Replies

Can the Rubio/Cruz birthers point to any writings from the time of framing of the Constitution to justify their definition of natural born citizen?

Can they point to any case law?

Can they explain the other Presidents (ie NOT Obama) that didn’t meet their Natural Born Citizen criteria?

It’s strange that all these birthers are experts are the natural born citizen clause, but have nothing to support it in case law or from the writings of the Framers.

If the Framers wanted to ensure that you were born in the United States to two parents of American citizenship why wouldn’t they explicitly put that language in the Constitution.

The closest definition we have to the founders was the Naturalization Act of 1790 which stated that “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens”. (Act to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, 1st Congress, 2nd session, March 26, 1790, 1 Stat.L. 103 at 104, 2 Laws of the U.S., ed. Bioren & Duane (1815) 82 at 83.)

It has been interpreted and reinterpreted by various laws and court decisions ever since, with people on various sides of the issues clinging to whatever interpretation that suits their point. This one is the closest to the founders as it was in part written by Madison and other founders who were in congress at the time.

If FReepers can’t even agree on the interpretation of this issue, we shouldn’t expect any legal traction out of it.

What's strange is that you are full of pronouncements yet lacking in any apparent historical knowledge of anything touching on these matters, even though, in the year around Barry's election, there was a great deal written right here in FR about every one of these things.

Asking questions you are yourself not willing to answer is a debating technique used to make it appear those you are addressing are unable to answer in a way detrimental to your case and, thus, that you must be correct.

It also preys on the ignorance of those who, perhaps, were not here during that time and are unaware of everything that had been discussed on these matters ad nauseum.

And it's a little misleading, in part, such as the "can they explain the other Presidents [sic] (ie NOT Obama) that didn't meet their Natural Born Citizen criteria?"

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Harrison didn't meet the "natural born citizen" criteria because they were born before the founding, though they did meet the Constitutional requirements that specifically addressed this. Since then only Chester Arthur and Barry have been the only ones who have not; Arthur, because his father was still a Canadian citizen at the time of Chester's birth in the U.S.: and Barry, who has not demonstrated a U.S. birth in any but a belated, fraudulent manner, whose putative father was not at the time nor ever did become a U.S. citizen, and who, through his own words, declared himself to have been born abroad in Kenya to parents only one of which was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth (he did this in the author's blurb he wrote for one of his books).

It’s strange that all these birthers are experts are the natural born citizen clause, but have nothing to support it in case law or from the writings of the Framers.

Yeah, they're real experts, all right.

And you're correct. They have absolutely nothing to support the position from case law or the writings of the Framers.

It all began when people started twisting the Constitution because they didn't like Obama. Unfortunately, that was tolerated.

Their Constitution-twisting never hurt Obama in the least, but now it threatens to hurt us.

It’s strange that all these birthers are experts are the natural born citizen clause, but have nothing to support it in case law or from the writings of the Framers.

Yes, it certainly is.

I'm not saying all of the birthers are trolls trying to exploit a division in conservative ranks, but I'll bet a lot of them are.

It's a myth that if SCOTUS ruled once and for all on the meaning of "natural born citizen", it would satisfy the birthers. It absolutely WOULD NOT satisfy them and they would claim conspiracy (John Roberts got death threats was a common one in the aftermath of the ACA ruling) or else jury nullification.

Nothing will satisfy the birthers because they know the issue sows dissension. Just like liberals never want workable solutions to any of the crises they're always screaming about. They want the problems to stay front and center so they can use them for political power.

Can the Rubio/Cruz birthers point to any writings from the time of framing of the Constitution to justify their definition of natural born citizen?

Yes.

Can they point to any case law?

Yes.

Can they explain the other Presidents (ie NOT Obama) that didn’t meet their Natural Born Citizen criteria?

There is only one, and his failure to meet the requirements was not known until just a few years ago.

It’s strange that all these birthers are experts are the natural born citizen clause, but have nothing to support it in case law or from the writings of the Framers.

It's strange that someone who has obviously not bothered to read what we have pointed out regarding the writings of the framers will pop off an accusation from ignorance. I can give you far more than you will want to read.

If the Framers wanted to ensure that you were born in the United States to two parents of American citizenship why wouldn’t they explicitly put that language in the Constitution.

The only word defined in the Constitution is "Treason." They weren't writing a dictionary. As James Madison said:

What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & antirepublican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law. If they had undertaken a discrimination, they must have formed a digest of laws, instead of a Constitution.