What Birthers Believe: Review

[cthulu2016]

5. The fact that born in the US

The fact that born in the US only comes up in one very odd instance, the qualifications for the Presidency, utterly demolishes all birther conspiracies. It was funny watching Chris Matthews get that... you could almost see him "get it" during one of his shows and he has been a fierce anti-birther ever since.

As to the meaning of natural born, I do think it means born within the US. But a lot of folks have argued it different ways.

When the Constitution was written there were people whose families were of the new world and people who had been here five years.

Britain wanted to reclaim the colonies. (We fought another war in 1812) If the USA got off to a rocky start we wouldn't want some British prince with a big box of gold showing up announcing his run for the presidency. Half the voters had been loyal servants of the crown in recent memory.

It makes sense to me that the founders were drawing a distinction between second generation Americans and new immigrants as an indicator of loyalty.

And it took months to cross the ocean. It's not like they would be thinking in terms of someone being born on a layover at a foreign airport.

Was that a valid indicator of loyalty? Who knows. Were they thinking through what would happen if Jefferson's wife gave birth while in Paris? Beats me. (As ambassador, his residence might have been US soil. Beats me.)

It is surely out-moded, but I am willing to accept that the language was supposed to mean born on US soil.