Posted on 01/11/2016 3:03:26 PM PST by Kaslin
I have seen Freeper posts alleging that since "citizens" is plural, the phrase should be interpreted to mean that BOTH parents must be citizens. This seems to me to be incorrect, since a single citizen parent can convey citizenship to his or her child. "Citizens" just defines the group to which at least one parent must belong.
Right?
You’re just going by the article but it’s wrong. John Jay wrote that this was the interpretation per his amendment. The liberals on the Court will go originalist to elect a Democrat and just change or break the law later.
Gotta think that Constitutional expert Cruz, has the facts on his side with this issue.
Personally, I think it should take both parents having many years of residency in the US under their belts as well as the child born, a requirement on having grown up in the US, but that's me. Pretty obviously, the spirit of the thing is to prevent a foreigner from becoming president. Cruz is as American as apple pie. It's as simple as that.
It is settled. Enjoy your trip to fantasy island. I’m not going with you.
Why the sarcasm toward dynoman?
He merely stated what a number of us also believe.
If Cruz is NBC, so is Obama.
My point is if Cruz is, so is Obama. If Obama wasn’t, neither is Cruz. Obama actually is one step closer because he was born in the US. Cruz wasn’t. Both their mothers were citizens, both their fathers were not.
Shack!
Thank you for apologizing. I have not yet decided on who gets my vote. I admire Ted Cruz, and respect his intelligence and integrity.
I am unsure about D. Trump, but understand why he is attracting so much support. Most of us are fed up with “business as usual” in D.C.
To be totally honest, I am very disillusioned and unsure about this entire mud mess of the election this year. I have been holding my nose and voting so many times now, and hate to think I will have to do it again.
All I want is some clarity, and the issue isn’t Ted Cruz, but it is the ambiguous circumstance of his “natural born” status. I want that clarified, or else any one born of an American mother and a foreign father cannot be challenged in the future.
That bothers me - the idea that “with world wide travel” any one born of a foreign father and American mother is eligible, no matter what the beliefs and loyalties of the father might be.
As an example -check the current occupant of the highest office in our land. It has nothing to do with the honorable Mr. Cruz, but with our incredible experiment and how easily it could be destroyed by those with an ulterior motive.
I tend to think about issues, not personalities.
The issue here, as far as I am concerned, is whether or not one is authentically American. Cruz is.
Obama's scenario was very different. Same issue, different circumstances.
Like you, I focus less on personalities and more on issues. This particular issue is settled, for me. As for my main goal of advancing limited government conservatism with foundation in Christian values -- the very precise values that guided this nation's founders -- Ted Cruz fits that bill about as well as I could ask.
Trump, on the other hand, makes me cringe. One ends up only thinking in terms of personalities because issues are off the table in any case -- Did you watch the video?
Jacque, as a kid growing up I knew a guy who'd survived the Bataan Death March. When I see that video, Trump so smugly mocking with his "I like people who weren't captured," well ... like I say, it's hard to see beyond personalities with such a despicable display as that in light of the many other ways one could have dismissed McCain for the traitorous louse he was and is. But instead, Trump went for insulting a warrior's loss. Grrrr.
I was swayed by that argument until I found out more about the statutory history. A simple thought experiment shows how it legally works: Imagine a pregnant woman is called to fly to Tokyo over the weekend and delivers while she is there. She flies home with HER child and raises it to adulthood. Seems a pretty simple matter, but in reality it is not.
Consider Obama's case. He was raised for much of his childhood in Indonesia. My understanding is that his claimed for him foreign citizenship at that time. Such is entirely another case despite the citizenship of his parent. So it does get fuzzy.
So if it were up to me to clarify the situation, I would add the caveat that the child must not at any time have renounced American citizenship or claimed nationality to any other country. Even there one wonders if Cruz' parents ever claimed Canadian citizenship. As the law stands, I think it's pretty clear that Cruz qualifies, but I'd like to see better distinctions drawn, particularly when so many Americans work abroad.
Certainly the Dems will use the issue if Ted wins the primary.
At the least, Ted better familiarize himself with the relevant laws and history, and with all the arguments.
My uncle, my mom’s beloved little brother, was the second wave to hit the beach in Iwo Jima. He was only 17 years old, and never recovered. He committed suicide in his early 40s, leaving two little boys and his wife to carry on.
Both of my sons have been in harm’s way. Both came very close to the ultimate sacrifice, but both were fortunate, thank the Lord.
I still have not decided, as I said. I get Trump’s “schtick”, and understand what he means by his over the top utterances. Does that mean I will vote for him, not necessarily.
Talk is cheap, and I worry that he has no idea of what he can actually do to get anything meaningful done considering the D.C. culture.
But, given the problems Ted Cruz has with the same cast of characters, what can he actually do to get us back on course?
I don’t see this as a football/soccer game, picking teams, choosing sides, and bashing the opposition. It hurts that Free Republic has come to this.
That is why I said it is a big mud mess we have on our hands - I want to be hopeful, but often feel like I am looking for the pony in a big pile of manure.
When we can’t even agree own what the rule of law means, I am afraid that there is no longer a rule of law. Think about that.
With as long as the birther issue over Xero has been visible, do you really think a lawyer as smart as Cruz wouldn't have already done this?
I don't know. A month ago this seemed a minor issue. I would not blame Ted for failing to give it serious attention until very recently.
Before the 2008 election, Obama was able to ignore conservatives' requests for his long form because the MSM refused to raise the issue.
Ted will not be so lucky.
Yep. As soon as the polls had Trump dropping let the birther move drop and his backers in the media came to the rescue.
Not if he didn't renaturalize after returning from Jakarta to Honolulu. There's evidence he kept his Indonesian passport, used it, and repeatedly identified as an Indonesian citizen, at an age where such a claim of Indonesian citizenship might be construed as an election of citizenship by a dual (my sister faced the same situation; her voting in a Louisiana election made her election for her).
Still sure he's NBC?
.... then he might have decided to await developments before making a newsworthy prayer for judicial relief.
That's almost a megalomaniacal risk to take with his natural constituency. Do you really think that is in his makeup?
He's an attorney and a politician.
I support Ted Cruz, but he's a political lawyer, not Themistocles or Cincinnatus. Not even Patrick Henry .... whom he resembles in other respects.
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