Posted on 04/17/2011 8:07:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I heartily agree with the core of your assertion, to wit: “John McCain should not have been the GOP candidate.”
RE: “John McCain should not have been the GOP candidate.”
Let’s put it this way, IF the requirement that he be BORN IN US SOIL is part of the definition of “NATURAL BORN”, he could be the most perfect candidate, with track record and policies that satisfy every true conservative, yet, HE WOULD NOT BE ELIGIBLE to be President regardless of which party embraces him.
Assuming your recollection is correct, I don’t believe that how your grade school teacher chose to teach the definition of citizenship is binding on the rest of the country.
I think that FreedomPoster’s teacher might be on to something...
The constitutional clause, AKA the Grandfather clause (“or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution”) would have served no purpose if the teacher’s definition is incorrect!
There would have been no need to include that grandfather clause had the Founding Fathers thought that merely having been born on U.S. soil makes one a natural born citizen!
Because the term natural born citizen meant at that time, “born on U.S. soil to two U.S. citizen parents,” the grandfather clause had to be included in the Constitution because in 1789 there were no natural born citizens who were also 35 years old!
Without the grandfather clause, the new nation would have to wait decades before any natural born citizens would turn 35 and become eligible to serve as president. Thus, the grandfather clause was included in order to ensure that there could be presidents until the day came when presidential candidates could meet the natural born citizen and the age and residency requirements.
The simple truth is that the Founding Fathers did not want anyone like Obama to become president, because someone like that might feel an allegiance to the foreign country where he was born, or the country of which his parents were citizens. (That has been proven to be the case, with Obama’s shameless actions that have offended England and his improper backing of a new Kenyan constitution that expands Sharia law in his father’s country.)
If this interpretation is correct, Then this rule also prohibits Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal from serving as president ( much as I like both of them ).
Although Rubio and Jindal were both born on U.S. soil and are “native born,” they are not “natural born” because (according to evidence available at the present time) their parents were not U.S. citizens at the moment of their births. (I believe that Rubio’s parents were still Cuban citizens and Jindal’s were still citizens of India, in the United States on student visas. If Rubio’s parents and Jindal’s parents became naturalized U.S. citizens after their births, they are still not natural born citizens because the status of their parents at the moment of birth is what is important. I may be incorrect about Rubio’s and Jindal’s parents, but I have been unable to confirm whether or when they became U.S. citizens.
Here are some additional historical events for our edification...
On June 18, 1787 Alexander Hamilton submitted a draft version of the US Constitution where he suggested the following qualification for President:
“No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.”
To be “born a Citizen of the United States” means to be a native-born citizen, for the definition of native-born is “of a specified place by birth”. Here, “place” means the United States.
Five weeks later, on July 25, 1787, in response to Hamilton’s suggestion, John Jay wrote the following to George Washington at the time of the Constitutional Convention:
“Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.”
Now HERE IS THE IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE -— Neither Hamilton’s language (born a Citizen of the US) nor the term native-born citizen appear in Article II Section 1 Clause 5 of the US Constitution:
“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;…”
Instead, what appears in the Constitution is the term NATURAL BORN CITIZEN, which came from John Jay’s letter.
The Founding Fathers rejected Hamilton’s suggestion and chose John Jay’s term of natural born citizen. Why? Because they wanted future presidents to be born of the soil and full blood of the nation, and being born of the soil (native born) was not enough.
TO DIFFERENTIATE:
* Native-born citizen = Born of the soil (United States)
* Natural born citizen = Born of the soil (United States) AND full blood (two US citizen parents)
So, based on the above understanding, Even if we were to grant that Obama was born in Hawaii, he would only be a NATIVE-BORN citizen, but he is NOT and NEVER WOULD BE a natural born citizen because his father was not a US citizen.
But since he is now President, that would mean that most Americans have been acceding to an UNCONSTITUTIONAL reality.
“But since he is now President, that would mean that most Americans have been acceding to an UNCONSTITUTIONAL reality.”
Obama, of course, constitutional “expert” that he is, doesn’t see it this way. He believes in a “living Constitution” where activist judges get to discover new “rights” in the “penumbras” of the Constitution. And leaving the Constitution aside entirely, Obama quite often behaves as if he believes that laws don’t apply to him. He clearly knows what he’s doing and is only to happy to shred the original meaning of this clause.
You seem not to understand my point and where I stand on this issue, so let me repeat:
I don’t need to see his birth certificate to already know that he’s ineligible. With the facts I have, without seeing a birth certificate, I know he’s not eligible for the Presidency. End of story.
The rest of this stuff is just a distraction, albeit, a fun and interesting one. If others haven’t reached the conclusion yet that Obama is not eligible for the Presidency, so be it. I reached that conclusion long ago, and all I needed was the Constitution and the Founders’ intent to reach it.
Sorry wrong thread.
You seem to be missing the point. You have no real facts except what Obama says and the alleged COLB that lacks a primary source available to the public. In order to prove your case, you need the long form of his birth certificate to verify legally who his father is. End of story.
Ha ha. Keep chasing... I’ll stick to the “facts” that are out known. What baffles me is Obama has told the whole world “Hey, I’m ineligible. My dad is not a U.S. citizen” and yet, many just want to make this more complicated than it is. He already admitted that he is not eligible, and some choose to turn a blind eye and chase a mystery. I get it; puzzles are fun to solve. Whether or not he turns out to be born somewhere other than the U.S. or his father is Obama Sr., either way, he “ain’t” eligible. Now, that’s the end of the story.
It is not the end of the story until the long form birth certificate is released to the public. It is the only way to ascertain legally who his father was and where he was born.
Actually seekandfind, McCain was not born on US Territory. The Panama Canal Zone was not incorporated into the United States until 11 months AFTER McCain was born.
there’s a third issue too, seekandfind. The issue surrounding his relationship to Lolo Soetoro. The only record we do have of Obama’s education is that registration from for the school he attended in Indonesia. If we’re to believe the registration, there is a good chance he was adopted by Lolo and made into an Indonesian citizen. Under US and Indonesian law if Obama made an affirmative act as an adult to maintain allegiance to Indonesia, he would have no US citizenship of any kind. Which begs the question, what passport did he use in 1981 to get into Pakistan. He already mentioned in his book that he stopped in Indonesia on his way to Pakistan. Could it have been so he could use his Indonesian passport to enter Pakistan? If so, that would represent an affirmative act. He would be disqualified from being president. The only way to restore any form of US citizenship would have been through naturalization.
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