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To: STARWISE
"It’s only logical to one reviewing the history and their incredible suffering, death and sacrifice in establishing this momentous undertaking, that at the minimum of what they could control and devise, they set out to make certain that their descendants of future leaders of this new nation were to be those with, among other established common sense standards, incontrovertably confirmed citizenship data and familial origins and roots, thereby assuring the most optimum chance of sole allegiance to America with no hint of loyalty to another nation...."

"Would you agree this was their intent, incorporated as much as possible in the official documents of the time?"

No, I wouldn't. There's no mention of documentation requirements, let alone "incontrovertably confirmed" ones. Nothing about "familial origins and roots". You can't just make this stuff up.

Regarding the "no hint of loyalty to another nation", I've already covered that. You can't make a law about what someone feels inside. That's what you are expecting.

The founders didn't have such an expectation. Their intent, *motivated* by their desire to limit divided loyalty, was to create the reasonable rule that the President be born a citizen. In effect, barring immigrants who come here from another country and become naturalized.

1,593 posted on 10/12/2009 6:42:19 AM PDT by mlo
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To: mlo
"Their intent, *motivated* by their desire to limit divided loyalty, was to create the reasonable rule that the President be born a citizen."

Thinking about it, it might be helpful to focus on the two words, "motivation" and "intent". They are different things.

I see a lot of posts about what the founders thought, what goal they were aiming for, etc. This is "motivation". It is the impetus for their action.

"Intent" means, what did they believe their words meant?

"Motivation" is the reason they chose to do something. "Intent" is the thing they chose to do. In this case we are talking about some very abstract "motivation". Guarding against divided loyalties. But those abstractions have to be translated into a real action. You can't write a law against "divided loyalties". So they translated that motiviation into the "intent" of barring immigrants from the Presidency, as expressed by the words "natural born citizen".

You may believe their effort was inadequate. You are entitled to that opinion. But it's a mistake to confuse their "intent" behind the written words of the constitution, with their "motiviation" for wanting to write something in there.

1,596 posted on 10/12/2009 7:11:54 AM PDT by mlo
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