Arnold Schwarzenegger to white supremacists: your heroes are losers

I like Arnie actually, but I am not sure he was a good state governor and as such probably wouldn’t be a good president.

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I don’t know enough about California politics to comment about his tenure, and I wouldn’t want him as president, but it sucks that he can’t even try. Maybe then we wouldn’t be stuck with the orange in chief.

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“Arnie, what is best in life?”

“To crush the nazis. To see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of a dying cause.”

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Lots, actually… including major US allies like Israel, France, Italy and Germany among others. In practice it doesn’t happen very often but there’s no reason it couldn’t.

I’m not saying that the US is uniquely flawed in clinging to the outdated notion that “people born here are naturally more loyal than people who weren’t,” but I still maintain it’s a misguided premise. The fear of the Founding Fathers wasn’t that some Austrian-born actor who had been a US citizen for decades might one day betray us to the country of his birth, the fear was that some European royal would sail across the Atlantic and win over colonial voters who would welcome a return to the British Empire.

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you keep saying loyal. I do not believe that is the right word.

Interesting you point out Israel and France…would Israelis vote for a non born Israeli citizen who is Catholic? Atheist? Muslim? Do you think France would elect a Thai born Buddhist? Would Italians vote for an african-born muslim?

Those are nations that despite whatever “freedom” appears to be allowed in the rules…would never fulfill that scenario.

Yeah i was going to say to refer to the article from the BBC i linked to. It doesn’t have a comprehensive list but it does point out that a fair number of countries don’t have the natural born pre-requisite. That being said i still don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to have here in the US, but if there was enough demand to drop such a thing by the people then i would easily back that sentiment. But as it stands right now i don’t see why that necessarily needs to change.

Whether they WOULD elect those candidates or not is completely beside the point and irrelevant to this discussion. By definition, if the Italian people decided to vote for an African-born Muslim then that means an African-born Muslim would be the appropriate candidate to represent the views of the Italian electorate.

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Again, see the link i posted above. Israel actually has elected a foreign born leader before.

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The residency requirement is a different thing, and slightly more justifiable. But as it stands, regardless of anything else, you have to meet certain arbitrary conditions at the moment you emerge from the womb. For instance, if you have American parents but lived in Latveria all your life (and are a convicted spy) you are fine, but if you were born in Latveria and lived in the US since you were a baby, you can’t be trusted. What exactly makes the difference, if not some kind of mystical racial or national teleology?

I accept that the rule may make it statistically more likely that you’ll get someone who isn’t loyal to a foreign power. But it’s such a crude test, with such a large margin of error, that it’s sort of weird and troubling if we’re saying that voters wouldn’t be far better judges.

The real problem, anyway, is just that it enshrines in law that naturalised citizens can never, ever be quite as good as people who randomly happened to be born the right way. Either people are equal or they aren’t.

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Americans did :wink:

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Thus the (as yet untested) legal theory that naturalized citizens became eligible for the office after the 14th Amendment.

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I was about to ask “what the hell is Latveria”, but since I know how to google… what kind of beef does Marvel have with Latvia to make up such a silly name?

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Probably just residual bitterness over their colonial treatment of Wakanda.

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I disagree that it is irrelevant. Having an option that is entirely meaningless undercuts the point of having it

This requires more legal and political knowledge to fairly present pro/con arguments than i currently have. However i’m not opposed to the learning process and having my stance changed or reinforced.

Out of curiosity i wanted to see if there was any existing debates or articles that tried to fairly present both sides of pro/con keeping the natural born thing. Being at work i’m multi-tasking so if anyone wanted to help me find a good source i would be grateful :slight_smile: This is the first one i saw. There’s some articles i’ve found but they clearly learn toward a bias of pro or con and i’m trying to find something that fairly presents facts. I could be asking for too much from the internet perhaps.

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[edited and re-wrote post in an attempt to clarify my argument and eliminate the impression that I was ascribing any specific beliefs on the part of @quorihunter]

I’m very glad that the framers of the constitution did not follow that same logic. If they had, there might be whole classes of people constitutionally prohibited from running for president because any option other than a white male would have been considered “meaningless” at that time due to the attitudes of the 19th century electorate.

Having options available that may never be chosen by an electorate doesn’t undercut anything. The default position should be to allow all options, except those that you’ve got a specific and compelling reason to prohibit.

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That’s an inflammatory remark and not what I said. Do not make assumptions about my stance or argument please. Good day.

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Is this a real pic?

cutegirl

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