All "Boomers" Weren't Marxist Weirdos

Though I'm a "Child of the 60s", what you call a "Boomer", I never bought into all that Marxist idiocy. I supported our great God, our great soldiers, our great country, and our great, hard-won freedoms. In college, I was a member of the Young Republicans. There were *lots* of us. Guess it's lost to history now, but Leftist trouble-makers made up only a tiny fraction of our generation, just as "Flappers" & Rum-runners were not all that common during the Roaring Twenties... though she lived through them as an adult, my grandmother said she had never seen a "Flapper".

Unfortunately, it's always the loud-mouthed fringe who marks a generation, the rest, just patriotic Americans quietly living their lives, always seem to get lost in the shuffle. That must be because "normal" isn't interesting. That's verging on criminal, since plain, everyday "live and let live" is the miraculous mindset that consistently works to form a stable society. We are not the crazy fringe, we are, and always have been, the mainstream, and we have come late to the party, due to being normal, God-fearing Patriots concentrating on making a better life for ourselves, our kids and our communities.

It's time for the warped fringe to crawl back to the edges and out of sight, where it belongs... WE NORMAL, GOD-FEARING, "LIVE AND LET LIVE" PATRIOTS WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!

The Truth is still the Truth, even if no one believes it.

Ninfa of Ninfa's Mexican Restaurant fame, a mother of 5, who started with just a taco stand.

Glenn Beck, who beat alcoholism, was the son of a baker.

Steve Wozniak, assembled the first Apple Computer in his garage.

Steve Jobs, adopted by a machinist and his accountant wife.

Henry J. Heinz, founder of the H. J. Heinz Company, the son of German immigrants, who, as a boy, sold vegetables door-to-door.

That's a very short list of very rich people who didn't start out that way. There are thousands more such stories, millions, if you count those who started with nothing and now have become admirably comfortable through hard work and their undaunted belief in The American Dream and in their ability to achieve it.

There is no "pie" of wealth, because wealth isn't finite, it can be created from nothing but hard work and a belief in your God-given abilities. It resides in the potential of each of us. WE are our own wealth, if we just choose to unleash it. But that can only happen if people are free to reach for their dreams. That's why America became so great, Americans were allowed what no other government allowed their people: true freedom to pursue their personal goals without caste-systems or other such stigma, because there are no castes or levels in America, we're all one people on one level, the American Level.

Need is the greatest builder of wealth, not greed. Have a need and satisfy it, find a need and fill it, create something that never existed before and create a new need along with it. If you believe in the "pie", you've been sold a bill of goods. That belief says that people are limited, that they can't help themselves, that they can't better themselves. That is a LIE! We are limited only by the chains we choose to wrap around our own spirits.

The American Spirit shouts, "There ARE NO chains! I am free! To follow my dreams, to better myself, to be more than when I began, and to bring others with me as I climb. To better the lot of a multitude of others because I have succeeded, so that some of them can climb, too... perhaps even further than I have!" For years Bill Gates topped the list of Richest Americans, but something many don't know is that quite a few of those on that Richest Americans list with him were his employees.

Anyone who sings the song of the down-trodden in America has put the boot on their own neck. If they're able-bodied and sound of mind, they're down-trodden because they have chosen self-pity instead of self-betterment. At some point those who have chosen to just shut up and do what needed to be done, no matter how hard or demeaning or lowly, in order to better themselves and everything around them through their efforts, will throw up their hands and say, "Enough! If you want to eat, feed yourself, because I'm tired of having my hand bitten."

Those are the facts in the Real World of The United States of America as it used to be when we still taught our children to reach for the American Dream and, if you don't like those facts, tough. The Truth is still the Truth, even if no one believes it.

Are we there yet?

Everything I read and hear seems to leave the impression we're teetering on the brink. The Patriots of Twitter are beside themselves, newsletters are full of it, every corner of the world is melting down. It's natural to wonder, "Are we there yet?"

It's as if people everywhere sense something foreboding ahead, a wall, a cliff, a chasm... an ending. How much is The Age and how much is just age? It seems to fight just to fight is to lose before you start, but to do nothing when you should've done something...?

I wonder, do you think the Founding Fathers felt "smart" or up to it, at least while they were going through it? They went back and forth across the ocean, trying for years to come to a peaceful solution. Sometimes, there's just nothing else left but the choice you wanted least to make.

If
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

I Want My Mommy!

The Viet Nam War's main time period was in the 60s, it was pretty much over by the 70s. My husband's a Viet Nam vet, who came home in 1970, the year we married. The anti-war protests occurred primarily during the last half of the 60s, and were an out-growth of the Anti-Establishment indoctrination absorbed by those who called themselves Hippies. The 60s era was the period during which college-going teens were first introduced to unfettered Communist Anti-Establishment (anti-traditional, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-morals) indoctrination in the colleges they attended. That was a time of turmoil here at home that outstripped that of the war.

The kids of the 60s were the first to come of age raised by mothers who considered working outside the home to be more important than staying home and raising their children. The result was a generation of children disconnected from the sense of family that had always infused previous generations. We got the "a woman only matters if she works" mystique from the WWII era mindset, through "Rosie The Riveter" and other such war-time propaganda. The female abandonment of woman's traditional role as Homemaker has often been laid at the feet of the Feminist Movement when, in fact, the Women's Liberation Movement was a direct out-growth of the WWII female mindset that had done its damage long before Gloria Steinem appeared on the scene.

The WWII era was the first full-on frontal assault on the traditional family, the backbone of American society. It's been down-hill ever since. With the vilification of the traditional female role of stay-at-home-Mom, a death-blow was landed on the classic American way of life. Prior to that devastating accomplishment, the Communists had minimal affect in changing America's classic mores, because the loving influence of Mom was more powerful than the influences of the world outside the secure home environment she nurtured. When the pillar of Mom was removed, the societal structure began self-destructing almost immediately.

You can blame radical movements of every ilk, drugs, TV, cell phones, internet and/or social net-working, placing the blame on the generations since the fall of Mom but, if you do, you're blaming the symptoms and ignoring the root cause. A society that vilifies the critical role of stay-at-home Moms is a society that's chosen to commit suicide.

Just wondering...

If you're your own worst enemy, does that exclude the existence of external enemies? Many seem to jump to that conclusion, though I've never understood how.

Do thoughts kill? Yes. That's what all political philosophies are. Politics kill; with wars, without them, politics uses whatever is most expedient in the attempt to accomplish its ends. All wars are political, and all politics are war.

We're all slaves now, thanks to Lincoln

For years I've said that our Republic died under Lincoln, and it had nothing to do with slavery! A fundamental promise made by the Founders to preserve the sovereignty of the individual states was broken in 1865, and it's been downhill into ever-growing slavery for all Americans ever since. The back of the Federal Government's power must be broken! The states must reassert their sovereign rights... if we still have time.

And, "No!" I am not pro-slavery. In fact, my ancestors include John Adams, John Q. Adams, Harriet B. Stowe and John Brown, I have a long family history of hating slavery.

I even consider Lincoln to have been a decent Christian man, though misguided in his choice of how he sought to pursue one of his desires, which was to end slavery. That ending slavery was his only reason for the war, however, is doubtful (and his writings back up the fact he had other reasons). To Lincoln, preserving the Union was more important than preserving states' rights, and he was very wrong. He chose to break the Constitution rather than use the laws set up by that Constitution to settle such disputes between the Federal Government and various states.

The Confederate Constitution lists the states' right to continue their practice of slavery as one of the primary reasons for the South's cession, it's a fact of history that can't easily be erased. No honest discussion can avoid the fact the Southern states were pro-slavery.

But championing states' rights has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with individual freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution. Freedoms stolen from all the people in 1865. The results of the Civil War was the enslavement of all the citizens of the United States under the onerous, ever-increasing mandates of an imperial Federal Government. We're all slaves now, thanks to Lincoln.

Christians, STAND UP!!

It’s time for American Christians to throw off their PC yoke and stand up for their faith! There has never been a requirement of “separation of church and state” mentioned in the Constitution, that’s been made up whole cloth from a simple mention of it by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a Baptist church *as an assurance* the church’s religious practices would not be infringed upon by the government.

That one statement in that one letter has been subverted by those who hate Christianity and, as an attack on it, have turned what Jefferson meant completely upside-down! Then, to make it worse, they have blatantly lied, incorrectly attributing it as being a Constitutional mandate, though it never was!

The First Amendment to the Constitution actually reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, **OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF**; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

By preventing a chaplain from using the name of Jesus when they pray, the government is “prohibiting the free exercise” of their Christian religion!

This must STOP! Christians, STAND UP! The government is ruling in direct violation of the Constitution, and IT MUST END… NOW!

Think about it, Christians, the very first topic addressed in the very first amendment to the Constitution was about freedom to practice your religion without interference by the government. The founders of America came here for the express purpose of being able to freely practice their Christian faith in the manner they chose.

The Founding Fathers considered the practice of their Christian faith, unhindered by any edicts of the government, to be the most important right granted to us, that’s why it’s the first subject in the First Amendment… it was FIRST in importance!

Some Ways To Cut The Deficit

In case someone has been in a coma and doesn't know, we're out of money. Our government's so broke we need a new word to define broke, because "broke" doesn't adequately express HOW broke we are. But our brokeness is a direct result of really stupid government policies that no one in the government seems to want to change. So, it seems, our real problem isn't stupid spending, it's the over-arching, permanently instituted, actively pervasive quality of our government being just plain stupid that's our problem.

Now the pointy-hats who are responsible for all that institutionalized stupidity are in the process of trying to find ways to not be stupid with our money. Lord, help us... good luck with that.

Here are a few suggestions:

Instead of taking food out of the mouths of needy children and old people, why don't we just bring our soldiers home? That would save a fortune, and do so immediately. We should pull out of all foreign wars... now. Why are we trying to force other nations to adopt our idea of how they should conduct their internal affairs? Let the UN handle those disputes.

In fact, as to the UN, we should run, don't walk, from it, and stop all funding to it. The world doesn't like us? Fine. Stop funding every belligerent, whiny government that has as its goal the plundering of our wealth and the active deconstruction of our American Capitalist system. Let them see what a world without the USA as their police force and major customer is like.

Major customer... right. As to that, end Free Trade and go back to the tariffs system, just as the Founding Fathers set up in the Constitution. Tariffs were the original method for funding the Federal Government, and the only method that was to be used. A tariff system would also result in a more competitive edge to sell goods we manufacture here in the USA, as it would work to level the playing field. China's biggest nightmare is the USA giving up Free Trade in favor of a tariff system.

Next, funding "bad actors", militant, hostile governments (like Egypt is in the process of becoming) should stop right now. Close the wallet, hide the piggy bank, don't write that rubber check! Why should we, with our huge deficits, give money to any hostile countries? Why are we building up our and Israel's enemies? That seems the height of stupidity.

Don't give Egypt that $1 billion+, since the party that's come to power is in the process of breaking the peace treaty with Israel and planning on going to war with them. The stated goal of one of the Egyptian Presidential candidates is to make Jerusalem the capital city of the new Caliphate. Isn't that nice for Israel? Egypt has already cut off the supply of natural gas they were piping Israel. That money we pledged to Egypt, along with Israel giving Egypt the Sinai Peninsula, in the Camp David Accords, was for the purpose of Egypt keeping the peace treaty with Israel. If Egypt breaks that treaty, becoming a potential threat to Israel, why should the USA fund their saber-rattling against our ally?

On a side note: Have you seen the size of the Sinai Peninsula in relation to what's left of Israel? As a result of the Camp David Accords Peace Treaty with Egypt, When they gave up the Sinai, Israel ceded over to Egypt an area almost twice the land mass of what Israel kept for themselves, as well as Israel's access to two major waterways! Would you give up two-thirds of the land area of the United States to make peace with Canada or Mexico?

Bad actors don't have to be foreign, however. As example, take our dismal, stupid-kid-producing Federal Department of Education. Since the Fed has taken over public education, scores for US children have plummeted; we've gone from near the top to the bottom of the heap. With consistent bad grades like that, what parent thinks the DoE is actually working to do anything other than insure our kids don't get a decent education? Our schools no longer educate, they indoctrinate. Ignorant, lascivious, homosexual, God-hating, Marxist/Communist, rabble-rousing, unemployable, progeny that can't add 2+2 without a calculator, now there's a parent's dream-come-true.

Than there's the EPA, who wouldn't love to see the last of them? What they do that isn't harmful would be shorter to list. There are a wealth of such money-sucking, destructive government agencies that should be done away with. The question is, why won't Congress do anything about the black hole of very wasted government spending that is such agencies, before they attack Meals-On-Wheels and school lunch programs?

Finally, open up our nation's wealth of oil-rich areas and "Drill, baby, drill!" Not to mention, getting the Fed off the backs of the Natural Gas and Coal industries. It would give us the benefit of bringing down prices at the pump and lowering all other energy prices, as well as being a windfall in revenues to government on both state and Federal levels.

There's a coal-fired electric energy plant right down the road from where my parents live in Central Texas, my brother works there. There are clouds coming out of its stacks all day long... white, fluffy clouds of pure, clean steam composed of highly-filtered-water. That's it. Just pure water, not "pollutants". Before the water is released as steam, it goes through an arduous multiple-filtering process that captures all the pollutants. Exactly how is purified-water steam a danger to our environment?

Bringing our boys home, cutting off foreign aid to hostile governments (and the UN), reinstituting a tariff, doing away with (or down-sizing and reorganizing) harmful and/or wasteful government agencies, and availing ourselves of our wealth of energy resources might not solve the debt crisis, but it would go a decent way toward paying down our horrifyingly humongous, ever-growing Federal deficit.

My Evolution Through The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy -
My Journey From Ignorant To Informed

Please bear with me through this entire journey. At first I thought Obama was legal then, as I dug deeper into the subject, I realized he isn't, no matter if he was born in Hawaii. The man in the White House is not a legal sitting President, moreover, he knows it, and here's why:

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy - Part I

Part I -- What constitutes a status of "natural-born citizen"?

From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access

[www.gpoaccess.gov]

[Laws in effect as of January 3, 2007]

[CITE: 8USC1401]

[Page 396-398]

TITLE 8--ALIENS AND NATIONALITY

CHAPTER 12--IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY

SUBCHAPTER III--NATIONALITY AND NATURALIZATION

Part I--Nationality at Birth and Collective Naturalization

Sec. 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:

[...]

     (g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years:[...]

________________________________________________

The above is from the Naturalization Act, codified in the United States Code, and in effect as of this writing.

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy -- Part II

Part II -- What constitutes a status of "natural-born citizen"?

The text from Part I is from the Naturalization Act, codified in the United States Code, and in effect as of this writing.

Now here is where the controversy starts to get very muddled, people seem to have glommed onto the text of the 1940 Naturalization Act, Chapter II--Nationality At Birth, which read differently:

     (g) A person born outside the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, has had ten years' residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, at least five of which were after attaining the age of sixteen years, the other being an alien: Provided, That, in order to retain such citizenship, the child must reside in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling five years between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one years: Provided further, That, if the child has not taken up residence in the United States or its outlying possessions by the time he reaches the age of sixteen years, or if he resides abroad for such a time that it becomes impossible for him to complete the five years' residence in the United States or its outlying possessions before reaching the age of twenty-one years, his American citizenship shall thereupon cease.
________________________________________________

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy - Part III

Part III -- What constitutes a status of "natural-born citizen"?

The section of the 1940 Naturalization Act quoted in Part II is what is referenced to prove the argument that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. However, the 1940 Naturalization Act was revised by the 1952 Naturalization Act, page 285, (g) to its present form as found in the current United States Code:

              

     (g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years:
________________________________________________

So there it is. The intriguing argument that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and his birth certificate will prove it has struck out. The assertion that both of his parents must be United States citizens is incorrect all the way around, according to any version of the Naturalization Act (strike one). The argument that he was actually born in Kenya doesn't matter, as it wouldn't necessarily prevent Obama from being a valid natural-born citizen of the United States (strike two). Finally, the more convoluted argument that his mother who, although a United States citizen, was not old enough to qualify her son as also being a citizen, is taken from an out-dated version of the Naturalization Act (from 1940) that is no longer valid (strike three).

According to the Naturalization Act as it has existed from 1952 until current, even if he was born in Kenya, his mother fulfilled the requirements to grant natural-born citizenship to her son. Only if she renounced her American citizenship before Obama was born would he not be a legal citizen of the United States.

________________________________________________

But, wait, I was wrong above, it's not over! There's more!

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy - Part IV

Some new facts have come to my attention concerning the Obama Birth Certificate controversy. These facts stem from the meaning of the phrase "natural-born citizen" as understood by our Founding Fathers at the time of the writing of our United States Constitution. They used as their guide Vattel's Law of Nations (1758).

Quoting from that source on the subject of "Citizens and natives":


VATTEL: THE LAW OF NATIONS

BOOK I.
OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES.

CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.

§ 212. Citizens and natives.

The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
________________________________________________

So, the question must be asked: Is the original intent of the Framers of our Constitution still in effect? The Naturalization Act is not a formal Constitutional Amendment, though it is the law of record concerning the subject of citizenship.

The Founders would not have considered Obama a "natural-born citizen", therefore, today should we, or should we not? This seems like a conundrum only the Supreme Court can finally decide... and they have not, to date, ruled on it.

[[NOTE: I was wrong on the above, the Supreme Court has ruled on that in the past, but that's another post.]]


Oh, and as a further point, why is Obama's father's race listed as "African" on Obama's Birth Certificate? According to Vital Statistics Of The United States  1961  Volume I--Natality, Page 231:

Race and color

Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and "other nonwhite." The category "white" includes, in addition to persons reported as "white," those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican. With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father. The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian. In most tables a less detailed classification of "white" and "nonwhite" is used.

The Obama Birth Certificate Controversy - Part V

The Founders' definition of "Natural-Born Citizen"

The phrase "natural-born" was coined by Vattel, and Vattel's works were in print and well-known years before the time of the writing of the Constitution.

John Jay (who became the first Supreme Court Justice) wrote George Washington concerning Jay's fears over the need for the unquestioned loyalty to our nation, and our nation alone, of any future Presidents. For this reason, Jay stated the need that future prospective Presidents be "natural-born citizens": those who could claim *both* jus sanguinis *and* jus soli, a requirement unique to only Presidents and Vice-Presidents.

Jay wanted not just jus sanguinis... (citizen by blood, both parents being citizens, which was enough to grant natural-born status to common citizens, no matter where they were born)... but jus soli (citizen by soil, born on U.S. soil) as well, a double-proof citizenship that insured a status of "natural-born citizen", not just "citizen".

This was a unique requirement specifically and only for any prospective President or Vice-President. The Naturalization Act is nonapplicable to this unique designation for the purposes of determining the eligibility of those seeking the office of President or Vice-President.

That's why it was necessary, in 2008 S. Res. 511, to clarify the Presidential eligibility of McCain and others like him who were born to military parents, both of whom were citizens, but stationed during military service on foreign soil at the time of the prospective President's birth. If not, McCain, and any others like him born of citizen parents while serving on foreign soil, would not have met the requirements of jus soli. Such an amendment would not have been needed if the Naturalization Act definition of "natural-born citizen" applied to potential United States Presidents.

Interestingly, Obama was a sponsor of that bill. In the bill it states:

Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the `natural born Citizen' clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress's own statute defining the term `natural born Citizen';

Therefore, no matter jus soli, which is in hot debate, Obama fails on the first, jus sanguinis, because of his father's alien status as a British subject... and Obama knows it.

Both Franklin and Washington were familiar with Vattel. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerich_de_Vattel

(I have archived a copy of the above page.)

As a further proof that the Framers of the Constitution used Vattel's Law of Nations we need look no further than the Constitution itself, which states under Section 8 -- Powers of Congress:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

 From the above, it's obvious our Founding Fathers intended to uphold The Law of Nations, as codified by Vattel.
________________________________________________


So, that's it then. Obama's not eligible to be President, according to the original intent of the Framers of The Constitution of The United States of America. Unfortunately, neither is Marco Rubio, and that's a shame.

It all hinges around the word "natural". The very God-given "nature" of a thing isn't determined by man-made laws. Like gravity, it's granted through a natural process of just being what it is, no matter if the laws of man agree with it or not, because the laws of man have no power over it one way or the other. A "Natural-Born Citizen" is "natural" because his parents were both citizens living in their own country at the time of his birth, so he was "naturally" born there. It's that simple... and, apparently, these days, that complicated.


SFWhite

The Founders' definition of "Natural-Born Citizen"

The phrase "natural-born" was coined by Vattel, and Vattel's works were in print and well-known years before the time of the writing of the Constitution.

John Jay (who became the first Supreme Court Justice) wrote George Washington concerning Jay's fears over the need for the unquestioned loyalty to our nation, and our nation alone, of any future Presidents. For this reason, Jay stated the need that future prospective Presidents be "natural-born citizens": those who could claim *both* jus sanguinis *and* jus soli, a requirement unique to only Presidents and Vice-Presidents.

Jay wanted not just jus sanguinis... (citizen by blood, both parents being citizens, which was enough to grant natural-born status to common citizens, no matter where they were born)... but jus soli (citizen by soil, born on U.S. soil) as well, a double-proof citizenship that insured a status of "natural-born citizen", not just "citizen".

This was a unique requirement specifically and only for any prospective President or Vice-President. The Naturalization Act is nonapplicable to this unique designation for the purposes of determining the eligibility of those seeking the office of President or Vice-President.

That's why it was necessary, in 2008 S. Res. 511, to clarify the Presidential eligibility of McCain and others like him who were born to military parents, both of whom were citizens, but stationed during military service on foreign soil at the time of the prospective President's birth. If not, McCain, and any others like him born of citizen parents while serving on foreign soil, would not have met the requirements of jus soli. Such an ammendment would not have been needed if the Naturalization Act definition of "natural-born citizen" applied to potential United States Presidents.

Interestingly, Obama was a sponsor of that bill. In the bill it states:

Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the `natural born Citizen' clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress's own statute defining the term `natural born Citizen';

Therefore, no matter jus soli, which is in hot debate, Obama fails on the first, jus sanguinis, because of his father's alien status as a British subject... and Obama knows it.

Both Franklin and Washington were familiar with Vattel. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerich_de_Vattel

(I have archived a copy of the above page.)

As a further proof that the Framers of the Constitution used Vattel's Law of Nations we need look no further than the Constitution itself, which states under Section 8 -- Powers of Congress:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;