Bret explains "natural born citizen" requirements for president and vice president

Many legal analysts and scholars agree with this take-- and until the Supreme Court weighs in.. this is how the law is interpreted:

The Constitution requires that the president be a "natural born citizen," but does not define the term. That job is left to federal law, in 8 U.S. Code, Section 1401. All the law requires is that the mother be an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for five years or more, at least two of those years after the age of 14. If the mother fits those criteria, the child is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of the father's nationality.

The brouhaha over President Obama's birth certificate -- has revealed a widespread ignorance of some of the basics of American citizenship. The Constitution, of course, requires that a president be a "natural born citizen," but the Founding Fathers did not define the term, and it appears few people know what it means.

“You already have admitted that”

No I haven’t. What you post is beside that point.

“Where has that ever existed? Even something so small as a tribe has a leader and, henceforth, government.”

Leaving aside whether or not tribal eadership constitutes proper government, you do realize that the term “citizen” has its roots in “inhibitant of a city,” right? Cities stretch back to time immemorial, but not forever. You don’t imagine there were always cities, do you, nor that hunter-gatherers recognized eachother as citizens of the tribe. That’s a distinction which comes with civilization at least.

“And the positive law Constitution recognized natural law as you well know,
that being your recognition of the natural law to keep and bear arms”

Yes but, and this is at least the third time I’ve made the point, while you theoretically have the right to bear arms by nature, you cannot be a citizen by nature alone. You must wait until the thing you are a citizen of has come into being. At which point those who naturally come into the world according to certain qualifications are natural born citizens.

“But what does that matter, for our purposes?
To illustrate that natural law existed before any law was written. I thought you understood that.”

Yes, I do. But once again, to be a citizens requires positive law of some sort, or at least custom. There is no British constitution as there is a U.S. constitution, for instance, but there does need to be such a thing as Great Britain before there are British subjects.

“I’ll take that as rhetorical. Nobody was forced to sign the Constitution just like nobody was forced to sign the Articles of Confederation. Coercion isn’t principled and nothing based upon coercion is legal.”

Yes, but not everything that is voluntary is legal, right? Forget about guns to the head. Let’s say Obama held a national referendum on overhauling the Constitution, which people voted on like they vote for American Idol. Would that be legal under the Constitution? No, for it would violate the amendmnet process laid out in the document.

Likewise, the manner in which the Constitution was ratified violated the amendment process laid out by the Articles. It was illegal in the eyes of the Article government. The way to justify it is to say that the states did not sacrifice their sovereignty, and were free to replace the Articles with a different form of government if they saw fit. If with no other justification, this is the old Right of Revolution, as used in the recent past against Great Britain.

However, if the states asserted their sovereignty against the Articles, then the resulting new government was not the same nation as that under the Articles, was it? The same union of states, perhaps, with the same name. But not the same government, and not the same thing of which to be a citizen.

When were there ever 18 justices?

In Minor v. Happersett and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. Both courts and ALL 18 justices voted on the same definition of natural-born citizen.

Byu the way, they didn’t exhaustively define natural born citizenship. They may have said children born to two citizen parents are natural born citizens, but I’m sure they didn’t say native borns aren’t.

Yes, actually they did, because they said the 14th amendment, which applies to "native borns" of resident aliens, does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. That definition comes from outside the Constitution in a self-limiting defintion ... "as distinguished from foreigners or aliens."

You talk like it’s all theoretical. You talk like it’s just an academic discussion. Guess who approaches problems and issues that way? Liberals do. Liberals ignore actual facts and speak theoretically as a default mode. Thus, for liberals, spending more money on the War on Poverty makes perfect sense. The fact that the trillions spent so far have only made the situation worse is not an issue for them. For them, it’s all theory, and according to their theory, all the War on Poverty needs is a few more trillion—then, victory.

We don’t have to speak theoretically. We’ve had a lot of presidents. Until Obama, only Chester Arthur raised any concern re: his half-foreign make-up. People like you pushed this man’s, Obama’s, legitimacy. He’s as American as Apple Pie in the eyes of the ‘anti-Birthers - what could go wrong?

Well you tell me. You and your ilk say he’s A-Okay from a NBC perspective. He doesn’t know how many states there are. He can’t pronounce corpsmen—which hardly matters, though; who gives a flip about the United States’ Marines? It’s not as if they’re important to our national heritage.

Sure, he laces his fingers in front of his genitals when other Americans cover their heart w their hand. So? Maybe that’s the way they do it in Indonesia. Who are we to judge? One culture is as good as another, right???

What if he ate dog meat? Don’t all Americans eat dogs? Well, we call them ‘hotdogs’, but Fido is just a hotdog in another form. Mmmmm good. Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm mmm good.

So what if Obama bows to foreign leaders. What’s un-American about that? Haven’t all our homegrown POTUSs bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia? Isn’t it a national custom, much like seeing ghosts on Memorial Day?

Okay, so Obama put an ornament of Chairman Mao on the WH Christmas Tree. What homegrown president hasn’t??? I mean, come on. You’re the one saying Indonesia is as good as the USA. Maybe putting ornaments of Mao and transsexuals on trees is big over there.

So Obama said Hawaii is in Asia. If it isn’t, it should be. Please don’t tell me prior presidents haven’t also said Hawaii is in Asia. Why wouldn’t they? If Obama says so, it must be common knowledge.

As for the bitter clingers and the Bible thumpers, this too is all-American. Every POTUS in history has mocked Americans this way. It has nothing to do w Obama being raised in Indonesia. It’s simply a time-honored American tradition.

So yeah, you’re right. Obama is so good for America, he bloody proves your point. Let’s hear it for the anti-birther hero, Barack Hussein Obama-—mmm mmm good!

“The law applies to the parents, aka aliens. It tells them, and everyone else, that once the child of that alien is born they are a citizen of the U.S. You can’t put the cart before the horse.
Why can’t you grasp that?”

Oh, I don’t know, because it’s as slippery as goose excrement. Whence this notion that a law can tell everyone that the child of half-alien parents can be born a citizen when certain criteria are met and somehow not apply to the children it is telling people about? That makes no sense. It is every bit as much about the children as it is about the parents.

Are you playing some sort of rhetorical sport now with the telling part? Yes, it tells the parents and everyone else about the children. It can’t tell the children themselves, as they won’t possibly be able to understand for a few years at least. Is that the point? That they won’t learn about it until later, and by that time it’ll already be an established fact that they’re citizens so the law won’t any longer apply? That’s cheap.

Saying the law applies to the children is not putting the cart before the horse. The moment they are born, the law applies to them. Their birth, their citizenship, and the law’s application all arrive at the same time.

“Perhaps you should go back and read this...

Did I ever say the child was an alien?”

I don’t need a refresher. That, or something like it, was exactly your first reply to me. I said then as I’ll say now the reason I brought up the possibility of aliens birthing citizens is that that’s what the law is about. Therefore, the law does apply to citizens, which you had denied.

Since then you’ve admitted the children of aliens can be citizens and that that’s what the law’s about. Yet you still maintain, somehow, the law doesn’t apply to the children which the law is about.

No I haven’t.
Yes, you have.

People are never without citizenship as you readily admit.
I don’t admit that.
You already have admitted that.

Before the Constitution you were a citizen of the Confederacy or the state in which you lived. Before the Articles of Confederation, you were a citizen of your state and informally I guess of the quasi-nation under the Continental Congress. Before the Continental Congress, you were a British subject.

What you post is beside that point.
It directly relates to the point. When natural law suits you, you use it. When it doesn't suit you, you disregard it.

Leaving aside whether or not tribal eadership constitutes proper government, you do realize that the term “citizen” has its roots in “inhibitant of a city,” right?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA...http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen
How about something a bit more substantial!
Minor v. Happersett

The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.
For convenience it has been found necessary to give a name to this membership. The object is to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. For this purpose the words "subject," "inhabitant," and "citizen" have been used, and the choice between them is sometimes made to depend upon the form of the government. Citizen is now more commonly employed, however, and as it has been considered better suited to the description of one living under a republican government, it was adopted by nearly all of the States upon their separation from Great Britain, and was afterwards adopted in the Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution of the United States. When used in this sense it is understood as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more.

You're arguing like a 12-year-old who's just discovered how clever he (thinks he) is.

Where in reply 4 did I say the child was an alien?

You said 8 USC only applied to someone who was an alien first.

8 USC § 1401 begins, "The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth."

It doesn't say "children of the following," just "the following." That is, the people who are citizens at birth. That is, children (unless you're going to argue that "at birth" doesn't necessarily imply "child"--I wouldn't put it past you at this point).

So if you say USC 8 only applies to people who are aliens first, and it applies to newborns, then you must be claiming that those newborns are aliens first. Even if you didn't say so in so many words, because I think then even you might realize the absurdity of your position.

As it is, I think the reply you're looking for is "I misspoke." Or maybe just "Oops."

“Why do you think the term ‘naturalized’ is used?”

I often wonder how birthers justify applying that term to the native born, given their insistence on a fundamental difference between natural born citizens and native born citizens. Is it merely a term of art, with no real significance? Or is being “made natural” actually what happens?

In that case, if you are “made natural” at birth, doesn’t that make you a natural born citizen? How can you be made natural at birth and not be born a natural citizen? Is it, as I theorized with another poster, that there’s a lacuna in the few seconds after birth. Like, only when you are one second old does the positive law kick in and make you natural. If there’s no lag, and being made natural coincides with being born, I don’t see how you get anything but natural born.

“Your claim was that this view of the law rendered verbiage of the Constitution superfluous - I pointed out to you that such a position is far from the truth. A view that citizens at birth are natural born citizens doesn’t render Article II qualifications meaningless - it clearly disqualifies ONE type of citizen.”

To play devil’s advocate, the retort will probably be along the lines of that making the word “natural” superfluous. That is, if it’s meant to exclude naturalized citizens it would possess the same meaning as “born citizens” without the “natural.”

To this can be shot back the fact that “natural born” was a common phrase, like for instance “trade and commerce,” which we do not take to mean that commerce is something different from trade (this pops up when people seek the definition of “commerce” to construe the Commerce Clause, and happen upon that parlance in the constitutional debates). Those two words together, “natural” and “born” always denoted “citizen from birth.” They could very well have said simply “born citizens,” but that’s not how people talked.

“Can rain be rain while it’s still in a cloud? NO! It has to fall before it’s called rain.”

Rain is rain when it precipitates, just as that law applies to children who qualify as citizens under it when they are born.

“The section under discussion applies to children who are born to aliens.”

I’m unsure why you emphasize “to.” Yes, they are born to aliens. How does that make it so that the law doesn’t apply to them?

“You’re the one saying the children are citizens before they’re born when the law says ‘at birth’, not before birth.”

No I’m not. Where do you get off? The law applies once they’re born. How can you argue the law doesn’t apply to them? It applies to their parents, somehow, but not to them, even though it’s about them? Because by the time they’re born and become citizens it’s too late for it to apply, because we already know they’re citizens and there’s no question? But the reason we know is that the law applies to them, and tells us that they are citizens. The law applies to them.

“Again, as you well know...The section under discussion applies to children who are born to aliens.”

What’s your point?

” It doesn’t apply to citizens.”

Yes it does. It applies to those very citizens who were born *TO* [!!!!!] aliens.

“You can argue it all you want, but a cloud is a cloud and rain is only rain after it starts to fall.”

Yes, and if a law told us that wetness that falls shall be known as rain, then that law would apply to the wetness that had become rain.

“No, it doesn’t! It tells the parent (or parents), who are aliens, as well as all of the other people of America, that the child is now a citizen through naturalization and they are afforded all of the protections that every other citizen has.”

You have a unique legal mind, I’ll admit. I supposed you’d say that the law against murder doesn’t apply to murderers. It only tells everyone that the murderers are murderers and puts the murderers in jail to show everyone that murderers end up in jail. The people the law is about, and the ones who have things happen to them because of it, are somehow not the ones the law applies to.

The requirements making the children of aliens citizens through positive law, as you insist, do not apply to the children themselves. The law only tells everyone else but the child what the child is, and ensurea that the child retains its status throughout its life (unless it takes unilateral action to renounce that status, as all of us can). Yet somehow the law never touches the child. It hovers over them, like a cloud of smoke invisible to them but visible to everyone else.

See, I tried to understand, but I can’t carry it any further. It’s making me delirious.

Lets peel this code back.

At the highest level USC 8 has the following title

Title 8 - Aliens and Nationality

Is not this section of the about ALIENS and only ALIENS?

Chapter 12 - IMMIGRATION and Nationality

So is this section not about those that are considered immigrants and thus naturalized citizens?

Chapter 12, Subchapter III - Nationality and NATURALIZATION

This IS about NATURALIZATION! Question above answered!

Part I - Nationality at Birth and COLLECTIVE NATURALIZATION

This is further defining a citizen who is citizen at birth through NATURALIZATION.

USC 8 1401 - National and citizens AT birth

The word natural appears no where in this section. Why? This entire section and all the titles of the sections leading to it deal with NATURALIZATION.

As a natural born citizen I and millions of others are not in any subject to this code that is about NATURALIZATION.

Just as I and millions upon millions of other natural born citizens do not this code to ascertain our citizenship we also do not need the 14th Amendment to grant or validate our natural born citizenship status.

It is very simple. If you need an section of positive (man made) law, and 1401 is just that to validate your status - YOU ARE NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

Mr. Baier is 100% and completely in correct in his analysis that uses laws on immigration and naturalization and applies SOLELY to NATURALIZED citizens to indicate to me and millions and millions of others that THIS law is where our citizenship is derived. I take this as a direct attack on any and all citizens whose source of citizenship is by natural law and not some 1401 code buried deep in our IMMIGRATION and NATURALIZATION laws.

We must ask ourselves this. If 1401 was repealed and repealed retroactively tomorrow would we who are truely natural born citizen STILL be citizens. The is obviously and without a doubt YES, WE WOULD! So this fact nullifies Mr. Baier's dribble.

Indeed - and seeings as how the founders were mostly natural born subjects of England - they would have been most familiar with that term.

They didn't consider themselves to be natural-born subjects which was perpetual. We know this from James Madison. He said that the local community came ahead of the crown ... that persons were primarily citizens of the colony in which they were born AHEAD of being subjects of the crown.

What was the allegiance as a citizen of South-Carolina, he owed to the King of Great Britain? He owed his allegiance to him as a King of that society to which, as a society he owed his primary allegiance. When that society separated from Great Britain, he was bound by that act and his allegiance transferred to that society, or the sovereign which that society should set up, because it was through his membership of the society of South-Carolina, that he owed allegiance to Great Britain.

The Shanks v. Dupont decision echoes this principle:

On that day, Mrs. Shanks was found under allegiance to the State of South Carolina as a natural born citizen to a community ...
- - -
Upon the whole I am of opinion that Mrs. Shanks continued, as she was born, a citizen of South Carolina, and of course unprotected by the British treaty.

The founders - by force of arms - freed themselves from being subjects and founded a government where the citizen was sovereign.

But prior to the Revolution - they were subjects - and subject to the laws of England - and born as “natural born subjects” of England.

My point is that there is or was NOTHING in English law to differentiate those born as subjects of England and those who were natural born subjects of England.

To be born a subject of England was to be a natural born subject of England.

“No, everyone doesn’t have to reference positive law to be a citizen of something.”

I’ve revisised my position a bit, and added that custom in addition to positive law can make for a citizen. I suppose who was a British subject depended on the common law, which you’d call positive. But there’s nothing like the U.S. Constitution over there, even though they have what they call constitutional law. They mean something different and less concrete by their “constitution.”

That aside, there were all sorts of governments in history out of mind that never had written laws, nor common law, though one would have to say they had citizens. The point is, there has to be something, either through positive law or custom, to be a citizen of before you can be a citizen of something.

“If that were so then there would be no such thing as natural law which you admit exists.”

I do admit it exists, or at least I pretend like it does. I think it’s best to act as if there were a natural law, even if there isn’t. But that’s beside the point and may unnecessarily prejudice you against me. Yes, there is a natural law, and there are natural rights to bear arms, speak freely, peacably assemble, petition the government for redress of grievances, earn a living, own property, etc.

What I don’t think exists are natural citizenship rights. I cannot claim U.S. citizenship status by the laws of nature because the U.S. does not exist by nature. The government respecting my right to free speech is correct, because that right precedes social contract. In order for me to be a U.S. citizen, contrariwise, society must have previously organized itself into the United States.

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