Posted on 11/19/2012 2:11:58 PM PST by KheSanh
That’s pretty funny. The “citizens of the United States” are dead as a citizen class?
Where did the Obots ever get the ridiculous notion that the Founders’ and Framers’ definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” miraculously changes based upon what Congress through a statute or even the Fourteenth Amendment may later decide is a “citizen of the United States” at birth or after birth?
Evidently, the fool is still you. You said:
“Duke Wellington pointed out that he was not Irish, despite being born in Ireland - by saying that ‘being born in a stable doesn’t make one a horse’. Via English law he was correct. Birth place was not an absolute requirement to being a natural born subject of England.”
Exactly. That is what Vattel said and why the Founders and Framers required not only birth in the country but also birth to “citizen” parents.
If it is just a matter of what one or more persons ‘consider’ this or that I don’t see how there is or can be any established legal/Constitutional standing. That is why I go back to the explicit different requirements as designated in the Constitution for POTUSA and Congresspersons.
The point is what it meant to the people writing the Constitution and approving it. And THEY thought it was the American form of natural born subject, as evidenced by them using it interchangeably:
For example,
In February, 1785, the Massachusetts legislature passed “AN ACT FOR NATURALIZING NICHOLAS ROUSSELET AND GEORGE SMITH.” in which it was declared that Nicholas Rousselet and George Smith “shall be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be citizens of this Commonwealth, and entitled to all the liberties, rights and privileges of natural born citizens.”
In July, 1785, the Massachusetts legislature passed “AN ACT FOR NATURALIZING MICHAEL WALSH.” in which it was declared that Michael Walsh “shall be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a citizen of this Commonwealth, and entitled to all the liberties, rights and privileges of a natural born citizen.”
In July, 1786, the Massachusetts legislature passed “AN ACT FOR NATURALIZING JONATHAN CURSON AND WILLIAM OLIVER” in which it was declared that Jonathan Curson and William Oliver “shall be deemed adjudged and taken to be free Citizens of this Commonwealth, and entitled to all the liberties, privileges and immunities of natural born citizens.”
In March, 1787, the Massachusetts legislature passed “AN ACT FOR NATURALIZING WILLIAM MARTIN AND OTHERS.” in which it was declared that William Martin and Others,”shall be deemed, adjudged and taken to be free Citizens of this Commonwealth, and entitled to all the liberties, privileges and immunities of natural born subjects.”
In March, 1787, the Massachusetts legislature passed “AN ACT FOR NATURALIZING EDWARD WYER AND OTHERS THEREIN NAMED.” in which it was declared that William Martin and Others,”shall be deemed, adjudged and taken, to be free Citizens of this Commonwealth, and entitled to all the liberties, privileges and immunities of natural born subjects.”
You said: “The system of law that the American founding fathers were most familiar with was English law - not the writings of Vattel - which never were codified into law in any nation.” You must be kidding, right?
Blackstone explained that
“[T]he law of nations (wherever any question arises which is properly the object of it’s [sic] jurisdiction) is here adopted in it’s [sic] full extent by the common law, and is held to be a part of the law of the land. And those acts [sic] parliament, which have from time to time been made to enforce this universal law, or to facilitate the execution of it’s [sic] decisions, are not to be considered as introductive of any new rule, but merely as declaratory of the old fundamental constitutions of the kingdom; without which it must cease to be a part of the civilized world.”
William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 4, Chapter 5 Of Offenses Against the Law of Nations (1765-1769). http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/blackstone/william/comment/book4.5.html .
Yes, you are, indeed, correct that a “natural born Citizen” is defined under common law. An Article II “natural born Citizen” “[a]t common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar” were “all children, born in a country, of parents who were its citizens.” Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 679-80 (1898) (citing and quoting Minor).
I see that you forgot that the Founders and Framers in the Constitution gave Congress the power to make uniform the naturalization acts. Hence, it really does not matter when defining an Article II “natural born Citizen” what Massachusetts called a person who became under that states naturalization laws a “citizen” after birth.
As I said, the Obots just keep getting better and better. They add that since “those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution” are all long dead, there are presently only two categories of US citizens, the “natural born citizens” and the “naturalized citizens.” This is really funny. First, I guess the early “citizens of the United States” who are long dead caused the class of citizens called “citizens of the United States” to no longer exist, but the early “natural born Citizens” who are also long dead did not cause the class of citizens called “natural born Citizens” to also no longer exist. Second, I guess that since the early “citizens of the United States” are long dead, so did all those “citizens of the United States” that followed them to the present and into the future. “Citizens of the United States” just disappeared from our nation. I wonder where they all got to?
The flaw with the logic presented here is simple.
Citizen AT birth is only half of a ‘natural born Citizen’. It is possible to be a ‘born citizen’. But still not be a ‘natural citizen’.
Example - the citizens of Puerto Rico. They are born citizens - just like 14th Amendmentors. But they are NATURALIZED. And they are collectively NATURALIZED at birth by law.
If any positive (man-made) law - including the 14th is required for your citizenship - you are not a ‘natural citizen’. Natural law is above positive man-made law. That includes the Constitution and its amendments.
The law:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1402
So, it is very, very, very clear that being a citizen at birth is NOT the same as being a natural born citizen. Not by a long shot. This is a path of logic that is invalid either in design or ignorance.
As for being born in country as a foundation for qualifying for ‘natural citizenship’. If this were the case then explain the original immigration act. It declared those born abroad (i.e. outside the boundary of the US borders) to two American parents (note - plural) were to BE CONSIDERED AS (not that they actually were) ‘natural born Citizens’ (with a capital C and no hyphen - meaning they knew exacting what they where doing and why they were doing it). This clause was dropped in the next edition of the act. But to this day it shows that jus sanguinis was stronger that jus soli in consideration of being considered a natural born Citizen.
How do you know you are a natural born Citizen? There is no law you can find that that ‘gives’ you citizenship. You do not need it. Your citizenship is natural.
Minor is law - today. It holds - today. It has been referenced time and time over. The reason is that the Minor case had to show that the 14th did not change Article II Section 1. And what the Minor case calls into doubt is that the 14th affords citizenship to children of non-citizen parents. What is not in doubt is that natives or natural-born citizens are children of parents born in the country.
Please don’t be stupid enough to pull part of a quote from Minor and palm it off as a decision that supports your case. That makes you a liar, and a bad one.
“Hence, it really does not matter when defining an Article II “natural born Citizen” what Massachusetts called a person who became under that states naturalization laws a “citizen” after birth.”
Yes, it does - when it shows they considered NBC & NBS to be interchangeable terms. It leaves NO DOUBT about what the Founders (and ratifiers) thought was meant by NBC. It is the American version of the English common law meaning of natural born subject.
And since a NBS could have TWO alien parents, he could obviously have one. And if that was the meaning of NBS, then it is the meaning of NBC - according to original intent.
In discussing Ankeny, Judge Bent [in Paige v. Obama] said that “‘natural born Citizen’ is not dependent on the nationality of the parents but reflects the status of a person born into citizenship instead of having citizenship subsequently bestowed. The distinction is eminently logical.” But upon close examination, this distinction is not logical at all. This argument is tantamount to arguing that any person who is a “citizen at birth” is a “natural born Citizen.” This is fallacious reasoning called the fallacy of affirming the consequent. We know from the definition of a “natural-born citizen” provided by Minor and other historical sources and U.S. Supreme Court case law cited, that satisfying the definition means that one is necessarily a “citizen” from the moment of birth. But being a citizen from the moment of birth is a necessary condition of being a “natural born Citizen.” It is not a sufficient condition, for according to Minor v. Happersett, the definition also contains the two requirements of being born in the country to “citizen” parents. Hence, just showing that one was “a citizen at birth” only satisfies part of the definition which by the very nature of the definition is necessary but not sufficient. Here is an example of this fallacy: If someone is smart, then someone is a professor. Someone is a professor. Therefore someone is smart. This argument is not valid. It demonstrates the fallacy of affirming the consequent. The first premise does not state that if one is a professor one is smart. Rather, it states that being a professor is the consequence of or follows from being smart. So, being a professor does not necessarily mean that one is smart. So likewise, the definition of a “natural born Citizen” does not state that being “a citizen at birth” makes one a “natural born Citizen.” Rather, being “a citizen at birth” is the consequent of or follows from being a “natural born Citizen.” Being “a citizen at birth” does not prove that one is a “natural born Citizen,” for the other two conditions of being a “natural born Citizen” must also be proven. There is also case law and statutes which prove that simply being “a citizen at birth” does not make one a “natural born Citizen.” Wong Kim Ark and Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815(1971) said that children born out of the United States to “citizen” parents are citizens at birth, but are made such by naturalization statutes of Congress and not the common law or even the Fourteenth Amendment. We know from a plain reading of these statutes that they only define “citizens of the United States” and not “natural born Citizens.”
Mario Apuzzo, “The Vermont Court Errs in Dismissing Presidential Ballot Challenge H.
Brooke Paige v. Barack Obama,” accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-vermont-court-errs-in-dismissing.html.
The 14th Amendment is not a law passed by authority of Congress, and it did not use a different standard from the original intent of the Founders in saying NBC, which is why the US Supreme Court said the 14th merely re-expressed, in different wording, the same thing that was meant by NBC.
The 14th is the US Constitution, approved by the states.
As for Puerto Rico, it is one of those special cases not considered in 1787, since it had nothing to do with the US at the time. See here:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/258/298/case.html
You just like to make stuff up, Mr. Rogers. You have no historical or case law support for your manufactured definition of a “natural born Citizen,” i.e., that it meant the same as a “natural born subject” under English common law. You just put together a piece here and a piece there, but your argument has no support in history, law, reason, and logic.
I didn’t make anything up. I cited the US Supreme Court, which discussed these meanings at great length in the WKA decision, which I have already linked to several times on this thread.
I also pointed out there is EXCELLENT reason to believe the Founder and Ratifiers were thinking of the common law meaning for ‘natural born subject’ when they reworded it as NBC, since they used the terms interchangeably.
And that makes far more sense than believing the 1787 Convention was thinking about the poorly translated 1797 version of Vattel.
There is a reason why all 50 states, 535 members of Congress and every court to look at it concludes you birthers are nuts - because you are. And when you quote Minor out of context and pretend it was giving an authoritative definition of NBC, you are LYING because you know better.
If all you use FR for is to post deceptions about birtherism, then why are you here? You are batting 0/50 among the states. Not a single state - not even Utah, or Alabama, or Arizona - believes your drivel. Not one member of Congress. The courts laugh at you - but you continue to post distortions and blow smoke up people’s butts.
How half assed and half witted of you to only deal with half of my argument. According to English law either parentage or place was enough for one to be natural born. With Wellington it was parentage, with Wong Kim Ark it would have been place. You lied when you claimed that both would be the law the founders were most familiar with. Too typical.
Where did the Supreme Court rule on that.
And it really does not matter. As stated, if you need ANY law that is found in written books to establish your citizenship you are not a ‘natural citizen’. ‘natural citizens’ do not need laws to establish their connection to a country. I am a natural born citizen. There is no law that says that says I am a citizen. None is needed.
Minor is presiding law. When it is set aside, please let us know.
Also note that I referenced ‘natural citizen’ above.
The status of ‘born citizen’ is not relevant to that discussion. But lets look at it.
Using mathematical nomenclature if we use N for natural, B for born and C for Citizen we can mathematically write ‘natural born Citizen’ as (N + B) * C. Notice that we do this because ‘natural’ and ‘born’ are simple adjectives. There is not a phrase or defined term. There never was. Putting two adjectives together does not create a new, never before seen definition or term. combining simply better defines the subject of the object they work on. Simple English construct. So again mathematically we write this as:
(N + B) * C
Mathematically we can write this as:
N*C + B*C
They are exactly the same.
And when dealing with adjetives in the English language we can do exactly the same thing.
‘He is a short fat man.’ can be rewritten ‘He is a short man. And he is a fat man.’. These are exactly the same.
So we can decompose ‘natural born Citizen’ into ‘natural Citizen’ and ‘born Citizen’. We have exactly the same thing. Each description stands alone.
‘born Citizen’ = Citizen FROM birth. Not AT birth. No. Look it up. born (adj) is defined as ‘from birth’. Meaning you have to be a Citizen the moment you are born and up and until you take office. With no breaks. This is where Obama may have issue. After he WAS, without a doubt an Indonesian citizen. He had a break in his US citizenship. Even if he regained it he is likely not a ‘born Citizen’. Given that you keep referring to the 14th it is very clear he is not a ‘natural Citizens’. Natural Citizens have no laws - including Constitutional laws that defined their citizenship. There is no law or constitutional amendment that ‘gives’ natural Citizens their citizenship. Because none exist.
Obama has problems - still.
So does Rubio. So does Jindal.
Only in forum land does NBS = nbC.
This lie is a lie. Repeating it will not make it true.
Puerto Rico is a ‘special case’.
That is a cop out on the argument.
And a bad one.
Thank you very much for the additional insight.
I am not not a lawyer. But after 4 and half years I certainly have an understanding of this aspect of the Constitution that I never appreciated before.
To see the twisting and lying and deflection around this aspect of our laws is disheartening.
Politics and political correctness continue to carry the day. There are no winners in Washington with this issue. I believe we all understand that. In fact given the situation in the minority party I believe we will see further obscuring of this part of our Constitution to suit their needs in 2016. And that is a sad thing.
I have learned up over the last few years and much from your blog. I will call outright lies when presented. It is time that that is done.
Thank you.
bc6
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