Re: SF Politics and Super Tuesday

Peter Bruells <usernet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:m2tzklchvi.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> "Michael S. Schiffer" <mschiffe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
 
>> Peter Bruells <usernet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>> news:m23as67ywt.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

>>> "Michael S. Schiffer" <mschiffe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

>>>> jdnicoll@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (James Nicoll) wrote in
>>>> news:focj17$6tt$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
>>>>>...
>>>>>>Which Heroes would make good Presidents or bad ones?

>>>>>      Kal El isn't eligible to run (He's an illegal immigrant
>>>>> or effectively one)
>>>>>...

>>>> Maybe not: "The following shall be nationals and citizens of
>>>> the United States at birth: ... a person of unknown parentage
>>>> found in the United States while under the age of five years,
>>>> until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one
>>>> years, not to have been born in the United States;" 8 U.S.C.
>>>> 1401.  

>>> Does this include finding him in a space craft and not
>>> re****ting it to the authorities?

>> The law says "found".  While there are probably laws relating
>> to re****ting foundlings, I would be very surprised if there
>> were any statutes or cases that treated "found in a spacecraft"
>> as a special case.  (Well, maybe in the DCU...)

> Finding a child in an alien space craft crashlanded on Earth
> seems - at least to me - establish that it wasn't born on Earth.

How do you know the origin of the spacecraft?  In at least one 
telling, even the Kents weren't even sure-- Jonathan speculated 
that it might be Russian.

And after all, in the DCU, humans, including children, have been 
taken off Earth and returned.  At least one origin of Donna (Wonder 
Girl/Troia/various other identities) Troy has her being born on 
Earth, taken off to the stars around age two or so for rearing and 
training, and then returned to Earth (with superpowers) as an 
adolescent.  The children of Van-Zee and Sylvia were born on Venus 
but had derived US citizen****p via their mother.  Brainiac's been 
known to borrow entire cities.  Mere presence in an alien 
spacecraft doesn't tell us where the child was born, or who his 
parents were.

I'd be inclined to assume that a human-looking baby was from Earth, 
and I'd guess that the legal system would do likewise.  Especially 
since Congress probably wasn't aware of the large numbers of human-
looking aliens in the DCU when the law was formulated, so it's hard 
to argue that their intent was to recognize that situation.  But 
even if it were, it doesn't seem like good public policy to place 
such foundlings in legal limbo, with no citizen****p anywhere on 
Earth.

If Congress wanted to create such an exception, it would probably 
have to make it explicit.  And while it might not strictly run 
afoul of the ban on ex post facto laws to make it retroactive-- 
that's generally limited to criminal law-- stripping someone of 
citizen****p status retroactively is vani****ngly rare.  (It usually 
requires something like concealing Nazi war criminal status at 
naturalization.)  Even if future foundlings were denied citizen****p 
going forward, then, Superman's status would probably be safe.

(And if one wants to invoke legal realism, odds are that no judge 
not paid off by Lex Luthor would be looking for reasons to strip 
Superman of his citizen****p, but rather the reverse.  And if it 
happened, it would surely be reversed on appeal.)

Mike