberty is Emmerich de Vattel. Although last in this list of forgotten influences, it can be claimed, without exaggeration, that it is Vattel’s interpretations and writings on the subject of the proper constitution of government that was most influential on the Founders of the American Republic. As a matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson, indisputably one of the lead framers of our nation’s government, ranked Vattel’s seminal The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law as highly as similar treatises by Grotius and Pufendorf. Further proof of Vattel’s impression on the Founders is the fact that Vattel’s interpretations of the law of nature were cited more frequently than any other writer’s on international law in cases heard in the courts of the early United States, and The Law of Nations was the primary textbook on the subject in use in American universities.

This whole schpiel smacks of "Methinks the DumbDumb doth protest too much." You've rarely exhibited the talent to think even one step ahead. I seriously doubt you planned this one.

I will admit to usually not bothering to take you seriously. One does not normally spend a lot of time trying to out think someone whom they regard as a clown. I am actually responding to you mostly because I find many of the other topics being discussed as rather boring.

As I have mentioned before, this topic was discussed ad infinitum before you ever showed up, and the time for you to have gotten a good fight was back when the topic was fresh and I could remember where I put the salient bookmarks. If it looks like I am half-assing it, that's because I am. You just take yourself too seriously while the rest of us don't.

Story lays out that under the general common law rule, birth in the realm suffices to make one a citizen, irrespective of the citizenship (ultimate allegiance ) of the father.

Yes, and then he points out the exception which renders the "general rule" of null effect, and oddly enough it depends on the allegiance of the parents. Whoda thunk?

If he was born after 15 September, 1776, and his parents did not elect to become members of the State of New York, but adhered to their native allegiance at the time of his birth, then he was born a British subject.

Yes, a deliberate contradiction to the "general rule." Madison et al, also had these contradictions to the general rule. That is why people need to quit thinking the general rule is the only criteria.

Oh, and while we're discussing Joseph Story, I will point out that he wasn't a Delegate to the Convention, or a member of a Ratifying legislature, so I don't consider him a primary source anyways. I regard him as one of those "authorities" that deliberately tried to steer "natural born citizen" into English Common Law because he had the same agenda as others who attempted to do this.

That is not your argument.

Sheesh. Why not just hang a sign saying "I'm here employing the straw man argument fallacy." I think I know what my argument is, thank you.

Your argument is that the meaning and character is precisely the same,

No. I've not said that.

and that the nature of both derive from English Common Law.

I've not said that either.

That there is no actual difference between them,

I've not said that either.

and that it was just merely a whim to start using the term "citizen" and to eschew using the term "subject."

Nope, not that either. You've now run the table with 4 straight mischaracterizations. Great job.

What I've said is 1) that "citizen" is the term matched with the republican form of government (terms which originate outside the common law as England had not operated as a republic); 2) that "subject" often continued to be used after 1776 without those using it seeing any inherent discordance between a person being termed a "subject" within the now-recognized republican government; and 3) that the relationship between person and sovereign was seen as being transferred from the English king to the new sovereign as the King's successor.

The latter is illustrated by both James Madison and the court opinion in Ainslee v. Martin.

It was a relational distinction. I've not read anything by anyone contemporary to support your "change of character" distinction.

In other words, your argument is that between them there is a distinction without a difference.

The relationship has changed. But as to the rule by which that relationship was established by birth, you are correct: both subjecthood and citizenship were established by birth within the allegiance of the sovereign, King or Republic, as the case may be. There was no distinction made on that point.

This is where you and I differ in methodology. I do not believe something merely because people unconnected to the events express an opinion.

Yes, your methodology is to presume you want want the answer to be, then force-fit and elevate anything that seems to support your pre-determined answer, while categorically rejecting anything that is contrary. As I said two years ago, yours is a methodology shot-through with projection.

I care not what the opinions of "experts" happens to be, because I see this as the fallacy of false authority.

The only fallacy operative here is your misapplication of that fallacy. Persons speaking within the field of their expertise is NOT an instance of "false authority." That the great weight of historical and legal commentary on a point of history and Constitutional law is arrayed against you is simple fact. Your "fallacy of false authority" bit is something you've simply pulled out of your tushy to try to deny that fact.

We have seen numerous examples throughout history where the legal "experts" are just dead wrong, the latest example being "Obergefell v. Hodges".

With Wong Kim Ark one can demonstrate how the reasoning and precedent can be traced back through the 39th Congress, back through Lynch v. Clarke, back further through Justice Story, Rawle, Kent, and Tucker, and no later than Swift 8 years after the Constitution. Plus, add in the linguistic analysis (the interchangeable usage of "NBS" and "NBC") and it can be traced back to 1776.

The same cannot be said for Obergefell. Again, your silly methodology whenever you get faced with a SCOTUS opinion you don't like is to look around for some other one and proclaim on that basis you don't have to address it. Oh, but if you happen to find one that you think supports you (e.g., Minor v. Happersett) then suddenly for that instance the SCOTUS is credible.

Your M.O. boils down to: "If it supports me, then it's a true authority. If it doesn't, it's a false authority." Yours is a methodology that is persuasive to you, but to no one who actually has a knowledge of the topic.

Unless they have first hand personal knowledge regarding the events in question, or some reasonable connection to the same, their opinion is just an opinion, and may very well be wrong.

As I've pointed out, you've got no one was actually in attendance in Philadelphia who directly supports your view. All you've got is a bunch of imagined support which doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny. Plus, you do things like discount Wm. Rawle (who was appointed directly by G. Washington) but get all gushy over the obscure Samuel Roberts (who can only be traced to Washington via an intermediary (Lewis)). It's a silly, result-driven methodology you employ.

You have not demonstrated this.

But I have. "Does not necessarily signify" simply requires me to identify an instance where "citizen" didn't come with a jus sanguinis rule attached to it. And I've demonstrated that in France. And, mind you, this isn't in context just some obscure counter-example; it happens to be the nation that - apart from England - was the best known to the Founders and Framers.

There is more evidentiary support for the claim that it does than there is for the claim that it doesn't.

Assertion without argument. Another of your tried methodologies. But, do tell, apart from the hagiographiy that you and others attempt to create as to Vattel, what is that "evidentiary support?" I predict here is yet another example of your selective sampling technique at work.

"Natural Born" is an adjective in this context for both "Subject" and for "Citizen", which are the nouns. The distinction in character is dependent upon the meaning of those, not on the modifier "natural born."

But the modifier has a meaning, and that meaning goes to the heart of the question "what it required to be a 'natural born citizen?' -- Does it suffice that one is born here and a citizen at birth? Or does it require some characteristic of the father (parents)?" As, as I've asserted, "natural born" in English usage (then as today) simply conveyed the meaning "having that nature or characteristic at birth" without any sense of "partaking of the nature or character of the father." To be a "natural born athlete" doesn't require the father have had great athletic talent. To be a "natural born citizen" didn't (and doesn't) require the father to have been a citizen.

You can hop up and down all day that you think there's some great character distinction between "subject" and "citizen." But that is just to evade the question whether to be a "natural born" subject or citizen required that the father have been a subject or citizen at that moment. The ansswer is "no." "Natural born" in English usage does NOT convey the meaning "of like parent(s)." It's fatuous to assert that the Framers utilized that modifier, intending a meaning which it hadn't had up to that point, and that they did so without any discussion among themselves or explanation for others.

Oh, didn't you hear? They put it back after Cromwell died.

LOL. And 30 years after Cromwell died, the English parliamentarians tossed out James II. It seems they missed another of your historical memos (along with Washington, Adams, etc., who didn't learn that we didn't have a "Revolution).

And what happened that next year? Oh, right, England passed the "Bill of Rights of 1689," the document that granted to English subjects things like protection against "cruel and unusual punishment," that taxes could be levied only by the legislative branch (Parliament), the people's right to petition, etc. Gosh, does this sound familiar? Do you think this was an inspiration for our Founders and Framers? Just maybe? :)

You substitute the Constitution as the document most closely related with citizenship, when this is in fact incorrect.

Rather, I correctly point to the Constitution as the document using the term "natural born citizen," and I correctly keep sight that it's that term that bears on the eligibility question that has been the topic of most of these threads.

Citizenship was created by the Declaration, and *THAT* was heavily influenced by Vattel.

The Declaration was influenced by many things and many writers. That Jefferson first penned "subject" in his draft suggests, does it not, that he may have had someone like Blackstone's writings open at the time? Again, see, Blackstone's View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Or maybe in waxing lyrical about liberty, Jefferson then had another Englishman in view, John Locke. Remember this?

"Thomas Jefferson ranked Locke, along with Locke’s compatriot Algernon Sidney, as the most important thinkers on liberty."

Oh, wait. Silly me. Of course you don't remember. Your M.O. is to ignore anything that might interfere with your careful sampling of sources so you can pretend only Vattel was influential.

Burlamaqui was also Swiss, and he had a few things to say on this topic.

And he was the first to speak of happiness being the rightful end of man's natural state. But, in your "it can only be about Vattel" tunnel-vision view of history, that escapes notice.

But on this other thing he said you highlight:

XIII. Subjects are sometimes called cives, or members of the civil state; some indeed make no distinction between these two terms, but I think it is better to distinguish them. The appellation of civis ought to be understood only of those, who share in all the advantages and privileges of the association, and who are properly members of the state either by birth, or in some other manner.

"Civis" is the Latin word for "citizen." And Burlamaqui notes that "civis" and "subject" are often used without distinction!. And he notes the primary source of "cives" is "by birth" (and I see no reference to "father" or "parent" anywhere here).

This is but further proof there is hardly an historical source you can't misread.

Sure, but the most influential was Vattel.

And your source here is one that starts out by acknowledging that the authors I've been saying were hugely influential are widely recognized as having been hugely influential:

There are many illustrious names whose books and treatises were read and assimilated by our Founding Fathers. Some of those influences are still well known, and their names and their ideas (or at least a vague notion of their ideas) are still heard in lectures on government (Locke and Montesquieu, for example).

And then the author goes on to list 4 "forgotten" writers, listing Vattel 4th out of those four (after first discussing Sidney and Burlamaqui). And that "Jefferson "ranked Vattel’s seminal The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law as highly as similar treatises by Grotius and Pufendorf."

Well, duh, "ranked as highly as similar treatises" is a far cry from saying Vattel influenced Jefferson well above-and-beyond any other writer. Again, you see in a source only that which you wish to see and on top of that misread it to say more than it actually does.

If it looks like I am half-assing it, that's because I am.

Oh, you were just as stupid then as now. Back "then" was when you were making idiotic comments like "[Wong Kim Ark] never uses the term 'Natural Born Citizen.'" My not being around back then just means that my list of incompetent things you've said and argued is shorter than it might otherwise have been.

You just take yourself too seriously while the rest of us don't.

Who are "the rest of us?" If you haven't noticed, your "father citizen" (or "citizen parent") rule for "natural born citizen" has largely been dismissed on this Forum as being nonsense. You really are getting delusional -- both as to the alleged historical support you think you see as well as the support which your view currently holds.

Yes, and then he points out the exception which renders the "general rule" of null effect,

And this comment is just as silly as saying WKA never uses the term NBC.

There are rules. And there are recognized exceptions to those rules. But in your silly mind you look at the stated exception and draw the erroneous conclusion that there was no general rule to start. Nonsense.

Yes, a deliberate contradiction to the "general rule."

Nope. You still have no clue why the September 15, 1776, date is significant to Justice Story (nor why, since the circumstances of that date no longer exist, the exception to the general rule no longer applies either).

Do you need me to explain it to you this time?

Oh, and while we're discussing Joseph Story, I will point out that he wasn't a Delegate to the Convention, or a member of a Ratifying legislature, so I don't consider him a primary source anyways. I regard him as one of those "authorities" that deliberately tried to steer "natural born citizen" into English Common Law because he had the same agenda as others who attempted to do this.

Oh, you are too funny. It was barely a week ago that you were hauling out Justice Story, proclaiming " Nope, that was settled 11 years earlier, according to Justice Joseph Story." So Story has gone from a recognized authority who had "settled" a point under discussion to someone who really isn't much of an authority.

It's flip-flops and inconsistencies like this that make you so easy to mock.

Finally, while not directly on-topic, this does tie into your argument. You say of Vattel: "That the very notion of States forming a Republic of "perpetual union" is right out of the pages of Droit des Gens." So question: if this from Vattel provided the political theory for our Union, does the "perpetual union" mean that Southern state secession in 1861 was ultra vires ("illicit" to use another term)? I suspect that this is another point that you'll prove to be grossly inconsistent.

Boring day, so I decided to take a look at what you wrote. Got all the way to here before I saw anything to which I felt like commenting.

As I've pointed out, you've got no one was actually in attendance in Philadelphia who directly supports your view.

Ah, but I do. It just isn't worth the trouble of sharing it with you though. I tried once, but you wouldn't shut the f*** up long enough for me to show it to you.

Now, I don't see any point whatsoever in showing you evidence against your position. You simply do not care what evidence is brought forth. You will cite some later court decision from people who weren't there, and smugly believe you have trumped the point.

You are a fanatic that can't be swayed, and really doesn't want to see any contrary evidence. Here's an example of what I mean.

Plus, you do things like discount Wm. Rawle (who was appointed directly by G. Washington) but get all gushy over the obscure Samuel Roberts (who can only be traced to Washington via an intermediary (Lewis)).

Who was appointed to, and occupied the exact same position PRIOR to William Rawle, who was a State convention Delegate, and who was Samuel Roberts only source of Legal training, meaning Roberts got it from the Horses' mouth.

Apart from that, you deliberately LIE by omitting the fact that Samuel Roberts merely wrote up the opinion of the ENTIRE F*CKING SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA, but you insist on characterizing it as "His" opinion.

You keep focusing on Samuel Roberts, because you realize that there is no f***ing way you can discount the opinion of the ENTIRE F*CKING SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

You ignore the fact that there is no way that Robert's could have published that book, and indeed, a second edition, if it had not been true. Do you think the ENTIRE F*CKING SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA would let it stand if it did not reflect their opinion? Their names are affixed to that book.

And here are their names.

Do you really believe that Roberts could attribute to them such an assertion that US Citizenship is based on Vattel were it not regarded by those men as true? Your assertion would seem contingent upon the premise that the Most powerful and most learned legal experts of that time period don't know how to sue for false claims.

For what it's worth, i've got statements and history from some of those men that confirm this is their position, but again, you are such a mouth it is pointless to bother looking them up to show you.

What you don't ever seem to grasp is the concept that were your claim true, there would be no contrary evidence against your position.

The fact that much contrary evidence against your position exists, is a very good piece of proof that your claim is just wrong. Again, if it were correct, there wouldn't be any contrary evidence, let alone so much of it.

I'm not going to read the rest of what you wrote. It is not worth while to try to reason with a fanatic.

Got all the way to here before I saw anything to which I felt like commenting.

Right. The ol' "I'll just cherry-pick the one point I think I can answer and skip the rest" technique. It's one I've encountered often.

I tried once, but you wouldn't shut the f*** up long enough for me to show it to you.

LOL. You act like this is some verbal debate or a Sunday morning talk show and I'm not giving you a chance to be heard. How is it that I'm impeding you from showing your supposed "evidence" when you're working in the quiet sitting at a computer?

Now, I don't see any point whatsoever in showing you evidence against your position.

Since you don't have such evidence, this is but more of your silly posturing.

You've been at this topic incessantly (or should I say "fanatically") for many years now. You've yet to show this other, "secret evidence" to anyone on any thread. You rail against the current state of "anchor babies" and "birth tourism," but at the same time you're just going to sit on this historical evidence that shows that the legal understanding went off-kilter very early on? Really? That's your posture here?

This "father-citizen" argument you make has trended very much against you on this Forum. You don't think you'll persuade me, but why not try to persuade others?

The simpler explanation remains that you don't have this "other evidence."

Apart from that, you deliberately LIE by omitting the fact that Samuel Roberts merely wrote up the opinion of the ENTIRE F*CKING SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA, but you insist on characterizing it as "His" opinion.

He was the author. It is referred to as the "Digest of Judge Roberts" (see Preface to Second Edition). They approved it and submitted it to the Legislature as their collective report.

But even they are careful to note the deference to which their report is to be given:

"The Report which [the judges] have submitted, is, doubtless, entitled to high respect and consideration, as containing the opinions of men who rank in the highest grade of the Profession, and in the public confidence; but it ought to be carefully distinguished from a JUDICIAL DECISION, of the character of which is does not partake.
The distinguished characters who have made the Report, it is confidently presumed, would not wish that it should be so considered; but on the contrary, that whenever the question comes judicially before them, whether a particular English Statute, or any part of it, is or is not in force in Pennsylvania, they will hear without prejudice whatever may be urged on either side[.]" (Preface to First Edition, viii).

The preface then goes on for another few paragraphs as to why the Report is essentially obiter dicta.

Which leads me back to your earlier comment:

You will cite some later court decision from people who weren't there, and smugly believe you have trumped the point.

Yes, I will! Because even the Judges you're citing to say the same thing -- a later decision trumps our opinion here!!

In any event, it's a book about which English Statutes remain in force in the State of Pennsylvania; questions on citizenship which don't hinge on statutory construction are outside the scope of the project. Commentary on the later point is obiter dicta (within a book the authors characterize as being entirely obiter dicta). When William Rawle later pens his "A View of the Constitution," he's writing from the federal/Constitutional -- not state law -- perspective. And in writing on citizenship from that perspective, Rawle was not bound in any sense by what Roberts wrote, but was free (and no doubt did) take account of the more prevalent jus soli expressed by others.

Your "Rawle deliberately lied" point is another of your Sacred Cows that is getting eaten.

Do you really believe that Roberts could attribute to them such an assertion that US Citizenship is based on Vattel were it not regarded by those men as true?

I accept they didn't see cause to challenge that point. But the point is outside the objective of the Report (i.e., to indicate to the legislature what English statutes they believe remain in effect), so I can also see that it was the sort of tangential point that one doesn't necessarily address in giving comments/revisions lest the process drag on forever. And the only support for the statement given is a footnote with the opinion that adherence to the English rule (which the author then ties to perpetual allegiance) is incompatible with natural liberty. (Compare, by contrast, the far more researched and elaborate discussions in Lynch v. Clarke and Wong Kim Ark.)

The fact that much contrary evidence against your position exists, is a very good piece of proof that your claim is just wrong.

Do you accept the reciprocal premise --that the fact that much contrary evidence against YOUR position exists is a very good piece of proof that YOUR claim is just wrong? Or in your illogical mind does this point operate only unilaterally?

I've never claimed the jus soli view was exclusive. (Justice Waite didn't; I see no reason to). What I claim is that that view commands the preponderance of the evidence in support. The 39th Congress believed so. As did the SCOTUS.

Again, if it were correct, there wouldn't be any contrary evidence, let alone so much of it.

This statement is simply ridiculous. By that reasoning NO point of view on any disputed matter could ever be deemed "correct" simply by virtue of someone holding a contrary opinion. Truth and the process of resolving a dispute don't operate by the Black Ball system.

And your assertion of "much" contrary evidence remains disputed. Apart from Roberts, the ambiguous McClure "case" (where resolution was attained by James Monroe sending a letter simply stating McClure was a citizen born in South Carolina with no mention of his father's status), and a bunch of your misreads (Otis, Story) and over-reads (Marshall, B. Washington, Waite), you don't have much of anything.

Oh, right, you still have that "super-secret, other" evidence.

Right. The ol' "I'll just cherry-pick the one point I think I can answer and skip the rest" technique. It's one I've encountered often.

And now I'll just skip reading anything further from you. I Don't need to read crap from an ignorant shithead who thinks he's smart. You've been spanked. Get over it.

And now I'll just skip reading anything further from you.

Well, gosh, the last time you pulled one of your little "I'm no longer paying attention to you" tantrums, it lasted all of about 20 minutes. How long do you figure this one (which is now about the 11th time you've done this rant) will last?

I'm starting a betting pool. The early money is coming heavily in on "till DumbDumb notices my post on the 'Cruz: Excluding Muslims . . .'" thread.

You've been spanked.

Only in your silly mind where acting like a 4 year old going "nyeh, nyeh, I'm not listening" and "I've got secret evidence, but I'm not going to show you" is considered as "spanking" me.

But, again, this is a repeating pattern: you make the claim of triumphing; I challenge you to identify a SINGLE point of fact I've been wrong about, a SINGLE argument of yours I've ignored, or a SINGLE point in contention that you've demonstrated the superior claim; and you fail completely. That's with 2 years of history on this topic. Clearly, it's frustrating you. It shows in your periodic rants.

When one has actually spanked the other in debate, then one can do a post in summation like this. I can (and have). You can't (and never will).