I respect your right to your own opinion, but three times now you have ignored the grandfather clause problem. Granted, it may not be decisive in itself. But I would think if you had a real answer to it, if for nothing else to relieve me of my ignorance, you would at least acknowledge its existence. But you don’t.
And I do not limit the evidence collecting to the founders. DL makes the point, which you completely circumvented, that there were various opinions on the matter. It does not matter to your argument that Rawle was a legal expert. He was just one of many, and many of those had various and conflicting opinions, else you would not even have your quote farm for statements apparently dismissive of parentage. The matter was in discussion, parentage was being raised, and the issue was not settled in the minds of many. I am not asking for extraordinary proof regarding Rawle. I am asking for something which actually qualifies as proof.
You say the birthers have no evidence. But this is not true. What is true is that you have in one way or another dismissed that evidence and now hope that others, like myself, who are trying to give the question a fair hearing, either do not know of the conflicting evidence, or can read your mind and just innately know, as you seem to, that it doesn’t support the birther case, or else just meekly accept your “authoritative” assertion that we are all idiots. That simply isn’t good style in legal analysis. You could never win in a typical appellate court with an approach like that.
As for “absolutely false,” or even “absolutely true,” that is nonsense. We are not talking about divine law, but human law. Men err. Supreme Court decisions display repeated shifts and shades of meaning over time, and some of those shifts are clearly accidental, especially as it relates to what are called “terms of art,” words or phrases given a specific body of complex meaning over time. That is why I said at the outset, unless SCOTUS takes this on, we will not have final certainty.
Am I a birther? Probably, according to you. I am an old man and I was raised my entire life to believe that citizenship, natural born or otherwise, was far more than just being born on this soil. Any animal can do that. The grandfather clause would not have been necessary if that were the case. The quotes you have mined to invoke your reductionist view are noteworthy and valuable to the discussion, but I have learned over time to be wary of quote wars, and I do not consider any single quote to be decisive in itself. Filling in the gaps with rigorous context to achieve true understanding is not a trivial task, and is best left to those with the time, inclination, and ability to do so. Among such you will seldom hear talk of absolute claims of truth or falsity, because human law is shifting sand. Only the divine law endures over time, and human law only survives to the extent it relies on divine law.
So I think our conversation is at an end. My time is precious, and no one is paying me to write the definitive brief for this problem. I leave it to you and other dedicated volunteers and professionals. I do not believe Obama will leave office over a constitutional violation, real or imagined, of any sort. We are past that. His term will expire and he will either leave or find a pretext for remaining in power. My focus right now is gun rights. It is one thing to have a president whose lawless acts will never get him impeached. It is quite another for said lawless one to attempt to remove from us our last practical defense against his mounting tyrannies. That is where I choose to focus my energies.
So if birtherism is where you want to work, go for it. Not for me. But lose the paranoid ad hominem shtick. It’ll never sell in Peoria. Or even Springfield.
Just sayin …
What is “the grandfather clause problem”?
On the contrary, I asked you what the heck you're talking about, and you haven't answered. I simply have no idea what you're referring to when you say "the grandfather clause problem." I have asked you to define it for me, but you won't. Then you accuse me of having "ignored" it.
And I do not limit the evidence collecting to the founders.
Neither have I.
DL makes the point, which you completely circumvented, that there were various opinions on the matter.
Where? Give me one opinion on the opposite side, dating from before 1840, as clearly worded as Rawle's.
You claim these opinions exist. All right, let's hear them. List them.
It does not matter to your argument that Rawle was a legal expert. He was just one of many, and many of those had various and conflicting opinions, else you would not even have your quote farm for statements apparently dismissive of parentage.
List them.
I can think of ONE such opinion in early America, and it was voted down 36 to 1.
You say the birthers have no evidence. But this is not true. What is true is that you have in one way or another dismissed that evidence and now hope that others, like myself, who are trying to give the question a fair hearing, either do not know of the conflicting evidence, or can read your mind and just innately know, as you seem to, that it doesn’t support the birther case, or else just meekly accept your “authoritative” assertion that we are all idiots. That simply isn’t good style in legal analysis. You could never win in a typical appellate court with an approach like that.
If something is a misrepresentation of fact, does that count as evidence in favor of a proposition? If something is irrelevant, does that count as evidence? If someone's words have been twisted to what they did not mean, does that count as evidence? If an opinion is expressed which was weighed and voted down 36 to 1 by a person's contemporaries, does that count as evidence? If there is no documentable link between A and B, yet someone asserts that there is a link, does that count as evidence?
Because that is ALL that birthers have.
And I know that you undoubtedly haven't read as much on the subject as I have. I've read a lot now. But you should start to pick up on the fact that birthers have no case.
Let's go back to post #695, because I'm not sure you read it. Maybe you should go back and read the entire thing. Then I have a question for you, since you seem to have some legal background.
Let's say you have a witness, in a case. We'll call him "Fred."
And you put Fred on the witness stand. And he sit up there, and he says some things. He was in Charleston on the night of the 27th. He was sitting in a restaurant, and he overheard Mr. Smith plotting to overthrow the government. No, he has absolutely no prior knowledge or relationship to Mr. Smith, and no motive for accusing him of anything. Yes, he's aware that the crime is punishable by 35 years in jail.
So then the defense lawyer comes in. And he brings a statement from Fred's wife, that she and Fred were out of town, in vacation in Las Vegas the entire week of the 27th. He produces a videotape from a casino that very clearly shows Fred, sitting in Las Vegas on the night of the 27th, playing roulette.
So the claim he was in Charleston that week is false.
So then he produces a second videotape, taken in New York, where Mr. Smith was presenting at a conference on the evening of the 27th.
So the claim that Smith was in Charleston on that night is false.
So then he produces a third videotape, which happened to be caught accidentally at a Charleston restaurant earlier in the month. And in that videotape, Fred (and it's clear that it's him) is caught making out with Smith's wife.
So the claim that he has no motive for accusing Smith of anything is obviously false.
Let me ask you: What is the credibility of Fred and his accusations at that point? Now that he has made 3 false claims in a row?
And yet I pick 5 RANDOM claims made by Mr. Birther, and I show that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, IN A ROW, IS COMPLETE NONSENSE.
And you want to keep Mr. Birther on the stand. Why is that?
Perhaps you can explain to me exactly why that is? Why, after having seen that 5 claims in a row from Mr. Birther are complete bull****, picked at random from among what I assume would be some of his "best" claims, why do you still try to make the case that Mr. Birther has any "evidence" at all?
As for “absolutely false,” or even “absolutely true,” that is nonsense. We are not talking about divine law, but human law. Men err.
I said that the birther claim that a person born on US soil must have two citizen parent is ABSOLUTELY FALSE, and I stand by that claim. I have done enough reading and analysis to know that it's true.
Let's put it this way: I can claim that when the Constitution says a person must have "attained to the Age of thirty-five Years," "attained to" is specific wording that means after reaching the age of majority, that is, 21. So I can claim (and I might even be able to find some foreign author to base the claim on, and say the Founding Fathers absolutely loved him and used him for the Presidential eligibility clause). So therefore, Presidential candidates REALLY have to be at least 56 years old, not 35.
Would such a claim on my part be "sort of true?" No. It would be FALSE. It would be ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
And that is the status of the two-citizen-parent claim. Just like the 56-years claim, it is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
There is no credible evidence to support it, and tons of evidence against it. So yes, it is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
The grandfather clause would not have been necessary if that were the case.
Do you actually know WHY the grandfather clause was put in the Constitution?
So I think our conversation is at an end. My time is precious, and no one is paying me to write the definitive brief for this problem. I leave it to you and other dedicated volunteers and professionals. I do not believe Obama will leave office over a constitutional violation, real or imagined, of any sort. We are past that. His term will expire and he will either leave or find a pretext for remaining in power. My focus right now is gun rights.
Sir, I salute you and wish you the greatest of success in your struggle on behalf of the Second Amendment. That is a worthy battle to fight.
So if birtherism is where you want to work, go for it. Not for me. But lose the paranoid ad hominem shtick. It’ll never sell in Peoria. Or even Springfield. Just sayin
Here is what I believe.
The arguments have all been made. Nothing that you have presented, or any other birther argument that I have seen here, is new. And every single one of those arguments, which I have all seen before, is rubbish.
You might think that I'm exaggerating. But you yourself put 5 arguments before me, and I promptly demonstrated that each and every one of them was rubbish. So there's a sample for you.
Since all the arguments have been made, and they are all nonsense, it is time for those who respect the Constitution as it was written, not as birthers wish it was written, to stand up and say: Enough is enough. Please stop twisting the Constitution. Leave it alone.
If that comes across to you as ad hominem, I'm sorry. Again, the fact that 5 birther arguments chosen at random, were all promptly shown to be hogwash, should be a clue that it is not.
It has been good talking with you. And I wish you success at your efforts to defend the Second Amendment.