Conservative Conspiracy Theories
First things first: why bother discussing what to most is a ridiculous hypothesis? Answer: Because as of November 2008, 10% of Americans believed any or all of the following:
- Obama’s COLB (Certificate Of Live Birth) was forged
- Obama was born in Kenya
- Obama became a citizen of Indonesia when his mother remarried and his stepfather moved the family to that country
- Obama’s dual citizenship at birth (his father, a Kenyan, was a citizen of Britain) does not make him a ‘natural born citizen’ and therefore disallows his right to run for the presidency
There have been court challenges and letter writing campaigns and inane comments like this one from Michael Savage, “We’re getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm.”
See? There are crazy people out there and it becomes imperative that we don’t allow them to make a mockery of the facts and have them influence those among us who aren’t sure what to think. It’s incumbent on all of us to not allow the crazies to run rampant and leave their delusional claims unchallenged. So here are a few facts;
- Obama’s COLB has been verified by FactCheck.org to be a true document beyond question
- In August 1961, the Hawaii Department of Health published a notice of Obama’s birth in 2 separate newspapers
- Obama was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Kenya due to his Kenyan father but lost his Kenyan citizenship when he turned 21. The Kenyan constitution demands that one revoke all foreign citizenships at adulthood or lose citizenship. Obama has never given up his U.S. citizenship.
As for the matter of Obama not being a ‘natural born citizen’, here is what the U.S. Constitution says on the matter.
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
As Wikipedia notes,
“The phrase “natural born Citizen” is not defined anywhere in the Constitution, as is also true with most other constitutional terms.”
“One possible source of the natural born citizen clause can be traced to a letter of July 25, 1787, from John Jay (who was born in New York) to George Washington (who was born in Virginia), presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention. John Jay wrote: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” (Underlining in the original)[3] There was no debate, and this qualification for the office of the Presidency was introduced by the drafting Committee of Eleven, and then adopted without discussion by the Constitutional Convention.”
And that, my friends, are the facts. I’ll end this post with this quote from PolitiFact.com,
“It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact’s conclusion that the candidate’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn’t authentic. And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.”
End of story.
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Good synopsis Mario but do you really think it’s going to have any effect on the wingnuts? There is nothing any one can show them which would have them divert a fraction from their belief that President Obama is the devil incarnate.
You failed to include in your quotable quotes – the exerpt from “The Law of Nations”. This is very important as the text was read by many of the Founders of the United States of America, and informed their understanding of the principles of law which became established in the Constitution of 1787. It is from here than\t you can gleen their intended meaning of Natural Born Citizen.
Ҥ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
If you are going to choose quotes, please provide ALL the information to your readers so they can make a truly informed decision.
Obama may have lost his Kenyan citizenship at age 21, but that wasn’t the age with which the Framers of the Constitution were concerned with. They were concerned with natural born citizenship status at the time of his birth, not 21 years later. Like ANCHOR babies, Obama was merely a US Citizen AT birth and not BY birth as is required to be a natural born citizen.
Sally, Sally, Sally…
You admonish me for not including a passage from Vattel’s Law of Nations when quoting the U.S. Constitution? C’mon.
As much as Vattel’s work is worthy of discussion and surely had influence on the Founding Fathers, it is quite a stretch to believe that in a legal sense one would include the influences the Founding Fathers might or might not have been under when drafting the constitution.
If we extrapolate your thinking, no matter or controversy could ever be resolved for all one would have to do is go beyond the legal documents and begin introducing “influences” affecting the writers of the said documents. Where would it all end?
Sorry…you don’t get any points for this one.
Very intelligent and well thought out comment Sally. And regardless of Political Persuasion, surely deserving of a more respectful and substantial response.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2148074/posts
“Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations was key in framing the United States as the world’s first constitutional republic.”
“The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. Key to this struggle, was the work of the Eighteenth-century jurist, Emmerich de Vattel, whose widely read text, The Law of Nations, guided the framing of the United States as the world’s first constitutional republic. Vattel had challenged the most basic axioms of the Venetian party, which had taken over England before the time of the American Revolution, and it was from Vattel’s The Law of Nations, more than anywhere else, that America’s founders learned the Leibnizian natural law, which became the basis for the American System.”
“Among those citing Vattel in legal cases and government documents, were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, and John Marshall. John Adams, the future delegate to the Continental Congress, second President of the U.S., and father of President John Quincy Adams, recorded in his Diary on Feb. 1, 1763, that after spending the day frivolously, instead of reading and thinking, “The Idea of M. de Vattel indeed, scowling and frowning, haunted me. In 1765, Adams copied into his Diary three statements by Vattel, “of great use to Judges,” that laws should be interpreted according to the intent of the author, and every interpretation which leads to absurdity should be rejected. In a letter to the Foreign Minister of Denmark, in 1779, Benjamin Franklin quoted Vattel, and “his excellent Treatise entitled Le Droit des Gens.” James Madison, as a member of the Continental Congress in 1780, drafted the instructions sent to John Jay, for negotiating a treaty with Spain, which quotes at length from The Law of Nations. Jay complained that this letter, which was probably read by the Spanish government, was not in code, and “Vattel’s Law of Nations, which I found quoted in a letter from Congress, is prohibited here.”
No one has argued the point that the Fathers were influenced by the Law of Nations in writing the Constitution. That’s not the point here. I pointed out that there exists no where in the Constitution a definition of ‘natural born citizen’. For Sally to suggest that we interpret the Constitution in a legal sense based on the influences of the writers and not solely on the content of the document is ridiculous.
Once we begin doing that every contract in existence can be argued on the same merit. It makes no sense.
you are, without a doubt, most ignorant and frighteningly misguided persons to comment on the B Obama situation. you simply haven’t any grasp of the facts it is sad do your homework.
mario”
if you need the Founding Fathers/Framers to define the term “natural born” or any other in the Constitution, for that matter…..well, that pretty much says it all. My 6th& 7th grade class ,30 yrs ago had little difficulty with the concept. citizen(naturalized or birthright), native-born(soil) and the far more expansive; natural-born(soil & hereditary right/natural law) Barack Obama Jr is NOT a natural born citizen, period. BO Sr. did not sever the ligament/tie to the “old country” before the birth of his child The child’s status at birth is what is at stake and as a foreigner the child’s(BO Jr’s)father passes ;shares his status(at least partially) with his off-spring since he was not an immigrant and did not pledge allegiance to the U.S. In fact , he never did. He could have “rightly” returned to his native land and gone on to become president had he such aspirations. Do i really have to “flesh it out” for you. Your bias is evident. The birth-certificate is only important if it shows that BO Jr. is NOT the biological child of BO Sr or reveals a foreign birth. Oh ,and by the way, we have yet to see a long-form vault version of the original document(see Hawaiian law and official statements from authorities there)with hospital name, Dr. signature, witness signature parent(s) sig and other vital data
marcus: that’s a pile of trash you just wrote. The only bias which is evident is yours. If all of the U.S. authorities in question are satisfied with Obama’s legal qualification to be Pres, that’s good enough for me.
It’s laughable to see to what extremes of twisted logic you Obama-haters will go. Give it a break. He’s your president. Enjoy it.
Great post, just wanted to know if you have any more information on this topic? Subscribed btw!
At first I thought this must be a parody (seriously)of the usual Obot obfuscation and outright lying one has become so accustomed to. but can this Mario dude really be this stupid or more than likely just another prejudiced fool lost in his biases His treatise, such as it is. is laughable and sad at the same time not to mention scary