I received this e-mail from Dave, and I respond.
Dave writes:
>"You do realize that McCain was born in Panama and was not elligible to become President until Obama and Clinton co-sponsored legislation to close the loophole that stated that the President of the United States MUST BE BORN IN THE UNITED STATES. A military base in Panama is not technically the United States, but Obama was gracious enough to sponsor legislation to give McCain relief from that very real issue. On McCain's side of the fence, we have people deliberately manufacturing falsehoods to discredit Obama. It is obvious who occupies the high ground in this. One of many examples."
I respond:
>The constitution says that you have to be a natural born citizen to be president. I am not an attorney and have no opinion. Please be aware, however, that no law can modify the constitutional requirement, hence your claim that Mr. Obama sponsored regulation modifying the constitutional requirement is inaccurate. This question cannot be answered or modified by Congress unless there is an amendment to the Constitution. It must be answered by the Supreme Court.
I am not excactly on "McCain's side of the fence". There is currently a case brought by Democrats questioning McCain's eligibility to be president, which is fine. The definition of "natural born citizen" is open to debate, but I have read two articles that argue it is a matter of allegiance, not place of birth, based on how the phrase "natural born citizen" was defined in 1790 law and also phraseology of the XIVth amendment in 1869. I do not think that Obama should not be eligible to run. I simply ask that he come clean and make documents public that allegedly have been forged and publicly put on his website. He should authorize the state of Hawaii to make the birth certificate available to all to clear up the matter. The Board of Elections ought to monitor candidates' identity by requiring not only birth certificates but also finger printing of all candidates. McCain and Obama shoul d be treated just like all other candidates. In an age of identity theft, allowing candidates to run without collecting ID information is irresponsible.
Mr. Obama would be occupying the high ground if he made his birth certificate available to the public. If so, this issue would be done. Of course, there is still the matter of his repeated lying in his book, his manipulative behavior toward Alice Palmer, his lying about his religion, the association with radical hate mongers like Jeremiah Wright and kookie radicals like Bill Ayers.
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7 comments:
Notice how "Dave" accepts as fact ridiculously bad information. Children born to US citizens abroad are and always have been regarded as natural born citizens. Does Dave think these many thousands of individuals had to become naturalized? Is he unaware how many children have been born over the decades to US soldiers abroad?
In addition, if there WERE a problem with status as a "natural born citizen", legislation could not have changed this. A constitutional provision cannot be overridden by legislation.
Finally, there was no such legislation "sponsored" by Obama. Here is a link to a post at democratic underground claiming to list "37 bills sponsored by BHO in only 2 years" (all the bills cited are either inconsequential or ones in which BHO had only a very peripheral role.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3132998
So it seems there are no facts in Dave's post at all, just hot air. Kind of like his candidate.
Dave, please provide a certificate of live birth. McCain did. Why has your candidate set forth a forged document as his BC?
Michael said...
Notice how "Dave" accepts as fact ridiculously bad information.
Children born to US citizens abroad are and always have been regarded as natural born citizens.
Yes, they are citizens in some cases but not natural born citizens unless special rulings are made with respect to allegiance. Normally a natural born citizen must be born in a state.
Ray--Not so, as per the article I cite in the blog. Common law at the time the Constitution was written had long held that children in the service of the Crown overseas were citizens, to include diplomats and the like.
Mitchell Langbert said...
Ray--Not so, as per the article I cite in the blog. Common law at the time the Constitution was written had long held that children in the service of the Crown overseas were citizens, to include diplomats and the like.
I can't see any disagreement here. I was saying that that only some children who are born overseas were citizens, but not necessarily regarded as natural born citizens. Some couldn't be unless the allegiance of the parents was examined.
There's a different set of rights for the children of U.S. male citizens and female citizens whose children were born outside the U.S. and then there's the issue of the residency of the mother on U.S. soil, which varied for different eras.
What we need is a table that shows who is generally eligible as a citizen or a natural born citizen - depending on a set of circumstances including things like mothers' ages and residency plus one or both parents' occupations.
It looks like the Constitution needs to be amended to remove the term "natural born" and replace it with a term that is factual but with an equivalent meaning.
Strictly speaking the term should be removed so that ALL citizens at birth have the same right to stand for the Presidency (or the Vice Presidency) as "natural born citizens". If that is not done, then all citizens are NOT equal.
Moot point. Dave was "almost" correct, a resolution was passed in the Senate. It was supported by BO. It was only to reiterate the fact that indeed, because McCain was born to an "embassador" of the U.S. He did in fact fall under the terms of Aticle II's "Natural Born" status. Unfortunately, Dave, your statement does not fall under the measure of "horseshoes and hand grenades"...."CLOSE" does NOT count! :-)
Mairi
Ray is making some good points. I don't know if a constitutional amendment would be necessary, probably a Supreme Court ruling would do the trick. As well, there is no agency currently responsible for overseeing identification issues. The Court might need to rule on this if the regulatory agencies and the state boards of election insist on not checking. I suspect the reason that none check is that the politicians like to avoid scrutiny. I would not at all be surprsed if among all the state legislatures and Congress there is one or two people faking their identity. Politicians often exhibit the traits of sociopaths, as Ray points out. If so, does it make sense to expand government and put ever more power into the hands of political sociopaths?
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