To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (28973 ) 7/14/2008 12:30:53 PM From: TimF Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 71588 NATURALLY your contention is that the actual 'words' found in the Constitution and the words found in our Laws are 'entirely irrelevant' to discerning their meaning....... My contention not only is not that, it doesn't even distantly resemble that. You continue with your usual pattern of distorting (or misunderstanding) what the other person is saying, and then twisting it in to a straw man for you to attack. The constitution talks about natural born US citizens. McCain is a natural born US citizen because he was born as a citizen not naturalized. The only other type of citizen besides natural born US citizen is naturalized citizen, which McCain is clearly not. The constitution DOES mentioned naturalized citizens, just not in the phrase that you where quoting. The constitution doesn't define "natural born US Citizen" as "person born in the US". So even at the time of the ratification of the US constitution there would at most be ambiguity about whether people like McCain where citizens. Then the first congress settled the issue (for people in McCain's situation), when it passed legislation saying "The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States." So the constitution itself would seem to support my side of the argument (at the least it gives no support to yours), and then congress passed legislation clearing up any possible ambiguity (and that legislation doesn't violate any of the provisions of the constitution). So I am using the words of the laws. I'm not sure whether you just didn't know the law, or whether your using chicken entrails to define their meaning, and I don't care all that much.