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To: patlin
We are defining the “ROOT” meaning here, not the function of the term. Do you not agree that there is a “FUNCTION” to the term.

I can't answer that because I don't understand what you're asking. But I think that when it comes to understanding a legal decision, it's the function of the word that's important. It doesn't matter what distinction Athens made between citizen and subject, any more than it matters that the root or origin of citizen is in the word city. Surely you're not suggesting that only city-dwelling Americans can be President.

So the question the court was addressing was what the function of the word subject was in English common law and what that can tell us about the function of the word citizen in American law. Their conclusion seems to be that they have effectively the same (precisely similar) function. You're arguing, in effect, that a bird and a butterfly can't both fly because their wings evolved differently.

949 posted on 10/18/2010 10:07:17 AM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
I can't answer that because I don't understand what you're asking.

That 1st statement says it all. You have no clue as to how to interpret the words in the Constitution. SCOTUS Justice Joseph Story can help you with this ignorance problem you have...

§ 181. I. The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments is, to construe them according to the sense of the terms, and the intention of the parties. Mr. Justice Blackstone has remarked, that the intention of a law is to be gathered from the words, the context, the subject-matter, the effects and consequence, or the reason and spirit of the law...a rule of equal importance is, not to enlarge the construction of a given power beyond the fair scope of its terms, merely because the restriction is inconvenient, impolitic, or even mischievous. ..every word employed in the constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness, or juridical research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them; the people adopt them; the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense; and cannot be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning, or any extraordinary gloss...read the entire section of Story's interpreting the Constitution here:

http://www.belcherfoundation.org/joseph_story_on_rules_of_constitutional_interpretation.htm

998 posted on 10/18/2010 2:11:30 PM PDT by patlin (Ignorance is Bliss for those who choose to wear rose colored glasses)
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