Posted on 05/01/2012 9:32:22 AM PDT by GregNH
Here's the deal...
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“There was nothing in English law that would differentiate a ‘natural born subject’ and someone who was ‘born a subject’. Those who were born as subjects to England were, under the law, ‘natural born subjects’”
Even the birthers’ hero, Vattel, admits this, though I don’t think he’s happy about it.
My question to Bret is what law and when and how it was adopted. Does his law address the debates and concerns of the Founding Fathers when they specified the term NBC. Bret is no more of an authority than I am. This is just another example of the elites looking down on people in hopes of covering up false and deceiving intentions.
“Is not this section of the about ALIENS and only ALIENS?”
No. Just by its title it is also about “nationality,” and the nationality of children born to aliens yet possessing certain qualities is the U.S.
Was there a relevant point to your observation?
“’That is, the people who are citizens at birth.’
‘So how does that not make the law apply only to aliens?
They can’t be citizens until they’re born right?’”
Are you putting us on? That’s what the previous poster said: they’re “citizens at birth.” The law applies to them when they are born. At long last, sir, what the hell are you talking about?
“not just a dumb ass, but a dumb jackass!”
So glad you could join the conversation, sir. You are a credit to gentleman everywhere.
“You are a credit to gentleman everywhere.”
I meant “gentlemen,” but being a dumbass jackass couldn’t type it right.
That was my very first thought when I saw this. It's waaay past time to have a national conversation about this issue.
Thanks, GregNH for putting this up, and thanks to melancholy and rxsid for the Pings!
Barack Hussein Obama is everything you and the other soil people are arguing for. His father was a foreign hater of the US, but according to you that is exactly what the Framers meant by NBC: the son of a foreign enemy of the Republic.
I listed a few, a very few, of the things Obama has done that no other president has done. Not one other president in the history of this country has done any of those things. Are you seriously arguing that there is no/zero connection between Obama being half-foreign and all the things I listed? Seriously?
Okay then. Your turn. List the things Obama has done to justify your belief that he’s what the Framers had in mind. I.e.: you think they would have been delighted to have the son of a foreign enemy of the Republic at the country’s helm. [Do you seriously believe that, or do you just argue that position because you’re bored and have nothing better to do?] What has Hussein done to validate this weird faith of the Framers in the children of foreign enemies of the USA? Please be specific and thorough. I’m anxious to read your list.
PS: One other ‘historic’ first w Obama. He’s the first POTUS to dedicate his auto-bio to a man who passionately hated the US. But that’s just a freakish coincidence, isn’t it? Just a strange, odd, quirky little coincidence.
“I’ve never said they don’t qualify as citizens.”
I know, although originally I thought that’s what you implied. Turns out you were using some alternative argument that I’m still unable to comprehend.
“Why do you make something so simple so convoluted?”
I think you do that by baselessly insisting people are getting you wrong instead of sticking to the point.
“What I’m saying is that the law can’t apply to citizens”
Yes it can, and to the very citizens whose status you don’t deny it establishes.
“The only way it can apply to citizens is if said citizen is having a child with an alien.”
No, no, no. The citizen is the child, you see. That is the citizen it applies to. The child that has been rained down into the commonwealth.
“The law governs aliens!”
The law, specifically the part we’re fruitlessly backing and forthing on, governs when the children of aliens can be citizens. Therefore, it governs citizens: the citizens who qualify according to it to be citizens from birth.
“The overarching precept and principle is that the child has an alien parent or parents and has to be naturalized to be a U.S. citizen!”
Okay, let’s pick it up from there. What “naturalizes” the child? The law in question. Therefore, the law applies to the child, who is a citizen. Thusly, the law applies to citizens.
“Using that analogy and this conversation you must conclude that the murderer is the victim and the victim should be incarcerated”
Huh?
I use natural law when it suits the situation. It does not apply to everything.
I agree that natural law doesn't apply to everything. That's why man writes positive law. However, natural law most assuredly applies in this situation.
Glad I could brighten your day.
You didn't brighten my day. You showed how vapid you can be.
There were no cities before people cooperated enough for their to be surplus food to support city dwellers.
So what?! Were there no families or tribes either?
Perhaps, just perhaps, there was no civilization before then, and no citizens.
Perhaps not. What if your family disowned you or your tribe banished you?
But are all communities political?
Now or in the past?
You know what a “polis” is, right? That’s it: a city.
Only if you spoke Greek.
Tribes have no need of titles the way agricultural people with their cities do.
Yeah, right! Tell the chief and the shaman that their title meant nothing. And be sure and tell the wise women that your wife can have that child on her own.
You think you're wise and yet you don't allow basic common sense to enter your thinking. That makes you a fool.
I might trust Orly to clean my teeth or give me a filling, but I wouldn’t trust her for reliable information about the BC issue.
If I understand correctly (and I may not), one was not a subject of "England" per se, but a subject of the "Crown" or the sovereign King of England as the divine ruler from God.
Since we don't have Kings in the United States, the concept of "subject" does not transfer easily. The closest thing to define "natural born," then, becomes born to citizens of the country, since the citizenry are sovereign.
This is why America was called the "great experiment," and why we have the phrase "American exceptionalism." It is because, until the Declaration and Constitution, all countries were formed by either conquest or by subjection to religious monarchies as laid out in Thomas Paine's The Rights Of Man. America was created as a Constitutional Republic, where the rule of law defined the nation, and that nation's natural citizenry were its descendents (or Posterity, as it's referred to in the Constitution).
From The Rights of Man, Applying Principle to Practice, Chapter 4 — Of Constitutions, Part 2 of 2:
If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The president of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.-PJIn a comparison of these cases with the Government of England, the difference when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace without its consent.
But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government in the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in effect, accomplish a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for England that she is not situated on the Continent, or she might, like Holland, fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage, is as effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the government had been the means.
The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment, the trust is best secured. But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial departments are every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.
PPS: There is nothing “magical” about an American knowing how many states there are. There’s nothing “magical” about an American knowing how to pronounce ‘Marine Corpsman’. Nothing “magical” about Americans knowing Hawaii is not in Asia. Etc. Etc.
Either you are dense or you’re doing a good imitation of being dense. Try to read my posts more carefully, or at a minimum respond like an adult having a serious discussion. The idea that only by “magic” can an American know to put his or her hand over her heart—as opposed to lacing one’s fingers across one’s genitals—during the singing of the National Anthem is pretty sick or stupid, take your pick.
PPPS: What kind of magical spell was put on previous POTUSs, to prevent them from bowing to Muslim kings and Japanese emperors? Must be a pretty good spell. Are you Wiccan, to believe such nonsense, or do you have another excuse?
“What other purpose did it serve to say anything about children of citizen parents when Minor didn’t claim to be born to citizen parents??”
It served whatever purpose the judge had for it. Not everything they say is directly tied to the decision. It’s called obiter dictum, and it can spin off into irrelevancy easily. In this particular case, her presidential eligibility was not at issue. If they rejected her claim, obviously she was not eligible for the presidency any more than citizenship, so I hardly see how they danced around citizen parents and the 14th amendment had to do with who’s a NBC besides the children of two citizens, aside from not her.
There were not out to exhaustively define NBC status, and didn’t. They did not say outright that native borns aren’t NBCs.
This’ll be my final shot at this. I think the other poster is right, that you’re only sticking with this because you don’t see a way out.
You said the law applied only to aliens.
The law itself says it applies to people who are citizens at birth.
Therefore, you are arguing that people who are citizens at birth are also, at least at some point, aliens.
I have asked you what that point is.
You have answered only with rhetorical questions.
I conclude, therefore, that you don’t actually have an answer.
“Even by Brets literally made up definition, Rubio is NOT a Natural Born Citizen.”
Or, the beginnings of the attack to take Rubio’s name from consideration as VP.
“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.” {Bret Baier}
I went to the link to 8 U.S Code, Section 1401. Absent from that text are: any attempt to define “natural born citizen”, or even the words “natural born citizen.” To say that the “job” of defining “natural born citizen” is left to this Code section is simply dishonest.
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