February 23, 2004

• Well they DID ask him. Did you expect him to say no? That said, I don't care for his selective stance on civil equalities or his partisan politics. I hope he's Deutschland bound afore too long.
• I still think it strange that America only lets the American born become President. (I expect the rule was originally put in place to stop some pesky Englishman trying to become President so that he could sell the countries soul back to the King...) Britain still has anti Catholic laws on the books (the Monarch is expressly prohibited from being Catholic) so I can't really complain. Yours makes a little more sense still - the anti Catholic laws are just pure nonsensical in this day and age.
• dng, just to briefly derail: isn't that because the Monarch is required to be head of the Anglican Church?
• "All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want it to get to that extent" Huh?
• I don't care how you lot change the law; I am NOT going to run for president. No, it's no use trying to change my mind: I am Adam Ant.
• Draft Skrik!
• homunculus: Think of it, not as a warning, but a threat. Even now, Karl Rove is issuing tickets to the special recount teams from Florida to put on a show in California. Actually, seriously, violence has a pretty long involvement with politics in the US, and predoninantly against progressives. It wouldn't be surprising if soemone showed up with an assault rifle or bomb. Of course, I see that as a reason to go after the criminal; the Arnie seemds to see that as areason to attack the victims. And, FWIW, it does seem odd to me that someone who chooses to become a US citizen - with all the hassles of immigration, residency, and qualification involved - is considered less reliable that someone who happened to be born there.
• John Edwards is Stinson from "The Dead Zone". Kerry is Fred's taciturn brother from "The Munsters".
• I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't real reason for no foreign-born citizens for president be the potential bias? I mean, if it comes down to the US having to crack down on Austria for any reason, how could Ahnold remain unbiased and think only of the good of the United States? No matter who you pledge to protect, what oaths you take, etc. etc. if you have friends and family living over there, then there's no way you will not think twice before doing anything that might endanger that country.
• Forget Skrik, draft Adam Ant! Throw your safety overboard, and join our insect nation.
• "All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want it to get to that extent" Arnold is using the slippery slope argument. If you make guns in the U.S. harder for terrorist to buy then the goverment will take your pocket knife. If you allow terminally ill people to have a doctor end their doctors end their lives than doctors will be allowed to kill kids getting physicals for Pop Warner football. This is what pols use the disguise their bs arguments. Example from the Meet the Press interview.

  GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I don't. As you know, I'm very much against that. I believe very strongly in domestic partnership rights. I was all for-all throughout my campaign, I spoke out for it, but at the same time, we have also a law that says that we do not accept, you know, same-sex marriages which was passed by the people, Proposition 22, and so that is the law. So we cannot have, all of a sudden now, mayors go and hand out licenses for various different things. If it is--you know, in San Francisco, it's the license for marriage of same sex. Maybe the next thing is another city that hands out licenses for assault weapons. And someone else hands out licenses for selling drugs. I mean, we can't do that. We have to stay within the law. There's a state law that says specific things, and if you want to challenge those laws, then you can go to the court and you can either challenge it there and let this neutral party, someone that can interpret the law, if there's a dispute of it, make the decision. And I think this is all a legal matter now, and I directed Attorney General Bill Lockyer and said, you know, that he should now take care of this problem. MR. RUSSERT: He says you cannot direct him. That's preposterous. GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: He's ready to march. He believes very strongly that this has to be resolved very quickly, and maybe there's a little sensitivity in the office there where they think, maybe, you know, that the governor should not push him that much. But you know, I felt very strongly that it has to be done now, because it started out as a little thing, so I didn't say anything at the beginning. Then it got to be a bigger issue and a bigger issue, and then yesterday, when I was in San Francisco for the Republican convention, all of a sudden we see riots and we see protests and we see people clashing. The next thing we know is there are injured or there are dead people, and we don't want to have that. We don't want to get to that extent, so we want to resolve it, and that's what leadership is all about is let's solve the problems, and then let's go to court and the court can make this decisions.

  Arnold is going to direct an attorney general that tells everyone who will listen that he doesn't take orders from the man that once starred in "Hercules in New York." Notice how Arnold just completely ignored Russert's statement, "He says you cannot direct him. That's preposterous." Arnold was just pumping bs for soundbites. Arnold and Nader on the same MTP transcript. I read the whole thing earlier today. One guy thinks he can fix California without raising taxes and the other believes that his candancy will help the Democratic nominee get votes. Jeez.
• genial: I'll paraphrase my earlier comments; you think someone who's gone through the pushing-shit-uphill experience that is getting US citizenship is less than enthusiastic about US interests? There's no way to judge that based on something as trivial as place of birth. And look to history: FDR felt it was in US interests to oppose the Axis powers. But such native-born patriots as Henry Ford were so enthiusiastically pro-Nazi - and so keep on whipping up opposition to any US role in attacking Axis powers - that the US stayed on the sidelines until they were attacked. The enemy of US interests then wasn't some bogeyman of German-born citizenry, it was pro-Nazi native-born Americans. Or, in the modern era, I'd be willing to bet that if it came to a choice between Israel's interests and those of the United States, you'd find plenty of foreign-born citizens more able to make a pro-US decision than native-born ones like, say, Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz.
• Prescott Bush (Dubya's grandfather) had Nazi connections.
• Excellent point rodgerd. It's given me pause for thought. I'm having such a hard time with this, because I find the notion of making it possible for a foreign-born person disturbing, yet I can't explain why. I have absolutely no logical explanation for why that frightens me, other than I'm not really comfortable with the concept of a President Arnold Schwartzenegger or a President Henry Kissenger. I don't think constitutional amendments should be passed when someone stands to gain from it so immediately and so profoundly as Arnold.
• rodgerd, you make a good point. Of course there will always be exceptions to the rules. Pro-nazi americans and Pro-U.S. foreigners, but I think as a general rule you can assume that natives of a certain country would be more hesitant to make a decisions in foreign relations when their native country is involved. I don't think it's naive to assume a possible amount of bias there. But again, you are right in that there will always be the exceptions to the rule. In short, such a big responsibility as the presidency of the U.S. is in general left in the hands of native born citizens. At least that's my view on the matter.
• I think that even if the law were changed, you would not see a foreign born president very soon, if ever. People tend to prefer native politicians. Many other countries allow any citizen to be the leader, and yet I've never heard of a foreign born Canadian Prime Minister (heck, we can't seem to get a non-Quebecker to last more than 6 months).
• Yes, jb, but you are forgetting about the star factor. Not to get into the debacle[self-link] in california, but the man never discussed a single issue. The media hype simply swept him up, and in a race with a hundred-odd candidates, you wouldnt know who else was running, because he was the only one on TV. (never mind the enron connection) I can't help but think it would be a repeat because having Ahnold in a race is better news than sensibility or issues. Not to say that the rest of the country suffers from the apparent attentionspan and superficiality issues that california has in spades, but I am only saying that because I have not spent as much time in some other parts of the country.
• dng, just to briefly derail: isn't that because the Monarch is required to be head of the Anglican Church? Yeah, mainly, although the Monarch could be any other religion they wanted and still lead the Church of England: only Catholics are expressly forbidden. And that came about because for a period of a 150 years or more after Henry VIII (who angered the Pope by his desire to get divorced, and then setting up the Church of England so that he could) the religion of the monarch kept changing between Catholic and Protestant (although, I'm never quite sure if the Church of England is actually the same as Protestantism), causing much purging of unbelievers, a multitude of plots to kill the King or Queen, and attempted invasions (The spanish tried to invade Britain so they could replace Queen Elizabeth with a Catholic). But the easiest way to change the Monarch's religion would have been to have them marry a Catholic, who'd raise their children as Catholics, who'd then become a Catholic King. So, fearing this, they outlawed the Monarch from being or marrying Catholics. Maybe we should extend these laws to Prime Ministers: an easy way to get rid of Tony Blair. Sorry about the length of the comment, and its probable inaccuracies (I'm not an historian, by any stretch of the imagaination)
• Back on topic: I suppose because Britain has long be ruled by foreigners, in the form of the Royal Family, I find it strange to expressly forbid the President from being foreign born. (Also, I don't know if you should be worried about a foreign born President being unable to act against his home country. In the First World War, the German King was the cousin of the British King. If you can bring yourself to act against your family members, you can probably act against your country. And Hitler was Austrian, but had no worries about invading them. See, nothing to worry about at all).
• dng: It's not as if Hitler devastated Austria in the invasion; he was simply 'uniting Germany'. As a foreign born U.S. (born in Canada, I was naturalized into the U.S. when I was 1.5 years old since both my parents are U.S. citizens) and have been a dual citizen since. (yes, dual citizenship can be legal) Though I've lived in the U.S. all my life, I assume I would be somewhat more patriotic if I had been born here, though certainly my lack of patriotism is also due to my religious and political upbringing.