U.S. Presidents & The Natural-born-citizen Clause

[Excited Penguin]

Your mum.

Seriously though, I'm not going to engage you.

Hey, you jumped in so name one foreign leader who is worth a damn.

You don't want to push my buttons on this.

[Clueless Morgan]

I haven't read everything in the thread up until now but I'll weigh in:

Initially, I don't have a problem with the clause requiring a president to be a natural-born citizen.  I don't personally know exactly what legally defines "natural born" but my understanding was that you are born to an American citizen either in the US, on "US soil", or outside the US and are then legally "naturalized" and by that definition both Obama and Cruz would count, for me, as "natural born citizens."  The hypocrisy of Republicans being up Obama's ass about "not being eligible" when he was born to a US citizen ON US soil is what amuses me about the Cruz situation - but technically I think he's legally eligible.  (Again, )

With that said, I am open to being convinced that the "natural born citizen" clause is unnecessary, or that immigrants who meet residency and citizenship requirements should be allowed to run for POTUS.

I think it is useful if someone grew up here, and knows a good bit about Americans and their politics, but if they were born in another country, and grew up here, I don't think it matters.

Honestly I don't even care if they 'grew up' here.  If they're knowledgeable about our history and politics, and have shown ability to lead and be effective in a political arena (which I'm assuming is a given, as we're talking about presidential candidates here) I don't really care where they grew up.

Having knowledge of the political systems of another country via the mechanism of actually living there for an extended period or growing up there could be a really interesting and valuable source of knowledge for a president to have.  There's also the possibility that such a person could have better international relations due to their wider cultural knowledge - but also the flip side of bringing some baggage with them that other countries wouldn't be too fond of.  So there are benefits and drawbacks.

It shouldn't matter.  Let the people collectively decide what criteria matter at the polls.

You're talking about Americans who can often be very xenophobic, so along with a change in eligibility requirements I think a cultural shift would have to happen along with it in order for a non-natural-born-citizen to ever be elected POTUS.  We could change the law today but still not elect an immigrant who gains citizenship to POTUS for 50+ years.  It took 50 years to elect the first African American president after the Civil Rights Movement and look at the fit pitched by Republicans over that.

I think it's important for someone to have lived here long enough in order to be eligible to run it. I don't think this is unreasonable.

I think that would be reasonable.  Not only residency length requirements, but citizenship-length requirements (like you can't gain citizenship in 2014 and run for President in 2016).  By a standard like that, Schwarzenegger could be POTUS eligible.  That would be interesting.

[Minimalist]

 I don't personally know exactly what legally defines "natural born"

Neither does anyone else.  That's the problem.

Ted Cruz was born in Canada and had to renounce his Canadian citizenship.  Something that Canada seems fine with....

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2...cruz.html/

Calgary residents say the U.S. can keep Canadian-born Ted Cruz

But...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...story.html

Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.”

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Hey, you jumped in so name one foreign leader who is worth a damn.

You don't want to push my buttons on this.

So you have nothing to offer except your hurt feelings.  You can't even come up with one foreign leader who is worth a damn.  So why would Americans ever want to elect a totally worthless foreigner as their President?  Even our worse has always been better than their best.

[Minimalist]

I don't know about that.  We've had some real fucking doozies.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I don't know about that.  We've had some real fucking doozies.

But even our worse has been better than their best.  For instance, Woodrow Wilson was a scumbag racist but he was still better than his WWI contemporaries in Europe and elsewhere.

[Minimalist]

I was thinking more of Coolidge, Harding, Taft, Grant, Reagan and Bush the Dumber.

[Sterben]

 I don't personally know exactly what legally defines "natural born"

Neither does anyone else.  That's the problem.

Ted Cruz was born in Canada and had to renounce his Canadian citizenship.  Something that Canada seems fine with....

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2...cruz.html/

Calgary residents say the U.S. can keep Canadian-born Ted Cruz

But...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...story.html

Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.”

           I'm shocked this is coming out of my mouth and I wish there was any way I can say it. I have to agree with Donald Trump as well on this one(throws up), Ted Cruz should be declared ineligible as a candidate. While were at it I had a question for the board as well, would it be an act of war if we sent back Biber and Cruz to Canada with a message on a crate saying "There your problem now"?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I was thinking more of Coolidge, Harding, Taft, Grant, Reagan and Bush the Dumber.

They were all better than all of their contemporary foreigners.

[Sterben]

I was thinking more of Coolidge, Harding, Taft, Grant, Reagan and Bush the Dumber.

They were all better than all of their contemporary foreigners.

    I disagree with that. Tony Blair was a lot better then George Bush, Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev; come on you can't be serious. Reagan was a mistake a very big mistake. As far as Harding is concerned he barely had a chance to be a president. We have had some good ones though in recent years(J.F.K, Carter, Bill Clinton,
and of course F.D.R).