Posted on 07/21/2009 6:32:52 PM PDT by pissant
The increasingly popular term for them is "Birthers" -- the indignant, frantic, seething fringe Republicans who are persuaded that there is strong doubt about where President Barack Obama was born and, therefore, strong doubt about the legitimacy of his presidency.
(snip)
Even assuming Obama was born in Kenya despite the considerable evidence that he was born in Hawaii, that five-year provision in the law was intended, pretty clearly, to prevent a person from claiming U.S. citizenship when he was born in another country to parents who were long-time residents of that country, simply on the grounds that one of his parents was still, technically a U.S. citizen.
Say "Jim" is born in the U.S., lives here until he's 11, moves with his parents to Germany, comes of age there, marries a German woman and, when he's 25, has a child. As a matter of national policy and common sense, we don't want Jim's child to be able to claim automatic U.S. citizenship -- he is born in Germany to long-time residents of Germany. Declaring him a U.S. citizen is fundamentally absurd.
The thinking behind the law seems to be that if Jim spent at least five of his 10 years after age 14 in the U.S. before moving to Germany, he has been sufficiently "Americanized" that his children shall be considered U.S. citizens.
It's fairly clear to me and, should push come to shove, will be fairly clear to the courts and to Congress, that the law was not intended to be a "gotcha!" moment used to deny citizenship to the children of life-long U.S. citizens in their late teens who happen to be out of the country when they give birth.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.chicagotribune.com ...
We, the People, are "here" because we haven't done our job of sending honest people into office. We are here due to our own negligence in understanding the Constitution and how best to protect it. Counting on others to represent our views while not holding them to task when they don't must end. The first three words of the Constitution are "We the people". We are in charge. It's time we start acting on that premise rather than acting like slaves to whatever the state deems so.
Bambi is starting to think
Papa was a rolling stone.....
where ever he laid his hat was his home
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