Posted on 10/04/2008 5:33:42 PM PDT by mimi from mi
You still haven’t posted when that particular bit of the code became law. This is an important omission.
You could declare someone to be a Buick retroactively, but that wouldn’t make them a Buick.
In the eyes of the law you can and it does.
He didn’t need to be born in any particular place - BOTH parents were American citizens. My own Certificate of Citizenship indicates that my American citizenship is DERIVATIVE, from my parents, at birth, and confirmed by oath before a judge at majority.
I want to see Obama’s certificate.
If Congress passed a law that declared Jesus Christ a "natural born" American, he still wouldn't be a natural born American. Congress doesn't have the power to retroactively change facts.
I want to see Obama’s birth certificate too. I won’t believe he’s natural born until I do. The fact that they won’t produce such a simple document is highly suspicious. There’s no reason I can think of not to release it if it is proper and in order.
Your argument about McCain’s parentage providing his natural born status is a strong one. Of course, that isn’t what McCain’s supporters have been arguing. Even on this thread, they’ve been misstating the facts of the circumstances of his birth, just like the media. [Probably mainly ignorance in both cases.]
But, if McCain is going to make the argument based on his parentage, he’s going to have to make it from a natural law perspective, one which would expose many of his policy positions over the years as hypocritical to say the least.
Where McCain was born, to whom, when, and under what circumstances are facts.
Whether or not McCain is a natural born citizen of the US is a not a fact but a conclusion of law. Since the constitution does not define a natural born citizen, it can be established through common law, and statute, as determined by the US Congress. And the law can change and can be changed. While it might be difficult to pass a law dispossessing someone of citizenship after it is conferred, under the 14th ammendment, citizenship, including rights of citizenship by virtue of birth can be conferred by statute. In fact, in the INA congress does just that.
Codified law can’t change natural facts.
Whether someone is a citizen is not a fact. It is a status conferred by law. I could be born in Germany of US citizens. Under German law, as I understand it, I am not regarded as a German citizen. That is a legal determination, not a factual determination. Where McCain was born is a fact. Whether or not he is a citizen, natural born citizen, or naturalized citizen is not fact. It is determined after a court examines the circumstances of his birth and applies the laws of the United States to those facts.
It isn't hard to understand really.
READ post #33.
There is no trick question there.
Believe what you want to believe. Whatever makes you happy.
Until today, Sunday, it is still a free country for beliefs.
Thank you again, EternalVitilance.
So where were you born? You left that out.
Post #45.
Strong, correct comeback EV.
Thank you.
Post #47.
Another great applause.
I am jumping up and down clapping.
Thank you.
“Ok. I got it. You have it in for McCain, and as a consequence you are willing to try this idiotic thick headed approach trying to argue semantics, but they just don’t go where you want them to.”
No. It is your brain that is hermetically sealed.
“Whether someone is a citizen is not a fact. It is a status conferred by law. I could be born in Germany of US citizens. Under German law, as I understand it, I am not regarded as a German citizen. That is a legal determination, not a factual determination.”
You cannot run for president if you were/are born in Germany. And before you start screaming, U.S. installations in foreign countries such as Germany are NOT U.S. property.
“Where McCain was born is a fact.”
Yes, that is true. He was born in Colon, Republic of Panama and not the Canal Zone.
“Whether or not he is a citizen, natural born citizen, or naturalized citizen is not fact.”
Yes it is.
“It isn’t hard to understand really.”
No it is not. But for you it is. Your mind is hermetically sealed that is why.
London, England, in 1939. My Father (age 56) had a small business there.
You pretty much covered it. Thanks.
You are right about citizenship. It is established by law. There are two laws that do so: 1. the Constitution 2. Statutes.
The Constitution confers automatic citizenship on those born in one of the United States, subject to its jurisdiction, and not an Indian (not taxed). All and only such are natural born.
The Constitution confers on Congress the power to enact “uniform naturalization” laws. One supposes that this means that such laws apply equally throughout the United States and are equally to be honored in all States, for they are in no sense of the word “uniform” otherwise!
So what does “naturalize” mean anyway? It means I firmly believe “to make as if a natural born citizen.”
It is furthermore quite clear that there are only two (and I say mutually exclusive) classes of citizens: those natural born and those naturalized.
Following this last dictum there is even one case that says that someone who is natural born and loses by any means their citizenship and then is naturalized is no longer “natural born.” I may not agree with this decision, but it does make it possible to lay down another principle, namely the following:
If you are not a citizen, you are not natural born, even if you WERE natural born. This is a much stronger principle than in fact necessary to demonstrate that John McCain is not natural born.
I think that so far the woolly mammoth in the room has gone unnoticed. JOHN MCCAIN IS NOT A CITIZEN!
How can I possibly say this? Well it's the facts ma'am, nothing but the facts!
John McCain was born in Colon in the Republic of Panama in 1936. The hospital in which he claims he was born was not constructed until 4 or 5 years after his birth. His birth certificate is a fake. He clearly knows he has a problem and has dishonorably gone to great lengths to conceal it.
The Canal Zone of course was never a territory. The treaty created an unusual legal situation. The treaty asserted that the Canal Zone was subject to Panamanian sovereignty and United States Jurisdiction. Neither status had an expiration date.
Because of this unusual legal situation, from 1904 until 1937 no one born either in the Canal Zone, even if of American parentage was a citizen. Anyplace outside the United States, territory, possession, or foreign country born of US parents got to be a citizen from birth. Not so in Panama.
This was unjust and Congress remedied this injustice in 1937.
So John McCain was not a citizen at birth. My position, which I think quite reasonable and not thick headed, is that no one not a citizen at birth is natural born and that furthermore that only those citizens at birth by reason of being born in one of the United States are natural born.
Now in 1937 Congress did not make anyone retroactively natural born, nor could it logically or legally. What it did do was to make citizenship available to those who would avail themselves of it. All you had to do was prove certain things. If you were a Zonie (one born in the Canal Zone), it was pretty easy, but you had to prove it and get naturalization papers.
However if you were born in the Republic of Panama, it was tougher. It is not clear at all that it would be possible to be naturalized at this very late date under the 1937 statute. Naturalization under a later statute is not impossible surely. Of course John McCain would have no difficulty (nor should he) in getting special legislation naturalizing him.
What was necessary to be eligible for naturalization in 1937 almost a year after John McCain’s birth and illegal entry to the United States? Well one or both married parents had to be a Federal government employee, civil or military, or an employee of the Panama Railroad Company.
OK then. Did John McCain qualify? Well not on account of his mother, who listed herself as a housewife. So what about John McCain's father? Well he was in the military, but his marriage to John's mother was very likely invalid. It was you see a quickie Tijuana marriage illegally witnessed according to a biographer by three fellow officers brought over for the day and not eligible to be witnesses according to Mexican or Tijuana law, I am not quite sure which, for three days.
Next problem. Not only did John McCain have to be born in Panama, but he had to be conceived there in order to qualify for naturalization, a rule still in effect by the way for those born then and verified with foreign service personnel. But you say that is ridiculous! How could anyone reasonably prove that? Well all they required was that his parents be in the country 266 days before his birth.
No proof so far that this is the case or not. But in order to get your naturalization papers, you would have to provide it. Now those crazy kids, the McCains took no such pains even if they were aware of them. There are no such naturalization papers.
Well prove it you say! Well I say I don't have to prove it. McCain has to prove he was naturalized in order to prove his citizenship. Why is that? Well for starters, his birth certificate is not accepted as proof of citizenship according to the Full Faith and Credit act of 1948 as a non-US document. Naturalization papers though would be acceptable. So the ball is in his court. He must produce them if he hopes to prove even the more limited notion that he is a citizen, much less natural born!
Now as to the thick-headedness of those who question retroactive laws. First a moral and legal fact. Retroactive laws have another name: ex post facto laws. That means laws that apply current law to past actions. The Constitutional prohibition of such laws applies to privileges as well as penalties I believe. So that is the legal point. The moral point is that it is unfair to punish someone for what was not against the rules at the time. Since being generous with citizenship is not immoral, the moral point is not applicable here, but the legal one remains. The logical point is as one of the Seven Sages said, “Of this ability even God is deprived, to make what has been never to have been.” Or more simply, “Even God can’t change the Past.” Of course Congress (and lawyers) often seem to think themselves superior to God, it is only natural to see them trying to not only violate the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, but also make what can only occur at birth (to be born a citizen in one of the United States) have happened now even though it did not happen in the past!
It is a closely fought race, but you might be the densest idiot with whom I have yet argued on FR. Citizenship of any kind is not a "fact," but a right conferred by the social and/or legal arrangements of the group or nation conferring citizenship. Citizenship in a Bedouin or Amazonian tribe is conferred by that particular society recognizing you as a member of that tribe and by no other criteria. In most of the world we have codified under legal codes what constitutes rights of citizenship.
Of course being the obtusely dense idiot that you are you missed the entire point. Who are one's parents and where you are born are facts. Whether or not you have citizenship anywhere is a matter of law. There are many places in the world where Americans born of American parentage can be born, and they cannot claim citizenship in the country where they are born because the laws of the country prohibit it. So even though the fact is that one was born in that country the law is that one does not have citizenship.
US statutes confer natural born citizenship on large classes of individuals. That is law. Your opinion is irrelevant.
This is a really close race between you and your competitor Gatun, but I have to concede that Gatun is now in second place and you have sprinted ahead in the dumbest freeper comment of the year competition.
Not only are you legally wrong, but you just trashed every serving member of the US military and every member of the foreign service who has had a son or daughter while on active duty oversees.
Their spawn do not reenter the US unlawfully. They are US citizens at birth.
How do I know. Been there, done that.
Now go crawl back under your rock.
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