Replies

First, it’s too short to get anywhere interesting.

But there are substantive problems as well. Basically, what she does is ignore jus soli (right of soil) entirely, which puts her at odds with almost every Vattell fan whose ever posted on FR, and with Scalia and aa few of the founders, who specifically spoke of jus soli favorably.

Now focusing on jus sanguinis, the right of blood, she is able to dispatch Rubio, because his parents were not citizens. So boom, she’s done with Rubio.

Ted is a different problem. He’s got a jus sanguinis claim, born to a citizen mother. To defeat Ted Cruz, she relies on her belief in the sole capacity of the father to transmit citizenship to the child. As she states it, this was based on a view of marriage in which the woman had no legal existence apart from her husband, and thus had no natural right or power to transmit citizenship by blood to her child.

And frankly, yes, her view that this defective understanding of female social status could never change, simply because it is what the founders believed, is a bit clownnish, because it means that similar misunderstanding of the rights of blacks could never change, because some of the founders held an inferior view of blacks. Bizarre nonsense. Modern feminism is an unhealthy overreaction to problems of the past, but the view of women as full legal persons in their own right is a vast improvement over the views of that time, and really more consistent with the Judeo-Christian understanding of the elevated social status of women as taught in Scripture.

All this shows her to be quite the lightweight. You can’t neglect jus soli in a discussion of natural born citizen. It is the dominant rule. Jus sanguinis is the exception. Valid, but not the dominant theme. That she has this backwards is a big red flag. No consistent Vattellian should be using her as a reference.

But that she also believes US law is committed to a doctrine of male-only transmission of jus sanguinis citizenship and can never edit the operation of that principle, as US law in fact has done, shows she does not understand basic issues in the natural born problem domain.

For example, internationally, the forms of citizenship acquisition and transmission have always been editable by the sovereign, and often by statute. Britain did it. France changed it a couple of times. No, we aren’t copying France, thank goodness, but the principle is there: A sovereign nation has the natural right to determine who shall be it’s citizens.

So while I would not be inclined to use harsh words to describe her efforts, they are definitely weaker than many a fine poster on either side of the subject whom we have seen on these pages.

Peace,