George Will: My Choice For Vice President Is Bobby Jindal (Watch Video)

RCP ^ | 06/25/2012

[SeekAndFind]

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

[DoughtyOne]

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

I stridently disagree that this sentence provides legal grounds for considering children, born to illegal immigrants on U. S. soil, automatically U. S. Citizens.

Why?

The framers of this sentence realized that there were people on our soil who were not subject to "the jurisdiction thereof".

Translation: Not everyone here is under our government's jurisdiction.  Illegal immigrants are one such segment.

Except where foreign nationals break our civil laws, they are not under our jurisdiction.

Foreign nationals remain under the jurisdiction of their home nations.  Those foreign nations have laws, their own constitution under whose jurisdiction those folks remain.

People vacationing here, people who have come here illegally, are considered to be here on a temporary basis.  They are still citizens of other nations, under that nation's jurisdiction, not under ours.

Mexico tips this off on a regular basis, as it demands it's citizens be treated humanely.  "These are our citizens, and we demand they be treated in accordance with our laws, not yours."  They even claim this when their citizens have committed murder and other high crimes.

The Matricular indentification card pruduced by foreign consulates in the U. S., is another acknowledgement that these are foreign citizens which remain under their home nation's jurisdiction.

Another test is this.  We can't all of a sudden across the board refuse to let citizens of France return home.  Actually we could, but there would have to be a national security or some other type event, or in short order our government would be over-ruled because these people are not commonly recognized to be under the jurisdiction of the United States.  We cannot arbutrarily detain them.  Why?  Because they ARE NOT under our jurisdiction.

[SecondAmendment]

> Does anyone at the RNC or in the Media care about the Constitution.
> Yes, they care, but only to destroy it.

In short, no.

After all it was the Republicans who introduced the "OB"(Original Birther) in 1964 when they allowed George Romney to run for President in the primaries to blunt Goldwater.

The Republicans then as now were more concerned with aborting the Conservative movement in the GOP since Romney Sr. was born in Mexico.

[Gaffer]

George Will is one of the last so-called conservative pundits (mostly feathering his DC and NE US income and living) that I would ever consider listening to. A prissy, bow-tied little snit if you as me. A token conservative on the Beltway Circuit......he can just suck it.

[edge919]

The Supreme Court made it clear in 1898 that the 14th amendment does NOT define natural-born citizenship ... and for good reason, under the equal protection clause, it would have to make naturalized citizens in to natural-born citizens. The court said in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark:

In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that."

The Minor court said: "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, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."

This is a verbatim match of the Law of Definitions decision that says: "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens."

The Law of Nations is even more specific, and its reasoning has been cited in other Supreme Court cases such as The Venus, Shanks v. Dupont and Inglis v. Sailors Snug Harbour: "children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. ... The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent."

This means the fathers must be citizens prior to the birth of their children before they can be considered natural-born citizens. IIUC, Jindal's father (like Obama's) was not a citizen at the time that Jindal was born.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not an NBC???? I suggest a more careful reading of the 14th amendment is in order. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws....”

Yes, yes, it makes them citizens at birth, but not "Natural born citizens." If it did, the Supreme court would not have said this seven years later:

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens."

The 14th amendment says EXPLICITLY who shall be "citizens", but as the Supreme Court points out, it DOES NOT SAY who shall be "natural born" citizens. Ergo, 14th amendment citizens are not the same thing as "natural born" citizens.

Simple, and irrefutable.

[DiogenesLamp]

No law (short of a constitutional amendment) can redefine the meaning of terms used in the U.S. Constitution. Your references to subsequent statutes are a waste of time. An act of Congress cannot change the meaning of a constitutional article. Period. Full Stop. End of Sentence.

[DiogenesLamp]

Amen! This man I will support.

[DiogenesLamp]

FWIW I think he is eligible, else Obama would have been thrown out in one of these court cases, just don’t see how the 14th is relevant.

You assume more competence for the courts than they deserve. They can't even figure out that the 14th amendment does not create a right to abortion, so why should they get anything else right?

[SeekAndFind]

OK, I’m all ears, if the constitution does not define who a natural-born citizen is, where do we get the correct definition of the term, and how do we know today, that *that* definition is what the framers had in mind when they wrote that phrase in?

[x]

If George Will wants Jindal, there must be something hugh and series wrong with him.

It means Bobby will sit back and be quiet while George rattles on about baseball.

I don't know if that's something seriously wrong with him.

[DiogenesLamp]

OK, I’m all ears, if the constitution does not define who a natural-born citizen is, where do we get the correct definition of the term, and how do we know today, that *that* definition is what the framers had in mind when they wrote that phrase in?

Well, I can give you a great number of reasons how we know what they had in mind, but it will take a long time to go through them all. How about we start with Aristotle? This is what he said 2500 years ago:

Who is the citizen, and what is the meaning of the term?

...Leaving out of consideration those who have been made citizens, or who have obtained the name of citizen any other accidental manner, we may say, first, that a citizen is not a citizen because he lives in a certain place, for resident aliens and slaves share in the place;

...But the citizen whom we are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense, against whom no such exception can be taken, and his special characteristic is that he shares in the administration of justice, and in offices.

...a citizen is defined to be one of whom both the parents are citizens;

How about Mathew Bacon? (From an English Law book owned by John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams.)

Note, the reference to the Parents comes BEFORE reference to place of birth.

I have been arguing this subject for several years now, and I can show you all sorts of bits and pieces that demonstrate the founders did not regard birth on the soil as the deciding factor (Indians, Slaves, Diplomats and British Loyalists after the war were all born on the soil, yet none were considered citizens.) but instead required that the Father had to be an American to make the child an American. (Till the Cable act of 1922 when women were first allowed to transfer citizenship to their offspring. Prior to this time, women were automatically the same citizenship as their husbands.)

Here's a piece from 1811 in which James Madison (writing under his pen name "Publius" says the Father must be an American to make the son American.

I can go on and on with examples, and I will if you want to see more.

Here is a Law passed by Maryland (1784, three years before the Constitutional convention.) designating the Marquis de La Fayette as a "Natural born citizen" and his male heirs forever. (Note they do not require them to be born in America. Place is not the condition that makes one "natural born." )

There is the Venus Decision by the Supreme Court in 1814 which explicitly states that a natural citizen is one who's parents are citizens.

Chief Justice Marshall:

Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says

"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."

I'll post more as you like.

[RichardMoore]

Read the qualifications for president. A natural born citizen according to the Supreme Court 1875 is one born of to American Citizens.

[Drew68]

Sorry, Bobby Jindal is not a NBC.

Nor is Marko Rubio.

Does anyone at the RNC or in the Media care about the Constitution.

Nobody outside of the birther circus is buying this ridiculous made-up definition of NBC that birthers are trying and failing to sell.

[Texas Fossil]

Are you an attorney?

Look I am not an attorney, but have read extensive discussion of this subject going back past the time of Chester Arthur.

This is only an issue because those in power choose to not abide by the Constitution. The courts know 2 citizen parents were the requirement for NBC at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Nothing has been changed in the constitution since then. No, the 14th Amendment did not change it. No the Immigration and Naturalization Act did not change this.

You can choose to ridicule all who have come to this conclusion, but it changes nothing.

Sorry, I disagree.

And I am not a birther, I believe that Obozo is a NBC. BUT, only because I do not believe that his biological father was BHO, Sr. (Possibly FMD, if so he has 2 citizen parents) And I do not believe he was born in HI. There is NO PROOF of where he was born. All documents presented are absolute forgeries, totally conjured.

[mlo]

You mean you’ve read extensive birther discussions of this subject. You should check out the guys that think the Earth is growing from the inside. They have lots of discussions to read too.

No, the understanding at the time of the adoption was that “natural born citizen” meant being a citizen by birth, being born in the country. It had nothing to do with the status of parents. If that’s what they meant to say then they wouldn’t have used a phrase that makes no reference to parents.

[Dajjal]

ineligible bump