Posted on 02/18/2016 6:38:51 PM PST by Peter ODonnell
I have previously mentioned on FR that I support Senator Ted Cruz for president. But a close second best choice for me would be Donald Trump.
Part of me hopes that the ticket is Trump-Cruz. That way, you're likely to get the strengths of both men in one package.
But whatever happens in that regard, my main concern is that the Republican nominee would be both committed to, and able to effect, changes in three key areas -- foreign policy, respect for the constitution, and a change in the balance of American social and political discourse towards greater individual liberty and away from the hive mindset of political correctness.
We could have quite a discussion about which man, Trump or Cruz, is more sincere and genuine about these sorts of commitments. But the main point is, there needs to be these changes as soon as possible, and the main concern is therefore the ability of each man to bring about these changes. I suspect that a President Trump working closely with a Vice-President Cruz could get these things done. The other combination just doesn't seem to be a very likely possibility. Donald Trump would probably turn down any offers to be second fiddle. But the way things are going, for Cruz it would be a lot more than just "second fiddle" because one could imagine Trump relying heavily on Cruz in a number of areas and perhaps giving him the lead role in some.
Beyond the specific policies of each of these candidates, there needs to be a very frank and realistic reappraisal of U.S. foreign policy. Much of the drift under Obama is wrong not because of ideology so much as practical decision making. Obama's a leftist and you would think he could make common cause with Putin on that basis alone, but he manages to come up with the exact opposite policy on Syria -- and frankly, Putin is basically right and all of the western alliance are basically wrong to side with rebels who are either worse than El Assad, or in league with Saudi Arabia. We made the wrong decisions in Egypt and Libya, now it's Syria.
I am not convinced that either Trump or Cruz totally get this yet, so hopefully it will be a Trump-Cruz administration with advice like this rather than one that tries to push the rock further uphill.
The changes required in social and political culture are obvious. The radical left have taken over so much of the discourse in the media, academia, and even in mainstream politics, that severe course correction is required. As I live in Canada, I can tell you that we are just one stage ahead and you don't want to go where we're going, there are not too many steps left before the Cuban solution, namely a one-party state that eliminates all dissent and opposition. We moved one step closer to that in our most recent election, but in some ways you are already closer than we are, partly because your federal government has more powers under your constitution than ours has under our constitution. Love or hate the monarchy as you choose, the fact is that Canadian provinces have more powers than American states. The problem is that the voters also choose progressive governments for many of our provinces. At the moment, only Saskatchewan and British Columbia (in that order) have any real concept of libertarian individual freedom, and in the case of B.C. this is at the expense of any pushback whatsoever against other parts of the p.c. agenda.
Now, the main litmus test of any pushback would be policy on carbon taxes, climate change, green economics and all of that made up fairyland nonsense. A close second is how much actual political power is ceded to the gay rights lobby. In Canada, you could now describe the situation as total surrender.
DON'T GO THERE. Don't give up, don't let the constant voices of deluded "reasonableness" hypnotize you into acquiescence. These are dangerous ideologies that will hollow out both freedom and economic viability.
I wish I could blend Trump and Cruz into one unstoppable force. I hope they realize this is in the national interest and do it anyway.
That’s the only way the gopE will be stopped at the convention.
LoL!
I am very much in your boat. I have met and talked with Cruz several times since his Senate run. He is the most brilliant and principled man we have run for office in a century. He would be an awesome benevolent dictator but I do fear his ability to get congress to take up his agenda. Despite supporting Cruz with money and time at this point I am going for Donald. His populist and politically incorrect message is transformational in politics. Although I thought and still think Cruz could win the primary, I think he will have a tough time in the general. His doctrinaire conservatism and kind of weak people skills and persona mean that he will have hard time bringing back Reagan Democrats and independents. His path to victory relies on turning out huge amounts of conservatives and evangelicals and bringing back some libertarian former Republicans. It is daunting but his proven campaign/volunteer/ground game/and data are the best I have seen from a republican. So he has a legitimate shot of pulling it off.
Trump on the other hand may be a little wishy washy on some conservative doctrine, but his points, wall, trade, strong military, ruthless prosecution of the Wars, I think he is solidly committed to. And he is straight shooter deal make who tends keep his promises. I think in the general election he has huge populist,”I have had enough” backing. He is going to pull a lot of Reagan Democrats home, lots of independent voters. He even has some strong unions support from East coast unions he has dealt with and police unions that are fed up with the current administrations war on cops. Several big unions have held their endorsement of Hillary or Bernie because they are seriously considering that they may want to endorse Trump. That is YUGE for a Republican. He also polls pretty well with legal Hispanics. The liberals always talk about Hispanic opposition to the GOP agenda as some unified front, but the strongest Democrat support is mostly illegals who can’t even vote, legal immigrants and their dependents are generally pretty anti-illegal. They worked for years and spent thousands of dollars to do it right and are not happy with the illegals who skate in.
Trump also has two secret weapons, one we have seen revealed a bit, and one almost no pundits/analysts are catching on to. The first and slightly revealed one is Trumps, self funded, beholden to no one, no Wall Street money, no special interest and lobbyist attack on the establishment in both parties. I think in the general he will ride that and have great pubic response.
The second and truly devastating for Democrats phenomenon is that black voters show some significant support for Trump. In the black community a lot of preachers are supporting him which is important,and a lot people just like the celebrity and love people who win. The urban communities likes winners, even a braggadocio and such. Is Trump going to get massive numbers or majorities of blacks. No way, but the Democrat battleground states rely on defeating suburban and rural voters by turning a lot of urban black voters, and winning 95 96% of that vote. Think Philly in PA, Miami in FL, Cleveland in OH. If Trump wins only 10 or 11 percent of the black, or black vote is depressed from no connection to Bernie and Hillary or interest in Trumpism conflicts them or causes them to not turn out strong for the Democrats,it will devastate the Democrat machine plans and result in a crazy landslide.
The big plus for a Trump presidency is that if he wins and gets to Washington he will have a huge populist mandate. He will be able to go to the GOP-E house and senate and swing district/state Democrats and say - “Look this is what the American people want and if you don’t go along with me you have to answer in 2 years my electorate , and I will show no mercy in tearing you down in front of them. Most of those are career politicians and they will bend to keep, their job, power and Perks.
So my dream is that Trump goes to the convention with a big lead but not enough to have the nomination and that Cruz will come in with a good amount, enough to put him over the top handily. Cruz the genius and full blooded conservative and Donald the deal maker agree to a Trump/Cruz ticket. And Cruz being truly genius, and he really is, will negotiate not just to be VP but to be the guy in charge of supreme court and fed judges nominations. It would be an awesome dynamic combination - huge populist support from Trump,and a solid constitutional conservatism from Cruz.
For those that say Trump and Cruz could never get together especially in light of this last weeks realy nasty ad hominen attacks Cruz from Trump, I say remember Bush Vs Reagan in 80, it was ugly but in the end they came together. If you go back in history amongst Republicans and Democrats there were some pretty strange bedfellows. So I pray and hope for a Trump-Cruz ticket to U-Turn America, and to be cliche to “Make AMerica Great again”.
You’d get either a Truz or Crump...
I asked for that, didn’t I?
There is a bit of the old “what, me worry” in that composite image.
Agreed, they can patch things up quickly, I don’t think anyone is fooled by the attacks, simply a cost of doing business in this game of politics. Either one of them could choose to remain above the fray, but at the risk of being perceived as too weak to govern.
What they are really showcasing is how hard they are prepared to go after the opponent in the general election.
And after two rounds of less than robust criticism of an obviously poor choice for president, voters who are anything but committed Democrats want a champion, not a champignon.
We have a clear, often repeated, never amended definition for who are natural born citizens. It has changed little since Aristotle and Cicero both of whom cited it as defining who were born citizens of a community, and who were quoted by Vattel in his Law of Nations. Why would we change it now?
Our framers provided us with a "living Constitution". They included in the Constitution a clear and often used mechanism for amending the Constitution, either by beginning with a Congressional Act, convening a constitutional convention, or through action by the states to convene a convention, the latter two defined in Article V.
There were 8 efforts to amend the Article II Section 1 Clause 5, natural born citizenship between McCain's first campaign in 2000 and his second in 2008. At least two were probably intended to make Obama eligible, sponsored by John Conyers. One was clearly aimed at legitimizing Arnold Schwarzenegger, filed by Orin Hatch. None passed, Neither did the previous 21 or 22 attempts.
As many brilliant jurists, including Sam Adams and John Marshall pointed out, Marshall in his 1803 decision that served to settle, at least for the past two hundred years, the understanding that the Supreme Court has the authority to review legal decisions based upon the Constitution - which should mean most of them. Marshall pointed out, not the first to do so, that we are a nation of laws and not men. Our legal system was not designed to protect the King.
Cruz appears to be asserting his authority to amend the Constitution so that he can run for president. Barack Obama may yet succeed in burying our Constitution, a Constitution he honestly told us he regarded as antiquated and mostly irrelevant for needs he perceives society as awaiting solutions. But Barack never told us he is a natural born citizen. He told us he was naturalized. He told us he was born a subject of the British Commonwealth. His citizenship, if he is a citizen, came from his mother having been a citizen, and his being born in Hawaii. He was naturalized, and never said otherwise. Yes, his tenure has been unconstitutional, but he has been protected by both parties. Some believe the Constitution till has value. Otherwise we will continue to decay as a nation lacking the stability respect for our legal foundations has provided.
Cruz' assertion that a Congressional act, a late, 1952 interpretation of the "Naturalization Amendment", the 14th Amendment, modified the precedent established in Minor v. Happersett, that one is a natural born citizen if and only if he is born on our soil to parents who were our citizens at the time of birth. Don't believe anything Cruz or anyone else says, read Minor v. Happersett. It is very clearly written. Remember that our framers took words very seriously. Cruz is a relative master at misdirecting an answer to avoid a direct lie. But his (and Obama's) Con. Law professor, Larry Tribe, was quite public about Ted's misrepresentation of himself as an "originalist". Ted is simply doing what smart lawyers often do, when the objective is winning for his client, constructing and answering false arguments.
I won't try to repeat what I've seen others do a better job of doing, including Larry Tribe, who misrepresented Article II to help Obama defend John McCain's eligibility problems in Senate Res. 511, April 2008. McCain served as a foil to Obama. If no Republican asked questions about Obama's eligibility then Democrats, who had carefully diagnosed McCain's problems for 8 years, would say nothing. Tribe simply omitted the fact that the 1790 Naturalization Act, which appeared to suggest that McCain was "reputed natural born" because he was born to citizen parents, even though Panama hadn't been made sovereign territory by Congress until 1937, the year after McCain wss born. Tribe failed to note that the 1790 act was entirely rescinded with "considered as a natural born citizen" replaced with "is a citizen". in the 1795 Third Congress.
Madison never intended to confuse. He knew Congress couldn't amend or interpret the Constitution. He and Washington pulled the 1790 act and clarified it by omitting any mention of natural born citizens. Never again did Congress discuss natural born citizenship until the obvious nonsense written by Jack Maskell for the Congressional Research Service, with three versions, to provide talking points for congressmen should they be asked about Obama's eligibility.
The 1790 Naturalization Act was just that, based upon Article 1 Section 8, the mandate for Congress to create "an uniform rule for naturalization". Cruz and his infomercial partner Mark Levin claimed that the 1790 Act, based upon birth overseas to parents who citizens, made Cruz a natural born citizen. But wait, Cruz was only born to one citizen parent, so it never applied to him. Remember, our presidents, until we amend out constitution, must be natural born citizens.
If you have the patience, read the thorough explanation at Mario Apuzzo's blog, puzo1.blogspot.com. Mr. Apuzzo's Supreme Court case didn't receive certiorari - wasn't heard by the court - when Obama's two appointees, Kagan and Sotomayor, refused to recuse themselves from the voting on "cert". We don't know how the 9 justices voted, but four needed to say yes. We can guess that Roberts is no longer an originalist, as he writes briefs for the plaintiffs. Kagan and Sotomayor tood to lose their lifetime appointments if "Dreams from my alien father" Obama had been disqualified. Granting Obama eligibility meant that Minor v. Happersett, Wong Kim Ark, Perkins v. Elg, and probably a dozen other cases could be reexamined, along with any cases using them as precedent.
The sad truth is that the Supreme Court is so politically corrupted that, as Mark Levin correctly suggests, only an Article V convention of the states can change decisions real conservatives, whether or not we are a majority, believe unjust.
The American President is also our Commander in Chief. We've seen what effect his control of the Justice Department has on peace in our country. Those with some military background are horrified to see what he is doing to our ability to defend ourselves. We see who Obama's friends are, Fidel and Ortega and Erdogan, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which included Morsi as well as both ISIS and Al Qaeda. The Egyptians hated the Muslim Brotherhood and threw them out again as soon as they could. Obama is the poster boy for why allegiance is so important. We know his alien father hated capitalism and claimed to be a Muslim, meaning he had to work to convert or kill infidels, which include all non-muslim Americans.
As the author of the citizenship section, the heart of the 14th Amendment defining citizenship uniformly to include those born on our soil, former slaves who were not made citizens by the states in which they were owned, Judge and Congressman John Bingham, said to the House in 1866:
I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen….
We use Bingham's term, allegiance, in our Naturalization Oath today. Bingham is citing the Vattel definition, but substitutes "allegiance" for "citizen". It is about allegiance. Most children learn their allegiance from their parents. That is a "natural law". It isn't always true, Bill Ayers father was a utopian communist. Ayers is natural born, and he learned his allegiance from his native-born father. But most of the time, natural law is the best choice available. Cruz is telling us he knows better. He is telling us that Winston Churchill and Bin Laden's sons born to U.S. citizen wives, educated in Madrassas, are natural born citizens. Cruz demolishes the trust that he means all the sensible things he promises to do by lying about our Constitution.
FR sure could use a ‘Like’ button option.
Thanks for taking the time to present this terrific Post.
These are exhaustive arguments but the problem is that I was asserting something entirely different, not how to define the natural born citizen, but why this should be a necessary qualification for president? Is there not a case to be made for allowing anyone who has attained American citizenship to run for the office? Surely despite some bad examples that were cited, there must be millions who have chosen to come to America and who are equally suited to the highest office, as anyone born in the United States? If not, what becomes of the concept of one class of citizen?
As an immigrant to this other country, I have to say that I find nativist sentiments to be very limiting. If a country wants immigrants at all, it should treat them as equals after a suitable period. I don’t believe it should happen instantly. But surely a person who has lived in the United States, as a citizen, for most or all of his adult life, and who demonstrates a love for his or her country, must be equally suitable to be president? I cannot see a compelling reason for the distinction now. Perhaps in the context of the Revolution and the young Republic, it made more sense. Since the industrial revolution, however, it makes less sense, and frankly, it creates two classes of citizen.
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