You really don’t want to get me started on Michael Vick.
Anyway, one wonders what the “Christian Right” would have to say about a SHAMAN running for office.
Shaman, pussy-grabber - god works in mysterious ways.
There is the Oath of Allegiance one takes upon naturalization:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
The Oath of Allegiance may be modified. Conscientious Objectors, therefore, are not prohibited from becoming US citizens, nor are those who wish to affirm the oath instead of swearing “by God”. A classmate of mine at university made such an application and received modifications to the oath with no problems whatsoever.
From the 14th amendment:
As I read it, unless you are a U.S. federal or state employee at the time of taking the citizenship oath, you can subsequently be involved in an insurrection, then run for an office such as member of congress, and, theoretically, serve from your prison cell. However, since pairing votes is no longer allowed, you wouldn’t be able to vote on legislation from prison.
This isn’t irrelevant in the Shaman/Chansley case, since AFAIK he was born in the U.S. – although Wikipedia doesn’t give a birthplace.
P.S. to Riemann regarding post immediately above: The U.S. doesn’t interpret the part of the citizenship oath where you “entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty” literally. If OK with your current country(s) of citizenship, the U.S. allows dual/multiple citizenship.
The US does allow multiple citizenship, but I don’t think we allow naturalized multiple citizenship. Or at least, we don’t recognize it: Other countries are free to consider us citizens if they feel like it.
For one prominent example, John McCain was a dual citizen of the US and Panama, but that was by birthright, not naturalized in either nation. But Schwarzenegger would have had to renounce his Austrian citizenship to become a US citizen.
There have been many insurrectionists in Congress – almost all being ex-confederates who I never would vote for. But Albert Gallatin, later member of congress and Secretary of the Treasury, was mixed up* in the Whiskey Rebellion, and seems to have been a liberal by standards of his age.
The problem was not that the insurrectionist members of congress was insurrectionists. The problem was that, with the Gallatin exception (and any others I have forgotten), they were elected by white racists who voted for pro-slavery politicians only. Those members of congress would have been just as bad if insurrectionists had been forbidden.
In the past eight AZ-08 house elections, no Libertarian has run. So if Chansley doesn’t run, there probably will be no Libertarian on the ballot. If Chansley is stopped from running as a Libertarian, who does this help and hurt?
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* Gallatin was arguably part of the rebellion – Alexander Hamilton said he was – although Gallatin tried to get the rebels to put down their arms from the inside.
The U.S. has no problem with dual citizenship, whether by birthright or naturalized. The other country might.
Ireland kind of encourages it for children and grandchildren of emigrants, which includes yours truly. The process was straightforward, though documentation took some legwork (proof of birth, marriage and death for my grandfather and father, as well as my own birth certificate), but I now have a piece of paper acknowledging that I’ve been entered in the Foreign Births Register as an Irish citizen. Since there was no oath or renunciation involved, I doubt the State Department is losing any sleep over it.
The Whiskey Rebellion predates the 14th Amendment by 72 years.
If Chansley is smart, he’d wear his shaman outfit to all his political rallies. He’d get about 4 times as much free media coverage by doing that.
“I yield to the gentleman wearing horns …”
I would expect that, were a poll to be done on this topic and respondents restricted exclusively to non-merkins, nowt would be the least bit surprised at this development.
Is it correct that Stateside felons cannot vote but can stand?
Or does mutiny, and bloody insurrection only count as a misdemeanor?
We’ve had members of Congress help agents of Nazi Germany to spread propaganda from within their own offices. I assume they’d lose their jobs today, but who knows?
What better way to own the libs than run the big, scawy man wit da horns an da painted face who was convicted of invading the Capitol, for a political office? Har-hur-hur!
“Conservatives: fulfilling the accusation and the promise of inneffective government since Reagan!”
Given the general context of the Adam West Batman show, I’m fairly confident that your wish is granted.
Nah, Rush L got the Presidential Medal of Freedom for doing that. If you can do it as a congress critter, you get two of them.
That medal is now worthless for anyone that receives it in the future.
Time for one of my favorite, but now happily obsolete, political jokes:
Q: What’s the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
A: One is a flaming Nazi gasbag. The other was a German airship.
Not to mention dates.
Holy Civics Class, Batman!
Re: advantages of wearing the shaman outfit
And invites to “cocaine-fueled orgies”. Although that’ll be only if he’s actually elected.