Thursday, February 21, 2008

Forget the sex, what about the constitution?


While both sides of the aisle (and even estranged members of the DiSaronno family) are bickering over John McCain's sex life, one important issue remains outside the conversation - the fact that Mr. McCain was not born a natural citizen and is therefore not qualified to be president. As this wikipedia article and this cowboy article explain, the Constitution only requires like 3 things to be president. It's probably why we've had so many shitty ones. One requirement is that the person be a "natural-born citizen," which isn't defined in the document but which is generally understood to mean anyone born within the fabulous fifty or an incorporated territory. Now, you're automatically a citizen if both of your parents are citizens (McCain's were) no matter where you're born. But there are two theories on how your citizenship is obtained, in a technical sense, when you're born overseas to US citizens:
(1) you're not "natural-born," but are instead "naturalized" automatically by virtue of your parents' citizenship. People who are naturalized citizens (or "Nizers," a slur i made up) are not eligible to be president.
(2) you're natural-born, because you're a citizen without having to fill out any paperwork. "Naturalized" citizens are those who have to earn it and be granted citizenship.

Why all the mystery, then? Turns out the issue has never come up and this portion of the constitution has never been interpreted by the Supreme Court. There are some pretty old legal theories to support each position, some latin terms like jus soli and jus sanguinis and blah blah i dunno i've only been to like half of my immigration law classes. But my prof said this could be a huge issue, and she teaches at NYU so believe that shit. If it does go to court, liberals trying to throw a wrench in the republican machinery should be careful of zealously advocating arcane interpretations of the Constitution...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that Tina Fey on the left?

Le Mongoose said...

obama be karma fo' bruthas around the way,
but mccain be my nizza, don't care if he get play.