Ponzi Math and Money

Well, work is a kind of tax.  It taxes (expends) energy in trade for desired goods.  So there is no way not to tax workers.  Inherently, taxes have to be paid to support the desires of workers, as well as the desires of retired and supervising workers.

As to the grease of printing money:  How long can a ponzi scheme (quantitative easing?) go on?  Maybe the economy is like a cosmic ponzi pyramid of fractals, perpetuated via a meta-printing press that consists of some non-quantifiable stuff that expresses itself out of nothing more than pure math.   OK, back to Earth.

So long as the population of workers and consumers constantly expands (or bill collectors are "offed"), such population can be greased along its way with ever more printed money.  If the population of workers were to diminish, the weight of the retired and longer-living portion of the pyramid could not be sustained by the working class.  Then, printing more money would come to inflate costs, without producing enough to sustain the pyramid. 

The only ways I can think of to get off the demand for an increasing population and expanding economy are to kill bill collectors and old people, or to invent machine workers that can produce more desired goods than they consume.  If intelligent machines can come to harvest solar energy, a civilization based on machines serving the pleasures of a declining population of human beings may eventually become sustainable.

There are unknown issues.  Will a leisure class of humans that is serviced by machines retain enough gumption to propate any pleasures?  Will a machine class that is intelligent enough to serve the evolving pleasures of the human class remain content to do so?  Can or will a "magic" of printed money grease our path to a sustainable and evolving balance between humans (and super humans) and the machines that pleasure them?  Will the cosmic field allow our return to a kind of Eden?  Can a pleasured Eden summon will to last beyond the asteroid that surely has Earth's name written in its destiny?  Hmmm.  Where did I put my hat?

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In effect, the Fed has power above the republic and the law to proportionately redistribute wealth so that crony establishmentarians will never lose power. Crony bankers have self-help means to protect themselves from having to rely on tax reform. The republic, to survive, needs counter powers and institutions to militate against the continuing rise of the unholy alliance between corrupt crony deceivers and usefully idiotic commies, which is reducing workers to serfs and destroying representative republics worldwide.

Perpetual Stalemate Among Fascist Regimes

There's often a close connection between elitism or pretended elitism and fascism.  America is filled with poison ivy elitist schools.  In science, medicine, and technology, elitism makes sense.  In history, religion, art, fashion, politics, and political correctness, elitism tends to make far less sense. 

America began as a representative republic that was designed in main by broadly educated, wise, and good men.  Put some emphasis on good.  They had ideals concerning what was good that transcended personal pleasure and self interest.  The problem with modern elitists is that many of them seem to have no such transcendent values.  Many believe in social Darwinism or close cousins to it.  Many believe in group evolution.  As in, may the best hive-minded, goose-stepping, self-promoting fascists survive and replicate.  Oceania consists of crony corporatists.  Middleasia consists of insane jihadis.  And Eastasia consists of crony socialists.  Under this view, Earth is like Darwinia, to self-create and test conditions in which each fascist system can flourish. Under this view, Representative Republicanism is banned from Eden.

Modern elites, unlike most of our Founders, say they don't need religion or God to have moral values.  Yet many also say there is nothing moral about referring values to evolution.  Apparently, they believe in a reference that is higher than evolution, but what is it?  They are "too elite" to suggest it may be something like God.  So what is it?  Well, it seems to be the State, as designed by elite fascists.  Elite crony fascism promoted worldwide.  Dynasties among fascists, wearing masks of states.

Ordinary mortals need not apply, nor need they be given more than lying lip service by smirking, crony owned media.  According to the "moral code" of modern elitists, "God" is the State run as a crony owned commodity.  They mean to pull down the ideal of representative republics, worldwide.  Their simple "Drano" technique:  Print money, bribe voters, open borders.  Thus, reduce the masses to desperately competing laborers in markets where labor is cheap and being replaced by machines.  Their calculation is that you are too stupid and/or corrupt to notice that all ideals of America are being flushed by Drano before your eyes.

America cannot win a victory as a representative republic because America is no longer a representative republic, and has not been one for a considerable time.  Review Orwell's 1984, to understand perpetual stalemate among and between fascist regimes.

Managed Decline

Why would not managed demographic decline be a good thing?  Our need for replacement workers to support aging generations can be met by robotics.  A decline in human consumption would seem a less painful way to restore a kind of planetary balance of which so many people dream.  As techniques improve for extending human life, why should we need so many billions of largely redundant homies, whining metrosexuals, and uninsightful personages?

Perhaps the fear is that nations with small populations become attractive to plunderers.  So, why empower nations that are prone to plundering and exporting their surplus populations?  Why trade with them or enrich them, only to increase their potential to become plunderers?

What are the alternatives?  (1) Quarantine them.  (2) Enrich them without requiring any change in their culture, governance, or metaphysical insanities. (3) Colonize and rule them, without expecting them to be able to assimilate to Western mores.  (4) Seek, find, promote, and spread Truth and understanding. (5) Invent and dictate "Truth" under a borderless NWO that is ruled under the syndicated power of contesting oligarchs and international corporatists. (5a) Orwell World.  (5b) Huxley World. (6) Accept that humanity is depraved and as much as possible enjoy the ride. (7) Inspire a new awakening to potentials that accompany pursuing cooperative meaningfulness under The Reconciler.

I tend to ascribe to a mix of 1, 3, 6, and 7.

BAMBI AND THE PRINCE

I think there's too much of a finger-in-the-eye tendency against every faith in higher purposefulness.  Yes, A is A.  But that also means that Consciousness is Consciousness.  It abides and connects. What is, has been, and will continue to be.  All of consciously measurable physics is derivative of one immeasurable field of meta empathy.  How we think about that field ("God") deeply affects how we relate to one another in any meaningful terminology of morality. 

A person who constructs an anti-belief system concerning the moral empathy that powers the Source Field will yet construct an alternative belief system for a replacement moral code. In this, so long as a person is consciously aware, he has no choice.  If he thinks he is not making a choice, the consciousness of that, itself, is an experience of moral choice.  Every conscious rationalization of meaningfulness or moral purposefulness, to the extent it follows any consistent or coherent theme, will be in respect of some adaptation of a moral code.  Every vectored being rationalizes and follows a code.

It's not so much that this general state of affairs is not conclusive.  It's that it is unavoidable.  Experience of a point of view that in some aspect connects in moral empathy is unavoidable.  It is for us to be receptive to a path that may best allow that-which-in-common-defines-us to instil us with moral meaningfulness. 

For example, we can rationalize and serve an ideal of a caring, forgiving, grace-granting, and inviting Reconciler (Jesus).  Or we can rationalize and subjugate ourselves to an ideal of an ever vengeful and head cutting Monster (Allah).  Sometimes, in our memes, we must compete in a Darwinian-like zero-sum contest.  Other times, we can cooperate in expanding the unfoldment of possibilities.  We can "tolerate" the surrender of Obama-ilk to evil and to every "diverse" and immediate gratification of glandular impulse.  We can poke a finger in the eye of everyone who empathetically pursues a meta City on a Hill.  Or we can join the pursuit of freedom under law.

Humane civilization requires freedom under law.  Too much freedom leads towards moral anarchy.  Too much law leads towards fascist despotism.  The way we inspire a path to a "Goldilocks" balance of freedom under law is by inspiring belief in, and acceptance of, a foundation for a moral code.  A foundation beyond the unreality of sand and superior to the despotism of excessive regulation.  Dignity without fascist rule. For that, we reach out to "the Man upstairs."  But you can fictionalize Him as "Flower" if you want to.

Natural Born Citizen Clause

I do not find Mark Levin to have said that an amendment is necessary to end birthright citizenship.  I doubt any cite backs up any claim to any such a thing.  Rather, Levin has indicated that nothing in present law, whether Constitutional or Statutory, requires that citizenship be conferred as a matter of birthright to children who are born of parents who are illegal invaders. 

See http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/08/video-mark-levin-defends-trump-anchor-babies-have-no-birthright-citizenship/.

Mark Levin said on “Hannity” tonight that the 14th Amendment does not give citizenship to children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States.

He said that those claiming that the 14th Amendment allows birthright citizenship are dead wrong, pointing to Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants absolute power to Congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.

Levin explained that means that Congress – not the president, the courts or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – has the power to regulate immigration in this regard.

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Yes, the practice under the Foreign Affairs Manual has been to confer such citizenship.  But that practice is unsupported in reasoned interpretation of law.  Now, if Scotus, in a contrary case, disagrees, and if Congress passes clarifying statutory law and then Scotus still disagrees, then, yes, a Constitutional Amendment would be the way to proceed -- short of revolution, secession, or nullification.  But that is not what you represented Levin to have said.  You appear to have, rather arrogantly, misrepresented Levin.

A reason people tire of rehashing this stuff is because so many (not all) NBC people talk, but they hardly ever seem to listen or read.  Levin, to the best of my knowledge, has not said Cruz is disqualified.  Neither has he said an amendment is required to end the anchor baby farce.  Rather, he has said the opposite.

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Below, I am setting out some postulations.  I mean to keep my eyes open and do some continuing research on some of these issues.  If you want to be of service, feel free to help.

See Constitution, Article II, Section 1, excerpt:  No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

MY PRELIMINARY POSTULATIONS (If I am wrong, say where and cite):

(1) The Constitution does not appear to specifically prescribe how citizenship is to be obtained or conferred. 

(2) Much less does the Constitution prescribe a definition for a natural born citizen.  (It does specify that a person must be 35 years of age and have been a resident within the U.S. for at least 14 years to be eligible to take office.  But, if a person is 35 and has lived within the U.S. for 14 years, the Constitution itself does not prescribe what else would be necessary for such a person to be either a citizen or a natural born citizen.)

DISCUSSION: 

One may guess what the Founders or Ratifiers intended by requiring that the President be a natural born citizen.  One may even take note that the Founders were concerned to try to protect against intrigues by persons loyal to foreign princes.  But the Founders did not spell out how such protection was to be provided.  Did they mean to leave that to Congress?  Did they mean to leave it to each State to define for itself who should be considered a citizen of right, a citizen of oath, and/or a natural born citizen? 

Did they mean to refer the matter to a treatise, by incorporating the work of Vattel?  If so, which version, and when published?  Did they mean Vattel and/or other treatises to be incorporated as law, or only as guides, for the consideration of Congress and/or Scotus?  What other nations, if any, have incorporated the entire work of Vattel as law, as opposed to a guide?  Should we suppose that those Founders and Ratifiers of the Constitution who had not read Vattel meant to issue a blank check by adopting it wholesale, sight unseen for many of them?  What about interpretations and sub-treatises of Vattel? 

Among nations, how much consensus, really, then and now, is there concerning how one becomes a citizen at birth, or how one becomes a natural born citizen?  What are we to make of the First Congress having taken it upon itself, as one of its first acts, to define, by statute and apart from Vattel, who should be considered a natural born citizen?  What are we to make of Congress having since, on several occassions, undertaken to define who should be a citizen of right, at birth, versus who may become a citizen by oath and naturalization?

If one were God or Lawgiver, one may assume authority to prescribe what one believes the Founders and/or Ratifiers "obviously" meant.  But no one person has such presumptive power over our republic.  If one did, one may suppose various (obvious?) notions.  One may suppose, Wouldn't it be great to require that the classification of a natural born citizen include only such children as are born within the U.S. of parents who were at the time both citizens?

But others may suppose differently.  They may suppose, Wouldn't it suffice if one were born not within the U.S., but within a territory, a mandate, a colony, an embassy, a military base, Air Force One, or the residence of an Ambassador abroad?  Or an emergency clinic near an off base installation?

And what of children born to parents who are citizens of different nations?  Should such children be stateless if all advanced nations were to require the withholding of citizenship in the absence of both parents having beeen citizens?  Should only the citizenship of the father be required?  But what if some states give equal consideration to the citizenship of the mother?  If, because of the citizenship of a mother, a child has dual citizenship, even though he has a natural right of citizenship at birth, should such a child be imputed to have such divided loyalties as to be denied a right to run for the presidency in any nation? 

Or should residency for 14 years, as prescribed in the Constitution, be deemed sufficient to guard against divided loyalties, especially in the event of having foresworn allegiance to any competing power?  What about an American Bishop who becomes a citizen of the Vatican? 

Did the Founders and Ratifiers really intend to reserve all such considerations to the Constitution, or did they intend to convey authority to Congress to sort out such concerns?

Regardless, among the variety of ideas that any one person may think to "obviously" circumscribe the definition of a natural born citizen, it is evident that the Constitution itself does not in any specific sense purport to define or determine such matters.

Did the Founders or Ratifiers intend, presume, or even think about whether any white man (racism was prevalent at the time) who entered into the early nation and made a residence and a living should automatically be considered a citizen, before the Congress had set up institutions and agents for identifying, qualifying, and taking count of citizens?  Before birth certificates were common or uniform, how were citizens made or presumed, as each new territory and its occupants became organized and was admitted as a state?  Was the determination of who should, upon birth, be a citizen of right of the U.S. a matter within the exclusive or preemptory power of Congress, within the shared power of each state, or within the partial but excludable power of each state?

Regarding such concerns about state citizenship, U.S. citizenship, naturalized citizenship, citizenship of right at birth, and natural born citizenship that qualifies one to run for the presidency and vice presidency:  How "obvious" and clear is the Constitution, really? 

And how much should the history of persons who have actually been elected and recognized as qualified bear on an interpretation of what the Founders or Ratifiers really meant, anticipated, or even thought about?  After all, we have had a President, after expiration of the grandfather proviso, both of whose parents were born outside the U.S. (Andrew Jackson).  We have had a President whose place of birth is uncertain and whose father was not a citizen (Chester Arthur).  We have had a Vice President who was born in a territory outside the organized U.S. (Charles Curtis).  We have had a President whose father was born in Kenya (Obama).  We have had candidates whose parents or places of birth were in such places as Mexico, Paris, and Panama.  We now have candidates who were born in the U.S. of parents who were not at the time citizens.  (But for their long and legal residence, an argument could be made that they should not have been conferred with birthright citizenship.)  As to Ted Cruz, his mother was an American citizen.  And she had lived in the U.S. long enough such that, under Congressional enactment, Ted was a citizen of right at the time of his birth.

In the Constitution itself, one will not find specific provisions to prescribe or define which of such categories of birth situations should confer status of citizen of right, citizen if earned, citizen of oath, citizen at birth, or citizen at birth qualified to run for President.  All that is found is a vague reference to "natural born citizen, " 35 years of age, and 14 years of residence. 

As to whether Congress retains power to define who should be a natural born citizen, there are implications, there are minority arguments, and there are majority arguments.  The majority would probably recognize that the Founders and Ratifiers could not reasonably be thought to have intended or anticipated all the varying possibilities (some of which are set out above). 

To form a framework for governing an expanding nation, the Founders would have referred much of such power to Congress.  So long as Congress does not expand or reduce the right of any particular child to run or not run for President after his birth, it would comport with reasoned law to leave such power to Congress.  Under Statutes in effect at the time Ted Cruz was born, he was a citizen of right at the time of his birth.  He was not required to swear an oath or undergo a process of naturalization or testing.  Under precedents of practice, and in light of practical considerations for governing a large federal republic, the chance that Scotus would declare Cruz to be ineligible appears to be vanishingly small.

******

As to anchor babies:  The Founders and Ratifiers (both of the Constitution and of the 14th Amendment) may have entertained various and different assumptions about who was or should be citizens.  But I doubt many who thought about the matter would have intended that children born of invading hordes must be supported as citizens.  Nor have I seen any language in the Constitution or 14th Amendment that should reasonably be interpreted in any such a way.

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It appears NBC people would punt to an Act of 1986 to separate out who is a citizen, because they otherwise lack a clear way to determine among many of our migrant residents which are "citizens."

But then, to determine who is a "natural born citizen," they think they have some simple test that is clearly set forth in the Constitution?  Even though, to state their test, they have to refer to a version of Vattel that was published after the Constitution was ratified?

The way I see it, Cruz is a citizen, jus sanguinis, because his mother was a citizen.  And he is a natural born citizen, because he was born a citizen of right, without having to earn it by naturalization.  I don't find anything in the Constitution that says that a person who is born a citizen, who does not have to undergo naturalization to become a citizen, is not a "natural born citizen."  Nor, in my experience,  have I noticed that those Presidents who were born here of two citizens have tended to display any superior loyalty to America.

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NOTES:

John Jay recommended, in a letter to Washington, a need to help guard against intrigue by foreign princes to become head of state in America.  As near as I can tell, nothing suggests any connection in Cruz to any foreign prince.  (Jay should rather have been more concerned about intrigue by internal traitors, oligarchs, and shills for the Chamber of Commerce who become bent on cannibalizing and selling out America and Americans.)

The Founders (under the Committee on Detail) had been considering a residency requirement of a number of years to become President.  The need for that was supported when (without recorded explanation or debate after receiving Jay's letter) it was submitted (by the Committee of Eleven) to require that the President have been born a citizen (a natural born citizen).  In Jay's letter, the only word underlined was "born."  The word "natural" was not underlined.  The Jay letter did not refer to Vattel.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause#cite_note-19:

In 1904, Frederick van Dyne (1861–1915), the Assistant Solicitor of the US Department of State (1900–1907) (and subsequently a diplomat), published a textbook, Citizenship of the United States, in which he said:
There is no uniform rule of international law covering the subject of citizenship. Every nation determines for itself who shall, and who shall not, be its citizens.... By the law of the United States, citizenship depends, generally, on the place of birth; nevertheless the children of citizens, born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, are also citizens.... The Constitution of the United States, while it recognized citizenship of the United States in prescribing the qualifications of the President, Senators, and Representatives, contained no definition of citizenship until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, in 1868; nor did Congress attempt to define it until the passage of the civil rights act, in 1866.... Prior to this time the subject of citizenship by birth was generally held to be regulated by the common law, by which all persons born within the limits and allegiance of the United States were deemed natural-born citizens.

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In 2012 WL 1205117, a pro se plaintiff challenged Obama's presence on the presidential ballot, based on his own interpretation that "natural born citizen" required the president "to have been born on United States soil and have two United States born parents."

 To which the Court responded, " Article II, section 1, clause 5 does not state this. No legal authority has ever stated that the Natural Born Citizen clause means what plaintiff Strunk claims it says. .... Moreover, President Obama is the sixth U.S. President to have had one or both of his parents not born on U.S. soil." [listing Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Chester A. Arthur, Woodrow Wilson, and Herbert Hoover].

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Chester A. Arthur was born in Vermont to a Vermont-born mother and a father from Ireland, who was not naturalized as a U.S. citizen until 1843, 14 years after Chester was born.  While he was born in the U.S., only one of his parents was a citizen at the time.

Charles Curtis was Vice President under Hoover.  Curtis was born in Kansas when it was a territory.  As such, he was not born in the U.S.  Pehaps the most important function for a Vice President is to be ready to assume the presidency in event of the death or incapacity of the President.  Yet, there does not appear to have been significant debate that Curtis would have been disqualified for not having been a "natural born citizen."

Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona territory, not in the U.S.

Lowell Weicker entered the race for the Republican party nomination of 1980, but dropped out before voting in the primaries began; he was also suggested as a possible vice-president candidate in 1976. He was born in Paris, France.

Marco Rubio was born in Miami, but his parents were Cubans at the time.


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SUMMATION:

Much ink has been spilled on speculation and dicta about the meaning of "citizen" and "natural born citizen."  Respectable commentators have been all over the map.  The controlling documents, being the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, are not especially clear.  The 1986 Statute under Reagan did not much help.  Since and before that time, much has happened.  We have had candidacies by George Romney, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal, and Ted Cruz.  We have also come awake to an out of control invasion by Mexicans and Chinese vying for birthright citizenship.  Other nations have been clarifying that birth does not in itself confer citizenship.

MY TAKE:

An intelligent policy would hold that birthright citizenship of a type for which naturalization should not have to be earned should pass and endure only to a child born of an American parent and whose allegiance does not become compromised.  All other forms of citizenship should have to be earned under provisions for naturalization as provided by Congress.

However, even though an argument can be made that such should be the policy and the law, it is not clear that it in fact IS the law.  Ideally, it would be best to have Congress declare such to be the law. 

The PROBLEM is this:  It is now clear that Congress, the Presidency, and even Scotus, are in thrall to anti-American, establishmentarian, one-world interests that are of no mind to make it easy to enforce the border.

In this situation, is there enough of a good faith argument to support a popular and competent President in building political pressure and agencies to bring such policy to fruition by executive enforcement, pending the lack of resolution by Congress? 

Answer:  If there is not ground for such a process, then America, as a representative republic, may not be much longer for this world.

Brave New Threshold: Robotics Interface

ELIMINATION OF CHARITABLE DEDUCTIONS: What would happen if businesses, corporations, and employers were prohibited from making tax exempt donations to charities and foundations? Would such businesses invest more money in making things that people want, attracting empolyees that can make such things, and paying employees enough to neutralize redistributive politics?

WELFARE V. WORKFARE: What would happen if charity-minded reformers had to inspire donors based on the goodness of their works, rather than based on the opportunity to hide power investments and empire foundings behind tax deduction schemes? Would a spirit-based morality be awakened, so that recipients of charity would become more thankful than insulting?

ELIMINATION OF CORPORATE TAXES: What would happen if businesses were not taxed on ordinary, non-cosumptive, non-retail, business transactions and investments? Would businesses invest more money in making things that people want, attracting empolyees that can make such things, and paying employees enough to neutralize most redistributive politics?

PROHIBITIVE CRONYISM: What would happen if American businesses could not lobby politicians, import cheap labor, or export industries without paying exactions and taxes as if such activities constituted taxable comsumptions? Would such businesses find ways to attract foreign purchasers to buy from Americans, become more competitively productive, improve American factories and industries, propagate intelligent robotics, encourage American students, promote initiatives for improving social infrastructure in ways that would neutralize redistributive politics, and make America a better example of free enterprise for the rest of the world?
FRANCHISE CENTRALIZATION AND DISTRIBUTION: What would happen if American businesses could seed profit and bonus-oriented franchisee-subcontractors, to delegate local production to local managers, without having to pay corporate franchise taxes? Would small business franchises flourish among more kinds of business activities, helping to spread local efficiency, wealth, and power?


ELIMINATING ELITIST CANNIBALIZATION OF RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES: What would happen if out-of-country money transfers were treated as taxable consumptions? Would people and businesss build and buy American, and would foreign businesses invest in creating wealth for being transacted in America?
NATIONAL SELF SUFFICIENCY: What would happen if Western economies were induced to become more self sufficient? Would basket-case cultures and economies need to make their labor forces available for corporate-colonial like investments, to teach local despots and minions how to organize, work, and increase social capital, while reducing their exposure to despotism and their need for faux charities? Did Western Sponsored Colonialism end too soon?


CHECKING THE RISE OF NEW ARISTOCRATS: What would happen if family dynasties, aristocracies, and oligarchies were reduced by taxing retail and non-business transfers and bequests progressively, as if they were taxable consumptions? Would more and continued investment in productive business be encouraged, and also wider distribution of salaries and personal wealth? If lobbying were likewise taxed, would political influence be more evenly distributed?

REDUCTION OF CRONY SOCIALISM: What would happen if businesses were made less answerable to double-dealing bureaucrats and favor-seeking crony businesses and instead more answerable to limiting regulations under representatives of informed electorates? Would domestic wealth be more distributed via business interests, while domestic political power would be more decentralized among localities?

REDIRECTION OF GOVERNMENT TO INFRASTRUCTURE: What then would remain for a limited and limiting role for federated and local governments, states, and republics? Would representatives of each become more responsive to well-informed electorates, to be called on only to smooth rough edges between citizens and businesses by regulating and coordinating needs for: Anti-monopolization, anti-non-compete contracts, reduction of aristocracies, enhancement of competitive free enterprise, freedom of association, competitive media and education, improved environment, population reduction, health, emergencies, banking, currency, defense, foreign relations, common infrastructure, standards for weights and measures, and other functions under the heading of social capital?

ECONOMIC AND SPIRITUAL REVIVAL: What would happen if power to direct economic development came more to be federated among businesses instead of centralized to elitists, political planners, and bureaucrats? What would happen if social cost and complexity of governmental cronyism were markedly reduced? Would a middle class of decent, competent, and free thinkers be revived?

BRAVE NEW ROBOTICS INTERFACE: We stand on a Brave New Threshold for expanding consciousness to the stars. It is also an interface between free enterprise for the Republic and social regulation for the Borg. Artificially Intelligent Robotics are bound to impact: Population reduction; environmental improvement; redefinition of merit-based redistribution; and moral distribution of material goods and services. If the world does not first blow itself up, the NWM (New World Morality) may be based, not on two-class sadomasochism or primitive monster-god death cults, but on reinspired reawakening and reinterpretation of spiritually empathetic concerns. This is bound to entail rephasing of traditionally assigned social roles and opportunities and expansion of new pursuits for meaningfulness. Who can say?

Of Cruz, Vattel, and the Natural Born Citizen Clause

The essential simplicity the NBC people people keep repeating is:  Why did the Founders use the "natural born citizen" language in the Constitution, if not to impose a special prerequisite for electing a President?  They then refer to Vattel. 

The problem is, any meaning in their reference to Vattel (or whatever the version of Vattel) is, at best, ambiguous.  Look beyond Vattel to what the Founders intended.  What John Jay and Washington and likely others wanted to do was to leave the meaning of natural born citizen to be fleshed out by Congress, keeping in mind the desire not to allow the kind of perpetuation of foreign princes as had been so common in Europe.  They wanted a distinction, but they left it to Congress.

Well, Congress soon did make distinctions to define a natural born citizen.   Now, that kind of authority, in itself, is unusual:  To leave the defining and limiting of a term to a mere majority of Congress, as opposed to requiring a supermajority as for an amendment.  IAE, Congress did define the term, by statute of 1790.

Where I think people often go off the rail in their logic is where they suppose that Congress, by later replacing the statute of 1790 in which it defined the term with subsequent statutes that did not define the term, thereby revoked the first definition in favor of reverting to some supposed definition under Vattel.  But neither the Founders nor Congress ever clearly or affirmatively said they intended either to adopt or to revoke any version of Vattel. 

For all we know, whatever Congress intended with whatever the discretion delegated to it under the Constitution, Congress may as well have decided that a person who would be a citizen without having to be naturalized would be sufficient, in its judgment, to reconcile the concerns of the Founders.  IAE, insofar as the Founders left the additional determination of citizenship at birth to Congress, if Congress had authority to replace its first definition under its first statute or provision on the matter, then it had authority to do so again. And again.  If so, Congress (well, the Senate) has. 

The sense of the Senate was made clear on 4-30-08, when it by resolution confirmed that McCain was eligible.  In that resolution, the Senate did not state that a person who was otherwise a citizen without needing to be naturalized could become President only if born on a Federal base.   Moreover, McCain was not born on a Federal base. 

Since all this, we have had the Obama controversy. It is clear that Obama at least CLAIMS to have had a foreign father.  Moreover, his American mother "divorced" that father (if she was ever married to him), and she then married another foreigner, whereupon Obama may have either been renounced of his American citizenship or acquired joint citizenship. 

Whatever the concern --- whether Obama ever renounced his American citizenship, had authority to renounce it, or had authority without legal process to reclaim it --- regardless:  Under the Constitution, there is neither logic nor practical reason to suppose that the dead letters of Vattel, which were never unambiguously adopted to limit the discretion of Congress, should be somehow revivified for the purpose of requiring that either Congress or Scotus must disqualify a person (like Cruz) who is a natural citizen without need of being naturalized.

Unless one simply wants to recirculate stuff that no one with power in DC is inclined to adopt, he/she will have a burden to convince some rather influential legal thinkers.  I know you and I do not like Scotus, but this is an issue that will not be won with Scotus.  Nor, in light of the history, do I believe it is an issue that would be pronounced differently by any subsequently reasoning Scotus. Among others, Dershowitz has discussed this, as has Professor Jacobson.  See below.

As to practical concerns:  Apart from law, I see no empirical justification to suppose that a person born of a longstanding American parent, who is a citizen who does not need to be naturalized, would be the kind of "foreign prince" against whom the Founders were likely concerned.  Especially since there are few, if any, European princes nowadays who have executive authority.  Rather, it seems to me that we have plenty enough of homegrown traitors without need of fearing chimeras.  The candidates I fear most nowadays tend to be natural born Americans who have sold themselves to disloyal, un-American oligarchs.

So far, the NBC argument against Cruz peters out short on logic or common sense.  NBC people need to show:

- That the Founders, by the NBC clause, intended something that was both clear and exclusionary, that would be beyond the power of Congress to expand (as opposed merely to cautioning Congress while delegating power to it to further address the concern);
- That the Founders (and the ratifying States!), by the NBC provision, intended a clear restriction on the discretion of Congress to flesh out the definition of natural born citizen and its naturalization power;
- That the Congress that closely followed the Founders failed to define "natural born citizen" in a way that would encompass the situations of Goldwater, Romney, Weicker, McCain, Obama, Cruz, Rubio, and Jindal;
- That Congress, in whatever discretion it was delegated, has affirmatively and clearly specified, and continues affirmatively and clearly to specify, that a natural citizen not born in a State or territory of the Union is ineligible to become President. 

The Sources I have read fail to do any of that. Unless and until that is done, NBC people are simply hurting some of our better candidates. Do you have other sources that add anything new to the analysis, that have not already been hashed and rehashed?

I would like to see:  Where did the Founders or Ratifiers expressly adopt Vattel, or any version of Vattel?  Where did the Founders adopt Vattel in a way that would provide the exclusive method for defining a natural born citizen?  (Yes, some of the Founders read Vattel.  They were well read people. They read a lot of stuff.  They also knew how to clearly say they intended to require that the President be born in America of parents who were both natural citizens, if they had so intended.  But they did not.) 

I see where some of the Founders recognized a concern, which they recommended for consideration, wherewith they gave to Congress power to determine who else would be a citizen at brith, who would need to be naturalized, and how.  Congress did so consider.  Never did the Founders or Congress say that any particular version of Vattel must be adopted at any time, much less for all time.  Never has anyone said that a person a citizen at birth could never be eligible to be President unless both his parents had been citizens at birth.  Never has Congress said that the President must be born in America of parents who were both natural citizens.

Unless one can address those issues, one is simply repeating routines that have been hashed and rehashed, without additional illumination.

********

*See http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/may/12/born-usa/
Scotus never ruled on the eligibility of Goldwater (born in Arizona territory), George Romney (born in Mexico), Or McCain (born in off base hospital in Panama).  Yet, the Senate, by Resolution of 4-30-08, passed a resolution that McCain is a natural born citizen under Art. II, Sec. 1, of the Constitution.  Per briefing by Theodore B. Olson and Laurence H. Tribe, Obama was eligible even though one of his parents was not a U.S. citizen and would have been eligible even if he had been born while Hawaii was a territory and before it became a State.

**The Act of 1790 provided that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."

***The 1790 language (natural born citizen) continues in essence to be honored by Congress under section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (citizen of the United States at birth):
SEC. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401] The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;

****Article II provides that “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President ...." Nothing in the provision requires that a natural born citizen be other than a person who would be a natural citizen, without needing to go through naturalization.  The provision does not deprive Congress of authority to provide for the requisites of being a person who would be a natural citizen without needing to go through naturalization.

*****Dershowitz also has discussed this.  See http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/is-canadian-born-ted-cruz-eligible-to-run-for-president-20130501 .  Cruz is a natural born citizen, not a naturalized citizen.  https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=dershowitz+and+cruz+natural+born&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001 .

******See the Jacobson article, at natural born Citizens: Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz .

"Most of the counter-arguments are historical conjecture, at best, and rely on speculation not connected to the text of the Constitution or any demonstrable actual intent or understanding of the Framers."

"[T]he English translation of the 1758 edition [of Vattel] did not use the term “natural born Citizen.”  That term did not appear until the 1797 edition, a decade after the Constitution was ratified."

"Two of the leading attorneys challenging Obama’s eligibility admitted that the term was not in the edition available in 1787, and they make the illogical bootstrap argument that the later change in the Vattel verbiage somehow applies retroactively"

"It is, at best, highly speculative to assert that the Framers looked to Vattel for the definition of “natural born Citizen.”"

"It seems likely that the virtually contemporaneous coloration provided by the 1790 act lends support to the view that the constitutional reference to natural-born citizens was intended to include those who acquired United States citizenship by descent, at birth abroad."

"Even if there were a holding that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens” were “natural born Citizen[s],” that would not exclude other situations giving rise to being a “natural born Citizen.”"

"The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth,” either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen."

"The burden should be on those challenging otherwise eligible candidates to demonstrate through clear and convincing historical evidence and legal argument why such persons should be disqualified.  That has not happened so far, and if two hundred years of scholarship is any indication, it never will happen."

*********See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause
"In 1904, Frederick van Dyne (1861–1915), the Assistant Solicitor of the US Department of State (1900–1907) (and subsequently a diplomat), published a textbook, Citizenship of the United States, in which he said:

There is no uniform rule of international law covering the subject of citizenship. Every nation determines for itself who shall, and who shall not, be its citizens.... By the law of the United States, citizenship depends, generally, on the place of birth; nevertheless the children of citizens, born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, are also citizens.... The Constitution of the United States, while it recognized citizenship of the United States in prescribing the qualifications of the President, Senators, and Representatives, contained no definition of citizenship until the adoption of the 14th Amendment, in 1868; nor did Congress attempt to define it until the passage of the civil rights act, in 1866.... Prior to this time the subject of citizenship by birth was generally held to be regulated by the common law, by which all persons born within the limits and allegiance of the United States were deemed natural-born citizens."

"Black's Law Disctionary (9th Edition) defines "Natural Born Citizen" as "A person born within the jurisdiction of a national government"."

"In 2000, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in one of its reports, wrote most constitutional scholars interpret the natural born citizen clause as to include citizens born outside the United States to parents who are U.S. citizens. This same CRS report also asserts that citizens born in the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are legally defined as "natural born" citizens and are, therefore, also eligible to be elected President."

(What about line of succession of Secretary of State, if Secretary of State is a citizen only by naturalization?)

*********Bottom line:  I think those who argue the NBC clause against Cruz are trying to pour water up a string, to no good or practical purpose that is empirically demonstrable.

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Anyone who expects Scotus to declare a person elected by the people to have been ineligible is going to need to show such by clear argument and authority.
Set out the links in the NBC argument, and I will show which among them are specious, i.e., unclear, hence injeffective.
Some of the Founders were in the First Congress, which legislated in 1790 to define a natural born citizen.  Although that legislation was later replaced, the understanding of natura born citizen was not refuted.  That understanding did not preclude a person born outside the limits of the U.S. to be necessarily not a natural born citizen.  During the First Congress, George Washington, the Founder who was an impetus for the natural born citizen clause, was President.  Nothing suggests he disagreed with the understanding of the First Congress.  Certainly, one should look there before one were to look at Vattel.
If the 1790 statute was indicative of the interpretation by the First Congress of the natural born citizen clause, then its subsequent replacement with statutes that defined a person who would be a citizen at birth could hardly rescind such understanding.  Nor would such replacement say anything about what the Founders intended at the time the Constitution was ratified.
IAE, given modern proclivities, to be wholly educated in America and born of two American parents seems as likely to produce anti-American attitudes as favorable attitudes.  It is hardly a safeguard for loyalty to the Constitution or the American Ideal.