| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
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You must watch (if you have not already seen it) this classic take-down of the birther nonsense.
I followed this inanity pretty closely when it first started brewing. I even played a fairly sizable role in shooting down some of the allegations that were being trumpeted on anti-Obama sites like No Quarter. Yet even I don't know where and how the "born in Kenya" meme got started. I mean, why on earth would any American woman in the early 1960s travel to Kenya to have her child?
If I were Obama, I would do anything I could to keep this "controversy" going. It makes his opponents look foolish.
Speaking as an Obama opponent (for policy reasons), I must admit that the birthers really, really piss me off -- almost as much as I remain pissed off at the 9/11 CD loonies.
Cannon's law: The public's fervor for any given conspiracy theory is in direct proportion to the stupidity of that theory.
Example: Nobody remembers the mysterious "suicide" of journalist Danny Casolaro, precisely because the circumstances of his death really did look quite suspicious. Perhaps those who spoke of foul play were incorrect; even so, they weren't stupid. Low stupidity factor = low public interest. If someone had said that Danny Casolaro came from the planet Venus, he'd be a household name.
14 comments:
In my opinion natural born citizen means that DAD, (not mom, because we are talking about a concept created over 200 years ago when women didn't even vote or hold office), MUST BE a CITIZEN of the United States.
Barack Obama's dad was not in the country long enough to qualify for citizenship status. Even if a special exemption had been made, dad would have also LOST his own citizenship status via the 1952 immigration act that laid down specific RULES for gaining and RETAINING citizenship status.
Not only did Obama senior VIOLATE the MORALS clause of the 1952 immigration act, he then went BACK TO KENYA and BECAME A POLITICAL OFFICIAL, thereby COMPLETELY DESTROYING his claim to U.S. Citizenship.
A natural born citizen MUST HAVE A DAD WHO IS AT THE VERY LEAST, A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES.
Barack Obama's dad lack of sustained citizenship of the United States means Barack Obama IS NOT a natural born citizen, but a citizen.
Barack Obama may not be a natural born citizen
Ironically, you may be right in saying the crazier citizenship theories obfuscate the more basic ones.
To me, the whole "Kenyan birth" thing just panders to base racism. I'd assume that there's something embarassing about Obama's birth certificate, and that's why it wasn't made public in the campaign. Not anything that negates his citizenship, just something embarassing.
It's just like his early (pre-"Dreams") writings and acedemic records. They're probably not bad, but not worthy of hagiography, either, so they're buried away from public view.
(Personally, I prefer the theory that if Obama was born outside the States, then he was probably born in Vancouver, B.C. - I'm still not convinced that expensive plane flights from Hawaii to the states were easy and advisable trips for newborn babes in 1961. I doubt if a Vancouver birth would threaten Obama's citizenship status, but it would probably provide the old Clinton Mina Airport drug deal crowd with a new job opportunity.)
It was their fondness for stupid conspiracy theories about Obama that turned me off to PUMA.
PUMA, like any other movement, isn't a monolithic group, Perry. Not all are "Birthers"
I've always believed that the BC was a smoke screen issue to blunt any news about Obama's involvement in the Chicago Pay to Play scandal.
Perry, I agree with what you say when it comes to certain sites, that I no longer visit for similar reasons. But there are excellent PUMA sites -- the Confluence and Alegre's Corner come to mind -- that have explicitly stated they have no truck with "birthers" or other conspiracy crackpots.
In my opinion natural born citizen means that DAD, (not mom, because we are talking about a concept created over 200 years ago when women didn't even vote or hold office), MUST BE a CITIZEN of the United States.
Well, you know what they say about opinions. Your opinion means zilch.
Allesandro:
If there have been substantial changes in citizenship law and precedents, the law in effect at that time must be granted authority. (We are in no way bound by 'original law' as extant in colonial times, IF the law has been changed in the meantime. We no longer count African Americans as 3/5 a person for the purposes of the census, for example.)
However, I think that it has been true for a long while that ANYBODY born within the United States is automatically a citizen of the US, regardless of the nationality of either parent. (Or so I've always been taught, plus it is the plain language of the 14th amendment.)
Now, if admittedly being born here, and becoming thereby a citizen, doesn't mean you are a 'natural born' citizen, I don't know what the concept means.
Although, since as Dickens' Mr. Bumble says, 'the law is a ass,' many things are possible in the realm of the law, including things that violate naive common sense.
But I'll associate myself with the analysis of smrstrauss in the link you provide, which I find persuasive. In particular, since Obama's father's nationality has been well known for his entire candidacy for president, the notion that EVERYBODY missed some clear and clean point of law that definitively bars his taking the office is ludicrous. Even granting SOME color of law to this unusual and narrowly held position on the law, it must clearly be a fringe argument that most have never even heard of.
XI
My only concern with his birth certificate is that it likely shows that some part of the "Legend that is Obama" is not true. I think the detail is likely to be small, such as his parents were not married. This has nothing to do with his actions and does not disqualify him. It does however prove him a liar.
Am I worried that this is the only way to catch him in his lies? Hell no!
emjaybee
I wonder if his birth certificate might have a "race" problem on it.
No-one remembers the sudden death (in his 40s) of British Foreign Office minister Derek Fatchett either (he of the warm links with radical Muslims). Nor the weird 'illness' of Alex Allan, chair of Britain's topmost intelligence committee, the JIC. (That's the one that has the head of the CIA London Station attend its weekly meetings). Not to mention the death of George Smith(also in his 40s), who accused the gay lover of the heir to the throne of raping him, but died before he could give evidence at the Diana inquest. Sure, loony opponents are just the kind of opponents those who run Obama prefer...
So lets be clear then. If Osama Bin Laden snuck into the United States, impregnated a woman, and then left, that offspring would be considered a natural born citizen?
I am not saying Barack obama's father is evil in the way we recognize Osama Bin Laden to be, I am just trying to show there is a REASON why the father's role, including their own political agenda, matters.
Name a president whose father was not a U.S. Citizen.
For those who don't want to go with the original intention of our founding fathers in regards to natural born citizen relating to the mother only, The Immigration act of 1952 was specifically designed to deal with the new waves of legal immigrants coming into the United States. That puts us within 10 years of Barack Obama's birth.
Close enough?
If Osama Bin Laden snuck into the United States, impregnated a woman, and then left, that offspring would be considered a natural born citizen?
In a word: Yes.
Clark, who took over for Garfield after he was assassinated, was an Irish citizen who later became a U.S. citizen.
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