Natural Born or Naturally discriminative
“ 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.”
In 1787, John Jay (pictured) wrote a letter to George Washington, who was presiding over the constitutional convention. In it, he said, "permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."
The President must have been born here.
No Foreigners allowed.
Is it time to amend?
posted by CitizenPatriot at 9:13:00 AM
7 Comments:
no.
5:58 PM
thanks for making the podcast, mr. elbaum! (and mr. c. if he's reading this!) it was uber-helpful. =)
as to the post...i'm not sure i'd be ready to let a foreigner be president. maybe if they've lived "most" or their life here...like let's say at least 20 years...then maybe. but i think the president of america should be american. or, if not american born, at the very least very thoroughly naturalized, and have lived here long enough to develop a love for our country and an understanding of our culture.
9:37 PM
Elbaum...im pissed...i just had my entire speech written and it got deleted because my computer froze...it was unreal. I will try to recover...
Mr. Elbaum, first let me start off my argument by saying that I am formidably sorry that I have not posted on such a prestigous blog recently. I appreciate your efforts and am looking forward to answering more insightful, intellectual, and thought-provoking topics.
In regards to the question, the President needs to be born in the United States of America. Below I have outlined my argument. The first part acts as a preemptive to my second argument. If you wish to criticize my second argument (which is most applicable to the question), I urge you to read my first outlined philosophy. My philosophy is as follows:
1. The United States of America needs a government in order to maintain freedoms and civil liberties.
2. In order to have a successful government, rules, synanomous with laws, are necessary to implement such actions to maintain the poor from uprising, yet supressing the rich and elites (can you say that Bailey? haha) from becoming monarchs and/or too powerful.
3. When creating a law, it is understood that it is created for the good of the people, for the people, and the people represents the overwhelming majority as it is understood that not all American citizens have the same race, gender, political/economic status, etc.
4. Because a law appeals the overwhelming majority, there is still a slight minority that does not act as the beneficiary nor is represented in such a law. You must agree to this if you agreed with above stated information as no law can be beneficial for all unless we were one homogenous civilization which we are no longer, yet you agree that a government is necessary.
5. Although laws may not treat the minute percentage fairly as it does the profound majority, a line in the sand needs to be drawn in order for politics and our government to work. This is founded in the previous stated arguments in that a government is a necessity, laws are needed to govern it, yet all laws are not fair.
Now that we have established that not all laws are fair to a small percentage of the population, I can now properly address the remainder of the question. As a President is obviously needed to govern our nation, and laws are needed to bind his powers, it is only fitting that they bind the requirements necessary to fill such a prestigous position as well. When deciding such requirements, is not fair to make the assertion that no one wants a leader that is not a part of this country? Surely no one wants a leader that has lived in the U.S. for one year. Because of this principle, I conclude that the President needs to live in the U.S. As I stated earlier that a line needs to be drawn in the sand, a President should not represent two countries when his position is for the United States. Although it is no measure for such immigrants who feel they can govern just as easily, it still provides the overwhelming majority a sense of comfort that the current President's loyalties remain to the United States of America. Furthermore, no such limits bind the contracts of other political positions. Seeing as the President is the face and leader of the United States of America, it is only fitting and proper that he be born from such a nation as well.
4:51 PM
Sincerely,
Mr. Blog
4:51 PM
uhh jordan with all due respect, u put a lot of effort into ur response, but i get the feeling you think that if a law were to be ammended people wud be getting off ships one day and becoming president the next. the law right now states u need to be a resident for 14 years, and i'd be shocked if they lowered that. it just wouldn't make sense. if anything, they would increase that number to make sure a candidate for president has a fervorous zeal towards this country. and ur whole argument was based off of the fact that laws don't favor minority. i agree, but in a country built on immigration and one that is dependent on it, pretty soon in most big cities there will be more minorites than whites. so in that sense, u have no argument. but besides that, u stated, "Seeing as the President is the face and leader of the United States of America,it is only fitting and proper that he be born from such a nation as well." our prez rite now is a "born again christian" from texas born to a wealthy family and idk if thats in touch with the entire entity of america. so wouldn't it make more sense for someone who was an immigrant and understands the sacrifice and hardships of the millions and millions of people inthis country everyday? wouldn't a president who has lived,breathed, and achieved the perverbial dream be better than a president who read about it ina book? now, there are exceptions of course but for today, it'll work. Plus, this sort of law turns off immigrants from voting, making it seem theyre second class. they think to themselves, why should i vote when the same government won't recognize me as a complete citizen. there shouldbe some clause in there saying that u can't have lived in another country for longer than a certain period of time. cuz jordan, ur rite, there needs tobe alleigance to the country as well. it's all about the fine lines...
1:36 AM
You bring up a good point Sam. However, if I was born in Russia and moved to the United States, of course I would still feel for Russia. If I were to become President, and here I stand facing the international community with the inevitable choice of having to disagree with Russia...there is no way any President would be able to do the unzealously. I understand that things can go other ways such as if your parents were from another country, but honestly, a line has to be drawn in the sand and your going to have to live with the fact that some people aren't on the right side of that line.
And yes I did put a lot of time into my argument.
Mr. Blog
6:48 AM
Hey Mr. Elbaum!! Remember the 'Bill Richardson' fiasco from last year?
I'm not a nazi. But the answer is still no.
2:39 AM
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