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 ...
Then why did they waste so much space discussing children of citizens living abroad? That, obviously, had nothing at all to do with WKA. What makes the discussion of NBC so different?
Doesn't that imply that "natural-born citizen" means the same thing as "native citizen"?
Says who?
... and it was the definition that he clearly said was used by the framers.
He doesn't clearly say that at all. In fact, there is no documentation that I'm aware of on what definition the framers used when they crafted Article II.
Sorry, you don't like it, but he only picked one definition.
He didn't pick either definition, actually. Merely acknowledged both.
No, actually it's completely relevant because you think the existence of the book proves he didn't commit fraud. The only way this is true is if he planned 14 years ago to run for president.
For someone who’s an economist, you sure don’t know your facts. Don’t bother replying. I’ve dealt with you before and a stone fence was more rational.
So? Just because a legislature sees fit to codify a Common Law precedent in a statute doesn't make the precedent any less valuable or binding.
Says Justice Waite.
He doesn't clearly say that at all. In fact, there is no documentation that I'm aware of on what definition the framers used when they crafted Article II.
Justice Waite told us in the decision, "At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, ...
He didn't pick either definition, actually. Merely acknowledged both.
There's no both. "It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens."
There's birther debating tactic #2: shifting the burden of proof.
You see, the onus is on Obama to prove he DIDN'T commit fraud, not on birthers to prove he did. Nice job of staying on script, edge919!
They didn’t codify the precedent. The law 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 ...” They aren’t saying these children ARE natural born citizens, which was the language Blackstone used in reference to English common law, “all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves ...” The language in the 1790 naturalization act is softer, ‘considered as ...’ In 1795, the completely dropped the phrase natural born citizen: “the children of citizens of the United States born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States ...” The problem is that a naturalization act can’t technically create natural born citizens, and evidently someone recognized this and changed the language.
Were it not for legacy slavery, then would you be correct. The purpose of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was to ensure the citizenship of freed slaves who were born in the USA under bondage. Children born into slavery are citizens under Common Law.
I didn’t shift the burden of proof. James said, “People trying to commit fraud don’t publish books about the fradulent activity twelve years in advance of the so-called ‘fraud.’” It’s James’ onus to prove Obama knew he was going to run for president when he wrote that book, as that’s the only way his argument makes sense.
Only if it has the same meaning that Justice Waite acknowledged for "natural born citizen": children born in a country of parents who were its citizens.
Actually, what James was doing was raising a point that creates reasonable doubt that a fraud occurred. The onus is stil on you to prove the fraud occured, not on him that it did not.
lol, he dodged it again!
LOL. So the whole crux of your argument is that they used "consiered as" instead of is? That's just to silly for words.
The way you love to reading meaning into words that isn't there truly amuses me.
This is false. The Colonies didn't have any common law that made children born into slavery as citizens. We know this from the charters of the original colonies, such as the Charter of New England that said, "Also, Wee do for Us, our Heires, and Successors, declare by these Presents, that all and every the Persons, beinge our Subjects, which shall goe and inhabitt within the said Collony and Plantation, and every of their Children and Posterity, which shall happen to be born within the Limitts thereof, shall have and enjoy all Liberties, and ffranchizes, and Immunities of free Denizens and naturall Subjects within any of our other Dominions, to all Intents and Purposes, as if they had been abidinge and born within this our Kingdome of England, or any other our Dominions." Simplified, this says every person, being a subject, and THEIR children born within the limits of the colony are natural subjects. They make an allowance for 'free Denizens,' which are legal aliens who are freemen. Part of being a subject (or citizen) means having your Liberty. Now how would that apply to the children of slaves??
So in one case, the Supreme Court said that "natural-born citizen" and "native" mean the same thing, and in another case (that quoted the first case extensively), they nevertheless said that "natural-born citizen" and "native citizen" are two different things?
But he didn't say that.
There's no both.
Are we perhaps reading different copies of the decision? Maybe you have an abridged version or something? Because the one I'm looking at says, "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea."
I don't see where Justice Waite says what you claim he says.
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