Oh boy! Fuck yes, apple cider. I am *all up in *that apple cider business.
P.S. Please everybody help me remember this thread the next time **Bricker **tries to argue that he isn’t a partisan hack. I’ve pointed it out to him several times so that he can give a good pedantic legal asswhupping to Morella’s ridiculous claims about the Constitution, but so far he’s ignoring me.
Posting here is optional. There are times when I see poorly constructed arguments or uncited facts used to support an idea I generally agree with. I don’t feel an obligation to point out those weaknesses, although I do it on occasion. It’s not my job to do someone else’s homework for them.
The nature of the beast around here is for discussions to just peter out, without any sense of conclusion or consensus. So I participate in the areas that I find most ineresting; answering about the things I know about, asking about the things I don’t, and with the vast majority of the board content somewhere in the middle. Just because I’m silent on something doesn’t mean I agree with it. I don’t see any reason to hold Bricker to a higher standard than that.
Because **his **entire fucking *raison d’etre *on this board is to nitpick other people’s arguments, especially when it involves the law in any way, and then claim that he does it equally to conservatives and liberals. Seriously. There was a thread once where for god-knows-how-many-pages he was arguing because someone referred to something as “unconstitutional” meaning “in my layman’s opinion, it violates the Constitution,” which he was insisting was *absolutely wrong *because there was as of yet no ruling from the Supreme Court saying that it was against the Constitution. :rolleyes:
He’s been nitpicking in another thread and I’ve asked him repeatedly there to come use his powers for good in this one.
ETA:
Robot Arm, I just want **Bricker **to specifically address the very wrong points that **Morella **is making about the Constitution (i.e., the several things she has claimed are unconstitutional, and her bizarre interpretation of “jurisdiction”).
My memory doesn’t include the part that I’ve underlined. Not contradicting you, but my perusal of the Dope is not comprehensive. Could you provide a cite that shows him admitting to cruising the Dope to jump onto smack-down-able blanket assertions and claiming that his radar is tuned for all such assertions, regardless of the poster’s political alignment?
I have endeavored to make this request as specific as possible; please make any cites you provide conform to all of the elements I have mentioned above.
Obviously, as a new guest to the boards, having registered this very month, you don’t know me. But in the nearly eleven years I have posted here, the sum of my posts cannot fairly be read to suggest that I have some deep need to support Obama’s presidency. Indeed, I look forward to January 20, 2013, and the inauguration of a replacement.
That said, I feel you have made no case at all above. You analysis fails to address the original birth certificate, kept safe from white out and X-acto knives in the state’s vault. Assuming you feel the Hawaiian officials are in on it, you still must explain the newspaper announcement, which would be rather prescient for purposes of fraud. Finally, even if Obama had been born overseas, he was still a natural born citizen through his mother, who was a US citizen.
Now turning to the meat of the matter for my arrival in this thread, the discussion of jus soli citizenship under US law.
Um… you’re wrong.
I realize that lacks a bit of my usual panache, but when one is drowning, a teacup of water makes little difference. The entire basis for your claim seems to be that “under the jurisdiction thereof” means simply that the person is an alien. But apart from your claim, there is no caselaw supporting that view. As early as United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), we learn:
They go on to declare that Wong Kim Ark is a US citizen by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment and his birth in San Francisco, even though his parents were alien. But beyond the Fourteenth Amendment, the decision adduces to the common law of England and of the US, and finds that the overwhelming weight of it supports that view as well.
What precisely are you relying upon for the opposite view?
Wong Kim Ark was a citizen per the Supreme Court, but nobody ever said Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen. And where do we look to find a way to make that distinction significant, since it isn’t supported by any jurisprudence? Why, original intent, of course!
And they go on to answer that question in the affirmative.
So I guess we have to confront the perplexing question of whether “becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States” means that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States.
Even if you you dispute that claim – an uphill climb if ever there was one – it’s pretty clear that the contrary position has no evidence at all. That is, WKA makes clear that one’s parentage is (generally) irrelevant if you’re born in the United States. If someone were to contend that it’s otherwise, where is their proposed rule found? We admit that, say, Teddy Roosevelt was a natural born citizen, born in New York City. On what basis do we claim that Kim Lon Sun, also born in New York City, is not?
The Supreme Court HAS used those terms ("“becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States” and “a natural-born citizen of the United States”) interchangeably:
Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 US 454 (1920), referring to the subject:
Right, the Supreme Court has done so. But the Supreme Court isn’t who wrote the Constitution, and that’s our (for the purposes of this exercise I’m part of an “our”) true source of authority.
That’s how we get to the jurisdiction question. The claim is that the framers of the 14th intended “jurisdiction” to mean something more specific and restrictive than has been allowed for since; specifically (and we can make up some support here in Slaughterhouse and a couple others in defining the term) that jurisdiction means “sole jurisdiction;” i.e. subject only to American and not to any foreign jurisdiction. Which is why Obama’s father being Kenyan is relevant - if his dad’s subject to British or any other jurisdiction, Obama isn’t subject only to American, and if he isn’t subject only to American jurisdiction, he isn’t a natural born citizen under the 14th.
My understanding of this argument falls apart a bit here, and I’m not sure how “we” reconcile the citizenship thing with the natural born citizenship thing, like whether Obama’s not a citizen at all or just not a natural born one, but you have to admit that’s pretty good. I feel like a Scientologist.
Sure… except that the analysis in Wong Kim Ark eviscerates that position, by pointing out that wholly apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, the universally understood practice at the time was jus soli citizenship. So if the Fourteenth Amendment’s jurisdiction language truly created this divide, why was that intent not made clear at the time. On what basis is it now asserted?