The lunacy of the 'birthers' (RINO Frum weighs in)

National Post ^ | 8/8/09 | David Twinkletoes Frum

[pissant]

It used to be tough and unrewarding to be a crank. You had to communicate by inky mimeograph. The big media monopolies refused to accept your calls. Your neighbours ignored you or laughed at you.

How that has changed! Modern communication technology has empowered cranks, enabling them to build entire virtual crank communities. It has multiplied the number of media outlets --and thus the number of hours to fill -- creating new crank opportunities on radio and television.

Among the greatest beneficiaries of these new opportunities: the cranks known as "birthers." The birthers claim that U. S. President Barack Obama is not legally entitled to occupy his office because he is not in fact a "natural-born citizen" of the United States, as the federal Constitution requires.

This claim rests on two assertions, one wrong, one crazy.

The wrong assertion is that Obama is not "a natural-born" citizen because his father was not a U. S. citizen. People born on American soil are American citizens, full stop, regardless of their parents' status in the country. The phrase "natural-born" means that a president cannot be an immigrant himself, not that his parents cannot be immigrants. Nobody imagined that Chester Arthur was ineligible for the presidency because his father was born in Ireland.

The crazy assertion is that Obama himself was born somewhere other than the United States. (

[AmericanVictory]

First of all, a copy of the Sun Yat Sen document has been posted here on FR and can be obtained. Secondly, the COLB initially used by the Obama squads was credibly exposed as having been altered by Polarik, a credentialed forensic document examiner, who posts here. Thirdly, the statements from officials of Kenya and others from there indicate that there is evidence sufficient to provide leads for discovery and it has been marshaled in allegations in complaints filed; the toss-outs to date, with only a few exceptions, have been on standing.

Also, you do not know the law, clearly, as expressed by the Supreme Court, which is, that with regard to the Article II specific, non-flexible requirement at issue, if one parent is not an American citizen, then the status of that child in meeting the specific requirement is in “doubt.” By his own admission and continuous statements in public and on the record the man occupying the White House states that one of his parents is in fact, or was, not a U. S. citizen and the COLB documents such as they are, both the altered ones and any that may not be altered, list the father as “African” not as a U. S. citizen. Therefore, legally, there is “doubt” as to whether Soetoro a/k/a Obama meets the requirement of being a “natural born citizen” within the Article II requirement. This places a burden on him, rather than plaintiffs, to clarify the doubt.

Further, the use of altered documents or misrepresenting what they are, both of which have occurred here, raises suspicions that can be pointed to in court proceedings as evidencing deception that can arguably require the shifting of the burden of proof.

[parsifal]

Hooray! You are right! Sun Yat Sen’s birth certificate was phony! OMG. Run, don’t walk, to make sure this EVIDENCE from 1904 Territory of Hawaii gets entered into court. It can be weighed against information and procedures in place in 1961, 57 years later, and 105 years later in the State of Hawaii.

parsy, who says it ain’t much, but it is EVIDENCE.

[Diogenesis]

You are inaccurate about much that you purport.

Hawaii gives out "BC"s for foreigners born overseas.

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Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report
"The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii
In the State of Hawaii, back in 1961, there were four different ways to get an “original birth certificate” on record.
BC1. If the birth was attended by a physician or mid wife, the attending medical professional was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth date, location, parents’ identities and other information. (See Section 57-8 & 9 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).

BC2. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then all that was required was that one of the parents send in a birth certificate to be filed. The birth certificate could be filed by mail. There appears to have been no requirement for the parent to actually physically appear before “the local registrar of the district.”
It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent’s signature to a form and mail it in.
In addition, if a claim was made that “neither parent of the newborn child whose birth is unattended as above provided is able to prepare a birth certificate, the local registrar shall secure the necessary information from any person having knowledge of the birth and prepare and file the certificate.” (Section 57-8&9)
.... there is and was no requirement for a physician or midwife to witness, state or report that the baby was born in Hawaii.

BC3. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.”
The statute provided that “the probative value of a ‘delayed’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.” (See Section 57- 9, 18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).”

BC4. If a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year.
(See Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961.)
In 1955 the “secretary of the Territory” was in charge of this procedure. In 1960 it was transferred to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (“the lieutenant governor, or his secretary, or such other person as he may designate or appoint from his office” §338-41 [in 1961]).

In 1982, the vital records law was amended to create a fifth kind of “original birth certificate”. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, “Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that the proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.”
In this way “state policies and procedures” accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an “original birth certificate on record.”

[parsifal]

I’m not saying that the COLB could not possibly be a forgery. I am saying that the birthers have produced very little credible evidence that it is.

You have given a good recap of the law. But you haven’t provided much evidence that any of the possible ways to falsely obtain a COLB was used.

The COLB states his place of birth. It is a sworn document issued by a lawful authority. While I find it entertaining that Sun Yat Sen was an American, as recorded back in 1904, as evidence, it isn’t much to overcome the present day document.

I don’t know Polarik, and from what I gather he reviewed a virtual copy, not the real document?

parsy, who wasn’t born in the Territory of Hawaii in 1904.

[Diogenesis]

You are wrong in much that you write.

Worse, you keep changing the subject, so I will waste no
more time on you.

Why do you support Obama? Are you for Romney?

[Redwood Bob]

So much misinformation in such a small space:

“As I thought, you are completely ignorant. A COLB, under Hawaii law, is not evidence that the person was born in Hawaii.”

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Under Hawaiian law, or the laws of any state or the federal government, a Hawaiian COLB is proof of place of birth. It’ll get you a driver’s license or a U.S. passport.

***************

“Sun Yat Sen, after he had to flee because of the communist takeover of China, spent his last years in Hawaii, was issued an equivalent document then available.”

**********************

The Commies took over China in 1947. Sun Yat-sen had died decades earlier. In 1904, he obtained, by perjured testimony, a Hawaiian Territorial Birth Certificate. (He needed this to get around the Chinese Exclusion Act.) The fact that Sun Yat-sen acquired a Hawaiian BC in 1904 by perjury no more invalidates Hawaiian birth certificates than Alger Hiss’s conviction for perjury would invalidate your testimony in court.

********************

“It has been endlessly pointed out on this and many other conservative sites that under Hawaii law and procedures COLB’s such as the document that you refer to as proof of Hawaiian birth for Obama are issues in large numbers to people who were not born there, since before the birth of Soetoro and at the time hat he was born and ever since.”

****************

Please provide evidence that, as policy, foreign-born persons are issued COLB’s that state their place of birth as Hawaii. Or bring such people forward.

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“Jut to give one example that can be shown of record in Hawaiian law, for a long time, under the laws designed to protect and benefit native Hawaiians, the COLB was not sufficient to prove birth in Hwaii. Why? Because it does not prove birth in Hawaii.”

****************

For a long time, Hawaii needed more than just a COLB to prove Native-Hawaiian (i.e. Polynesian) ancestry for the “native lands” program. They never said COLB’s were no good, they just needed more proof of Hawaiian ancestry.

Ironically, you can qualify for the program even if you’re not born in Hawaii! You just need to show Native-Hawaiian (Polynesian) ancestry.

***********************

“In fact quite recently the Supreme Court has ruled, as you might have noticed, that the unsupported official reports of official government forensic experts cannot be introduced into evidence in criminal cases without producing the actual examiner who produced them and subject him to examination. Why? Because such official government documents were shown, quite dramatically in fact, to be unreliable.”

*****************

This has to do with forensic reports, not official records. You have the right to cross-examine those responsible for a forensics report used against you in a criminal case because of your right to confront witnesses against you. No court has ever ruled Hawaiian official records to be invalid.

********************

“....why have they endlessly represented that the COLB is “proof” of his being born in Hawaii when it clearly is not and that can easily be established in the laws and procedures of Hawaii itself....”

*******************

You keep saying this, but provide no evidence. I hope you’ll never try impeaching all Hawaiian BC’s because Sun Yat-sen obtained one in 1904 by perjury. It’s no fun having a judge laugh in your face.

[AmericanVictory]

Let me make clear that I am not a litigant in any law suit about the eligibility of the man who is occupying the White House. Nor am I a lawyer in any such case. I am merely an observer. As such I think that people ought not to act as it those conducting the law suits ought not to proceed in ignorance but actually pay attention to what goes on in the various cases. I myself have in recent days gained some familiarity with the facts of a single case and have examined the materials on a number of web sites that have obtained information on several others.

Attention such as yours is to be greatly encouraged because you do provide facts. I, for example, had not properly researched the Sun Yat Sen question and you have, for which I applaud you. I don’t, however, follow the logic that if a COLB is only partial proof it, therefore, can be offered as full proof. I am fairly busy, actually, and do not have time to post as much as I would like and, since I am not in court on these issues, and am in fact retired from the law but have a good bit of work to do, I cannot, I regret take up your invitation to do research for you in providing links. I do, however, think it inappropriate for the poster to whom I was responding, to simply say that there is some obligation for those seeking information and commenting to prove matters to him based on what was clearly an oversimplified and ill informed position.

Thus I mostly ask questions from the limited amount I do know from having asked them for some time now. You, obviously, are better informed, but even you are making comments that I have reason to doubt. For example, I have seen a large number of reports that various officials state and federal, will not accept a COLB as proof of an actual birth certificate but will insist on the real thing. I myself have had that experience and am even now going through it again. So, despite your obviously greater knowledge, I do not find your response entirely truthful. You seem to want to prove a position that has hardened rather than seeking to find out the full truth of the matter. But I thank you for your response; it has certainly educated me further.

I will be quite curious to see how it plays out in the ongoing litigation and I believe that there is a desperate need for people to have more and better information about that litigation. This situation reflects, I believe, from long experience when I was practicing law, a situation in the courts in which the Rule of Law has deteriorated badly and in which more and closer attention by the public would be very beneficial.

Again, I thank you for your response, which has given me much additional information to examine, but I find it not quite completely on the level on the two points I have mentioned. I find it particularly misleading that you would make a blanket statement about all state and federal officials accepting something like the COLB that the Obama election websites and squads keep insisting is his actual birth certificate when so many people have had the opposite experience and it is not difficult to demonstrate the opposite in statements from various officials. When I was practicing I found that such broad statements have to be examined carefully and here I am suspicious that the broad assertion is true or could in fact be proven in court.

[Redwood Bob]

I gave some suggestions to anyone who seriously wants to pursue the birth story:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2309830/posts?page=703#703

[AmericanVictory]

I have the impression that in several cases your suggestions are being followed. An interesting question is whether or not the representation that the COLB posted by Obama web sites was presented under or acompanied by false or misleading assertions as a matter of record on such places as FighttheSmears.org and, if that is the case, do such false and/or misleading assertions continue?

[AmericanVictory]

I have the impression that in several cases your suggestions are being followed. An interesting question is whether or not the representation that the COLB posted by Obama web sites was presented under or accompanied by false or misleading assertions as a matter of record on such places as FighttheSmears.org and, if that is the case, do such false and/or misleading assertions continue?