Posted on 08/24/2010 6:37:15 PM PDT by RobinMasters
The State Department is maintaining a "counter-misinformation" page on an America.gov blog that attempts to "debunk a conspiracy theory" that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.
However, in the attempt to debunk the Obama birth-certificate controversy, the State Department author confirmed Obama was a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. from 1961 to 1963 and a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, because his father was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born in 1961.
In a number of court cases challenging Obama's eligibility, dual citizenship has been raised as a factor that could compromise his "natural born" status under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. The cases argue dual citizenship would make Obama ineligible even if documentary evidence were shown the public, such as the hospital-issued long-form birth certificate that indicates the place of his birth and the name of the attending physician.
The entry "The Obama Birth Controversy" was written by Todd Leventhal, identified as the chief of the Counter-Misinformation Team for the U.S. Department of State. The office appears to have been established "to provide information about false and misleading stories in the Middle East," as described in a biography of Leventhal published on the U.S. Public Diplomacy website.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
You’re reading into it something you want to believe, but isn’t actually there. They only used the natural born subject comparison to figure out a way to justify that a child of foreign nationals could be born a citizen of the United States under the 14th amendment.
The Supreme Court has still only used one definition of natural born citizen. It is the only definition for which there is no doubt. “all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens.” Simple, elegant and absolute.
The ONLY definition without doubt is the only definition he could use, and it was the definition that he clearly said was used by the framers. Sorry, you don't like it, but he only picked one definition.
The judge ruled on the case as narrowly as possible to settle the matter before the court (as a prudent judge should do). Because Wong Kim Ark was born after the period in which your proposed definition of “natural born citizen” clearly breaks down (i.e. the period in which persons born as colonial subjects were having children born as United States citizens), the judge was not required to point out the inadequacy of this definition, and exercised judicial restraint in not going out of his way to do so.
Fortunately, as such a ridiculous standard would enable every two-bit dictator with the power to grant someone citizenship in his two-bit country with the stroke of a pen to exercise veto power over US Presidential elections.
Now suppose someone were born in the US after the adoption of the Constitution, but his parents were born in the colonies during the colonial regime or perhaps the Articles of Confederation period. Such a person would qualify under the Vattel definition above, because the parents - having been citizens of the colony in which they lived - would have been "upgraded" to citizens of the United States (via congressional legislation, I'd presume) and would have been citizens of the US at the time their child was born. So there was no gap or boner or oversight on the part of the Founders. No one could have been excluded from the Presidency merely via a technicality arising from the change from sovereign colonies or states into the federal constitutional system.
I have to be honest, this is a new argument, but it doesn’t make sense. The definition of natural born citizen used by the Supreme Court doesn’t break down. It is a definition in its most pure sense. Any other type of citizenship has to be created and legislated. WKA was born AFTER the 14th amendment. His U.S. citizenship was entirely invented based on a statutory definition of citizenship from English law (it’s not common law, because it wasn’t part of U.S. law) and the 14th amendment. The judge couldn’t use the no doubt definition of natural born citizen for WKA because it didn’t fit.
Incorrect, as the Founders specifically rejected the concept of “subjects” as relates to citizenship...they rejected common law in this area.
Further, in Marbury v. Madison, it was stated that every clause of the Constitution must have an effect. An argument is inadmissible if constructed otherwise.
Hence, “citizen”, and “natural born citizen” must both have an effect. If there was intended to be no difference, then the word “citizen” would have sufficed, as no distinction would have been necessary. A distinction was clearly made, and the term “natural born citizen” carries greater restrictions than does “citizen.”
Ample evidence from the time clearly displays the intent of the use of the term “natural born citizen.”
That is not a lie, but what the US Supreme Court said in WKA - and every legal authority agrees. Every state legislature, every state Sec of State, every state DA, the voters, the Electoral College, the Congress - every body with a role to play in getting a Presidential election to conform to the Constitution agrees with my reading of WKA.
Not a single court, state, or Congressman agrees with YOUR interpretation of NBC. Not one.
Here are quotes from two different US Attorney Generals:
“The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is. in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are natural—home-born—and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alien—foreign-born—making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former. …” AG Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862)
Edward Bates served as United States Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln from 1861 to 1864.
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President …” AG Ed Meese in THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005)
Ed Meese was Attorney General under Ronald Reagan.
Apparently, both Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan had Attorney Generals who were at best ill informed, and possibly traitorous Obamabots...
Yes, there is a difference between natural born citizen and citizen. The latter includes naturalized citizens...
Pretty intersting how people just repeat the same lies over and over again as though repetition makes them true.
I hate to say Meese is uninformed, but he helps disprove your errant notion that NBS is = to NBC.
He says, “Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President.”
According to English common law, the children born abroad of English fathers are natural born subjects. We know this according to Blackstone:
” ... all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves ...”
Now, if English common law applied in the United States, concurrent with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, then there was no need to create a naturalization law that declares children born abroad to U.S. citizens to be natural born citizens, yet this very thing happened.
The 1790 Naturalization Act says, “And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens ...” IIRC, in 1795, the words natural born citizen were changed to citizen, emphasizing the point being that the U.S. did NOT adopt English common law on natural born subjects. Similarly, if English common law applied regarding the U.S.-born children of resident aliens, there was no need for the 14th amendment.
Meese said it was much less certain, and he is right. The Supreme Court hasn’t ever applied the definition to someone born abroad. However, had McCain won, I doubt many on FreeRepublic would be trying to throw him out of office as an illegal candidate...
But Congress HAS recognized it as applying, both in the 1700s and with McCain.
Thanks for the opportunity Non-Sequitur.
Article 1 Section 8: The Congress shall have the Power To ...Establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization...
Article 1 Section 8 the basis for the 14th Amendment, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof...” So the framers gave us Article 1 and, since they also provided the amendment process, they gave us the 14th Amendment, which some claim is redundant.
McCain fits Vattel’s definition of natural born citizen as he is considered born in the country. The senate resolution declaring him to be ‘eligible’ was a big, puffy, unnecessary show, and it helped to distract from Obama’s ineligibility and focus people’s eyes only on location of birth. What you don’t want to admit is that the 1790 naturalization act proves the U.S. did not adopt English common law on natural born subjects. NBS does not = NBC. Period.
LOL. No he didn't. The propensity for birthers to just make crap up out of thin air never ceases to amaze me.
That debate has been scrubbed from the internet and the harddrive on which I had saved that debate was hacked, wiped clean, by someone working from a Senate Office building in April, 2008.
Sure it has./sarcasm
As to Chester A. Arthur, his ineligibility was discovered by Leo Donofrio, just in the past two years.
Nonsense. Historians have known that Arthur's father was a non-citizen many decades. No one thought anything of it, until Leo "Black Helicopter" Donofrio thought it was relevant to eligibility.
You dodged the question you were asked. Did Soebarkah plan on running for president 14 years ago??
The crime of fraud is defined as “intentional deception for personal gain.” Where is the “intentionl deception” when the alleged perpetrator put the alleged “fraudulent” information about his parent’s citizenship into the public consciousness? It was the responsibility of others to act on that information either positively or negatively.
If any court in the nation had ever ruled that a president’s parent(s) being foreign born impacted on a president’s eligibility then a fraud charge might conceivably have a tiny bit of weight but no court in the entire history of the American judiciary has ever issued such a ruling; and no ruling, no crime.
Finally, one court has actually ruled that “...persons born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, REGARDLESS OF THE CITIZENSHIP OF THEIR PARENTS.”
No they did not. There you go making crap up again.
Further, in Marbury v. Madison, it was stated that every clause of the Constitution must have an effect. An argument is inadmissible if constructed otherwise.
Sure. So?
Hence, “citizen”, and “natural born citizen” must both have an effect.
No one is denying that. Not all citizens are natural born. What's your point?
If there was intended to be no difference, then the word “citizen” would have sufficed, as no distinction would have been necessary. A distinction was clearly made, and the term “natural born citizen” carries greater restrictions than does “citizen.”
No one is disagreeing with you on this point.
Ample evidence from the time clearly displays the intent of the use of the term “natural born citizen.”
Yes, and that evidence indicates they intended "natural born citizen" to be analogous to "natural born subject" under English common law. That means anyone born on US soil, unless the child of diplomats or invaders, is a natural born citizen. This is, of course, different from naturalized citizen.
How do you figure?
It didn't. It just required that the parents be "citizens" at the time of the child's birth -- born, naturalized, or grandfathered in.
The 14th amendment is redundant with respect to white people, but not freed slaves. Under common law, children of slaves were not natural born subjects/citizens. In fact, they weren't subjects/citizens at all. Hence were it not for the 14th Amendment, freed slaves born in the USA to slave parents would not be US citizens. That's why it was necessary.
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