Logical Extension of Cutting NPRs Funding Due to Juan William's Firing

The way a significant number of the argument for defunding NPR after the firing Juan William's go something like this: "NPR receives federal funds and therefore violated Juan William's First Amendment Rights by firing him for his comments." Essentially saying that because NPR receives some federal funding, they are a quasi government entity and therefore must follow government personel rules. One website even went on to analyis NPR funding down to what it is indirectly receiving through tax exempt contributions.

It is harder to fire people in the government because there is the fear of politically motivated terminations that would have a chilling effect on government employees. Most private employment is at will and terminations can be for almost any reason. My question is: What if we started treating any entity that receives federal funding as a quasi governmental organization? General Motors? Citibank? Chase? What about Government contractors? Lockheed? Boeing? Worse yet, if you follow WND's analysis of indirect funding through tax benefits, this probably extends to any number of companies including all of Big Oil and Big Ag. Should all of these company be restricted in their ability to fire people because they receive federal funding either directly or indirectly?

This seems to me the logical extension of treating NPR like a quasi governmental organization because it receives federal funding and tax exemptions. To scream for the defunding of NPR because it fired someone over comments made to another media outlet could lead to the exact opposite of what Republicans profess to want. It would severily restrict private industry's ability to conduct its business.

If you want to defund NPR because you think the government should be in the media business that is understandable, but do not use NPR's business decision to fire Juan Williams as an excuse. It could lead down a road that no reasonable person would want.

Mr. Donofri's view on Natural Born Citizens

This post is in response to Leo Donofrio's article on World Net Daily last week regarding Natural Born Citizenship. Based on my reading of the underlying case law, Mr. Donofrio's discussion of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) in support of the notion that children born of foreign nationals is not entirely accurate.

He selectively quotes part of a paragraph from what is an extremely long and detailed decision.

Mr. Donofrio's selection:

That neither Mr. Justice Miller nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said: "Allegiance and protection are, in this connection (that is, in relation to citizenship), reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance. ... At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens. ..."

The paragraph as it appears on Lexis:

That neither Mr. Justice Miller, nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases, understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said: "Allegiance and protection are, in this connection" (that is, in relation to citizenship,) "reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance." "At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country, of [*680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or [***902] natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are [**469] themselves citizens." Minor v. Happersett, (1874) 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.

The court did not define "natural born citizen" as only children born in the US of US Citizens. It states that is has never been in question, but that there have been questions whether children born of forereign parents in the US are natural born citizens. The court also states they are not resolving that question.

The court states earlier that at Common Law in effect at the time the adoption of our Constitution, children born of foreign parents were considered natural born subjects/citizens, and that as of this desion, that common law rule continued to prevail:

It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction, of the English Sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established. 169 U.S. 649 at 658.

Further, at 674-675, the court states:

Passing by questions once earnestly controverted, [**467] but finally put at rest by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond doubt that, before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the Constitutional [*675] Amendment, all white persons, at least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States.
V. In the fore front, both of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the fundamental principle of citizenship by birth within the dominion was reaffirmed in the most explicit and comprehensive terms.

The Common Law of England was the law of our nation at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and has only been changed through legislative action and subsequent court decisions. It is should be noted that though the Court does not explicitly say that Ark was a natural born citizen, nor does it explicitly state that natural born citizens are limited to those born in US of US citizens. It merely states children born of foreigners within the bounds of the US are citizens. The questions of "natural-born citizenship" was not before the Court. Neither Minor or Ark state only children born in the US of US citizens are natural born citizens. However, the court in Ark seems to imply that at Common Law in place at the time of decision and the signing of the Constitution granted natural-born status to children born in the US to foreigners.

With regards to the translation of Mr. Vattel's "Law of Nations" stating that "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens." The Ark court specifically addressed the belief that the citizenship of children follow their parents. At pg 666-667, the Court specifically found that there was not such a law of nations at the time of the adoption of the constitution or the 14th Amendment: "There is, therefore, little ground for the theory that, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, there was any settled and definite rule of international law, generally recognized by civilized nations, inconsistent with the ancient rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion." It is up to individual nations to determine their citizenship rules, so Mr. Vattel's statement has little bearing. I would also note that Mr. Donofrio's reliance on Chief Justice Marshall's adoption of Mr. Vattel's language in The Venus, 12 U.S. 253, 289 (1814), is perhaps misplaced as the Chief Justice was writing in concurrence, and his adoption of Mr. Vattel's language was not the decision of the court, a fact that is not noted. Mr. Vattel is also mentioned by the dissenting Justice in Ark, not by the majority.

The arguments in Mr. Donofrio's article are weak and a complete mischaracterization of the decisions in Minor, Ark, and The Venus. None of these cases stand for the proposition that a child born in the US of foreign parents is not a natural born citizen and raise good arguments for the opposite proposition, that any child born in the US, regardless of parentage, is a natural born citizen of the United States.