Posted on 05/08/2011 11:29:17 PM PDT by South40
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was born in Baton Rouge to immigrant parents from India, has released his birth certificate.
The Republican made the move Friday, nine days after President Barack Obama released his own long-form birth certificate to further prove that he was born in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
By what legal criteria do you say McCain is ineligible? U.S. law or Natural law or “I just want it to be true” law?
Vattel did address foreign born children of citizens serving the republic, but our framers and founders (Vattel was almost always the reference chosen by Hamilton and Washington, from letters exchanged when Hamilton was Treasury Secretary) did not cite that paragraph from Vattel, and did not employ every idea from Law of Nations. John Marshall was a founder, framer, and our greatest Chief Justice. He quoted “born on the soil of citizen parents” and cited Vattel. A half dozen other justices, five Chief Justices, and they cited Vattel. While rigorous interpretation of the Constitution is being destroyed, let's assume, as Marshall said, that every word in the Constitution has meaning.
The legal basis for McCain's ineligibility is the ‘jus soli’ requirement, birth on our sovereign soil. The most thorough explaination can be found at U or Arizona's Rogers Law School, Professor Gabriel Chin wrote a thorough analysis with the title “Why Senator John McCain Cannot be President: Eleven Months and One Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship.” I won't repeat his arguments in detail. Suffice it to say McCain, even if born on Coco Bolo Naval Base (his birth certificate says Colon Hospital, there being no hospital on base in 1936), Panama was one of a few countries for which sovereignty had not been negotiated until 1937.
Every senator knew. That is why Obama and McCaskill tried to pass a law “To Make Foreign Born Children of Military Citizens Eligible to Become President.” It could have had no effect, since laws cannot amend, modify, or interpret the Constitution. So McCaskill and Leahy passed Senate Resolution 511, claiming that they thought it would be nice (a resolution is not actionable) if we considered McCain eligible because he, unlike Obama, was born to citizen parents.
An amendment or interpretation by the court sounds reasonable, but because we think it sounds reasonable is not consistent with a constitutional republic. Natural born citizenship is not a guarantee of allegiance to our republic. But it is a requirement our framers imposed on presidential eligibility, and on no other federal office. It is a sensible requirement. Some believe jus sanguinis was sufficient, but that isn't what our justices have said.
McCain was chosen by Obama’s supporters because of McCain's long and public struggle to find a legal solution to his eligibility problem. The law firm defending McCain in two of the three law suits challenging his eligibility, Kirkland and Ellis, was politically involved with, and sat on Obama’s campaign committee. A Kirkland junior partner Sarah Herlihy, working for McCain's defense attorney,wrote a very flawed Chicago Kent Law Review article on why we should change the natural born citizen requirement. The article was written in 2006. We can't know if Obama was being groomed and his eligibility defense prepared, but the thorough removal of most all of his legal papers, including applicatons for Fulbright Grants for foreign students, was very professional.
If you are really interested in legal foundations you can find some excellent research here on FR. Find rxsid’s thread on natural born citizenship. The amateurs on FR have provided some amazing documents tracing our founder's use of Vattel’s Law of Nations. There were certainly other sources of natural law applied to nations, but Vattel was by far the most cited, four times more often than its closest competitor, and more than any other legal reference in US jurisprudence. It was our nation's first law book, defined by Jefferson as the core curriculum at William and Mary in 1779.
If some congressman undertakes an amendment (Orrin Hatch tried in 2003, and his amendment would have made both McCain and Obama eligible. Hatch’s bill was known as “The Schwarzenegger Amendment” since it would have addressed both jus soli and jus sanguinis; Schwarzenegger's parents weren't citizens and he was born in Austria.
Neither law or common law make someone born on foreign soil, military or not, natural born. They are 14th Amendment citizens. Citizens are natural, or naturalized. A 14th Amendment or Title 8 citizen is naturalized. McCain was naturalized.
According to Vattel the “jus soli” requirement is met by any child born to a soldier stationed overseas.
Our law is designed to be a reflection and acknowledgment of Natural Law. There is no “natural law” that stands apart from American law and supersedes it.
American law is sovereign.
American law, as a reflection of Natural Law, acknowledges that children born to our citizens while serving in our Military overseas are born citizens.
McCain is eligible according to U.S. law AND Vattel - and thus according to Natural Law.
The whole point of that was to later pull the plug if need be. McCain said we didn’t have to be afraid of Obama. IOW, he was pimping for him.
The whole point of that was to later pull the plug if need be. McCain said we didn’t have to be afraid of Obama. IOW, he was pimping for him.
Please cite the US law granting McCain, or the foreign born children of citizens natural born citizenship. You may or may not be a troll, but it doesn't matter if you can cite the Constitution. Remember, no law can modify the Constitution.
So far there hasn't been any U.S. law statute or finding that any person granted citizenship through the natural act of being born is anything other than a natural born citizen.
According to current reading of the Constitution (you may or may not agree with it, but it is hard to argue that this is not how it is currently interpreted) the only U.S. citizens who are not “natural born” are “naturalized”.
McCain was never naturalized, he was born a citizen.
Now I myself would LOVE an actual RULING by the SCOTUS to define unambiguously who is and who is not “natural born”. But somehow that wasn't the main focus of the insanely stupid birther movement - no the focus was “Where is the Birth Certificate?”.
This was pure idiocy and never had chance ONE of doing anything constructive for anybody but 0bama and the WND snake oil salesmen.
"Nope and it won't matter one iota should Jindal decide to throw his hat into the ring."
It will matter to those who believe in the rule of law.
Jindal will never get my vote.
McCain was never naturalized, he was born a citizen.
Ahh, sophistry in action. Because there is no law saying it isn't so, then it is?
The Constitution didn't admit such reasoning. It made a positive requirement - 'shall be eligible' and 'No person except a natural born Citizen.' Founder, framer, Chief Justice Marshall, along with C.J. Waite, C.J. Hughes, C.J. Jay, justice Gray, 14th Amendment Author bingham, all told us what they understood natural born Citizen meant, citing Vattel.
Every citizen not natural is made a citizen by law, not nature. They are naturalized citizens. In the language of the 14th Amendment, they are "born citizens." Born citizens are not necessarily naturally born Citizens.
The 14th Amendment was to make the children of residents, born on our soil, citizens, to force the recognition of former slaves as citizens. It is the legal foundation for Title 8, our naturalization code. Obama used that language (remember, he is a Constitutional Scholar) when describing his own status: "I am a native-born citizen of the US." That is the language of Title 8, and is true of Obama, whether or not he was born in the US (let's not get wrapped up in the age of his mother when he was born; it does not need to be decided to show Obama's ineligibility.)
McCain would be eligible if the 1790 Nationality Act had not been repealed in 1795, and had withstood certain challenge concerning separation of powers - Congress modified the Constitution.
McCain and Obama are citizens by law, not nature, and therefore naturalized.
And how praytell are you going to convince the Republic that your view of the law is correct?
I think McCain and 0bama in 2008 together kind of showed that nobody was going to stand up and defend your view of the law.
So where do you go from here?
We can start by explaining what our framers and founders intended - education. Politicians of both parties forgot what they signed in 2008, Senate Res 511, explaining that a natural born Citizen is born of citizen parents.
The uncertainty, the danger to a republic without a predictable legal foundation, since we aren't yet a monarchy, will continue to stifle the public welfare.
I agree that a conspiracy which made both parties complicit succeeded - so far. Besides educating the public, we need to ascertain the adherence to the Constitution of any prospective or sitting legislator. That is why it is called “The People's House.” If we give up respect for our Constitutional foundation, we are left with the political foundation described so aptly by Nancy Pelosi -"You need to vote for it so you can find out what's in it." Soon, voting will become entirely irrelevant.
Wow.
And you wonder why people might not be that interested pursuing your legal theory?
Not quite. Senate Res 511 argued that McCain's place of birth didn't count because they all agreed that McCain earned a pass, and his parents were US Citizens. In a constitutional republic legislators to get to ignore laws for political expedience. They confirmed that natural born Citizenship required citizen parents, which should have applied to Obama. It didn't fix McCain's problem, having no force of law, but pretended to, with the able assistance of state-run media and the conspiracy of silence by our legislators.
Many societies have given way to coups, setting aside what legal foundations they had. Honduras almost did, and Obama did his best to help. Now Venezuela, once a republic but now a dictatorship, has Iranian long range missiles being em-placed which could incite a response which will improve no body's life. It isn't clear that Chavez is as doctrinaire a Marxist as Obama, but Ahmadenejad may see it in his interest to see nonbelievers die for whatever reason. People may not be interested yet, but none of the destruction we may well see, beyond the damage to our economy, would have happened if we had respected our Constitution and elected an eligible president who inherited allegiance for our nation from his parents.
Not quite. Senate Res 511 argued that McCain's place of birth didn't count because they all agreed that McCain earned a pass, and his parents were US Citizens. In a constitutional republic legislators to get to ignore laws for political expedience. They confirmed that natural born Citizenship required citizen parents, which should have applied to Obama. It didn't fix McCain's problem, having no force of law, but pretended to, with the able assistance of state-run media and the conspiracy of silence by our legislators.
Many societies have given way to coups, setting aside what legal foundations they had. Honduras almost did, and Obama did his best to help. Now Venezuela, once a republic but now a dictatorship, has Iranian long range missiles being em-placed which could incite a response which will improve no body's life. It isn't clear that Chavez is as doctrinaire a Marxist as Obama, but Ahmadenejad may see it in his interest to see nonbelievers die for whatever reason. People may not be interested yet, but none of the destruction we may well see, beyond the damage to our economy, would have happened if we had respected our Constitution and elected an eligible president who inherited allegiance for our nation from his parents.
Thus your source that isn't a source when it says the opposite of the point you wanted to make.
No wonder everyone is laughing at birthers! The contortions are rather preposterous.
Thus your source that isn't a source when it says the opposite of the point you wanted to make.
No wonder everyone is laughing at birthers! The contortions are rather preposterous.
What I think has nothing to do with it. What does matter is the opinion of the supreme court and those of our framers. Chief Justice Morrison Waite, Minor v. Happersett, 1874:
“At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens,...”
McCain was not born in our country. Obama’s parents were not citizens. Find any source cited by our supreme court which modifies Justice Waite's clear recitation of Vattel’s definition. That, as Justice Waite points out, is our common-law understanding of the words of our Constitution's framers.
How about the quote in full?
Natural allegiance at birth descends through soil or blood.
The “common law” is not our law. Jefferson spoke clearly about the tyranny of that assumption.
“it was never doubted” just shows that of those that have BOTH blood and soil - there is no doubt that they are natural born. It does not establish that because there might be “doubt” over the natural born status of someone with only one criteria - that they are NOT natural born.
I have doubts of your legal acumen - that doesn't ESTABLISH that you have none.
Our current understanding of the law is OBVIOUSLY different than your own.
So what are you going to do?
Sit and sulk and say nobody loves the Constitution and your obscure interpretation of it quite like you do?
What do you hope to accomplish with that?
I don't know about that, he is, after all, a Republican.
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