Natural Born Presidents
By Frank Salvato (02/26/04)
The United States Constitution maintains that in order to be eligible for the office of President one has to be a naturally born US citizen. This idea is good and necessary for many reasons. But there is an element in our society that would alter the intent of the Constitution regardless of the wisdom that brought our Framers to include this specific stipulation. They dismiss the wisdom of our Framers without batting an eye.
Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed an amendment to the US Constitution that would allow naturalized citizens, who have been so for 20 years, eligibility to run for and hold the office of president. By proposing this legislation (and doing nothing to protest the activities of obstructionist senators who are practicing collusion with special interest groups regarding President Bush’s judicial nominees) Hatch is signaling that his thought process is starting to become unclear as to what is right and wrong, acceptable and not.
Requiring that a candidate for the office of president be a naturally born citizen of the United States creates a generational buffer, if you will. It produces a period of time where ideologies from other regions of the world would have to be sustained in their support for at least a generation before they could possibly be injected directly into our political process. Some may believe this is a type of built in protectionism and they may be right. But one need only look at the resurgence of anti-Semitism and the Neo-Nazi culture among the German youth today to understand that some incredibly evil ideologies, no matter the effort to educate against them, no matter the efforts to eradicate them from humanity, will flourish despite what society tries to do about them. Is this example extreme? Yes, it is, but it is a legitimate example nevertheless.
A more realistic example of undue influence from cultures of other shores would be to spotlight the transition of the French government since their liberation in World War II. While they have embraced a system based in democracy, today we see an incredibly socialistic attitude in their governing style. Meanwhile, the world is standing witness to the problems they are having with legitimate immigration and its influence upon not only their culture but their politics as well. An influx of immigrants of the Muslim faith has caused the French government to create laws addressing the culture of literally millions who have immigrated to France. Spain and England are seeing the same effects on their shores. While it is a democratic nation’s prerogative to vote its will, the immediate influence of a foreign culture into any society, especially in these days of George Soros styled media manipulation, would effectively put a country up for sale, the cost being money, marketing and the will to effect change, be it for well intentioned purposes or not.
Today in the United States we are seeing the influences of leftist, legal PAC’s the likes of MoveOn.org and America Coming Together on our political process. While they contend they champion ideas good for our country many others believe they are simply special interest groups designed to skirt campaign finance reform laws in an effort to alter the climate of November’s election in favor of the left. The candidates they support preach the benefits of socializing programs at the expense of the market place and creating an internationalized society here in the United States starting with the educational system in which we place our children. Couple this with huge donations from people like Soros, an individual born overseas, who are trying to alter the political landscape of our country using undue influence based in a narcissistic belief that a Global/Internationalized approach to every problem facing the world is the correct approach and we begin to see that the undue influences of foreign cultures aren’t as outlandish an idea as they may have seemed just a moment ago.
But perhaps the most important reason an individual seeking the office of President of the United States should be born of this land is so our president is a product of our culture. The person that attains the highest office in the land should be a product of our society from the very start. He or she should have spent their lifetime being influenced by our culture and the freedom that it affords each and every one of us. There are those on the left that would argue this point, but we here in the United States are the most free and multi-culturalized people on the face of the earth. We embrace multi-culturalism almost to a detriment. In the past we called ourselves a “melting-pot”; a collection of cultures from around the world melded together to create an American culture. It is through this process that we have come to be the beacon of hope for those who would choose to immigrate to the “New World.”
In an age when many of the elitist left believe that being American is something to be ashamed of I say they couldn’t be more in error. While we are not a perfect country (there isn’t one and never will be one – sorry Utopian people) we are the best bet out there. Our government is the most representative of its people, contrary to what the Democrats and the Green Party followers would have us believe. We exist as friend to many, serve as savior to some and stand as lethal foe to those who would oppress, torture and murder. Out of many we have become one and if you believe that this is simply rhetoric try and remember back to September 11th, 2001 and how we all came together, not as hyphenated Americans but simply as Americans; strong, united, and persevering.
So, to Senator Hatch I say, we don’t need a Constitutional Amendment affording those not born of our shores the opportunity to attain the highest office in the land. Simply stated, our presidents should be “Made in the USA.”
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