Arnie Schwartzenkennedy if a fool in the worst sense and seemingly hates both the California and U.S. Constitution.
Arnie, go back to Austria and take your anorexic hag of a wife with you.

I would expect you to provide some evidence that this is true of everyone born outside the US and is not true of everyone born inside.

Since you can’t, it leaves you open to the charge of being a bigot.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 1:58 PM

Aside from the fact that this isn’t what I said, this argument is a logical fallacy. I’m not the one supporting changes to the constitution. The onus is upon the argument for changing the constitution to provide exemplary evidence of why the change is necessary.

Name a person. That would be the simplest, least problematic method I would find acceptable in support of your argument.

Speaking of offering irrational arguments.

I don’t need to name the person. The law of statistics alone is enough to prove that the larger your pool of possible candidates, the better your chances of finding the best candidate.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 1:55 PM

Good luck on that tactic, the numbers are against you. In any given election, you have a pool of candidates for POTUS that is VERY SMALL. Providing for both major parties parties, and say an average of 6 candidates from each party, plus say 4 other minor party candidates. That totals out to 16 people, out of a nation of 300 million people. You honestly think that adding a couple more people will make a statistically significant difference?

(It doesn’t, I’ll save you the brain cells.)

I do believe you’re simply being obtuse at this point. The clause is there because the founding fathers placed the best guarantee of loyalty to the United States that you could possibly argue in writing. Is it perfect, NO, but if you want to change it, define it in a way is as effective. In the absence of a better definition, it is at least a parameter that removes one ugly variable. Not bigotry, not inferiority, not trustworthy nature only being born in the US, but a way of trying to guarantee that the president places interest of the United States above other interests. THAT IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING. How would you parameterize qualifications to guarantee loyalty?

OR in the absence of that parameterization, name a person who would be a stellar president, but can’t run due to the structure of the constitution.

If a candidate is defective, then let the voters decide.
MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 1:56 PM

Now this is priceless. It assumes the ultimate wisdom resides with the voters, which even the founding fathers didn’t think. Article II, section 1 describes the Electoral College, the real body that votes for the president. Electoral College members are appointed by legislatures of each state, and the wisdom of these bodies was what the founding fathers depended upon for making good choices in their selections of who could vote for president. It has been bastardized with the popular vote, and I strongly urge you to educate youself on what the difference is between a Democracy and what we use in the United States, because it is eye opening.

Since you can’t, it leaves you open to the charge of being a bigot.

The clause as stated, benefits everyone, and I can find no evidence from your statements that you have any intention of deviating.

The law as stated benefits nobody, except those who are convinced that foreigners are inferior to the native born.

If a candidate is defective, then let the voters decide.

So, I’ll bite, by your own argument, you seem to think we are missing the next Reagan, by excluding naturalized citizens. Name one person who would be as effective in the presidency as Reagan, and is not a natural born citizen, that we’re missing out on.

Speaking of offering irrational arguments.

I don’t need to name the person. The law of statistics alone is enough to prove that the larger your pool of possible candidates, the better your chances of finding the best candidate.

The key to sending people to the gas chamber, is to never think of them as people.

Once you start dehumanizing people, telling yourself it’s ok to sacrifice them in the name of the greater good, it never stops.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 1:39 PM

Again with the personalizing. A criterion being disparaged as a bad rule is not personal. The discussion is not eugenic in nature, nor is it dehumanizing for a single job in the united states to be impossible to acheive due to immigration status.

I say again, since you think this is a bad rule.

Name one person who would be as effective in the presidency as Reagan, and is not a natural born citizen, that we’re missing out on.

If you can’t, then you’re working in the theoretical, and you must look at probabilities to begin to make a rationalization for changing the document if you ever hope to make headway with a rational person.

So as long as you don’t personally know the person who is getting screwed, it’s ok to keep a rule that benefits no one in the constitution

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 1:35 PM

Ok, not what I said. I said if you know someone who is excluded, feel free to apologize for the unfair nature of the US constitution. I’ll tell them life isn’t fair or to pound sand depending upon who it is.

The clause as stated, benefits everyone, and I can find no evidence from your statements that you have any intention of deviating.

BTW, I couldn’t remember your position on Arnorld, but was preventing a worthless line of discussion.

I say again, since you think this is a bad rule.

Name one person who would be as effective in the presidency as Reagan, and is not a natural born citizen, that we’re missing out on.

If you can’t, then you’re working in the theoretical, and you must look at probabilities to begin to make a rationalization for changing the document if you ever hope to make headway with a rational person.

but you are personalizing this in a way that is irrelevant.

The key to sending people to the gas chamber, is to never think of them as people.

Once you start dehumanizing people, telling yourself it’s ok to sacrifice them in the name of the greater good, it never stops.

BTW, I’ve stated at least 3 times that I do not support Arnie for president.

I don’t oppose this clause because I support Arnie, I oppose this clause because it is a bad rule.

If you found out that one of your buddies had been left behind during a fire fight, would tell the rest of your squad to forget about him? After all, it’s just one man.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 12:32 PM

Are you daft or intentionally being obtuse? Sometimes these kinds of choices need to be made, but you are personalizing this in a way that is irrelevant. Your example is not equivalent to a clinical situation; it is a personal situation between comrades in the duress of a warzone. A requirement embedded in a document is more analogous to a clinical situation because it is prior to the situation. Unless you have a personal relationship with an excluded person, in which case you can offer your condolences.

The embarrassment is that we claim that we judge all men by the content of their character.
The lie is that we consider those who were born here to be better than those who weren’t.

The rule benefits no one and causes us to miss out on available talent.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 12:33 PM

So not meeting the criteria in the rules is the same as not judging a man by the content of their character? How so? They are not restricted from anything else in the country, including speaker of the house, which is where the insanity falls into place. If you don’t know what I mean, research where the speaker falls in a succession to the presidency.

If the foundational document has a problem due to this simple criterion, by that same logic, why wait until age 35? Let’s get rid of that criterion too, because we might miss out on valuable talent because they might have Huntington’s disease and we don’t want to discriminate against those suffering with genetic diseases.

Get real. Your view of life in the United States is really narrow, and severely hampered by your emotional attachments. Life isn’t fair, was never promised to be fair, and the US is not and has never been an egalitarian society in theory or in practice.

Want to live in one? Good luck finding one, because this is as close as it gets. For the US to keep things where they are, we must follow the rules and prevent erosions. Sometimes rules need changing if the situations radically change, but a criterion modification does not rise to the level of meeting that situational change. You can provide no example of harm, and quite frankly I tire of your rhetoric about justifying this change by stating that it causes us to miss out on talent, which is the only truly consistent vein through your arguments.

So, I’ll bite, by your own argument, you seem to think we are missing the next Reagan, by excluding naturalized citizens. Name one person who would be as effective in the presidency as Reagan, and is not a natural born citizen, that we’re missing out on. If you can’t, then you’re working in the theoretical, and you must look at probabilities to begin to make a rationalization for changing the document.

Oh, and just in case this is a point I missed, Arnold has a proven track record of incompetency, and does not meet the level of stellar candidate I’m talking about.

The rule benefits no one and causes us to miss out on available talent.

It’s an embarasment to this country and it flies in the face of our egalitarian traditions.

Mark, this one just bothers. Who is embarrassed? Are you? I think most Americans would be hard pressed to feel embarrassed because we don’t allow people born on foreign soil to become president. Most of the nations that may feel that we have some inconsistency have either had their butts saved by the US, or their butts kicked by the US, or are in some way dependent upon the US, or are so impoverished that they’re still third world nations.

It’s called living by the rules we have chosen to live by, and there is not one country that we should be modeling ourselves on or feel like we answer to. So where is the embarrassment?

The effort expended to benefit ration ratio gets higher as you try to tweak minor flaws. And believe me a natural born citizen clause is only a minor flaw at best.

Marine_Bio on December 23, 2008 at 11:01 AM

It appears that there can be no meeting of the minds between us on this subject so I’m going to drop it.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 10:28 AM

I thought you were going to cease.
If you’re willing to answer this, it may be illuminating. What is the harm you believe to be caused by this clause?

(Your perceived embarrassment and conflict with nonexistent egalitarian traditions are not harm)

So as long as the number of people being screwed is small, lets just live with it??

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 10:29 AM

Dude, where is your sense of reality. EVERYTHING works that way. You may have some feelings about it being cold, but guess what, it is reality. Here’s a good example, how do you think medications pass the FDA tests? No medicine is ever 100% safe for everyone. It sure sucks to be you if you’re one of the 0.0001% of the population who has a seizure from the medication, but the rest of the population is safe, so it’s approved. This is why drug commercials always place the disclaimers about side reactions in the broadcast. Pay attention to one, some of the side effects of these medications are pretty heinous.

The cut off is typically 95% for most efforts, so even giving that much credence to your argument, what we have is a law of diminishing returns scenario. The effort expended to benefit ration gets higher as you try to tweak minor flaws. And believe me a natural born citizen clause is only a minor flaw at best.

Who’d have thought that the terminator would turn into such a squishy liberal. He never played one in his films.

Too right! Didn’t Arnold used to be a man?

I hear California is going broke.
How does the saying go? If California is broke, don’t fix it. ;)

If the idea is about changing a clause that does no harm to the country, how does that become a good idea?

Marine_Bio on December 23, 2008 at 10:07 AM

I disagree that it does no harm.
It’s an embarasment to this country and it flies in the face of our egalitarian traditions.

It appears that there can be no meeting of the minds between us on this subject so I’m going to drop it.

What I’m saying is that if you compare this more apropriately, by examining the change of electing senators from a popular vote, you get a better picture. The change altered their focus, it didn’t crumble the structure of the united states, but it did place a crack in the foundation.

The change you’re talking about doesn’t rise to the level of being a rational change. How many people are are being excluded by leaving this in place? If that averages out to to 1 person every four years, what does that matter? They still have to get past the gauntlet of an undereducated electorate.

Run the probabilities, if there is a 0.01% increase in the number of potential candidates, I would be surprised. But where is the significant benefit of that?

I am arguing step one, and you are arguing that we have to complete step two before we decide if step one is a good idea.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 9:52 AM

No.

I am arguing that the hill isn’t worth taking because there is only one person at the top.

Now, this statement illustrates why I don’t think you have connected with what I’ve written.

You seem to be familiar with the constitution so you should be aware that there is more than one way to ammend the constitution.

That’s what I just said. (emphasis added for illustation)

That is why the founding fathers originally set up the constitution so that it could be amended in a fairly straightforward way, and for the really big changes, a constitutional convention could be called if needed, but the process involved is really onerous. They had far more wisdom than most in today’s society are willing to give them credit for.

OK?

Incidentally, there is a constitutional basis for having different election processes with the different offices, so I didn’t jump in. Senators were elected by the state legislatures, and were originally supposed to be the representatives of STATE interests in the federal government. That was changed, and in my opinion it was a bad idea. What we have today is a body of 100 SUPER Congressmen, who pander to the popular vote just as much as the other house. It wasn’t meant to be this way. George Washington was the one who really championed the Senate, and it was suppose to be the state level check to the legislation the peoples elected officials wanted to pass.

Which provides a bit more background and brings me to this..

Secondly, an idea is still a good idea, even if there is no practical way to implement it at this time.

MarkTheGreat on December 23, 2008 at 9:43 AM

If the idea is about changing a clause that does no harm to the country, how does that become a good idea?

Step one: Deciding if that hill is worth taking, or if we can go around it.

Step Two: If the answer to step one is take the hill, then and only then do we spend time deciding exactly when and how do we take the hill.

I am arguing step one, and you are arguing that we have to complete step two before we decide if step one is a good idea.