Posted on 01/14/2007 1:40:19 PM PST by calcowgirl
THE GOVERNOR OF the nation's largest state was reelected in a landslide in November, even though his Republican Party is a minority in California. He works with Democrats in a way that offers the rest of the country a model of much-needed bipartisanship. To kick off his second term, he has proposed the most ambitious healthcare and environmental reforms in the country, and he is also committed to a massive reconstruction of the state's infrastructure.
Yet, oddly enough, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not on the list of potential presidential candidates in 2008.
Why? Because the founders were worried in the 18th century that our fledgling nation might go the way of Poland and be overtaken by a foreign monarchy. Hence the constitutional qualifier that only "natural-born citizens" are eligible for the presidency of the United States.
In their wisdom, however, the Constitution's authors adopted a mechanism for the nation's founding document to be amended. Amendments should be undertaken sparingly, we agree, but it's a good thing that slavery was done away with and that suffrage has been expanded.
And now that we can all rest assured that no foreign monarch is going to move into the White House, it's long past due for this nation of immigrants to amend the Constitution to allow naturalized Americans to aspire to the presidency. This is precisely the type of defining issue — what it means to be American — that the amendment process was designed to address.
Supporting Schwarzenegger for governor (we did) does not necessarily lead to supporting him for president (we don't — yet). But why should Californians have their governor sidelined from the race? And why can't voters across the country be entrusted to decide for themselves whether the governor is sufficiently "American" to earn their vote? It's insulting, really.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Not too silly, they're putting it up for consideration by the left wing to consider changing it, don't you think? They have the most to gain by illegals, they're children are naturalized and it's a great democratic block of voters for them.
'forty acres and a mule...and you're going to vote like your friends' still a working plan.
I'm with you!
NO! The United States of America's Constitution SHOULD never be CHANGED to allow a naturalized citizen to run for or be the President of the United States of America.
Mexiforniastan IS another country. And, it grows more each day as Commissar Arnold allows more illegals in.
Not one man - many, many, many men and women.
There are tens of thousand of naturalized Americans serving in the Armed Forces right now. Why shouldn't one of them be able to aspire to the Presidency some day?
To put it another way: why should Cindy Sheehan be eligible to be President, but not some Second Lieutenant originally from the Ukraine who wins the Silver Star for gallantry under fire?
And, of course, for any foreign-born person to be elected as President, they'd have to be a super-patriot anyways, in order to overcome suspicions about them.
For that matter why should I (foreign born, not yet naturalized, but someday hope to be) be prevented from runnng in, oh 2040 or so?
Although I generally don't recommend it, I support restricting freedom of the press and the stupid editorials of the LATimes. Just them, and occasionally the NYSlimes and WACompost. And a few others...The constitution should be amended to put a muzzle on them.
Why the heck shouldn't Granholm be allowed to run, for that matter?
I mean, she came to the United States when she was, what, two or something?
Why should, to pick one obvious example, Henry Kissinger been left out of the line of Presidential succession as a result?
The solution is to put together a "Citizenship Amendment." Something like:
Article XX
1. Only those children born to a parent who is either a citizen of the United States or otherwise legally residing therein shall be entitled to citizenship on account of birth.
2. All citizens of the United States shall be eligible for any office under this constitution.
There are two things that drive the democrats nuts about the Constitution.
The Electoral College
And this "born in USA for President"
Well rather than grumble about it. Ammend it!
Course they won't do that because the founders in thier wisdom made that very hard to do.
The founding fathers were smarter than the whole modern Democratic party combined!
Our Fore-fathers wrote the provision against non-natural-born Americans becoming President for a very good reason.
I stand by the Constitution on this matter, for it is an issue of Prudence.
I certainly don't want charismatic demagogues like Hugo Chavez to move here, get themselves a moonbat NY Senate seat, and run for President with the media fawning over them once they've been here long enough.
If it was up to the "Anyone should be able to become the President Of The United States" crowd, Hitler could have moved here when he was young and held that office, Imagine what our country would be like today.
The Constitution has already been amended twenty-eight times.
It's an archaic provision, designed for the purpose that the Times outlined. I mean, hell, it was written at that very time in such a way as not to exclude Alexander Hamilton from the Presidency.
Duh - a Hitler who lived for decades in America either would have been:
a) Unelectable.
Or:
b) An entirely different person.
Grandstand can be President (PM) in Canada and you can run for office in your natural born country.
Since when is California "the nation's largest state"?
I do not believe even the Dem'crats could move swiftly enough to change the Constitution so that Arnold could run for the Presidency in 2008.
Of course, a brief could be filed with the Ninth Circus, to have the entire Constitution declared unconstitutional. A little clause like requiring the President must be a natural-boorn citizen, shouldn't have much effect on their reasoning.
My natural born country is Canada too, as it happens.
Using Mapquest, I was born, oh, ten miles from the border. On a straight line, I'd guess, oh, five or so.
Can anyone think of any rational reason why Jesus Suraez, born to illegal parents five miles across the border, should have a more valid claim than someone born five miles on the other side, who spent their entire life immursed in American culture, spent a good chunk of their school years defending the United States, and then, eventually, left their home and family behind in another country to come to the United States, largely for ideological reasons?
Grin, yeah... Given the ah "speed" at which our elected so-called leaders operate, I'd guess Arnold will be dead and buried before they could get the amendment through - with the obligatory 237 spending riders etc.
Sad to saybut if he could run, most Republicans WOULD vote for the Socialist Moron, only because he is a Republican.
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