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To: precisionshootist

“The Constitution clearly says Natural Born Citizen. All other references are to Citizens. So the original ‘intent’ was for the president to be born of two citizen parents”

No, so far as we can know the president was meant to be a natural born citizen. Anything else is pure supposition, and does not control plain meaning. It could be useful for construing the text when it is unclear, but it’s not here. NBCs are people born citizens. That may have been only the children of two citizen parents at the original framing. By the 14th amendment, there is no doubt that it’s means more.


265 posted on 05/01/2012 6:20:14 PM PDT by Tublecane
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To: Tublecane; rxsid; precisionshootist
No, so far as we can know the president was meant to be a natural born citizen. Anything else is pure supposition, and does not control plain meaning. It could be useful for construing the text when it is unclear, but it’s not here. NBCs are people born citizens. That may have been only the children of two citizen parents at the original framing. By the 14th amendment, there is no doubt that it’s means more.
WRONG! rxsid has a reply at @115 that completely disproves your lie.
273 posted on 05/01/2012 6:58:53 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Tublecane
Anything else is pure supposition, and does not control plain meaning.

What controls "plain meaning" is when other contemporaries plainly used the same words to mean the same things.

I posted the words of Thomas Paine, a Founder, if not a Framer. He wrote in The Rights Of Man about the origins of nations, and a comparison of the United States, France, and England, in terms of the authority of those governments vs. the rights of its citizens.

He wrote plainly of why the Framers did not want "half-foreigners" to be president, and why only people with a "full natural... connection with the country" were allowed to become President.

Paine was widely recognized as the most influential writer of the time of Independence because of his plain writing style that resonated with the common person.

If Paine said that natural born citizens meant both parents were citizens, then that was the plain meaning.

-PJ

288 posted on 05/01/2012 7:57:56 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (If you can vote for President, then your children can run for President.)
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To: Tublecane
"No, so far as we can know the president was meant to be a natural born citizen. Anything else is pure supposition, and does not control plain meaning. It could be useful for construing the text when it is unclear, but it’s not here. NBCs are people born citizens. That may have been only the children of two citizen parents at the original framing. By the 14th amendment, there is no doubt that it’s means more."

Whether you know it or not, you are arguing what the meaning of "is" is.

291 posted on 05/01/2012 8:00:24 PM PDT by precisionshootist
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