This is why I generally delete every email someone sends me to WND:
Some national news media are declaring that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency or vice presidency, even though Rubio’s constitutional eligibility remains unclear and the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.
It goes on with the standard idiocy and then it goes into this old chestnut:
“The Law of Nations,” a 1758 work by Swiss legal philosopher Emmerich de Vattel, was read by many of the American Founders and informed their understanding of law later established in the Constitution.
Vattel specified that a natural-born citizen is born of two citizens and made it clear that the father’s citizenship was a loyalty issue.
Vattel writes: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. … In order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
This thing about Vattel has always cracked me up. I actually covered it before when one of Oily Titz’ sycophants used the argument and I didn’t think much of it then either:
Hiding in plain sight! That’s right, the framers in their infinite wisdom cited to a book and didn’t tell anyone! Of course, one might also note that in addition to Law of Nations being capitalized, Power, Piracies, Felonies, Seas, and Offenses were all CAPITALIZED as well. which means, that not only were they citing to the book by Vettel, but they also were making Nostradamian references to Obama. It’s all right there! READ A BOOK PEOPLE!!!!11!! The Paulians know what I am talking about.
Anyway, I actually did some more research this time, and found a commenter who lays out the absurdity of the entire debate by pointing out that the only copy of Law of Nations available in English at the time did not use the phrase “Natural Born Citizems.” “Historian Dude” tells us:
The “de Vattel definition” of “natural-born citizen “did not exist at the time the Constitution was framed.
1. De Vattel wrote in French, not English. As such there is no evidence that the phrase “natural-born citizen” ever was a product of either his lips or pen. What he actually wrote was, “Les Naturels ou indigènes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de Parens Citoyens.”
2. The first English translation was published in 1759, in London. It translates “Les Naturels ou indigènes…” to read “The natives or indigenes…” The phrase “natural-born citizens” is nowhere to be found. And the currently intuitive “naturels” is translated to “natives,” while “indigenes” is left completely untranslated.
3. There were 3 different English editions of the work published prior to 1787 and therefore available to the Framers of the Constitution. They were London:1759, London:1760, and New York:1787. All of them translated “Les Naturels ou indigènes…” to read “The natives or indigenes…”
4. Additional English editions were printed in Dublin:1792, London:1793, and New York:1796. All of them translated “Les Naturels ou indigènes…” to read “The natives or indigenes…”
5. The first appearance of the phrase “natural-born citizens” appears in the London:1797 edition, and it is a translation of the French word “indigènes,” not the French “naturels.” This was ten years after the Constitution was written, and 30 years after de Vattel’s death.
6. At the time of the framing of the Constitution, the “de Vattel” definition did not exist.
7. There was a single definition of “natural-born citizen/subject” that existed in 1787 and was available to the Framers, and it was that of English Common Law. That definition was exclusively tied to place of birth, the citizenship status of parents was irrelevant.
Your argument here, to be true, would require the Framers to be capable of time travel. While they were undoubtedly gifted men, being able to rend the time-space continuum was probably among the things they were good at.
“the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.”
So, why are they even discussing it?
I often wonder why these people even discuss other people that are not interested in being POTUS too, Frankie. But making a half-assed guess they like flooding the online polls with potential candidate names such as West, Rubio, yada yada so that any poll the names are mentioned in will draw down the percentage of votes the announced candidates receive. The Paulbots are very good at doing that and telephone polling too. One of their newest stunts is polling for Bachmann to keep her percentage up and still poll for Ron Paul.
Sounds to me like the republicans who believe in the standards they argued against Obama are just keeping it kosher in house as well. At least the “birthers” are consistent. Can’t say that for Left, Center, or Right in their respective “moderate” views. What we are really facing is the driving force of people who wholeheartedly believe in strict interpretations or loose interpretations so as to affect strict regulation via bigger govt. It’s a powderkeg; upcoming elections are a dang match inching nearer to the fuse.
Concerning Obama, the question of his birth was to redefine who is a citizen, and what is citizenship, in order to be more inclusive (see also “anchor babies”). With Rubio, the intent is to be exclusive in returning to the philosophical underpinnings for the Founders’ concept of what makes a citizen.
I don’t question Obama’s birth – obviously he was born, even though he is cold enough to be a robot. The larger question is what is the standard to be a citizen of the US of A; and should we export this standard, recruit those abroad who meet it, or abandon it altogether?
I see you have about as much use for WND as I have…
On occasion they DO pull a good one out of their hat, but it’s rare, and for some reason a lot of Conservatives seem to think WND is *gospel*…
Rubio is under attack because he is a potential vice presidential candidate that may pull a lot of hispanic votes over to the Republican ticket.
I am still trying to accept that the name of the guy in the White House is Barack Hussein Obama II. (Did I spell that correctly? On second thought, I don’t give a damn whether I did or not.)
“Rubio is under attack…….”
I wouldn’t line a digital birdcage with WND, but do they have a preferred candidate in the race?
After briefly visiting the WND site, and reading their poll questions, I feel the need to bleach my brain. Especially reading the 6th poll down, “Sound off on blending people with animals and electronics in ‘transhuman’ experiments”, and some of the comments. There ain’t enough tin foil in the world for that crew.
@ #9- U.N. – Amen, brother!
There’s a reason it’s called “World NUT Daily”, nirthers.
Oh, and I conservatives who cite WND with the same credibility as lefties who cite Michael Moore, FireDogLake, et al.
I consider…jeez, fingers are dead this morning. I love coming to work in a friggin hurricane. Let’s see how long we can keep the electrons going through this one.
Am stuck in “What is he hiding?” mode. All I know for sure is that there is something about the circumstances of bobo’s birth that he doesn’t want us to know and he continues to spend big bucks to play games about it.
Whether similar circunstances exist with Rubio remains to be seen.
Big question I’ve always had (without enough interest to actually do the research) is if we apply a standard that a president must “natural-born,” however it is defined, but presumably requiring both parents to be citizens prior to the birth of the candidate, could ANY of our early presidents meet that standard? Then, if that standard didn’t apply to the early presidents, when did it become part of the requirement?