Posted on 05/04/2007 8:15:43 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Frankly, I don't see an argument at all.
To be president, you need to be a natural born citizen. It is a completely arbitrary protection (e.g. If you wanted to make it tougher, it could have said the child of a natural born citizen). But it is a protection--and you seek to weaken that protection. There are many great citizens who were immigrants and they have held many positions of responsibility within the Government. So what? To make the presidency the single exception is a protection I fully support. It is not perfect (e.g. Jimmy), but there is certainly no justification to open the floodgates, IMO.
Out of curiosity, were you (or would you have been) in opposition to the Loyalty Oath, as well?
No. All that that points out is that our system can't weed out natural born citizens. If you think that the failure to weed out those candidates represents a complete failure of the system, then you would agree than natural born citizens are not qualified to be the President. It says nothing (not even by inference) about naturalized immigrants. The only option in your argument is to elect naturalized citizens until they produce a Jimmy or a Billie and then to go to a dictatorship since there is no possible candidate.
>>>>It says nothing (not even by inference) about naturalized immigrants.<<<<
But my second paragraph did:
Every job has qualifications. Not everyone fits those qualifications. Karl Marx wrote the Manifesto to the World in 1847. His followers have been trying to implement it since. Priming a candidate on foreign soil would be harder to track than the Billies and Jimmies that have slipped through the system.
And as I've argued, I don't see it as a protection at all. The true protection is the federal election process. But we are rehashing points, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this.
As to your question, I swore the Oath of Enlistment when I served in the Navy. I still remember all of the words. I don't like the Loyalty Oath because it is too wordy. Make it short and simple so that you can remember it, like the Oath of Enlistment. Though to be fair, I had to sign other documents and have interviews that covered the things in the Loyalty Oath. I think every prospective recruit snickers when he gets the question out of the blue from his recruiter: "Are you or have you ever been a member of the National Socialist Party of Germany or any other party that plans the violent overthrow of the government of the United States?"
Couldn’t the followers of Marx just as easily prime a natural born US citizen who left the country after being born? I’m sure plenty of Cindy Sheehan followers would volunteer to birth a child for that role.
Life’s not fair. The restriction makes sense if you follow the logic of the Founders, but it makes sense, it’s perfectly logical. In a nation of 300 million people it’s pretty much a numerical garauntee that there are some really great potential presidents out there that will never get the chance, because of money, because of looks, because of shyness, because they weren’t born here. That’s just how it goes, none of them are a big enough crisis to go changing the Constitution over, if they’re that bright and dedicated they can find a way to become somebody’s Karl Rove and help direct a presidency, you don’t have to be a natural born citizen to be a right hand man.
Yep.
I think every prospective recruit snickers when he gets the question out of the blue from his recruiter: "Are you or have you ever been a member of the National Socialist Party of Germany or any other party that plans the violent overthrow of the government of the United States?"
Therein probably lies the basis of our disagreement. While the threat may not be the National Socialist Party of Germany, there are indeed those who are out to undermine our government. As one looks back in history, the threat has come from various directions. The natural born prerequisite for the Presidency was designed to protect us from those threats. If one does not acknowledge the threat, one would not see the wisdom in the protection.
I still fail to see why we have two types of citizens: natural born who can become President and naturalized who can’t. And as I’ve pointed out before, I don’t believe that we have justification ascribing a disloyalty factor to the naturalized citizens and a loyalty factor to natural born citizens. But I don’t want to beat this point to death. You have your opinion, and I have mine.
I’m not particularly enthusiastic or adverse to making amendments to the Constitution. The requirement is set pretty high so that there won’t be a lot of changes due to the direction the political wind is blowing. I don’t see this amendment going anywhere nor do I think my other pet amendments (like repealing the federal income tax) will go anywhere either. But they are fun to argue.
Oh I certainly have recognized the threat, I just think you have ignored our domestic threat in order to support restricting the Presidency. That is why there is the clause "I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" in every federal oath. As I've pointed out before, I think our domestic enemies have just the same potential to damage our country as our foreign enemies. And I don't think that is changed by the location of your birth.
Do we have to have them? No. But we have them. The Founders had their fears, fears that aren’t totally disconnected from reality many immigrants keep very tight ties to their original land. It’s not about loyalty and disloyalty, there’s a reason the Founders threw around the phrase “foreign entaglement” (on many issues), it’s not about calling int question anyone’s loyalty it’s about avoiding unnecessary complications, running a country is complicated enough as it is. I’d rather be in a position to think maybe the Founders were wrong than be in a position to find out they were absolutely right.
>>>Couldn’t the followers of Marx just as easily prime a natural born US citizen who left the country after being born?
NOT just as easily. That is the point.
Then why not restrict it by generations as well? Logically, the people who would be least likely to have foreign entanglements by your logic would be the direct descendants of the Founders. Anybody who isn’t a direct descendant doesn’t deserve to run. And those who have more connections would be higher placed. Heck, do away with the election and select the person who has the greatest amount of blood from the most important Founders! You only need an election if there is a tie. Sort of like a War of Succession we can call it an Election of Succession.
Again, the logic does not hold.
Because there are also domestic threats, we should weaken the protection against foreign threats?
Does not compute.
Bah! It is just as easy. Well except for the fact that you have to buy an airline ticket. I’m sure that cost will deter the millions of American children who are ready to be shipped to another country for their Marxist indoctrinations.
The logic is valid because if a naturalized child has the same probability to harm the US as a natural born child, it makes no sense to discriminate against the naturalized child. If you want to discriminate, flip a coin. That would be a better system.
It’s a real simple concept, in most people where you were born (or at the very least where you spent your formative years) is your home. You might go somewhere else, but in most people the core concept of home will always belong to the first place you gave that name. I spent my formative years in Chicago, my family moved to Tucson during the Ford administration but Chicago will always be my home town, I love Tucson but Chicago is home.
Then there’s leverage issues, remember the problem doesn’t have to come from the mind of our president. How do you think 1990 or 2003 goes down if our president is a former citizen of Iraq and Hussein finds out his sister still lives in Baghdad?
But isn’t separating into two classes of citizens the first step toward making a monarchy? That is the point of my sarcastic comment. Most Americans would find it absurd to think some random British Lord is a better person than another random British person just due to his birth. Sure, there will always be privileges based on your birth and family, but those shouldn’t be restrictions of potential opportunity.
And as for your second point where home is where you grew up, then that would seem to admit that at least some immigrants deserve the right to try to become President. After all, if you immigrated to the US at the age of 2, then you would always consider your home to be in the US. On the reverse, if you were born in the US and left at the age of 2 and went to Italy for the next 20 years but didn’t naturalize, you would consider your home to be in Italy. In this case, our Constitutional law clearly states that the person whose home is in Italy deserves the right to try to become the President, while the person whose home is in the US does not.
Furthermore, is it not possible to claim your home when you are older? Is 2 young enough, but 10 is not? Or can you form tight enough associations at 25? At what fraction of your life must you live in the US for it to be your home?
As you see, these restrictions appear arbitrary to me. I don’t like the idea of dividing citizens with such a simplistic method.
>>>>Bah! It is just as easy.
Really? You are saying the USA will have undercover agents in every country and access to the communication systems?
You are dreaming.
Foreign entanglements leads to problems. We have enough of that with treaties and NGOs.
Off to feed my family.
Not at all, it’s too large a pool to start with, even if no future immigrants had ever had children, there’d be so many decendents of that first generation of Americans it wouldn’t be an issue. And of course since immigrants have kids that are eligible, it becomes a complete non-issue.
But where’s the cutoff date? At what point does a kid form his bond that declares home? Age 2? Age 6? Age 10? Too complicated to deal with, call it at day one and don’t worry about the rest. And remember society was a lot less mobile back then, people didn’t just bail to Italy with 2 year olds.
It may be arbitrary, but so what. Life is arbitrary. Why is the minimum age 35? Now that socioligists say 30 is the new 20 shouldn’t we raise the limit to 45? Of course hardly anybody under the age of 50 even tries for the job so maybe we should just hop it up to 55, or drop it completely because apparently the rule never actually comes up.
The rule is the rule, they had a good reason to make the rule, it’s visible among the populace that some portion of the logic for the rule still applies. As for anybody that really wants to change the government but can’t be president because of where they were born, they should learn from Henry Kissinger and stop whining.
Which it doesn't. There are more threats coming from foreign enemies than domestic ones, hence the greater probability with naturalized citizens.
... it makes no sense to discriminate against the naturalized child. If you want to discriminate, flip a coin. That would be a better system.
Here we go. Discrimination! What's next? The race card? Xenophope? Hater? Too much hyperbole--you lose.
Carry on, I'm out of here.
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