Posted on 06/11/2014 11:18:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
We all have or know kids who have not launched into adulthood with stellar marks. Sometimes they make dumb mistakes. We still love them. They’re always our kids.
Sarah Palin has real kids. They’ve made mistakes. They will continue to have targets on them, and the Inquisition has zero qualms about attacking them.
I don’t think she wants to do it. I believe it is about her family. I agree with her, also, that her role as honest commentator on the political scene is extremely valuable.
It would be nice if FREEPERS stopped trying to undermine him as well.
Why don't you just "give it a rest" before you are zotted into outer darkness.
It would be nice if instead of trying to belittle a candidate other than the one we support, we would state our reasons for supporting our preference, and back them with facts. But since when has politics been "nice"?
He had no doubt the Government had a right to make the admission to citizenship progressive, the Constitution pointed out something of this kind, by the different ages and terms of residence they annexed to the right of holding a seat in this House and in the Senate, and of being chosen President. No inhabitant can become President of the United States, unless he has been an inhabitant fourteen years; which plainly infers that he might have been a citizen for other purposes, with a shorter residence. But it goes still further, it enables Congress to dictate the terms of citizenship to foreigners, and to prevent them from being admitted to the full exercise of the rights of citizenship by the General Government; because it declares that no other than a natural born citizen, or a citizen at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President.
To identify, perhaps, but not to define. Whatever the Founders meant, the meaning was to be locked in.
Now change the hypothetical and make it a man who travels to Great Britain and marries the Queen, creating the heir to the throne. Will that heir be a "natural born citizen"?
I claim the possibility is nonsense on its face and would have represented the most divided loyalties of all; that is, the heir to the throne could be expected to act at all times in the interests of Great Britain and not in the interests of the U.S.
A person can like and respect Cruz as much as they want, but it will never eliminate the possibility that his mixed nationality birth could give rise to divided loyalties.
I believe what Jim posted in post #1 did an excellent job of that.
Exam with great scrutiny why the founders added the "natural born" requirement for presidential candidates but not for congressional candidates.
Alexander Hamilton was by far the most divisive of the Founding Fathers and he was also born overseas. Hamilton was doing everything possible to ensure that he could be president eventually and others were trying just as hard to prevent it. In the end, we got the language we have.
As I said earlier, I tired of this long ago. As much as I detest Obama, it was embarrassing to watch otherwise intelligent people put forth the absurd conspiracy theory that a mixed-race couple in the Jim Crow era would contrive to put their son's birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper to cover-up the actual circumstances of his birth because they wanted him to be president four decades later. EVERY conspiracy I've ever seen, from the 9/11 and Katrina truthers to the fake Moon landing crowd is more credible than this one.
That is an out of bounds comment. You are saying that Cruz has divided loyalties?
What other country do you see him being loyal to?
Why did the Constitution limit the power it granted Congress over matters of citizenship to naturalization? Because Citizenship acquired solely by any law passed by Congress cannot logically be anything other than naturalized citizenship—by definition of naturalization. It's logically impossible for any act of Congress to make anyone a citizen by natural law. At most, such a law would be declaratory of natural law—because a citizen by natural law is a citizen no matter what laws Congress may or may not enact.
In fact, given the Founders' understanding of natural law versus man-made law, it would have been a logical contradiction to grant Congress the power to change or define natural law on any subject, not just regarding citizenship—because natural law, by late 18th-century definition, cannot be made by a legislature or head of state. That's why Congress was granted no such powers in any domain at all. Such a power could be used, among other things. to change the meaning of words, including those in the Constitution itself. The dangers of that should be obvious.
If Congress had the power to make anyone a natural citizen, it would also necessarily have the power to strip citizenship from anyone it chose. The fact it cannot logically have any such power—and is granted no such power by the Constitution—is one of the fundamental protections against tyranny. The power to revoke even natural law citizenship by law is the power to commit any act against anyone that the sovereign power of war permits.
So why didn't the Constitution define the term natural born citizen? For the same reason it could only grant Congress the power to define naturalized citizens. For the Constitution to actually define the term "natural born citizen" would necessarily mean that that status would be granted by man-made law, and not by natural law. That's why the Constitution provides no definition, and why it must be a court that decides who is and who is not a natural born citizen by applying natural law principles—which is exactly how English common law handled questions of natural citizenship.
But the ratification of the 14th Amendment introduced into the Constitution a rule of citizenship that declared anyone who (a) was born in the United States, and (b) was subject to U.S. jurisdiction at the time of his or her birth, to be a citizen. Since the 14th Amendment is a man-made law, and is not natural law, the 14th Amendment logically cannot make anyone be a natural citizen. Nor does it create the logical contradiction of attempting to do so, since it makes no mention of natural citizenship of any kind, and does not use the term "natural born citizen."
Are you under the impression that, if Freepers all agree that Cruz is eligible, then somehow all the liberals will agree? You don't expect them to play by the same set of rules when there is an alternative that would benefit them, do you?
As early as was convenient, some liberal group would sue claiming that Cruz was ineligible. Should the Supreme Court take the case, do you want them to decide the issue Constitutionally, or do you want them to accept an ugly precedent?
It's not undermining any candidate to openly discuss strengths and weaknesses. The Main Stream Media selected both Romney and McCain for the Republicans. While it served their interests in having us select a weak candidate, they did everything they could to advance them. Remember all the complimentary language about McCain being a "maverick" and being willing to cross the aisle.
As far as I could tell, neither candidate holds what I would consider strong political principles. Romney supported "Romneycare". McCain had to drag himself to the NRA meeting to claim "I get it now" or equivalent. He was there to advance HIS interests, not mine. And he was very late to the party.
I agree in part.
But Palin also needs to weigh the profound importance of American leadership.
Trig is important. Trig is very important. Trig may be the single most important Palin.
That doesn’t change, that Sarah may be very important, to America.
Our future. I hope she considers things seriously (which I am sure she is doing)
Trig is important, but Palin’s importance may be even more than just her children.
It may be, she decides her job is to be a mom. That is great, and I support her 100% in that decision. It may be she decides to however, run for the presidency.
In which case I will (enthusiastically) support her.
Just saying.
The REALITY is that a person can be loyal to another country regardless of their citizenship, that's what the essence of treason is.
That being said, I would be intrigued to hear a scenario from the last century or the foreseeable future where American and Canadian interests would be so divided that a president could side with Canada to the detriment of America. Is there some sort of "beer war" in the works, are the Mounties about to seize the American side of Niagara Falls, are Maine lobster boats being boarded and sunk, is Alaska facing a Berlin Wall-type scenario? Please, SOMEBODY warn us all of the imminent perils we are facing from the evil empire to our north.
That lobster war you mentioned has me worried.
Didn't we read on this very thread that Cruz not long ago renounced any claim to Canadian citizenship? Have you ever had to do that? I haven't.
Had he not done so, could it not have been due to divided loyalties? What would be so unusual about a person feeling loyalty to TWO countries? It would not be unusual at all for someone whose parents came from different countries.
I've had to explain to people in business over the years many times that having a "conflict of interest" doesn't mean that anybody has done anything wrong. It simply means that they have potentially conflicting benefits from decisions affected by the conflict. That is why "conflicts of interest" must be managed by someone who does not have the conflict; to avoid even the appearance that the conflict played a part in the decision.
How about the evil empire to the south?
Are you up for a Mexican citizen president?
The Constitution was written to protect the United States in perpetuity, subject to amendment. It would have been unthinkable at the time to include Canada among our allies at the time (they were the enemy) , and unthinkable to try to identify who our allies might be centuries ahead of time.
Do I care what idiots and liberals think? Liberals are going to use every single bomb in their arsenal to go after someone like Ted Cruz. They are going to make the same silly arguments that the idiots on this forum are using (i.e., that Cruz is not "eligible"). But that issue will never (I repeat NEVER) be taken up by the Supreme Court and even if they do, they will not break precedent to attempt to remove him from office, as their precedent is that if you are BORN a citizen and do not have to be NATURALized, then you are a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
The ONLY reason to bring it up is to try to cast doubt in the simple minds of stupid people who think that there is somehow a third category of citizen into which Ted Cruz would fall.
There is no third category. There never has been and there never will be. Ted Cruz was born a Citizen of the United States. He was not Naturalized. He is a citzen solely by virtue of being born one.
We don't need freepers undermining support for him based on silly inane arguments about his eligibility.
Name one member of Congress, or even one American that you know, who is more of an American Patriot than Ted Cruz. If you can find one, then vote for him. But stop using Free Republic to undermine Ted Cruz. We get enough of that crap from the MSM and other stupid people.
I'm sorry if the rule of law bothers you so much.
Are you then among those who believe that the son of an American father born to the Queen of England and heir to the throne can become President? It's not a very complicated question.
Perfectly stated.
These attempts to switch back and forth between "natural born" and "native born" and such nonsense has gone on long enough.
I personally don't think the liberals will even bring it up that much. In two years they will be fully involved in trying to create Zero's "legacy" and won't want to dredge up issues that have always been non-starters. While the birthers on FR may think they are engaged in groundbreaking work that will one day be enshrined in the annals of history, they were long ago dismissed as fools.
There are Americans who hate America even though their lineage predates the Revolution and their are even more immigrants who love America and everything about it. Zero's hatred of America stems from political ideology and has NOTHING to do with his father's nationality or citizenship.
Let’s start this by positively affirming that Ted Cruz is not the son of the Queen of England. So, that hypothetical aside, we can proceed.
First, with his father being a naturalized Canadian citizen, Ted Cruz even though he was a citizen of the USA by birth through his mother, also had Canadian citizenship. His parents were working in the oil industry in Canada at the time. They returned to the states when Cruz was 3. He was STILL a citizen of the US by birth.
Second, since Canada was discouraging dual citizenship at the time, and since he was only 3 years old, it is understandable that he did not consider any ties to Canada to be in effect.
Third, Cruz has always been a US citizen by birth. Finding out about a legal claim to Canadian citizenship, he renounced that citizenship simply to do the right thing.
All of that said, none of it matters toward Cruz having been a citizen by birth. He was. He remains so.
Despite having asked this hypothetical at least a half dozen times over the years, I never get a definitive yes-or-no answer.
If the answer is "no", the heir to the British throne, though having an American father, is not eligible, then it has great significance to this discussion, does it not?
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