You mean the Doc Conspiracy who's now posted a couple of times to this very thread? That one?
Posted on 05/01/2012 9:32:22 AM PDT by GregNH
Here's the deal...
Many legal analysts and scholars agree with this take-- and until the Supreme Court weighs in.. this is how the law is interpreted:
The Constitution requires that the president be a "natural born citizen," but does not define the term. That job is left to federal law, in 8 U.S. Code, Section 1401. All the law requires is that the mother be an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for five years or more, at least two of those years after the age of 14. If the mother fits those criteria, the child is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of the father's nationality.
The brouhaha over President Obama's birth certificate -- has revealed a widespread ignorance of some of the basics of American citizenship. The Constitution, of course, requires that a president be a "natural born citizen," but the Founding Fathers did not define the term, and it appears few people know what it means.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You won’t find a Video; all has been scrubbed, but in a debate between Allen Keyes and Obama in the fall of 2004, the following exchange took place........
Keyes, accused Obama saying, “You are not even a natural born citizen!” To which Obama immediately replied, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency.”
Rxsid quoted John Bingham’s clear statement to the house about the definition of who is a natural born citizen. Bingham never addressed natural born citizenship in S.61, which was the bill which resulted in the 14th Amendment, because it was never in doubt - never questioned. Any observations about Section 8 US Code have no foundation for conflating “native-born” citizens, such as American Indians, who weren't even made citizens by the 14th Amendment, with natural born citizens. Congressman Bingham cites Vattel in his address to the 39th Congress, (The Globe, 1866 pg1293), to explain who are citizens, but the framers left naturalization laws to be negotiated later in Congress, Article 1 Section 8, and that is just what Senate 61 was all about, stimulated by the realities of the Civil War.
Bingham explains:
1 say with some few exceptions every State In the Union does make some discrimination between citizens of the United States, either by its constitution or it statute laws, in respect of civil rights on account of race Or color. I desire. to call the attention of the House to the fact that the honorable gentleman who reported this bill in the Senate, and for whom I have the highest respect had the candor to admit to me the other day that the franchise of office,according to all the authorities, is a civil right, and in my opinion by every fair interpretation of the Constitution it can rightfully be conferred upon no man in any State save upon a citizen of the United States.
Naturalization laws in virtually every state, even his own Ohio, differed, almost all excluding everyone but white men, who were the only citizens defined in their respective naturalization laws. The states were therefore in conflict with the Declaration's assertion that 'all men' possessed inalienable rights. That is why the only definition for a class of citizenship in the Constitution is found in Article II. Until the first constitutional government had settled down, the question of who were citizens was not superseded by federal law. The parent citizens of natural born citizens were citizens based upon which of the states they immigrated to or were born in. There was no states rights issue in prescribing the ‘never doubted’ (a statement unquestioned by the justices on Minor, who made “born on the soil to parents who were its citizens” positive law. The first couple of passes made by Congress to affirm 'Civil' rights guaranteed by the Constitution did not even mention granting citizenship to those born on sovereign soil. Congressmen knew they were giving up state sovereignty by giving up naturalization statutes, but this was the end of the Civil War, and they also knew they had just lost a terrible war. So the definition of who were citizens changed. As Justice Waite explained, "about citizens there were doubts, but never as to the former".
Chief Justice Waite, to confirm Virginia Minor's status as a ‘citizen’ needed to have the common law definition for natural born citizen locked into the concrete of precedence. Rememember, almost every state had different naturalization laws. He took extra care to affirm that because Mrs Minor was a natural born citizen, she was a citizen. The 14th Amendment, based upon “a Uniform rule for naturalization,” Article 1 Section 8, opened the door for Section 8 US Code Naturalized citizens, who were naturalized at birth, native-born, but not natural born citizens, like Obama, Rubio, McCain, and Jindal.
A familiar red herring goes “but Minor didn't say that someone born to a citizen father and a mermaid mother couldn't be natural born!” The words of constitutional scholar, who also taught law at the U of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, are concise. “It depends upon what is is.” Had Justice Waite not intended exclusivity, he would have said "These included natives, or natural-born citizens..." and not "These were..." These justices were not illiterate. (There is a better ‘proof’, of my exclusivity argument pointed out by Leo Donofrio, and which I am too lazy to look up.) Including Chief Justice Marshal's citation of Vattel's statement, there were at least a dozen other uses of the definition before Minor v. Happersett, and all concurred with the 'never doubted' Waite confirmation. That is known as common-law. There were two dozen citations of Minor's definition, including Wong Kim Ark, after Minor v Happersett.
Someone, probably Tublecane, suggested that subjects and natural born subjects are not differentiated in English law. One characteristic of English law - the English don't have a Constitution - is that for most issues, serious research can turn up a counterexample. Law is not the foundation of their government; England is a Monarchy, though one that has evolved enormously since King George. The English don't permit anyone but a natural born subject to be a member of parliament. Subjects are naturalized. We have had naturalized citzens as Secretaries of State and Defense and our Congress is full of naturalized citizens. Today we even have a naturalized man in the White House, but there is hope that a return to respect for the Constitution will correct that obvioius mistake.
As bluecat6 pointed out with an example - and there are millions of valid examples - our framers anticipated attempts to undermine our republic. They would have laughed at the suggestion that the child of Sudanese nationals, born in a cave in Arizona to parents hiding until the opportunity came to kill nonbelievers, might have been given a scholarship to attend U of California where he studied microbiology in preparation creating nerve gas for prosecuting the Jihad. He regularly attended the Wahhabi Mosque in Fremont, but at 35, according to Tublecane, would be eligible to run for the presidency. From the example provided by Barack, he could hide all of his personal documents, and would regardless be a 14th Amendment citizen - an ‘anchor baby’ - eligible, according to Bret Bair and Tublecane, equivalent to a natural born citizen.
Finally, the prologue from Bret Bair, concerning the ‘puzzle’ presented by our framers: Ask anyone who uses the disclaimer “Because it was never defined in the Constitution” to name any term of art, any term, defined in the Constitution. Only one term was modified by the Constitution, ‘treason’, because of its particular application to our republic, and probably for other reason which someone here can no doubt expand upon. Our framers were literate men, all prior British subjects, who knew from experience that words change in time. The ‘Enlightenment’ which inspired the creation of the application of natural law was recorded by authors over almost two thousand years. To understand the intent of those philosophers required understanding the language familiar to the original authors, which explains why many if not most of our framers were familiar, and often fluent, in French, German, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. How many of our leaders today reflect such erudition? The Constitution was written, as Justice Waite expressed so concisely in Minor, “At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar.” To understand it one doesn't listen to Axelrod or Bret Bair. It is necessary to read our framers, justices, and scholars from the time of the framers, to understand any term written in the Constitution. ‘Natural born citizen’ has not changed in hundreds of years, but current political operatives would like you to think it has.
One of the Obots misrepresented natural born citizenship as having been invented with the 1787 writing of the Constitution. Vattel, writing in 1758 explained the term, which is thousands of years old. The phrase, ‘natural born citizenship’, is only one associated with the definition, born on the soil of parents who were its citizens’, which doesn't mention the entity to which the soil belonged. i.e. The definition applies generally to nation states. It is sometimes described as “both jus soli and jus sanguinis citizenship.” Whether one uses birthright citizenship, or natural born citizenship, or native citizenship, or indigenous citizenship doesn't matter. Those are symbols we associate with the meaning, which is about a child born on sovereign soil to parents with the sole allegiance required for citizenship.
The claim that 14 years residence opens doors to other definitions is simply ignorance. The official Congressional historian during the Continental Congress, and one of the annual presidents of The States United, was Dr. David Ramsay, who explained that the 14 year residence clause was to insure that candidates for the presidency had been in the Colonies at least three years before the Revolution. Ramsay explained, in his Dissertation on Citizenship, "Citizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken a part in the late revolution; but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens." There was only state-by-state naturalization until 1867, so anyone running for the presidency before there were natural born citizens, and having been contiguously resident, would be well known, and his allegiances easily ferreted.
Suggestion: Read Minor v. Happersett. It is a treatease on citizenship. To hear all the obot issues argued and answered, from the lawyer who was the first to expose Chester Arthur's ineligibility, since Arthur used the familiar hide the birth certificate ploy to distract people, read Leo Donofrio’s blog. Leo is so disgusted with the corruption of our legal system, lack of courage and dishonesty of judges that he has suspended his law license. Donofrio shared his research as he honestly analyzed cases, disovering in the process that there was a large contingent of attorneys working to keep the citations to Minor v. Happersett a secret. The Center for American Progress knew the law and did excellent work to conceal it from the public. To follow the careful unfolding of the historical record read Mario Apuzzo’s blog. Good law is not unlike mathematics. Both are based upon intuition in that the axioms for both must be, as Descartes explained “Clear and distinct to the human reason.” Obots mostly know the truth, and thus their tactic is to lead people on goose chases. The proof is when a theorem can be constructed of axioms (or assuming its contrary results in a contradiction) or when an assertion comforms to the legal axioms provided in our Constitution. Minor v. Happersett is all you need to know. It has never been questioned, and Congress has no authority to interpret, or reinterpret a Supreme Court decision.
Bret Bair is not paid to think, or read; but if he is not ignorant, he does not want to lose his job. There are many like him. The Congressman who honestly admitted that Congress was afraid to address eligibility is showing progress. He must see from the probes of Rubio's eligibility that the public is not so naive as both party's strategists presume. Nathan Deal of Georgia said it, and was run out of Congress. Judge Thomas told us the court was avoiding the issue, but Obama's appointments will keep Scotus from hearing an eligibility appeal, even when Marshal said they must hear issues related to interpretation. Every Senator signed SR511, ‘born to citizen parents’, in April 2008. We must remember that every legislator but Deal has been complicit, and every one knows the truth. Free Republic is replacing the major media because it still manages to provide a forum where honesty is practiced by some, and dishonesty is tested by those with the time and will to learn the truth. (Which reminds to make my donation to keep it alive!)
Wow, this is a pretty ridiculous song-and-dance routine, trying to avoid admitting the obvious. And you clearly don't understand. When the court rejected her claim, they MADE HER eligible for the presidency because they went to Article II of the Constitution to explain why the 14th amendment argument was rejected for women, as a class. And sorry, but pay close attention. The issue on citizenship is NOT obiter dictum. Minor made a very specific citizenship argument that the Court unanimously rejected on the basis of children being born in the country to citizen parents. This established a legal precedent that was followed by the Ark court in exempting NBCs from needing the 14th amendment to be citizens.
There were not out to exhaustively define NBC status, and didn’t. They did not say outright that native borns aren’t NBCs.
Sorry, but this is wrong. They did say outright that "native borns" aren't NBCs when they said the 14th amendment does NOT define natural-born citizenship. The ONLY way to solve doubts about birth citizenship is to use the 14th amendment and satisfy the subject clause OR to determine that the parents are citizens which then satisfies the exclusive characterization of natural-born citizen. The latter is distinguished specifically from aliens or foreigners, while the former only has the legal weight to make citizens of children born to resident aliens. That's what the Court said in Wong Kim Ark. Read it. Learn it. Comprehend it.
I guess it takes one to know one! Thanks
Well, no Madison specifically said the King could make them into denizens, but not natural-born subjects, and that the legislature would need to pass a naturalization act to make them British subjects.
What is more important, at least to those who have learned the difference, is that Obama told us on fightthesmears.com, his website, that he was "...a native-born citizen of the U.S." He is so confident of the shield created by RINO republicans who ran McCain, even when Dems couldn't pass S.2678, and resorted to the symbolic Senate Resolution, a statement of opinion, Sen.Res 511, to provide talking points to state-run media. Obama told us, quite honestly, that he was born subject of the British Commonwealth. It doesn't sound like he comes from parents "not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty." He told us he was naturalized by the 14th Amendment. That is why his comrades are citing the 14th Amendment. They are quite confident of the ignorance of the public, and the of the "persuasion of Power" boasted about by former SEIU president Andy Stern.
"You won’t find a Video; all has been scrubbed,..."
The scrubbing is remarkable. Most of the public doesn't know, or doesn't believe that scrubbing has become so commonplace. The bald editing of Supreme Court documents by Google associate, justia.com, owned by Obama classmate, and with participation by Soro's Center for American Progress CIO, is simply a fact. Justia, with Google, has blocked access to the pre-edited versions of twenty six Supreme Court Cases, and Google has now stopped pointing users at justia, where a year ago it was by far the most frequently provided result for searches on Supreme Court cases. Whether there will be prosecutions will be interesting to watch, but we are seeing dictatorship being born.
I am one of those who saw the brief exchange between Obama and Keyes. I even recall that it appeared to be after some sort of event, in a hotel, just as the two were getting up from a table. But who knew it would become so important? Who knew what a large role Google would play in blocking access to its archives? With so many watching it seems unlikely that some cable broadcast station did not put it on tape. But not so unlikely that they might be afraid to provide the tape given the thugs in the White House. It is unlikely that the NSA does not have that video, and probably also unlikely that the Russians and Chinese too don't have it. But if we know, and chose not to honor our own Constitution, of what use would Obama's ineligibility be to them?
Google will pay a price for violating neutrality, and is, even with their closeness to the power circles of Soros, losing clients and users, and having to defend itself from violating privacy. Their involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will not be forgotten by many.
MONEY.
Lawyers and judges are the most scrupulous of all word-parsers.
You mean the Doc Conspiracy who's now posted a couple of times to this very thread? That one?
I wouldn't be surprised. What name did he use? Does it begin with Tube? Some bloggers were on the job from early in the morning to past midnight at my end of the country. He must be on someone's payroll?
The sad part is whether Doc or his colleagues, they are being paid with our money. The even sadder part is that if things continue as they are, anyone critical of the regime is risking being audited, or worse. A corrupted NSA is already plugged in to most every public switch in the US It has been legal for at least ten years. The law was passed to enable us to protect ourselves from terrorists, but when the Muslim Brotherhood is in the White House, such intrusion is a domestic threat. The ability to look for keywords in voice and data are currently still bandwidth limited, but technology is remarkable, and the would-be dictators will use everything they have access to. Eventually, using FR will put you at risk, and may already.
With relatively mature software it would be easy to identify most users of FR. Too bad we don't have Analyst's Workbench and some friends in the long haul telephony business. We could find out the different names used by a single Obot, who they work for, and, for the record, where they bank, drive, to whom they talk on the phone, land or wireless, and how many times. We had it before 9/11 when it was being tested in a number R&D projects. Some may remember Able-Danger. It was real, but embarrassing.
Bump for later....
Common sense was much more common in the days of our founders.
I tend to believe this is NOT true. Quite a while back, when this first circulated, I went to the link (it may have been cspan) and watched the debate in it’s entirety without hearing this exchange between the two.
And during the initial period of the founding of the US, what other option did they have? I don't agree that it casts doubt on the question of intent. I think it confirms the reality of the time.
We should not inject our current understanding of "citizenship" as we generally believe it to be today. There is evidence that at the founding of the nation and its early years the concept of who was a citizen (and indeed a natural born citizen) were significantly different than what we are led to believe now.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2826136/posts
"For if supposed intent leads you to believe something that’s clearly false, e.g. that the Framers disallowed the sons of British subjects from being presidential eligibility, perhaps your wrong about other conclusions prompted from intent, e.g. that any but the children of two citizen parents can be natural born citizens."
I've been wrong about a lot of things in my life. But, I seriously doubt that I'm wrong about someone born of two citizen parents being a natural born citizen. I believe, that anyone running for President with a different interpretation should have to prove it conclusively with facts.
I also believe that the Supreme Court should weigh in on this based on a strict interpretation of the intent of the Founders, not on what's politically safe or expedient. The fate of the Country is at stake.
This exchange did not occur. You can even find Keyes declaring this did not happen.
I remember watching a news show and someone asked him this very question. and he simply said We have the law on our side."
I remember it like it was yesterday but have never been able to find it.
Besides what I meant is clear enough. Consider, for example, that you understood completely what I was saying and what I meant and even offered an alternative explanation.
...I'll go back to lurking in a dark corner.
Come on in, the water's just fine! Not too hot, not too cold...
If I remember correctly it was EIGHT times in as many years. A Chicago law firm was involved in some of the efforts. Oh, but it’s just a coincidence. /s
In fiction there is a saying: Coincidence, coincidence...what a coincidence.
It refers to weak, bad or novice writers whose plot turns on a weird, wild coincidence. Stupid readers accept the coincidence w’out comment, but all others reject it. If the writer's plot can't function w’out a certain unlikely coincidence just happening to happen at exactly the right time and place, then it is a pathetic plot that belongs on the dung heap of bad writing.
Yet to you, Obama’s hatred of the USA is sheer coincidence. It has nothing to do w having a foreign father who passionately hated the US, and to whom Obama dedicated his auto-biography. It's also sheer coincidence that Obama is the first POTUS to dedicate such a book to a man who so virulently hated the USA. Being born w divided loyalties has nothing—zero—to do w it, right Tuble?
What's more, you're dead sure the Framers were too stupid to foresee this obvious outcome. It never occurred to them that children w foreign parents (or a foreign parent) and divided loyalties might pose a danger to the Republic. They were just too clueless to draw that most basic and obvious of basic and obvious conclusions.
I asked you for a list of Obama’s actions in office to justify your bizarre belief that half-foreigners are just as loyal to the US as the offspring of citizen parents. Crickets.
You also had nothing to say about Obam’s predictable and entirely understandable perfidy. Since he has divided loyalties, and has made the entirely probable choice of opting for his foreign heritage over his American half, what could be more natural than that he would do what he could to sabotage the USA? He has aggressively alienated our allies, sucked up to our worst enemies, promised to betray us to Russia in his second term, humiliated us again and again on the world stage, crippled us economically, and in general done everything he could to destroy the country he so clearly hates.
Yet in your eyes it's all sheer coincidence. No connection whatsoever to the divided loyalties of Obama’s birth. The ***next*** half-foreign POTUS [i.e.: the one that exists only in your perfervid imagination] will be much better—you've assured us of that.
You're like a racehorse trainer who developes a new training technique. The horse you train via this method comes in dead last in every race. The owner says, ‘Looks like your technique doesn't work.’ You say, ‘It is sheer coincidence the horse is losing. The next one I train will probably win.’
Or you're like a doctor who says to his colleague, ‘I've developed a vaccine. I used standard medical protocol, and I even tested it. It's A-Okay.’
The colleague says, ‘The only patient you tested it on died.’
You say, ‘But the next patient will probably live.’
Obama is living proof of the Framers’ wisdom. That you say otherwise has a limited number of explanations. I'm going for the one that doesn't arise from stupidity. It's the only one that checks all the boxes.
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