I admit I had had my doubts as well as to Ted's eligibility -- my father was born in Scotland, and growing up he always reminded us that he could never be President.
Yash and GTH and all the rest of you stretch-til-you-snap rationalizers desperate to denigrate Cruz, here's how it is:
My dad was born to life-long citizens of Scotland IN Scotland. He came here as a toddler and, along with his parents and siblings, became a citizen. From earliest childhood, he was "American" in all respects and a patriot. But rightly, he could not be president.
If his mom or dad was an American citizen living in Scotland temporarily, he would have been born with a natural right to American citizenship, certainly when that temporarily removed parent returned to America permanently. That is, born to a parent who was born, raised, and American in all respects and only temporarily out-of-country.
Therefore, one should give the same benefit of doubt to Obama's mother, because she was the same in the spirit of it, if not the legally required years (she was too young for Obama to have qualified for NBC status, it seems to me, if he was born in Kenya). The true problem with Obama is that he was raised outside of America and for sure outside of "mainstream" America for much of his life. He is foreign to America.
That is a major difference between Obama and Cruz setting aside the numerical requirements, and it touches the very SPIRIT of the requirement.
Ted Cruz is a right, excellent, and legitimate candidate for President. Stop making excuses.
If your father or if THE father was not an American citizen, whether we go by English common law at the time or the law of nations, he would not be a natural born citizen, even if he was a naturalized citizen at birth.
Under the "current" system, we have foreign princes of other countries who would be eligible to be President. That just demonstrates how horribly wrong it is.
Thanks Finny. You’ve established for us that you’re a Ted Cruz supporter. You’ve not established anything else for us.
Fact of the matter is, the “spirit” of somebody’s upbringing and presumed patriotism means absolutely zilch here. The law does not take it into account at all. It does not matter.
Cruz and Obama are both on the same ground.
They both were born on foreign soil to parents of whom only one was a US citizen.
As such, neither of them are “natural born” citizens. BOTH of them are “naturalised” citizens on the basis that their claims to citizenship were established by congressional statute under Congress’ authority to establish uniform rules of naturalisation. Under natural law and English common law alone, neither of them would be natural born American citizens.
If you don’t like that, well, too bad. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it. I’m not interested in “shutting up” just because you don’t like the fact that I said something about your candidate you didn’t like. In fact, I’m frankly getting tired of all you people - regardless of candidate - who think the particular politician you’ve decided to latch onto is some special little snowflake who shouldn’t ever be criticised or questioned.