Posted on 03/09/2013 8:04:06 AM PST by Cold Case Posse Supporter
Nice try. But the fact is, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE CREDIBLE CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY, CONSERVATIVE OR OTHERWISE, THAT ADHERES TO YOUR VIEW.
Neither is your view the historical one. It simply isn't.
Jeff's standard allows anchor babies, birth tourism,
That may be. But I don't think anchor babies or birth tourism were problems that the Framers of the Constitution could have foreseen in 1787, since it took weeks for people to get from one country to another.
Again, we are talking about the system the Framers of the Constitution set up. Not the one we might prefer to set up today.
...fails to explain why Indians and Slaves were barred from citizenship, and also fails to explain the Children of British loyalists after the Revolutionary war. (that they were British, not American. In those days you didn't get to chose your allegiance. )
No, it doesn't fail to explain ANY of those things.
Indians were not citizens because they were members of other nations. Indian tribes were regarded as separate nations that we had no control over, just as we had no control over the governments of England or France, and that we made treaties with, just as we made treaties with England and France.
This is pretty elementary. I'm surprised you don't know it.
Slaves were not citizens because they were legally regarded as property, not people. Again, this is pretty elementary and I'm surprised you don't know it.
As for the children of British Loyalists, we dealt with that issue as well. This had nothing to do with the birth of children to immigrants. It had to do with dividing Americans up after the Revolution into US citizens, or British.
The Supreme Court was clear that if a person was born in America before or immediately after the Revolution, he or she had the right to choose American citizenship upon reaching adulthood. If he or she was taken off to England or somewhere as a child by Loyalist parents, and waited a long time and failed to elect to come back to America, then he or she could lose that right by not making the choice as a young adult.
A minority on the Court argued that anyone born on US soil after July 4, 1776, was automatically a US citizen, even if their birth was immediately after than date, and that even in later life they were still US citizens even if they had never come back to America. They also said that NOTHING was better settled in the law than the fact that the children born in a country were citizens of that country, even if their parents were aliens.
So your claim that the COMPLETELY HISTORICAL AND ACCEPTED UNDERSTANDING of natural born citizen fails to account for these various groups of people is simply and completely false. Just like your claim that it ever took two citizen parents for a person to be a natural born citizen.
Well, my goodness, they should have been dual citizens under your understanding, then. Wonder why they weren't? /s
Ah...so you're whistling for help, eh? I think you need it. Your last screed boiled down to just two words; "You're wrong!"
You obviously know how to throw an avalanche of words at someone in a debate, but you've got to work on actually making a case. You haven't done that, so far.
Now, why don't you tell me how your interpretation of NBC is logically superior to mine? Do that, and we may actually start a real conversation.
His definition is also exactly what the Democrats want—and the GOPe are thus eager to provide: both a defilement of the Constitution and an opening for antiAmerican presidents in one fell swoop.
Mr. Rogers, this response is beneath you.
A verification can’t be a signed blank check. Do you acknowledge that? Only what is actually stated as verified is verified.
For instance, a person could take the verification that MDEC received, which says that the information contained in the image at xxx.gov “matches” the information contained in the real record, alter the content at xxx.gov to say that Obama was born to Mickey and Minnie Mouse - and argue to a judge using the argument that because a verification of anything is a verification of everything, blank-check fashion, Onaka just verified that Obama was born to Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Would you agree that this is NOT what the statute allows to happen?
Nowhere are the CORE facts stated as verified: male, Aug 4, 1961, Oahu, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Barack Hussein Obama. Honolulu is mentioned but not verified. It is only said that the BC “indicates” (which in legal language means “claims”) Obama was born in HI. IOW, he’s just saying what the BC says. But if the BC was legally valid all those other facts would have to be verified, and they’re not.
Why weren’t they? What lawful reason allows for Onaka to leave those specific items unverified?
Here is another one of your overreaching statements. I know for a fact that you haven't read everything i've had to say on this because I have argued this topic on half a dozen other websites, none of which I recall having seen you.
Given the care you have taken in making such an overreaching claim, why should we take you seriously about what you claim to have read? The Wise man doubts, the fools is certain.
I've read your stuff and the stuff written by just about everyone else out there.
No you haven't. All you are doing here is damaging your credibility.
I've weighed the arguments on both sides. And yours fall flat, again and again.
You went in with that opinion, so it is no surprise you emerge with that opinion.
And the odd thing is, no matter how many times you're shown the falsehoods and flaws, you simply won't give up your falsehood.
You presume to think that you have EVER demonstrated that my argument has a falsehood or flaw about it. That demonstration exists only in your mind. Certainly no one with objectivity is aware of it.
One can quote a very strong and crystal clear authority like Rawle, who was friends both with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and do you listen?
Rawles is not the only authority. He is not even the most knowledgeable authority. I would say that honor belongs to Dr. David Ramsey who was a historian and in the thick of it.
No. Instead, you insult this friend of Washington and Franklin by falsely accusing him of having supported the British during the war.
By clinging with both fists to false doctrine regarding the Constitution, so hard that you will turn on and insult early American experts like Rawle, you are an enemy not only of William Rawle, but also of his friends George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and of the Constitution they gave us.
Now you have turned to hyperbole.
I withdraw the claim that for you to make the point is "despicable." There is indeed some evidence to suggest that Rawle may have been a Loyalist as a teenager. But it is clear that, IF SO, he rejected that and became a loyal US citizen.
How long did it take to learn English law back then? Two years would seem adequate to me.
Regardless, do you know what the universal and essential training of AMERICAN lawyers was, before, during and for perhaps 100 years after Independence?
It was English law.
You might think a man is known by his associates, but Judas kept excellent company. That Rawle had hung around with luminaries does not mean he knows what they had decided in 1787.
Really? Because HE WAS THERE. He was in PHILADELPHIA, throughout the Constitutional Convention, and he is KNOWN to have met with both Franklin and Washington in Ben Franklin's home in Philadelphia in the months before the Convention.
In fact, they had ongoing meetings, so it's almost certain that he continued in close company with them AFTER the Constitutional Convention.
Were you there, DL? Were you in Philadelphia? Did you know Ben Franklin and George Washington personally? Did YOU spend hours and hours discussing political and legal matters with them in Ben Franklin's home?
If you didn't, then before William Rawle who did, I think there is only one valid thing you could possibly do.
And that is: Shut the hell up.
You also neglected to mention that Rawle was appointed BY GEORGE WASHINGTON in 1791 as U.S. District Attorney for the entire State of Pennsylvania.
Which does not prove that he is correct on this issue.
No, but it proves he was in a HELL of a better position to know something about it than you ever were.
Finally, we can note that not only was Rawle's statement about the children of aliens CRYSTAL clear, NOBODY EVER CONTESTED IT. Nobody ever said that Rawle was wrong. On the contrary, his quote was later referenced as authority by the United States Supreme Court.
So was Vattel. And in quite deliberate fashion. This just reinforces my point that the court can sometimes be wrong. When they were quoting Rawle, they were wrong.
Well, it was the majority of the Court, in the deciding Opinion, that referenced Rawle's quote. And they did so specifically in regard to citizenship, in a discussion that talked extensively about NATURAL BORN CITIZENSHIP.
So you can claim "the Court was wrong" all you want. But your opinion carries no weight at all, and theirs does.
As for Vattel in The Venus, he wasn't even referenced regarding citizenship. He was referenced regarding DOMICILE. And the translation wasn't even the one that says "natural born citizens."
So that is a thoroughly, thoroughly LOSING argument.
In fact, any Vattel argument you can come up with is a losing one. Historically, you have absolutely no evidence that the Framers paid the slightest attention to him in the Presidential eligibility clause. And it is prima facie, on-its-face OBVIOUS that "natural born subject" became "natural born citizen" when we changed "subject" to "citizen."
So your entire argument is just baseless birther bs.
I think you have done something similar with your graph. It simply says what you want it to say because it's based on your whim. It is proof of nothing.
If they took up US citizenship as adults, then they would have been, as long as their tribes still regard them as citizens of the tribe.
That simply isn't true. I don't think you understood post 833.
That might be true immediately after the Declaration, but not for much longer than that.
That it is true at all is all that is necessary to prove the point. That it was of short duration is irrelevant. My recollection from past research is that it applied to upwards of 100,000 people, but i'll have to look that up again to be sure.
Although I'm not sure what your point is here.
Of that I have no doubt. To give you a clue, I will point out that the notion that someone should have the ability to chose their allegiance was not accepted in this nation until the mid 1800s. Perhaps you can figure out why this is significant. God only knows, you'll pay more attention to your conclusions if you reach them without any help from me.
“That was idiotic, unnecessary and totally childish of you to mega-post the thread for everyone because you are to lazy to prove what you had asserted. “
Actually, you are pretty pathetic, to argue what is not true, and to insist I show you instead of simply posting a link.
You made a false statement. You insisted I “SHOW” you, and I did. Now stop making false statements!
Heh!
You were, in fact, claiming that very thing. That you are no longer claiming it means we have made progress.
There are a few. But they are VERY, VERY few,
Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy. It doesn't matter how few their were, reality is not subject to a majority. Sometimes a majority just means that all the fools are on the same side.
But they are VERY, VERY few, their arguments are weak,
So you characterize them. I don't regard them as weak at all, I regard the theory which gives us Anchor Babies and Birth Tourism, and has the paradoxes of Indians, Slaves, and Loyalists, to be the weaker theory.
they generally failed to carry the point, and they are completely insignificant compared with the entire vast weight of history and law.
You mean the momentum which has been built up around a false interpretation? I see the exact same phenomena in the legal Abortion debate. The legal arguments used to overturn laws against abortion are nonsensical, (Misuse of the 14th amendment, same as your argument.) but nevertheless, a large momentum has been built up to the point where most people think it's constitutionally legal.
(Congress shall have the power)...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
Article II, Section 1
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Thank your for posting that. It explicitly states that congress may "naturalize" (meaning to make "like natural") someone into a citizen. This makes the distinction between making something "like natural" and what is already natural, much easier to see.
A "Natural" citizen requires no act of congress to be a citizen.
Go to a search engine and look up just who was the last “ grandfathered” President and when he was born. Tell me what his age would have been upon the eve of the Revolution and provide a source, any source, indicating he was naturalized.
You can't because he wasn't. Naturalized individuals have never been eligible. He was an original citizen, therefore he was under the so-called grandfather clause. There is no reference to place of birth. He was the child of a citizen of the State in which he resided, had not taken up arms against the Patriot cause nor aided the enemies of it.
Other than a few Cherokee ancestors, I descend from nothing but original citizens, some of whom were the Gernman-speaking people of whom I spoke. I know what I'm talking about.
You don't know how extensively I have or have not read.
You went in with that opinion, so it is no surprise you emerge with that opinion.
As I've stated here before, I went in with NO opinion. You seem to have missed that.
You presume to think that you have EVER demonstrated that my argument has a falsehood or flaw about it. That demonstration exists only in your mind. Certainly no one with objectivity is aware of it.
Rawles is not the only authority. He is not even the most knowledgeable authority. I would say that honor belongs to Dr. David Ramsey who was a historian and in the thick of it.
Complete BS.
Rawle was a lawyer and a legal expert who founded the nation's law firm, wrote an extensive and authoritative work ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, was a personal friend of two of our most important Framers, and was present IN PHILADELPHIA during the Constitutional Convention.
In fact, it is hard to imagine a much more authoritative figure.
Ramsay was a HISTORIAN and a MEDICAL DOCTOR. He had no legal training at all. There is no indication that he was especially close to any of our most important Framers such as Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. He was apparently a brother-in-law by marriage to Charles Pinckney, but that's about as close as he got.
In fact, Charleston is getting pretty close to about as far away as you could get from the cities of Philadelphia and New York, where most of the action was happening.
Aside from that, Ramsay's doctrine on citizenship was the obvious and clear product of a self-interested sore-loser campaign in which he was trying to have the guy who beat him for US Representative declared ineligible.
Ramsay's citizenship claims were utterly rejected by his peers, led by none other than James Madison, who said that PLACE OF BIRTH WAS WHAT APPLIED IN THE UNITED STATES. And Ramsay was voted down, an almost unanimous 36 to 1.
If it is hard to imagine a more authoritative voice than Rawle, it is equally hard to imagine a LESS authoritative one than Ramsay.
Except you, of course. Except for you.
I will say this, though: I do like the tone of the desperation of your attacks against me.
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