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To: little jeremiah
Since you are apparently keeping an open mind, I will say "Fair enough." But there is no basis for the three types of citizen you describe. If you are a citizen then either you are born a citizen, or you are naturalized to become a citizen, right? No other mechanism exists in the Constitution. And no further subdivision of either of these two types exists in the COTUS unless you try to apply some special undocumented meaning to 'natural born.' All of the rights and privileges of citizenship belong to all citizens regardless of where or how that citizenship was acquired, with the sole exception of the ability to become President which is reserved to 'natural born' citizens. With this one exception, why bother to distinguish between citizens of any type when discussing said rights and privileges? The COTUS, in fact, does not. It uses the term 'Citizens' in every other place where it discusses citizens of any type, excepting only Article II where the qualifications for President are spelled out. This also applies to Amendments, specifically the 14th, where it describes who is a citizen, but does not subdivide 'born' citizens into any subcategories.

There have been any number of claims as to the intent of the FFs regarding 'natural born' status, but there has been no example cited of any discussion of the meaning of the phrase by FFs where they provided a definition other than the one found in the dictionary, which has been demonstrated to predate the COTUS by some two centuries (Random House Unabridged Dictionary: 1575-1585, Oxford English Dictionary: 1583) at least. So, either there is some other definition than the dictionary definition which the FFs agreed to by consensus without ever debating or discussing it, or they actually meant the dictionary definition. Incidentally, Oxford cites Blackstone as a source for its definition, so I dare say that the definition favored by Blackstone is the same one as found in the Oxford English Dictionary which agrees with the 'citizen at birth' definition cited. Therefore, all Article II says about it is that the President must have been a citizen at birth.

259 posted on 12/24/2008 1:07:05 AM PST by calenel (The Democratic Party is a Criminal Enterprise. It is the Socialist Mafia.)
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