Immigrants Need Not Apply
Per the United States Constitution:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
The mantra goes something like this; "we live in a country where anyone can dream of growing up to be president." Unless, of course, you were, by accident of birth, born someplace else. I agree with Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We should amend this part of the Constitution and extend the right to seek the presidency to every citizen who has been naturalized for 20 years.
I am generally opposed to all measures that limit the rights of voters (term limits, age limits, even residency limits). Consider the cases of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm. They are the governors of California and Michigan respectively. Arnold is a successful actor and businessman who is the governor of America's biggest state. He has been a citizen for over 20 years. Jennifer is a Harvard educated former attorney general of a big industrial state. She was born just over the border in Canada, where she lived until she was 4.
As a citizen, I am prohibited by law from voting for either of these candidates for president. Some things I would like to point out:
Immigrants who seek America often understand our values better than we do ourselves. They are, on balance, extremely hard working and patriotic.
Other countries throughout history have had foreign born leaders, sometimes to great success. In the history of England, with which I am most familiar (besides, of course, American history), we have foreign born Henry Tudor (Henry VII, born in Wales, then a completely different country) who ended the war of the roses, among his many achievements, Charles II (born in France), who led the restoration of the monarchy and healed the deep wounds of the English civil war, and William III (born in Holland), who helped lead England into a constitutional monarchy with parliamentary supremacy. George I, who ascended to the throne through a very tenous blood relationship to Queen Anne after she died without heirs, did not even speak English (this lead to the creation of the first British Prime Minister).
Both candidates could score major points by coming out in favor of Senator Hatch's Amendment, especially among key demographics (like the Latino community).
Here is a link to a great article on the subject:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/argument_amar_marpar04.html
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
The mantra goes something like this; "we live in a country where anyone can dream of growing up to be president." Unless, of course, you were, by accident of birth, born someplace else. I agree with Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We should amend this part of the Constitution and extend the right to seek the presidency to every citizen who has been naturalized for 20 years.
I am generally opposed to all measures that limit the rights of voters (term limits, age limits, even residency limits). Consider the cases of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm. They are the governors of California and Michigan respectively. Arnold is a successful actor and businessman who is the governor of America's biggest state. He has been a citizen for over 20 years. Jennifer is a Harvard educated former attorney general of a big industrial state. She was born just over the border in Canada, where she lived until she was 4.
As a citizen, I am prohibited by law from voting for either of these candidates for president. Some things I would like to point out:
Immigrants who seek America often understand our values better than we do ourselves. They are, on balance, extremely hard working and patriotic.
Other countries throughout history have had foreign born leaders, sometimes to great success. In the history of England, with which I am most familiar (besides, of course, American history), we have foreign born Henry Tudor (Henry VII, born in Wales, then a completely different country) who ended the war of the roses, among his many achievements, Charles II (born in France), who led the restoration of the monarchy and healed the deep wounds of the English civil war, and William III (born in Holland), who helped lead England into a constitutional monarchy with parliamentary supremacy. George I, who ascended to the throne through a very tenous blood relationship to Queen Anne after she died without heirs, did not even speak English (this lead to the creation of the first British Prime Minister).
Both candidates could score major points by coming out in favor of Senator Hatch's Amendment, especially among key demographics (like the Latino community).
Here is a link to a great article on the subject:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/argument_amar_marpar04.html
posted by Chris at 4:10 PM
1 Comments:
Perhaps there will be a time when allowing foreign born individuals to serve as President will be advisable, even good and wise. Now, however, is not that time.
First, limited republican government does not require that its citizens possess uniform and equal political opportunities to secure the full blessings of liberty. As Aristotle rightly argued, the best government is one that combines monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. The existence of portions of a society having different and unequal rights from the society at large, then, is rightly seen as a good. Men are not uniformly the same in their abilities or their interests. This point properly understood justifies property ownership requirements and property-based apportionment. For most of our history, we have rightly recognized such distinctions as necessary to secure a balance of interests and rights that maximizes liberty. However, in the last century we have abandoned distinctions and embraced a false homogenous view of America that ignores genuine differences that ought to be reflected in the law. As a result, our protections for property ownership have suffered, family life has been thrown into total disarray, and the urban rules the rural with a haughty, self-absorbed disinterest.
But this isn't about distinctions generally. One can embrace my above argument and still ardently argue for allowing the foreign born to serve as President. So what it comes down to is this: if it is right and permissible for citizens to possess differing degrees of political rights, is there a reason to allow some citizens to serve as President, but not others?
Here are three reasons I can think of.
First, in a world where states constantly spy on and meddle in each others' affairs, is it that hard to imagine some other country trying to install one of its agents as a puppet POTUS? Now, maybe such attempts are unlikely to succeed, but it's hard to say.
Second, it is natural to feel a strong allegiance to one's place of birth. Maybe for some this is a weak allegiance and wouldn't impact presidential decision making. But for most I think it would. Lets say we have a President born in Taiwan, and China finally invades the little manufacturing giant. He would feel the need to defend Taiwan. And arguably, in terms of American interests, defending Taiwan would be the right thing to do. But the problem would remain that such a President will likely be considering things in addition to American interests in deciding how to wage such a war. Do we really want that?
Third, and perhaps most critically, America is different. Central-planning, anti-market thought is prevalent in almost every nation and culture. And where markets receive decent treatment and the state tries to avoid regulation overkill, the moral norms are often different from our own. There are certainly some nations (Ireland for example) with moral and fiscal values fitting well with ours, but they are sadly in the minority. Immigrants sometimes leave their countries because they accept our values and reject those of their motherlands, but more often then not they just come here for jobs, for opportunity. By and large most do not perceive why their country is a failure and ours is a success. Not everyone can be Arnold.
You're probably still not convinced. Neither am I. These are hardly conclusive arguments. But they are enough for me to say "not now."
BTW - this is Rob from school. If you are still interested in checking out my presidential ranking site, the address is:
http://members.fortunecity.com/kjempekar/rankings/president/Presidents.htm
Each name links to a pic of the pres. I will eventually write summaries of their presidencies and explain why they are where they are. I'm not entirely satisfied with it yet, though. Also, to post this, I had to create a blog. My blog is http://orderedliberty.blogspot.com. Nothing is there yet, but check back soon.
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