Congress defined "Natural born Citizen" in 1790 - McCain is OK
While I would like to see McCain knocked out of the running as much as anybody -- so as to force a brokered convention -- I post this so that a lot of energy is not spent in a direction that is easily refuted by something Congress passed in 1790.
If you will check out Wikipedia on Natural Born Citizen and McCain, you will find that in 1790 Congress settled this question, by passing a law that babies born to American citizens who were abroad were to be considered natural born citizens.
I think Wikipedia should always be double checked, but this seems to be a fact -- and it meets with the "reasonable" test and the "common sense" test. The opposite conclusion would be that military men ordered to serve overseas would be penalized by having their babies considered less of an American citizen than citizens who never served in the military.
John McCain's Dad graduated from the Naval Academy, if memory serves, in 1931 -- and was stationed in Panama in 1934, after which John McCain was born in Panama.
The Constitution was instituted in 1787, as I recall, so the 1790 law by Congress would clearly reflect the mind of the founders -- as it was passed when there were requests for a clarification of what "natural born citizen" meant in this regard. None of the Founders objected, even though some of them lived another 33 years or so -- maybe longer.
This would seem to me to settle the question. Hope this helps. If anyone has information to refute this, please post -- but I don't see how any other interpretation is possible in light of the 1790 law passed by the US Congress.
Wiki is riged... On the
Wiki is riged...
On the other hand I agree we shouldn't spend to much time on this. Other McWar haters, that aren't Paul supporters will (hopefully!) do the work for us.
But constant pressure is good. Remember what happened to Giuliani. Constant pressure about lobbyists, campaign funds, morality/ethics, eligability and health concerns could possibly be the final blow his campaign.
State Deptartment Definitions say otherwise.
That law was repealed and the current definitions per the state department make McCain inelligable.
Mccain
Mccain isn't stupid..he would not have come this far if he weren't eligible..This is just wishful thinking on our part
Nobody's checked it like this before either
He, like all politicians not named Ron Paul, rely on the public to be generally stupid and easily influenced by the right lie.
I would think
Romney, Huckabee and all the candidates would have checked this out..It would be a slam dunk end to his run,,,And if it's true why the hell didn't our campaign check this out earlier..it could have changed things dramatically....McCain has to be eligible
That's purely speculative
And most likely false.
Most eligibility checks I've seen are superficial and uncited and based on a shallow and poor understanding of things. It bugged me originally because those analyses didn't jive with my own education and knowledge, so I started digging.
Romney and Huckabee's handlers were focused on their own campaign issues and not so much on the others. It's a natural consequence of a top-down campaing that the resources used to slam the opponents are limited and they rely on the press to do it for them in a game of sorts. With us working bottoms-up we *are* the resource and have no such limitation and here we are playing the same game with the press. The reason you're seeing more attacks on the opponents now is because most of the primaries are past (focus change), most of the candidates are out (less targets), and nothing is decided yet (more desperate).
Paul doesn't play politics that way
It's one of his few shortcomngs and comes from the fact he's too genteel at time.
Romney was too busy with his hair gel and checkbook. Huckabee was too busy preaching. Huckabee will get this info. Romney will not, mainly because from a strategic point of view we want Huckabee in and Romney out.
Me, I learned by watching Karl Rove. He may be a SOB but as a political opertor he has some beautiful moves. That and it's poetic justice to use them against one of his own. :)
You're about 206 years behind the curve
As I noted in my original post at http://www.dailypaul.com/node/37509, that law was repealed in part in 1796 and the rest in 1802. That 1790 law is no more applicable than the Fugtive Slave Laws.
And don't rely on wikipedia, either.
Wouldn't the law indicate "original intent" even if repealed?
Tannim -- I agree that we cannot rely on Wikipedia, and that is should always be double checked.
If it was fully repealed, you would seem to make the case that it is somewhat up for grabs. However, would not the Supreme Court have the recourse that the 1790 law showed the "original intent" of the Founders? Also, does not the 1790 law reflect common sense, justice, and reasonablness -- for military families ordered to serve outside the boundaries of the USA?
My only concern is that a lot of time not be spent in a hopeless direction.
If some lawyer will file a case, this would qualify as an election case and would be rushed to the head of the class pronto -- and a ruling would be had.
Let the lawyers worry about the courts
This is a public opinion blitz first and foremost.
I think your pursuit of this question
is outstanding. Just because the matter has been put to rest by others, does not mean it was not outside the Constitution. Look how many other things have slid by, there is little left protecting the original intent. Of course the courts have all been infiltrated by the lackies also. It isn't so much as whether this issure would be the thing that would undo McCain or not as I think there will be many other revelations that will probably do that. The point here is, the original intent of the Founding Fathers was to contain loyalty to America, and recognized the dangers for the future, our present will foreign elements taking power that had outside interests. Look at the extent that this has taken place. When I get the time, I want to do some research on the "missing 13th amendment" , as well. As you probably know, there are records that this was mysteriously replaced by the current 13th concerning slavery. There are records that have been found on the original one that deals with foreign titles, honours, etc. including the BAR [attorneys] that would automatically disallow American
citizenship. Once again, the intent would be to make sure that no one had their loyalties outside of America, as this is what the whole Revolution was about. Everyone has been programmed to think, well if it is taking place, it must be legal. Not so, we are just at the tip of the iceburg of the blatant unlawfulness to the Constitution that has taken place and all of this is part of the election of Ron Paul. Keep up the good work.