Truthers vs. Birthers: Not All Conspiracy Theories Are Created Equal
77. smrstrauss:
Re: “since the Founders rejected the idea of dual citizenship for Americans.”
Did they really? Did any of the founders or framers say “no dual citizens?” No they did not. Nor did they say that the children of foreigners are not eligible to be president.
The Founders spoke about the problems and silliness of split allegiances. This was an issue for them and the War of 1812 was about issues such as this. The Founders even spoke about the need for an American father, to establish natural born status.
As to your notion of American born children of foreigners being ‘natural born citizens’, tell that to Chester Arthur, who went out of his way to hide the fact that his father had not been a naturalized American at the time of Arthur’s birth, destroying and hiding documents pertaining to that fact.
As to what the operational definition of ‘natural born citizen’ is, no one knows. It has never been detailed and needs to be made explicit. This is the Court’s responsibility, as no Constitutional amendment was ever offered to do it. The Court could very easily come out and agree with your assessment, check The Precedent’s birth certificate and history of nationality status, and declare him to be Constitutionally eligible. End of story.
But, the point is that the question of Constitutional eligibility must be addressed and resolved. The fear that many seem to have of even addressing this legitimate, and important, issue is perplexing, at best. When a nation refuses to even check compliance with its most fundamental laws, that is an omen of a coming deterioration or the rule of law – as we have, indeed, seen with the un-Constitutional bailouts, takeovers, and destruction of the integrity of contracts that was allowed with the auto bankruptcy.
If you have faith in your view of ‘natural born citizen’, then you should want one of the eligibility cases heard, the Court stating what you did about ‘natural born citizen’ and the whole problem would be finished. Then, your side would have won and my side would be satisfied that an official body has verified and ruled on The Precedent’s Constitutional eligibility.
In the end, citizens of America have every right to know that people have had official verification of their Constitutional eligibility (along with the details of what that eligibility actually entails) to hold the positions they are in (and, more importantly, to run for those positions they want). That should be obvious to anyone. The fact that it isn’t says a lot about our nation, and it ain’t good.
