There’s no ‘birther conspiracy’ other than the obvious conspiracy to cover up a certain birth certificate (and where the blessed event occurred).
There is also a patent conspiracy to prevent judicial review of a certain Occupant’s constitutional qualification for office. This, of course, transcends the question of just finding just one real birth certificate (that is, where’s Daddy’s birth certificate, too?).
Yes, indeed there are birth-related conspiracies. Just not quite the one MSNBC imagines.
Yes Faithhopecharity, you may have recently registered here, and may not have seen the reliable drumming of presumed originalists at FR clouding the first issue, but you are absolutely correct. Being born a British subject, because his father was British, was anathema to our founders and framers - and they said so clearly:
Our first congressional historian, a doctor and prolific author, explained citizenship concisely in his pamphlet form 1789, “A Dissertation On The Manner of Acquiring The Character and Privileges Of A Citizen Of The United States”
None can claim citizenship as a birth-right, but such as have been born since the declaration of independence, for this obvious reason: no man can be born a citizen of a state or government, which did not exist at the time of his birth. 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.”<,/b>
Later, in 1814, Chief Justice John Marshall clarified the common-law (there are intentionally not definitions in the Constitution, as explained by James Madison; definitions depend upon our common language and common-law a the time of the founders), in The Venus, 12 U.S. 253:
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
The common-law definition was turned to positive law, law which has never been modified, interpreting Article II Section1, in Chief Justice Morrison Waite's definition. The common-law definition was used in a dozen cases before Minor v. Happersett, but cited after precedence was established by Chief Justice Waite at least twenty times in supreme court cases after 1875.
Why didn't anyone notice? Because George Soros’ chief information officer (computer IT manger) at Center for American Progress, Carl Malamud, and his good friend, and Center for American Progress fellow Tim Stanley, who founded Justia.com, edited those supreme court files to “munge” the citations to Minor v. Happpersett. These days most people use computers to search for keywords and Justia.com is the largest free and “open” Internet archive of Supreme Court cases. Those exploring free and on line resources would not see the citations to Minor v. Happersett and assume there was not positive law, just twenty or so instances of “dictum” quoting the common law cited by Justice Marshall from Vattel’s Law of Nations (the most cited legal resource in US jurisprudence between 1779 and 1821, and our first law book at our first law school). From Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162:
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.
That will forever be our law. Today there has been political agreement to ignore the Constitution - by both parties. It is no accident that the Republican mainstream has floated candidates for 2016 all of whom are fail Article II Section 1: Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz, and Nikki Haley. (Why is because they were complicit in burying Article II Section 1 in protecting Obama, but that is for another thread) The Democrats tried to amend Article II four times between 2000 and 2007, twice by Conyers, once each by Menendez and Frank. Republicans tried to make Schwarzenegger eligible with an Orin Hatch amendment, and attempts by Rorhabacher and Nickles, none of which amendments to Article II, nor any other, has passed out of congress.
While Limbaugh hit the target with “low-information society”, we can keep trying. When citizens realize how unfamiliar our government has become they will pay more attention to why our framers insisted upon a president, and even included in our naturalization law, sole allegiance to our Nation, and allegiance at birth for anyone wishing to become president.