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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Morrigi]

...What's with the poll? Cruz isn't even eligible, because he was born in Canada. And Rand Paul is running as a Republican, but isn't on it.

[FearfulJesuit]

...What's with the poll? Cruz isn't even eligible, because he was born in Canada. And Rand Paul is running as a Republican, but isn't on it.

His mother was American, and he's a natural-born citizen. Therefore, he's eligible.

[misko27]

Yeah, unfortunately natural born means "Born a citizen" rather then "born in America".

Interestingly, it automatically invalidates all the conspiracies about Obama being born in Kenya, since he could have been born in Space and still be American.

[Max White]

That is a good point... If you are born in space (or international waters, but for the subject of debate lets go with space) then do you get citizenship somewhere? I mean I'm sure there is protocol for this, but what would that be?

[Sirus]

I assume you would get the citizenship of your parents. Now if we're talking some generation ship where people have been born in space for centuries...dunno.

[Max White]

I guess they would have to track it... You get citizenship from your parents, and then your children get citizenship from you, and then your grandchildren from your children, and so on.
Now, assuming having two parents who have citizenship to different countries, I guess you would get mixed citizenship to two different countries... Then on this voyage of the nationally damned, if you had children with somebody who had a different set of two countries your kids would then have citizenship to four countries, and then the next generation eight... You could design the International Space Nationality Eugenics Program, or ISNEP!

[Sirus]

Of course, such a ship would likely be on its way to a new colony or something, thus making Earth citizenship utterly arbitrary

[Max White]

Well it would mean legally no nation could attack the new colony, because they would be using their armed forces against their own citizens... 

[Frumple]

... since when has that stopped nations from deploying their armed forces? Label the lot of them violent secessionists or whatever and call in the tanks.

[mainiac]

That is a good point... If you are born in space (or international waters, but for the subject of debate lets go with space) then do you get citizenship somewhere? I mean I'm sure there is protocol for this, but what would that be?

A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits of the State Party to the Treaty on whose registry they are carried shall be returned to that State Party, which shall, upon request, furnish identifying data prior to their return.

Well anyone in space is considered within the jurisdiction of the country they launched from.  Any space colony habitat would be considered within the jurisdiction of the country that it launched from regardless of whether it's in orbit or on a surface.  Thus it would seem logical but not ironclad that anyone born in a ship or artificial satellite would be considered as being born in the territory of the launching country of specific structure they are born in.  Generally being born in a countries territory provides citizenship.  I suppose this could be quite complicated in the case of the ISS because the distance of a few meters seperate the Russian/American/French/Chinese launched objects that make up the station.  If a multi-national effort were to lead to a lunar colony, current law would probably not provide for the citizenship of anyone born there.  However I imagine the laws would be updated if such an effort were made.

One could also consider semantically that babies could be "objects constructed in space" but I believe that when you talk about "objects" in international law you are specifically not talking about humans.  I don't know where to begin to look to confirm that however since I'm just winging it based off a hazy recollection of differences between Latin and Latin derived legal traditions.

[Frumple]

Oh. Yeah, stateside, at least, I'd wager it ultimately falling under some derivative of accession... owner gets rights to offspring type of dealio. Usually used for stuff like cattle, but if the gov or corp funding long distance space travel isn't using legal contracts that basically boil down to the people in transit being originating body property I'd be terribly surprised. From there, the legal excuses fall out fairly easily.

[Willfor]

America doesn't have a primary language of course; the founding fathers didn't consider it important.

I'd like to restate this for any Quebecois who are reading this thread. You just remember that. You could have joined us. You could have had official French from the beginning. Remember and weep.

I'm afraid this is extremely revisionist. Quebec, in fact, basically begged to remain part of England's colonies because the American merchants were aghast that Quebec was able to keep its Catholic religion and its French language. Quebec was a recently conquered territory via the French Indian War, and Great Britain pissed the 13 colonies off by not stripping these recent enemies of their rights, and giving them protections against aggressive land grabbers.

[Owlbread]

A lot of people went to the USA to found colonies where they could speak their languages and express their national identities in peace. Most of them are gone now. The most successful were those that went to South America or elsewhere where the dominant language was not English. Quebec is unusual of course but they actually absorbed several communities/colonies as I described.

[mainiac]

I'm afraid this is extremely revisionist. Quebec, in fact, basically begged to remain part of England's colonies because the American merchants were aghast that Quebec was able to keep its Catholic religion and its French language. Quebec was a recently conquered territory via the French Indian War, and Great Britain pissed the 13 colonies off by not stripping these recent enemies of their rights, and giving them protections against aggressive land grabbers.

Yours is revisionist too.  Quebec was allowed to keep it's catholic rites but was denied local autonomy such as was enjoyed by the thirteen colonies.  And it's not like the British government was all love and tolerance towards the French, they flooded the area with a new wave of settlers to drown out the french character of the colony giving us the Canada we know and love today.

The whole land grabbers thing is off the mark.  Yeah the Americans wanted new lands, they wanted the lands in what is now the United States which they were barred from settling.  It wasn't that the Americans and Canadiens were in competition for lands its that the Americans saw their land of the free being fenced in while the Canadien settlement which didn't enjoy English common law civil rights was being built up.  The American fear was that settlements in this no local autonomy model would keep getting built up to overwhelm them.

[Willfor]

I'm afraid this is extremely revisionist. Quebec, in fact, basically begged to remain part of England's colonies because the American merchants were aghast that Quebec was able to keep its Catholic religion and its French language. Quebec was a recently conquered territory via the French Indian War, and Great Britain pissed the 13 colonies off by not stripping these recent enemies of their rights, and giving them protections against aggressive land grabbers.

Yours is revisionist too.  Quebec was allowed to keep it's catholic rites but was denied local autonomy such as was enjoyed by the thirteen colonies.  And it's not like the British government was all love and tolerance towards the French, they flooded the area with a new wave of settlers to drown out the french character of the colony giving us the Canada we know and love today.

The whole land grabbers thing is off the mark.  Yeah the Americans wanted new lands, they wanted the lands in what is now the United States which they were barred from settling.  It wasn't that the Americans and Canadiens were in competition for lands its that the Americans saw their land of the free being fenced in while the Canadien settlement which didn't enjoy English common law civil rights was being built up.  The American fear was that settlements in this no local autonomy model would keep getting built up to overwhelm them.

This does seem like a more moderate, and accurate description than I was able to provide way past when I should've been asleep last night.