McCain's Citizenship Issue: Would be Serious, if We Took The Constitution Seriously Anymore

I was wondering when the Democrat's media organs would bring this up- the New York Times reports that John McCain may not be eligible to become President. If you will read the link you will see that it is not just a case of biased media, but rather an ongoing constitutional question that has come up many times in our nation's history.

John McCain was born on a U.S. Military installation in the Panama canal zone. That area was under a sort of long-term lease to the United States, much like Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba. The Constitution states that the President must be a "Natural Born" U.S. citizen. There are two kinds of citizens, "Natural Born" and "Naturalized". A straightforward reading of the law is that children born to U.S. citizens on foreign soil are "naturalized" citizens by virtue of the citizenship of their parents.

The original intent of the "Natural Born" provision was to prevent one whose loyalties were mixed from becoming President of the United States. One might argue that the Constitution was written before the United States had a global military presence in over 100 nations around the world and that because of McCain's military service he should not be questioned on that issue regardless of the technicalities.

To that I would reply that all laws are technicalities, and except for arguments from original intent, anyone who respects the rule of law should insist that the strong be submitted to its provisions and not just the weak or unpopular. I also remind the reader that it is quite right that the Founders never anticipated an American Global Empire. By their own writings they would be opposed to it. One can easily see them supporting use of this provision against the offspring of our military garrison's in other nations, not only as a part of discouraging empire-seeking but also because they were students of history. There is little historical support for the idea that children of military officers born and raised on foreign soil have the same connection with the homeland as those born and raised in the homeland.

That brings me to John McCain in particular. The Founders banned making non-natural born citizens into Presidents because they feared such men would have divided loyalties. John McCain seems to be exactly that kind of man which the Founders enacted this provision to stop. McCain shows every indication of being an open-borders globalist whose ties to Central America, the land of his birth, are so strong that he advocates polices that are favorable to them at the expense of the citizens of the United States.

If anyone took the original intent of the Constitution seriously anymore then John McCain would have an eligibility problem becoming President of the United States. As it stands, no one does, so he doesn't have a problem- WE DO.