"“If President Trump committed a heinous act worthy of disqualification, he should be disqualified for the sake of protecting our hallowed democratic system, regardless of whether citizens may wish to vote for him in Colorado,”

  • FfaerieOxide
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    27 months ago

    If you are born to an American parent, you are legally a US citizen unless you renounce

    Natural born.

    McCain wasn’t granted citizenship until a 1937 act of congress, and never had to produce a long-form birth certificate nor argue what “natural born” means in court.

    The trouble Obama was given was racism, not the application of a “hard and fast” rule.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea
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      17 months ago

      Yes, and natural born has been interpreted as being either born to a US citizen or born on US soil. One of those is sufficient.

      • FfaerieOxide
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        17 months ago

        has been interpreted

        By whom? Has it been tested?

        Where are you getting the “hard and fast” descriptor when ‘natural born’ is not defined in the statute.

        • @sugar_in_your_tea
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          17 months ago

          My second link (the Guardian) makes the claim, and my third link (Harvard Law Review, linked by the Guardian) provides one such piece of evidence to back that claim.

          Almost nothing is “hard and fast” in law, especially where politics is involved, but given that we’ve had three high profile cases in the last 15 years and no serious Supreme Court-level challenge, I’m going to consider the “question” as mere political posturing.

          • FfaerieOxide
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            17 months ago

            Almost nothing is “hard and fast” in law

            it absolutely is a hard requirement.

            • @sugar_in_your_tea
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              17 months ago

              Yes, the “natural born citizen” clause in a hard requirement in the Constitution, how that’s interpreted does have some room for debate. It seems you’re intentionally misunderstanding what I’m saying…

              • FfaerieOxide
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                17 months ago

                It seems you’re intentionally misunderstanding

                It seems you’re saying diametrically contradictory things.

                You say things are absolutely hard and when soft edges are pointed out you then say “nothing is hard”.

                • @sugar_in_your_tea
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                  17 months ago

                  I was talking about two distinct things, yet you conflate them.

                  • FfaerieOxide
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                    17 months ago

                    It’s the same thing:

                    if “natural born” is a hard requirement despite never being defined or tested.

                    You said it was a hard requirement, I pointed to evidence of the rules being murky unclear and in many ways arbitrary to which you responded that nothing was hard.

                    On having that contradiction pointed out you now claim to be arguing two to more things.