RC Radio: Interview with French Attorney Lupin

Vattel made clear

RC Radio continues in its tradition of interesting and distinguished guests, this time a French attorney who is also an editor of works (in English translation) by Emerich de Vattel! What a powerhouse combination for any discussion of both the language and the context into which Vattel wrote on citizenship.

Readers here will know well our distinguished commenter Lupin. Listen to him on RC Radio.

It was a great show. Here are early articles where Lupin has commented here (oldest first):

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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48 Responses to RC Radio: Interview with French Attorney Lupin

  1. Thanks Doc. I was just going to post the link in the open thread. Lupin (Jean-Marc) was a great interview. I think folks will really enjoy it. One small correction. The show runs at 9 PM. The interview is about 90 minutes then I will be live for the remainder of the show.

  2. Oh, that’s why the play link didn’t work 😳

    Reality Check: One small correction. The show runs at 9 PM. The interview is about 90 minutes then I will be live for the remainder of the show.

  3. I can’t emphasize enough how Lupin kills the Vattel theory once and for all.

  4. Jim says:

    Kills it for everyone but the birthers…not the correct translation for them.

  5. Joey says:

    Maybe someday there will be a legal proceeding and Lupin can destroy the birthers on Vattel in testimony via Skype.
    I would love that.

  6. realist says:

    I can’t listen tonight so I hope both the interview and call-in session will be available in the morning and I’ll listen while I have my first pot of coffee. 🙂

  7. The link in the article to BlogTalkRadio is working now.

    realist: I can’t listen tonight so I hope both the interview and call-in session will be available in the morning

  8. Keith says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    The link in the article to BlogTalkRadio is working now.

    But not the links to the articles where Lupin has contributed.

  9. Keith says:

    Lupin you are in Carcassonne?

    Talk about ideally located to be a Conspiracy Theory Watcher.

  10. Lupin says:

    Keith:
    Lupin you are in Carcassonne?

    Talk about ideally located to be a Conspiracy Theory Watcher.

    I’m in Chalabre (google) which is about 40 miles south of Carcassonne — and, you’re absolutely correct, right in the middle of Cathars/Da Vinci Code/Rennes-le-Chateau/Bugarach/Secret UFO base/ conspiracy cuckoo land! 🙂

    Seriously now, it’s a beautiful area, well worth visiting. There’ll always be a bowl of soupe, a quignon of bread and a glass of blanquette on our table for visiting Obots!

  11. Lupin says:

    I wish to publicly express my gratitude to RC and our esteemed host Doc C for giving me the opportunity to ramble on about a subject obviously dear to my heart.

    The hour we’d allocated to the interview flew by so fast.

    As I told RC at the end, I like to discuss subjects pertaining to the French / US legal interface which spill out over great societal concerns, because they allow us to understand each other better. In that light, I hope to do this again in the future, perhaps with more participants.

  12. Lupin says:

    Amazingly, Sharon Rondeau actually quotes Vattel accurately on The Original Gerbil Report::

    “Other historical treatises describe a “natural born Citizen” as one born in the United States to a U.S.-citizen father. Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel, upon whose work the Founders relied heavily, maintained that a child inherited the citizenship of his father.”

    http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/05/confirmation-us-senator-ted-cruz.html

    Dare I say, “Mission Accomplished”?

  13. RanTalbott says:

    Lupin: Amazingly, Sharon Rondeau actually quotes Vattel accurately on The Original Gerbil Report::

    The date and page numbers on her letter appear to be correct, too.

    So, that brings her down to about 97.2% BS. A new personal best 😉

    It speaks to her level of desperation that she considers signing the return receipt on her letter as “acknowledgement”.

  14. realist says:

    Lupin: I’m in Chalabre (google) which is about 40 miles south of Carcassonne — and, you’re absolutely correct, right in the middle of Cathars/Da Vinci Code/Rennes-le-Chateau/Bugarach/Secret UFO base/ conspiracy cuckoo land! 🙂

    One of my girlfriend’s advanced degrees is in Medieval History. She’s always wanted to visit Carcassonne. We this year opted to take a cruise up the Rhine, and will be in France only one day, and nowhere near Carcassonne, nor time to visit if we were, but next year, in 2016, we plan to visit Carcassonne. If if works out, we would love to meet you.

    I plan to listen to the interview this morning over coffee. Thank you for taking your time to do it.

  15. Lupin says:

    realist: One of my girlfriend’s advanced degrees is in Medieval History. She’s always wanted to visit Carcassonne. We this year opted to take a cruise up the Rhine, and will be in France only one day, and nowhere near Carcassonne, nor time to visit if we were, but next year, in 2016, we plan to visit Carcassonne. If if works out, we would love to meet you.

    I would love to take you out to lunch when the time comes; we don’t see that many foreign visitors, so it would be a welcome distraction. You may email me through our site:

    http://www.blackcoatpress.com/index.html

  16. Lupin says:

    RanTalbott: So, that brings her down to about 97.2% BS. A new personal best

    Can’t I enjoy that 2.8% drop in BS, pleeaaaase? 🙂

  17. Lupin says:

    I understand that in 1995 Jeb Bush switched from Episcopalian to Roman Catholic, thereby swearing allegiance to the (allegedly communist) pope, head of the sovereign state of Vatican.

    Based on the conniptions I see on The Original Gerbil Report (TOGR) about Ted Cruz’s so-called divided loyalties, I can’t wait for the fun to begin. 🙂

  18. The Magic M (not logged in) says:

    RanTalbott: It speaks to her level of desperation that she considers signing the return receipt on her letter as “acknowledgement”.

    Typical crank MO. Just one step away of claming they agree with her because they did not send her a detailed refutation within 21 days (common MO courtesy of our German cranks).

  19. RanTalbott says:

    The Magic M (not logged in): Just one step away of claming they agree with her because they did not send her a detailed refutation within 21 days

    American cranks like to claim that the lack of a libel suit is evidence that a defamatory allegation is true.

    Some birfoons also brag that they’ll be able to have a mass hanging of all of Congress because giving them ShurfSkits has “put them on notice”, making them accomplices to The Biggest Fraud in the History of the Universe™ because they haven’t acted on the Irrefutable Evydunce.

  20. Lupin says:

    For those interested in the deconstruction of reality, Rambo ike continues his accelerating fall into the rabbit hole on Gerbil Report:

    http://www.gerbilreport.com/2015/04/explosive-arpaio-admits-awful-accusation.html#idc-container

  21. Fixed.

    Keith: But not the links to the articles where Lupin has contributed.

  22. Rickey says:

    Lupin:
    I wish to publicly express my gratitude to RC and our esteemed host Doc C for giving me the opportunity to ramble on about a subject obviously dear to my heart.

    That matches our gratitude to you for educating us on this subject.

    My fluency in French is limited to a smattering of what I learned in high school, but I see that Google Translate says that “natural born citizen” translates to “citoyen de naissance.” Do you concur? Would Vattel have used “citoyen de naissance” if he meant natural born citizen?

  23. realist says:

    I just finished listening to the interview of RC with Lupin. Thank you both for a very informative and entertaining show.

  24. One of the problems with asking that question (which I may say as a newly-minted graduate of the Université de Lupin) is that in Vattels’ philosophy, there are only two classes of citizen: the native citizen or the naturalized citizen. He already told us what words he used for the former class, Naturels ou indigène.

    We can ask if “natural born citizen” is a good English correspondent to Naturels ou indigène, but we cannot ask how Vattel would have expressed a concept he did not have. To ask Vattel how he would have translated the English phrase to French must beg the question of what it means in the first place.

    Rickey: Would Vattel have used “citoyen de naissance” if he meant natural born citizen?

  25. Arthur B. says:

    Lupin: I’m in Chalabre (google) which is about 40 miles south of Carcassonne…

    Hey, do you know the Argentin avec la voix bandonéante?

  26. bob says:

    realist: One of my girlfriend’s advanced degrees is in Medieval History.She’s always wanted to visit Carcassonne.We this year opted to take a cruise up the Rhine, and will be in France only one day, and nowhere near Carcassonne, nor time to visit if we were, but next year, in 2016, we plan to visit Carcassonne.If if works out, we would love to meet you.

    That is an absolutely beautiful part of the world. I, however, found Carcassonne to be disappointing, as it is very tourist-y. I much more enjoyed Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, in Albi.

  27. kubu island says:

    Arthur B.: Hey, do you know the Argentin avec la voix bandonéante?

    Jacky ? I also spotted him in the port of Amsterdam.

    Lupin, great show, knowledge and passion. You mentioned the loss of interest of Americans for French culture in the recent decade. I’ll point to Freedom Fries. A good portion of Americans can still not get over Chirac snubbing them for not joining the coalition into Iraq, and a growing strain of nationalisme, as in France with Le Pen.

  28. kubu island says:

    Rickey: That matches our gratitude to you for educating us on this subject.

    My fluency in French is limited to a smattering of what I learned in high school, but I see that Google Translate says that “natural born citizen” translates to “citoyen de naissance.” Do you concur? Would Vattel have used “citoyen de naissance” if he meant natural born citizen?

    I believe the word citoyen started to be applied to citizens during the French revolution, a few decades after Vattel’s death. So I guess N/A

  29. donna says:

    Lupin,

    merci cent fois – c’était vraiment formidable

    although “puzo1” vehemently disagrees

    http://www.gerbilreport.com/2015/04/explosive-arpaio-admits-awful-accusation.html#idc-container

    i don’t think he followed your suggestion and contacted “a Constitutional Law professor at the Sorbonne or any other French University”

    comme d’habitude, he just rambled on

  30. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater says:

    donna: i don’t think he followed your suggestion and contacted “a Constitutional Law professor at the Sorbonne or any other French University”

    comme d’habitude, he just rambled on

    Of course in Mario’s drunken ramblings he thinks he knows French better than an actual french jurist.

  31. Rickey says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    One of the problems with asking that question (which I may say as a newly-minted graduate of the Université de Lupin) is that in Vattels’ philosophy, there are only two classes of citizen: the native citizen or the naturalized citizen. He already told us what words he used for the former class, Naturels ou indigène.

    We can ask if “natural born citizen” is a good English correspondent to Naturels ou indigène, but we cannot ask how Vattel would have expressed a concept he did not have. To ask Vattel how he would have translated the English phrase to French must beg the question of what it means in the first place.

    Those are good points, Of course, if Vattel did not have a concept of “natural born citizen,” he could not have been expressing an opinion about what is required to be one.

  32. Keith says:

    Lupin: I’m in Chalabre (google) which is about 40 miles south of Carcassonne — and, you’re absolutely correct, right in the middle of Cathars/Da Vinci Code/Rennes-le-Chateau/Bugarach/Secret UFO base/ conspiracy cuckoo land! 🙂

    Personally, I’m not much of a Dan Brown fan.

    I much prefer Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln and several others who write in a similar vein. They make it much easier to suspend your disbelief without even noticing it. Brown’s books are just potboilers – easy to read, hard to put down, but ultimately unsatisfying.

  33. Lupin says:

    Rickey: My fluency in French is limited to a smattering of what I learned in high school, but I see that Google Translate says that “natural born citizen” translates to “citoyen de naissance.” Do you concur? Would Vattel have used “citoyen de naissance” if he meant natural born citizen?

    The term “citoyen de naissance” evolved much later; it wouldn’t have occurred to Vattel to introduce it, since he already used the word Naturels for those kind of Citoyens.

  34. Lupin says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    One of the problems with asking that question (which I may say as a newly-minted graduate of the Université de Lupin) is that in Vattels’ philosophy, there are only two classes of citizen: the native citizen or the naturalized citizen. He already told us what words he used for the former class, Naturels ou indigène.

    We can ask if “natural born citizen” is a good English correspondent to Naturels ou indigène, but we cannot ask how Vattel would have expressed a concept he did not have. To ask Vattel how he would have translated the English phrase to French must beg the question of what it means in the first place.

    I couldn’t have phrased it better.

  35. Lupin says:

    bob: That is an absolutely beautiful part of the world. I, however, found Carcassonne to be disappointing, as it is very tourist-y. I much more enjoyed Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, in Albi.

    Carcassonne is VERY touristy — yet, it’s a “living” city; my advice is to visit it at 10 pm at night when all (most) of the tourists are gone and you’re alone in that wonderful; medieval city. Of course by then the shops are closed too! 🙂

  36. Lupin says:

    kubu island: a growing strain of nationalisme, as in France with Le Pen.

    True, but there’s much less “anti-Americanism” now than there was under, say, de Gaulle or during the Viet-Nam war.

    I think most French people were “cool” about your invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib torture incidents, perhaps because our record in Algeria is as bad or worse.

    What really shocked French people in recent years was the neglect of New Orleans during/after Katrina. That seemed inconceivable.

  37. Lupin says:

    donna: although “puzo1″ vehemently disagrees

    http://www.gerbilreport.com/2015/04/explosive-arpaio-admits-awful-accusation.html#idc-container

    i don’t think he followed your suggestion and contacted “a Constitutional Law professor at the Sorbonne or any other French University”

    I have responded accordingly.

    Is it me, or are his delusional constructions more and more complicated???

  38. Lupin says:

    Keith: I much prefer Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln and several others who write in a similar vein. They make it much easier to suspend your disbelief without even noticing it. Brown’s books are just potboilers – easy to read, hard to put down, but ultimately unsatisfying.

    Henry Lincoln lives in the region and I have actually attended several of his talks.

    FYI he is also half of the writing team who created the Great Intelligence and the Yeti in Doctor Who.

  39. Keith says:

    Lupin: Henry Lincoln lives in the region and I have actually attended several of his talks.

    FYI he is also half of the writing team who created the Great Intelligence and the Yeti in Doctor Who.

    Rereading my words: “They make it much easier to suspend your disbelief without even noticing it.” I had the flash that would be half the problem for some people who fall too easily for conspiracy theories. They just don’t notice when they have suspended their disbelief – I suppose that would service as a reasonable definition for ‘gullible’.

    Some people are well versed in the psychology of the gullible and can effectively disguise the point where the suspension of disbelief occurs. Like the burglar, suspended from the ceiling of a ultra secure vault by wires, picking up the diamond at the exact instant he sets down a bag of sand of the exact weight, thus preventing the alarms detecting the theft, the skillful writer distracts the reader at just the right instant preventing the reader’s bullsh1t detector from going off. If the reader isn’t suspecting it, they are hooked and all the writer has to do is reel ’em in.

    Few people would, in honesty, accept Dan Brown’s stuff as history. He’s spinning a yarn and readers expect to have to suspend their disbelief. Baigent, et al, occupy a different ‘niche’. They present as journalists documenting a secret mythology that is only reluctantly coming to light, blending actual documented history with speculation and esoteric local traditions to suggest alternate histories to the reader without ever explicitly asserting them as fact.

    I find the books like “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” much more intellectually ‘fun’ than the obvious slapstick of the “Da Vinci Code”. Not necessarily more believable, but definitely more fun. I EXPECT to have to suspend my disbelief, and KNOW when it occurs. I can absolutely imagine that others don’t even notice it happening.

    This presents a difficulty for the gullibility sufferer, of course. If his already insufficient bullsh1t meter is subverted by skillful writers, he’ll just never notice that he is being taken for a ride.

  40. It isn’t you. If you read his latest comment literally he is claiming Vattel said the citizenship of the parents is determined by the fathers but the citizenship of children requires both parents to be citizens. Which is it? Parent were once citizens.

    I liked you comment that he is writing in Klingon. You nailed it.

    Lupin: Is it me, or are his delusional constructions more and more complicated???

  41. Lupin says:

    Reality Check:
    It isn’t you. If you read his latest comment literally he is claiming Vattel said the citizenship of the parents is determined by the fathers but the citizenship of children requires both parents to be citizens. Which is it? Parent were once citizens.

    I liked you comment that he is writing in Klingon. You nailed it.

    The thing that boggles the mind is, if he was right, there would have been literally thousands of non-French children born in France in the early 1800s.

    He is arguing in the face of both history and reality.

  42. Lupin says:

    Keith: I find the books like “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” much more intellectually ‘fun’ than the obvious slapstick of the “Da Vinci Code”. Not necessarily more believable, but definitely more fun. I EXPECT to have to suspend my disbelief, and KNOW when it occurs. I can absolutely imagine that others don’t even notice it happening.

    I liked HB,HG enough and Lincoln is a very nice person, but he and his cowriter swiped wholesale from French writer Gerard de Sede

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_de_S%C3%A8de

    and they got royally conned (pun intended) by that Plantard character, a man with a dubious WWII past who pretended to be descended from the Merovingians.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Plantard

    I hope I haven’t burst any bubbles? 🙂

  43. J.D. Sue says:

    First, congratulations and thank you to Reality Check and Lupin for a wonderful and fun interview. Nicely done!

    Second, I noticed in Apuzzo’s comment in GR that he said, “That uniform rule provided that a child born in the country to alien parents was an alien…”

    Is Apuzzo saying that a child is not an alien unless the child has 2 alien parents?

  44. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater says:

    J.D. Sue:
    First, congratulations and thank you to Reality Check and Lupin for a wonderful and fun interview.Nicely done!

    Second, I noticed in Apuzzo’s comment in GR that he said, “That uniform rule provided that a child born in the country to alien parents was an alien…”

    Is Apuzzo saying that a child is not an alien unless the child has 2 alien parents?

    So how does he square that with his belief about Obama? Obama can neither be a citizen nor an alien?

  45. roadburner says:

    J.D. Sue:
    First, congratulations and thank you to Reality Check and Lupin for a wonderful and fun interview.Nicely done!

    Second, I noticed in Apuzzo’s comment in GR that he said, “That uniform rule provided that a child born in the country to alien parents was an alien…”

    Is Apuzzo saying that a child is not an alien unless the child has 2 alien parents?

    so nice of him to hand us a hammer to hit him over the head with!

    quick doc! revoke his edit rights!

  46. Keith says:

    Lupin: I hope I haven’t burst any bubbles?

    Not at all. Confirms my expectation.

  47. JPotter says:

    Dr. Kenneth Noisewater: So how does he square that with his belief about Obama?Obama can neither be a citizen nor an alien?

    Obama cannot be anything at all, you see. The Denial doesn’t allow it. Cognitive block against affirming anything in regards to Obama.

    Indeed, Obama does not even exist.

    ‘Tis but a figment to be pilloried, a universal scapegoat convenient for all tribal rituals.

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