Posted on 07/16/2009 8:01:10 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The weirdly persistant belief held by many Americans that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States has been back in the news lately thanks to Major Stefan Cook, the "birther" soldier who was granted has requested conscientious objector status because he refused to fight for a president he believes is illegitimate. There's also a bill gathering some support in the House that would change election law to require candidates to prove their citizenship.
The birther phenomenon is predictable form of paranoia given the president's unusually exotic (for a president, anyway) background. But isn't the larger scandal that the anachronistic natural-born citizenship requirement in Article II of the constitution still even exists?
Let's imagine that Barack Obama had been born in Indonesia or Kenya or anywhere else for that matter, and hadn't become a citizen until moving to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Is there one good reason why that would make him less fit to be president?
Put another way, is there one good reason why foreign-born governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm can't legally run for president but Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin can?
Naturalized citizens like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Madeline Albright have been allowed into the highest positions in the U.S. national security establishment without anyone questioning their loyalty. Why shouldn't voters be allowed to decide whether a foreign-born candidate is American enough to be president?
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.foreignpolicy.com ...
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They are now using the "nut and slut" argument.
For example the author states:
The weirdly persistant belief held by many Americans that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States has been back in the news
Those who are pressing the issue about Obama's natural birth status are "weird". (Substitute "nut" here.)
The birther phenomenon is predictable form of paranoia
Here those who defend the Constitution are not just a little weird. They are paranoid! ("Paranoid" means certifiably mentally ill!)
given the president's unusually exotic (for a president, anyway) background.
And... Here it is! The ubiquitous slander that those who support and defend the Constitution are racists. In the mind of a progressive Marxist that is even **worse** than being a slut.
You are so right! Drip! Drip! Drip! Obama is beginning to crack!
1. It prevents huge monied interests from putting precisely their own person in the most critical position in our government.
2. It prevents those who don't have an natural-born affinity for the "pulse" of the nation from ascending to the highest office in the land.
3. It affirms a need for naturalized citizens to truly raise their children with allegiance to their adopted nation.
4. It removes any resentment toward the U.S. by exactly one generation. By the way, there is every reason to commend any bill that would make proving one's credentials for any federal office with constitutional eligibility requirements.
...and you can’t spell “persistent” correctly.
Obama has already demonstrated that there are any number of other good reasons why he isn't fit to be president.
But for this airheaded one-worlder to ask why a country would want to protect itself from being led by a foreigner who may very well not have the best interests of the USA at heart shows just how bad our education system has become.
In fact, we are now experiencing the horror of having a tyrannical president who does not believe in the US constitution or our economic system and who has shown no respect for American heritage and our way of life. Our government is now led by a man who does not place the interests of America first. A man who is pursuing an intentional agenda to reduce American stature, strength and economic power and milk our wealth and international standing to prop up other tyrants and foreign countries to whom he shows more loyalty, fealty and empathy than he has shown for America.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm can’t legally run for president”
Thank God. California is going bankrupt and Michigan has 15% unemployment rate in addition to the collapse of the auto industry.
Also notice he says legally “run” for president. If you lie and get elected then that’s O.k.
[[ Lest you forget, I don’t believe the Constitution bars the election of anchor babies, so that’s beside the point. The point I was trying to make is that the loyalty tests provided by “majority rule” is much “higher” (in your terminology) than the Constitutional test (aberrations like Obama—whose past the media, Democratic party leadership, etc. didn’t seem interested in uncovering—notwithstanding).
Also, I think it needs be mentioned that we are not a democracy, and the simple majority does not control who is elected president. We’re not very far removed from democracy (there never really was anything such as pure democracy anyway), but there is this thing called the electoral college, which stands in the way of 50.1% of the population deciding.
I’d also like to clarify that the natural born clause was useful in forestalling wealthy European princes from buying elections. Its use beyond that is unclear t6o me. What do we have to fear from your average anchor baby? He may be disloyal or have split alliegances. But so do regular Americans. The human soul is infinitely corruptable. What’s to prevent us from ferreting out flaws in anchor babies the same way you might have exposed Obama’s flaws (assuming, for the purposes of argument, that Obama’s father had gained citizenship and his mother had maintained proper citizenship). Without power behind them, as in the case of my hypothetical princes, I don’t see the danger. ]]
The poster claims to be a 'clever young fellow'.
Orwell got it right.
1984 was 24 years too early.
Exactly. If this generation forgot why we once demanded loyal natural born presidents, they are about to relearn that lesson the hard way.
They can legally run for president. They just can't legally hold the office of president because the Constitution of the United States requires them to be natural born citizens. Try picking up a freaking history book (oh wait you probably went to publik skool) and reading about why the founding fathers knew it was important for the president's allegiance to be to the U.S. and the U.S. ONLY!
I bet this dumba$$ also wonders why women shouldn't have the choice to kill their babies and why gay marriage is an assault on the traditional institution of marriage and why, why, why, why ...
Heck, why don't we just dump the whole dang Constitution? I mean, morals and values and rules should be enforced only if the majority of the public thinks they should be, right? /sarc
I.D.I.O.T.
Out of the non American people the author mentioned, I wouldn't have voted for any of them even if they were born here.
Glad you said that...It was my first reaction too.
“Is there one good reason why that would make him less fit to be president?”
Uh...yes, a very good reason. The founders sought to preclude a President with potentially divided allegiances.
What does it matter? WHAT DOES IT MATTER? It is the Constitution. The legal foundations of this nation! There is provision for changing it, outlined in that very same document. We can’t simply ignore its strictures, its terms.
As of today, 0bama has failed to document his origin. He has failed to demonstrate that he is CONSTITUTIONALLY eligible to hold the office he occupies. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep his past away from public scrutiny, when a simple fee of less than $100 to the State of Hawaii would settle the issue.
IMO, he is not eligible to hold the office. And, we must keep the heat on him. The truth will come out.
It’s time to take back the country.
don’t you think the framers of the Constitution thought all this out already
Someone needs to pick up their copy of the Constitution sometime.
Try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lrf8DbrJH0
Time to add to your list of presidential achievements. It starts kinda slo... but picks up pace. Its got romance, its got drugs, its got hot steamy sex....heck watch it yourself!
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