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 ...
“The law is ‘applicable upon’ the children. It only ‘applies to’ alien parents.”
Please do define the difference between ‘applicable upon’ and ‘applies to.’ Don’t forget your crazy-to-normal dictionary. Is it like how anti-cruelty laws are applicable upon dogs but only apply to humans? Which is a roundabout way of asking if the citizen children of aliens are like dogs.
In the days of Arthur and Fremont I don’t think there were much public awareness and discussion of eligibility because the societal environment was oriented towards people on the assumption that USA citizens were the government. I believe Arthur knew about his not being Constitutionally eligible but being up for only VP and covered by the usual political chicanery with the communications available at the time, he knew he had a chance to be with the ticket. The deception worked much the same way Obama and his enablers(Bret is now one) have manipulated or ignored the Founder’s words and debate.
“So what citizenship would you have had if you were alive and living in the United States prior to its organization under the Articles of Confederation?”
You mean after the revolution started, while the states were united under the Continental Congress, if that is, in fact, called “the United States”? You would be a British subject in the eyes of the British before the war was settled. Aside from that, a citizen of your home state.
I’m not sure whether the Continental Congress was organized enough for the citizens of the states to also be citizens of the congress. Certainly there was no Constitution or Articles to bind the states together. There was the Declaration, but that did not bind them in the same manner.
Yes, Paine did use the term "native of the country." Does this mean "native born" instead of "natural born?" We have to look at the following statements to answer that question.
Paine refers to Engish examples in order to define this. Paine cites "foreigner" and "half a foreigner" as the oppposite to "full natural" connection to the country. So, what is "half a foreigner?"
It seems to me that "half a foreigner" is a person with one parent who is a citizen and one parent who is not. This person does not have have a "full natural... connection with the country."
I'd also say that Paine was a widely read author of the time of the Declaration and the Constitution, and so his writings do reflect the common understandings of the language at the time. I'm sure that the Founders and the Framers shared this understanding of the language.
-PJ
“That ‘something’ is natural law and it’s outside of positive law or custom.”
Now you’re not reading what you quote (it’s not that long, go ahead and try). What you should have highlighted was “there has to be something...to be a citizen of.” But then your point, that that something is natural law,” would make no sense.
The idea that you can be a citizen of natural law is idiotic. You are citizens not of nature, but of organized human society, as in modern times governed on a national level by constitutions.
.
Bret Baier is a moron, or a deliberate deceiver.
The term has been defined by the SCOTUS four times, each of which was in agreement with the common usage of the term at the time the constitution was written.
That definition requires both parents be citizens at the time of birth.
Deceiver be gone.
No, no, no. The citizen is the child, you see.
No kidding, Sherlock. The law is "applicable upon" the child. It "applies to" the parent.
What can't you grasp about that?!
That's like saying a child who isn't of an age to drive is responsible for their parent's speeding simply because they're in the car. The law applies to the driver, not the passenger.
The law...governs when the children of aliens can be citizens.
No, the law states when they become citizens, that being at birth.
Therefore, it governs citizens: the citizens who qualify according to it to be citizens from birth.
They can't be citizens until they're born you dolt! It doesn't take effect until after they're born, meaning before they're citizens. Thus, the law is applicable upon the children of aliens and applies to the alien parent/parents, one of which may not be a citizen at all.
“The law” in this case does not have the authority to modify the intent of the constitution, which relies on the well known common usage at the time of its creation: Both parents must be citizens at the time of birth to be a “Natural Born” citizen as referenced in the constitution.
Statute law does not amend the constitution.
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Here’s the million dollar question: Why did Obama, who has a degree in Constitutional Law from Harvard Law School, state on his fightthesmears website regarding questions of his citizenship that he is “native” born rather than state that he’s “natural” born?
Not with SR511 hanging over their heads. The committee of 5, including Hussein and Hillary, along with Chertoff, stated very clearly and signed their names to the definition of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS. The five senators, including Hussein and Hillary, signed it a second time in the Senate.
“When? There was never a first family?”
Don’t get cute. This is below even you. One cannot be a citizen of his family. Nor is a family really a societ, according to how we use the word.
“Wouldn’t the father of such a family be the leader and it would be he who decided who was and wasn’t part of the family (determine citizenship)?”
Being a leader is not being government. Deciding who’s part of the family is not determining citizenship, because there is no familial citizenship.
“You didn’t brighten my day. You showed how vapid you can be”
Which made you laugh, thereby brightening your day.
By the way, what’s more vapid, to understand the basis of words like citizen and politics or to pretend that parents being the government of families and childrens being citizens of their families is more than metaphorical?
“So what?! Were there no families or tribes either?”
There are no citizens of families, nor of tribes.
“Now or in the past?”
Either.
“Only if you spoke Greek”
Also if you speak English, which adopted the word “politics” from the Greeks (vias intermediaries).
“Yeah, right! Tell the chief and the shaman that their title meant nothing.”
Those are not titles, in the manner you want them to be, you unspeakable ignoramus.
“be sure and tell the wise women that your wife can have that child on her own”
What are you getting at? That there were customs, and that everyone didn’t do what they felt like means there was government and citizenship? Who are you kidding? Is this some elaborate excercise in wasting my time, or what?
“You think you’re wise and yet you don’t allow basic common sense to enter your thinking.”
Basic common sense like what? That families are collectives of people and have some sort of order, therefore they have government and citizenship? Yeah, that’s a little too “common” for me. Everything is not everything else. We distinguish with good reason.
I’m done with this. Anyone who can’t understand that citizenship doesn’t predate civilization is not worth talking to on the subject.
I got on my soapbox so quickly that I forgot! LOL!
I meant to ask about the relevance of citing equivalencies to British subjects to make natural-born citizen a like term.
I guess I answered my own question without ever asking the question.
But since the comparison was being made to England, I thought that Paine's thoughts on the matter were interesting, given that I've not seen them mentioned on any of the eligibility threads that talk about what the Framers knew or didn't know about the writings on the matter.
Paine seems to indicate that a "full natural... connection with the country" was not the same thing as a "half-foreigner." If he wrote it, it was a common understanding at the time.
-PJ
“The law is ‘applicable upon’ the children, it ‘applies to’ the parents.”
Tell me the difference, oh you John Marshall, you.
The law itself says it applies to people who are citizens at birth.
Where does the law say that? Can a law apply to a person who isn't born? How is that possible?
No, the law is applicable upon certain children at birth. It "applies to" alien parents.
The speed limit through a residential district is posted at 30 MPH.
Upon whom is the law applied to? Is it applicable upon another?
“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.”
No, there isn’t. Non-natural born people could easily know better. Foreigners could easily know better. For that matter, NBC could easily not know better.
“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.”
It’s hardly adult behavior to so easily castigate others for phantom childishness. What I said was, “You’re saying somehow magically he wouldn’t do these things had he qualified for NBC status?” Which I still believe is what you said, and yes I read your post carefully (enough). Your litany of gaffes against Obama is really neither here nor there as regards NBC status. Being born a citizen wouldn’t prevent you from doing what he’s done, nor does doing what he’s done indicate
I see the word “magically” especially got to you, as well it should. Not because I was wrong to attribute it to your thoughts in the previous post, but because it well describes your thoughts, at least as you chose to lay them out, and hearing so naturally makes you angry.
That's the point. You can't make a law on aliens and naturalization be about a person who was never an alien to begin with as their parent was.
The parent is the alien, not the child. The parent isn't the citizen, the child is when they're born and you can't enforce a law on someone before they're born (well, that goes into the whole abortion issue and just how wrong that law is).
The child has no choice but to be labeled a U.S. citizen.
The Preamble defines who is a natural-born citizen.
PreambleWe the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"We the People" are citizens of the United States. "Our Posterity" are the natural born who follow -- the children of the People. The Constitution was "ordained and established" to "secure... Liberty" to its citizens and their children.
Whom else was the Constitution established to secure, if not the citizen People and their citizen children?
How else would the Founders attempt to secure the United States of America if not by limiting the qualifications for the highest office to the People and their Posterity that was the reason for establishing the Constitution in the first place?
That language seems plain enough to me. The whole Constitution must be read within the context of the purpose as stated by the Framers in the Preamble: the Constitution was framed specifically to ensure the country to its people and their children - the natural born of the country.
If you are an alien who becomes a naturalized citizen, you become one of We the People, and then your children that follow become the nation's posterity.
Natural-born citizens are the nation's "posterity" that the Constitution was ordained and established to secure.
-PJ
You are naturally a citizen of just that one country.
Now, where do you people think ‘Natural Born Citizenship’ came from?
What could be more simple than this?
One certainly needn't be a constitutional law scholar to spot the simple logic of it, that's for sure.
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