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To: Windflier
Obama's personal case is even tougher, because under the citizenship laws at the time, his mother could not have conveyed US citizenship to him, because she had not lived for a period of ten years in the United States, five of them being after the age of 14. She was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born.

The age of Obama's mother only matters if Little Barack was born overseas. If this case conceeds that he was born in Hawaii, then her age is meaningless.

352 posted on 12/04/2008 1:10:32 PM PST by Kleon
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To: Kleon
The age of Obama's mother only matters if Little Barack was born overseas. If this case conceeds that he was born in Hawaii, then her age is meaningless.

Right, you are.

I may have to step back from the legal arguments. There's just too much minute detail that gets overlooked in the commentary, which of course leads to more argument. Then, there's everyone chiming in with basic questions, etc.

I'm much more concerned with the moral implications of this issue than I am with the exact wording of various statutes.

In fact, it's my belief that the Framers held morality as a superior force, above the laws of men, and did their very best to encode that into our Constitution. It's what gives the US Constitution its immense power, and is what has allowed us to become the most successful nation in world history.

When lawyers are fighting each other over the precise meanings of words, you need an entity like the Supreme Court to step in with wisdom and deep deliberation to settle the matter.

What do they use as their basis for judgment, and how do they determine the meaning of that signature document? I suggest that they do not approach it from a lawyer's point of view, but from that of the Framers.

355 posted on 12/04/2008 1:22:36 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Kleon
The age of Obama's mother only matters if Little Barack was born overseas. If this case conceeds that he was born in Hawaii, then her age is meaningless.

If the high court decides that the phrase Natural Born Citizen comports with the historical meaning that a person takes their citizenship and loyalty from their father, then it won't matter where Obama was born.

The historical understanding of that phrase also includes the concept that a person who is born within the territorial jurisdiction of "the King" is by birth, a citizen of the realm, their father's citizenship being a qualifier.

The Donofrio case contends that Obama cannot be a US citizen, yet alone a Natural Born Citizen, because his father was a Kenyan national with British citizenship at the time of his birth.

515 posted on 12/04/2008 7:00:03 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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