let’s just turn off the internets.
I just received this email from one “Patty”, which I shall reproduce here verbatim:
Re: Something no one apparently knows
McCain may be inelegible to runfor president as he was born in the Canal Zone in Panama!
Dear Patty, you are an illiterate retard.
The President has to be a natural-born citizen, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with where he was born. Children of service members or diplomats are born in foreign countries all the time, but if both parents are U.S. citizens, their children are natural-born citizens at birth, regardless of their place of birth.
Crack open a book once in a while, preferably one without pictures. In addition, your community college probably offers Civics 101 classes.
Jesus H. Christ on a Yugoslavian water buffalo. I swear, between this crap and the “OBAMA IZ TEH MUZZLIM” emails that keep getting passed around, I’m starting to favor IQ tests for voters.
February 3, 2008 at 12:05 am
Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory … and became naturalized along with everyone else there when Arizona became a state. Technically, McCain IS naturalized … just as Goldwater was automatically naturalized.
The SCOTUS has repeatedly found that a naturalized person is exactly the same as a person born here under the constitution. I suspect that, given past decisions, that Schwartzenegger could also run … without an amendment being passed.
Basically … if Barry Goldwater could run for President … then McCain can. Period.
( More info about the naturalization status of children born to US citizens abroad can be found here:
http://www.shusterman.com/intca.html )
February 3, 2008 at 12:51 am
There is a reason that the Founding Fathers put the requirement of owning property to vote.
It was thought that holding property meant that you were successful and reasonably intelligent- at least, enough to make a wise decision when you voted.
And now, when the dumbest person in America votes (if they can wipe the drool off their face long enough, that is), it is equal to the vote of the smartest voter. Does that seem right to you?
February 3, 2008 at 4:47 am
Given the recent sub-prime scandal, it doesn’t take much of an IQ to own property these days, either.
February 3, 2008 at 8:41 am
The best thing that happened to me in school was the eighth grade. Our teacher’s way of getting our attention when we screwed up was to have us turn to the back of our American History book and copy a page of the constitution say 10 times. Nearly 50 years later the document still sticks in my mind and my respect and appreciation for Ron Kraske grows.
February 3, 2008 at 9:08 am
there are huge groups of retards and mentalcases out here in kali (i know , obvious )all of whom are registered to vote by their (liberal) caregivers…
you can guess who/what they are all ‘helped’ to vote for…
an IQ test (minimum of 115)for voters would remove over 90% of the population from the voting booths in november…
February 3, 2008 at 9:53 am
OMG.
My son was born in Spain but never got a green card. Should he be deported?
For that matter, my daughter was born in the Conch Republic, she may be an illegal alien too.
I’m calling ICE right now, they’ve both gotta go.
Seriously though…Kristopher. If people like my Son, McCain and Goldwater were considered “naturalized” (technically or any other way) they would not be eligible to be President:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible to the office of President…” –US Constitution Article II, Section 1
Therefore, if they were considered “naturalized” citizens, they would not be eligible.
SCOTUS has ruled that citizens are afforded all the rights an privileges of any other citizen regardless of how they attained that citizenship…however the Constitution itself spells out the single exception. Unless you’re saying that SCOTUS has ruled the Constitution to be…um…unconstitutional.
February 3, 2008 at 10:23 am
Jesus H. Christ on a Yugoslavian water buffalo.
Geez, MW, now it’s coffee clean-up time.
February 3, 2008 at 11:19 am
Hmmm, might be a good way to control the kiddies.
Tell ‘em they were born while you were out of the country, and if they don’t be good, they’ll get deported.
Then pick the most godawful place you can think of for where they were born, so they don’t want to go there.
February 3, 2008 at 1:32 pm
And just why would an IQ test be a bad idea.
February 3, 2008 at 3:05 pm
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
February 3, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Marko,
I am a blue-eyed caucasian who was born in a air base hospital in Morocco. Does that make me an African-American?
February 4, 2008 at 11:42 am
Sailorcurt:
The SCOTUS gets to interpret the Constitution … that was decided in 1803 ( Marbury vs. Madison ).
The SCOTUS has decided that naturalized = born here. For better or worse we are stuck with it, unless an amendment is passed specifically forbidding such behavior by the SCOTUS.
February 4, 2008 at 11:58 am
Naturalized = Born here? OMG Born in India and naturalized when we returned to the States. All these years, from grade-school upwards, I was told only the pure-born could, and I could never - so I didn’t even try… Now I’m peesed-awff.
Property ownership also means property-tax-paying - which is a thing a lot of people don’t get. It hardens you to the demands of freebies and hand-outs in ways that renters with FICA witheld only can imagine. That’s another thing terribly WRONG about the sub-prime bailout, that there are painful trade-offs and consequences to ownership that are necessarily to be endured in the hardening-process.
February 4, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Reply in an Email that Hillary was delivered by cesarean and is therefor not “naturally born” and Romney’s Mother used all those painkillers and was knocked out - Now Ron Paul was hatched by the sun heating the rock he was under so he is the only one. That should get a rise out of her!
February 4, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The problem isn’t about who gets to vote as that people have this insufferable idea that everything under the sun is on the ballot.
February 4, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Kristopher: Can you point us to the decisions?
I’m sure the SC has decided that naturalized citizens are entitled to everything every other citizen is in every other context that doesn’t specify specifically being a citizen by birth (which as far as I know, only Article III does).
I’ve never seen any reason to believe that they’ve decided that Article III doesn’t mean what it says about the President, however.
(Children of two American citizens, who are born outside the US, are not “naturalized” citizens - they’re citizens by birth. See 8 USC 1401.)
February 4, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The problem is that the SCOTUS has never made a decision one way or the other on specifically this issue. An opportunity came up during the Goldwater-Johnson race, but no one noticed it.
Now that McCain might be a candidate, it will probably come up if he gets the nomination. You can bet that someone will file a suit regardless …
My bet/guess is that past precedent on naturalization will win out.
February 4, 2008 at 5:12 pm
BTW … 8 USC 1401 was legislated recently … it was not law when Goldwater ran, which means the 1934 exemption might not have applied.
This stuff get more than a bit complex …
February 8, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I’m in favor of giving the citizenship test to everyone at age 18. If you can’t pass that test, you can’t vote.