Posted on 03/13/2013 6:01:43 PM PDT by Fai Mao
On Mar. 8, reporter Carl Cameron on Special Report on Fox News Channel was surveying potential GOP 2016 presidential candidates. Then he raised Ted Cruz--one of the most brilliant constitutional lawyers ever to serve in the Senate--the new 41-year old Hispanic senator from Texas.
Cameron added, “But Cruz was born in Canada and is constitutionally ineligible” to run for president. While many people assume that, it’s probably not true.
Cameron was referring to the Constitution’s Article II requirement that only a “natural born citizen” can run for the White House.
No one is certain what that means. Citizenship was primarily defined by each state when the Constitution was adopted. Federal citizenship wasn’t clearly established until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. The Constitution is not clear whether it means you must be born on U.S. soil, or instead whether you must be born a U.S. citizen.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Do please show me where I said anything about 'staying home from the polls'.
Okay. Try this post.
OR where I claimed to be any kind of expert
You've repeatedly and adamantly claimed that the standard, historical understanding of "natural born citizen" is wrong. You have quoted from US v Wong Kim Ark to try and justify that claim.
Those claims go directly against all genuine early legal authority, against actual case law, against the explicit word of authorities like Reagan Supreme Court appointee Sandra Day O'Connor ("All of our Presidents have, to date, been born in the 50 states. Notably, President Obama was born in the state of Hawaii, and so is clearly a natural born citizen."), and against genuine conservative Constitutional authorities such as the Heritage Foundation, National Review, and Mark Levin.
If saying that you know far better than those folks, and attempting to argue from cases such as US v Wong Kim Ark, isn't trying to present yourself as someone who knows better than the genuine experts, I don't know what is.
If the contention has to do with the way a law was understood by the law-writers and law-interpreters, why isn't posting court decisions and historical quotes the obvious way to prove that? I guess I still don't understand what you want him to do instead.
The sad thing is, on any topic other than this one, the two sides of this discussion would probably get along great.
I said wouldn't cast a vote for Cruz because of his ineligibility.
SHOW ME where I said anything about 'staying home' as per your assertion. In fact...show me the word HOME in that post....at all!
-----
You can also damn well cease and desist in the 'speaking for me' crap right here and right now.
I DO NOT appreciate you telling other posters what YOU think I believe. And she believes other people should do this as well.
Unlike SOME people, I don't believe my following my own conscience means everyone has to follow my conscience, too.
Putting words in other people's mouths is the lowest form of slanderous conduct.
------
You've repeatedly and adamantly claimed that the standard, historical understanding of "natural born citizen" is wrong.
Immaterial. Your perceptions of my understanding are not the question.
Your assertion was:
MamaTexan is here representing herself as someone who understands this issue. She has been presenting herself as something of an expert.
THAT WAS YOUR ASSERTION, JEFF
Now prove it!
Friend, I've explained this in plain language to you a couple of times now. I don't get what's so hard about it.
Simply posting your contention on a subject, then letting innumerable citations and quotations do the talking for you, is how slimeball lawyers try to make a case. It rarely works in a court of law, and never in a debate.
You make a case that convinces others by using logic and reasoning - and in your own words. You use citations and relevant quotations by experts and historical figures to merely back up the case you are making.
Jeff posts tons of icing, but leaves out the cake. Does that make it clearer?
SHOW ME where I said anything about 'staying home' as per your assertion. In fact...show me the word HOME in that post....at all!
Look. This is just silly. Whether you "stay home" and don't vote for Cruz, or whether you go and have lunch at the polling place and don't vote for Cruz, it's the exact same thing.
This silly back-and-forth with you is just a waste of time. Your time as well as mine.
Unfortunately, no. I guess it's very clear to me what his argument is and how he's supporting it with the citations. You don't get why I don't understand your complaint; I don't get how you can say he's not making a case. I guess we'll have to leave it at that.
No, it is not the same thing any more that a natural born or naturalized citizen is 'the same thing'
No, the back-and-forth in not 'silly'
You have been engaging in it fully up until the point I called you out on your disgusting habit of putting words in people's mouths.
When I ask for your evidence, it becomes 'silly'.
Oh, that right...what is the number in the rulebook for *ridicule* anyway?
Unreal. I must be talking to a thirteen year old.
Good night, friend.
Great!
[sorry about the delay in the reply, BTW]
So we have 2 types. Natural born and naturalized.
Naturalized is pretty simple. Since the uniform rule of naturalization is in the federal ballpark, would it be fair to say it would be defined as a citizen created by an action of the federal government? Or would you assign it another definition?
And since the natural-born definition is the one in contention, what would you define it as, and why?
Refusing to vote for Cruz is refusing to vote for Cruz.
Again, you are simply being silly.
These are trying times. I often find myself wondering if we have the courage and determination to bring our country back to itself. I pray that we do.
I understand Cruz was listed as an American citizen on his birth certificate.
His eligibilty would be compared to McCain's...I guess.
Around 1980, America seemed to be in a malaise.
In November of that year, Ronald Reagan swept into the White House and changed everything.
In July 1940, Hitler’s generals estimated they were one month away from completely destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force and marching their troops in for the conquest of the United Kingdom.
On September 15th, they limped the Luftwaffe back to Germany, having lost nearly 1,900 airplanes.
Don’t lose courage.
I never started from, "This is what I think the Founders were thinking."
I started from, "This is what the Founders and Framers said and did."
You can't conclude what the Founders said and did by imagining what they were thinking. You can, on the other hand, eventually figure out what they were thinking by what they said and did.
But if you want to know what they said and did, you have to look at what they said and did.
Actually, if you want to know what they were THINKING, you have to look at what they said and did. You can't just imagine it. You can't just say, "Hey, this is what the Founders would have done, based on what YOU would do, or what you think they ought to have done.
The Founders and Framers didn't watch TV. They didn't read the same books you and I read. They read different books. They engaged in different discussions. They had a different relationship to the world. They were starting a country, not looking back on the founding of a country with 226 years of hindsight.
They lived in an entirely different world.
There were no cars. No television. No radio. No international phone calls. To travel from this country to any other took weeks, any way you cut it. If you went overland to the wilds of the north, it took weeks to get there. If you went overland to the wilds of the south, it took weeks to get there. If you went over the sea to England or France, that took weeks as well.
Part of the issue is that there was no such thing as international tourism in those days. Things like "anchor babies" were unconceived of, and inconceivable. Perhaps if they had considered anchor babies and 300,000 people traveling from London to New York (and vice versa) every single month, they would have made a different decision.
And perhaps not. They obviously were not very concerned at all about completely eliminating "all possible foreign influence," as the rules they set up for Presidential eligibility made it perfectly possible for someone to be born a natural born citizen (by whatever measure you want to use), live his entire life to adulthood in England or France, having spent his entire formative and educational years there, then return to the United States at age 21, and be elected United States President at age 35, having spent 60% of his life in a foreign country, and only 40% of his life here.
Or, theoretically, that same person could have spent the great majority of his life (say 40 out of 54 years) in foreign countries, and still been elected President.
In that case, he would have spent nearly 75% of his life overseas, and only about 25% in the United States. And still, the Framers of the Constitution tell us, such a person could be eligible to be elected President.
So if they weren't trying to eliminate "all possibility of foreign influence," what were they guarding against?
Well, first, they wanted the person to have some significant attachment to the country. Being born here, or otherwise being born a US citizen, guaranteed that, even if the person was educated abroad.
But most Constitutional scholars seem to think one of the primary motivations was simply to prevent ADULT royalty from some place like England from swooping in and buying up the Presidency with lots of royal glitz and money.
But... but... you say. Such a person could have just come over here, and had a child, and 50 years later, that child could have become President!
That's not necessarily true. Such a child would have had some real doubts cast on his eligibility, since children of FOREIGN ROYALTY were one of the historical EXCEPTIONS to the rule of natural born citizenship.
Even if it was accepted that the child was a natural born American citizen, who would do that? Who would leave the cushy comfort of their native country and come over here, and wait FORTY OR FIFTY YEARS (by which time they would almost certainly have been dead themselves) for the CHANCE that their child MIGHT grow up to be President?
NOBODY.
And as far as we can tell, nobody ever did.
So the rule they adopted was a perfectly sensible one. It fulfilled the purpose they set out for it.
You can say that in retrospect they might have adopted a different rule. "We're going to have anchor babies in 200 years, so let's say that citizen parents are also required."
But what they MIGHT have done, and what they actually DID, are two entirely different things.
And what they did made perfect sense to them.
Well, Jeff. There may be hope for you after all. I want to say that I appreciate you finally offering up your own rationale to support your understanding of NBC. It’s a step in the right direction.
As I said over and over on this thread, there’s little point to simply posting excerpts of court opinions and quotations from historical figures, unless they’re used to bolster ones own thinking on the subject. This is a discussion forum, after all.
Now that you’re communicating your thoughts on the subject, how about answering the question I posed to you upthread in post 268?
Aww, we just finished having that whole conversation with no insults, and you had to go and spoil it. I hope it made you feel better--"friend."
Sorry about that, but you made me crazy. I told you three separate times that all I was asking is for Jeff to explain his position in his own words, and you kept telling me that you didn't get it.
Arrrrgggghhh! LOL
Don't apologize for that, or then I'll have to apologize for this one, and this'll take forever.
Since the uniform rule of naturalization is in the federal ballpark, would it be fair to say it would be defined as a citizen created by an action of the federal government?
I'm not sure I'd use the word "defined." There may be few cases around the edges of citizens that are "automatically" naturalized somehow, and I think most consider that the Fourteenth Amendment declared some citizens to be natural born citizens. But generally speaking, yes, a naturalized citizen is one made so through some government-established process.
And since the natural-born definition is the one in contention, what would you define it as, and why?
A natural-born citizen is one who is a citizen from birth--it means the same thing as "born citizen" or "born a citizen." I define it that way because everything I've read on the subject makes the most sense that way.
And I thought he had. Maybe I'd read where he did it in other threads, so I knew what his citations in this one were in support of. It's not a big deal either way--I see you're more satisfied with his last answer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.