I read about this in the WSJ today:
I want to be able to link back from time to time, so here it is.
Update pdf from whitehouse
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf (I uploaded from whitehouse.gov)
It won’t be settled until independent document examiners vouch for it. No guesses on how or when that will happen. This is just electrons in the void.
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Kim– Could you elaborate? Are you saying you suspect a hard copy doesn’t exist? I’m sure a hard-copy exists. I’m sure some people will be allowed to see and handle the hard-copy.
If this doesn’t put it to bed, I really don’t know what birthers want.
AND … as Howard Kurtz pointed out on “Reliable Sources,” there are the contemporaneous birth announcements in the local papers.
I’d imagine most of the birthers want Obama not to be president.
I’m kinda sad that he finally released the long-form version; listening to various loony conspiracy theories was amusing.
Zeke–
I’m 99 and 44/100% sure of that.
I’m not disappointed he released the long-form version. I suspect we are going to read more weird conspiracy theories. I can even predict one.
It seems there is a hard copy, lucia, from which this image was purportedly made. That ‘original long form certificate’ has now been placed in a special vault so that only one person can access it.
Logic demands independent evaluation from document experts. Anything less is not going to settle any controversies.
By the way, I believe Obama was born in Hawaii. I also think he’s used an Indonesian passport in the past.
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For me, the interesting question is why Obama spent millions to prevent (ended up delaying) the long form release, which contributed to a military officer going to jail, but when we finally see it there is nothing there on it that would convince any given sane person from wanting to go through so much effort to prevent its release.
There is one possible sane explanation for a Presidential candidate to go through all this effort, use it as a politcal weapon against their opponent. That is what I believe.
There would never have been a birther movement (those crazies that look for conspiracy everywhere) if Obama had released this during the campaign.
btw Clinton team is the one that initially raised the issue.
This issue speaks to allegiance, an issue over which the electorate has final say. Aren’t you glad they do?
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The evidence was always overwhelming that Pres. Obama was born where and when he said he was born. (E.g. #1, there’s no credible alternative. Barack Sr. spending nonexistent money on an arduous 100-hour journey to Kenya so that Stanley Ann could meet his Kenyan wife and disapproving father?! E.g. #2, a bunch of people in Hawaii willing to engage in a major conspiracy to falsify documents, without obvious benefit to themselves?) So the publication of this “long form” birth certificate adds nothing of note to the facts of the matter, from my point of view.
What is interesting is —
* Birthers won’t be satisfied with this document or any other one, for the reasons already given.
* The Obama campaign and White House could have released this form at any time since 2007, putting the matter to rest (for most of us). Why didn’t they?
Maybe because it all seems so silly, from their perspective.
Maybe because it gives them an opportunity to paint their opponents to the right as excitable conspiracy theorists.
Maybe because this sets a precedent, and there are other parts of Pres. Obama’s record that are surprisingly vague, for a major candidate and sitting President. E.g. his course work at Occidental College, the circumstances of his transfer to Columbia University, his courses there, his extra-curricular activities and friends at both places.
Twists and turns… reminds me of the way people behave on another subject that Lucia sometimes blogs about…
Kim
Now I know where you are coming from. I do predict that some people will demand independent evaluation. I too think Obama was born in Hawaii. The alternative theories don’t made sense. The arguments casting doubt on his birth in Hawaii are generally advanced by “rhetorical question”. I can nearly always think of numerous possible plausible answers to the rhetorical questions that are consistent with Obama being born in Hawaii.
I suspect the key is going to be in the adoption by his step-father. There is childhood allegiance to Indonesia. There is possible use of an Indonesian passport as an adult. Some people think he was a foreign student at Occidental.
Both the original ‘Fight the Smears’ COLB and this one support the Ayers narrative, which is flawed because it is partly fantasy.
It really gets down to allegiance, and we, the voters, get to decide about that. Aren’t you glad?
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“For me, the interesting question is why Obama spent millions to prevent (ended up delaying) the long form release”
Well, he didn’t spend millions. That particular bit of misinformation came from the fact that the Obama campaign’s legal bills after the election were $2 million. Since the same law firm wrote a letter addressing the birther complaint, suddenly some argued that all of that money was used to hide the birth certificate when it was actually used in the normal wind-down of a mufti-million dollar campaign.
The ultimate irony, of course, is that the original birth certificate he released is the only one that would be accepted in a court of law.
Zeke:
Obama gave his reasons yesterday. If you read through the lines what he said was “yes listening to loonies is entertaining, but we have important matters to address, and this is detracting from that.”
This birther meme is arguable as dumb as the “Y2K Bush government planned it” conspiracy (actually it’s not quite as dumb. Having nearly the entire US government in on a conspiracy is definitely more loony than faking Obama’s birth in Hawaii, via things like you know what would have to be a fake birth announcement in the local newspaper.
(I propose a time machine devised by the Dark Lord Obama as an explanation of how a fake birth announcement appeared in the local paper at that time.)
Keep going, kim. I want to know more about Obama being a bad foreign student from a madrassa in Indonesia.
Jon,
I’d exercise caution before echoing Trump’s claims; he has had (shall we say) a rather tortured relationship with the truth in the past: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-claims-obama-has-spent-2-million-lega/
Also, are we really arguing about this here? The birther nonsense is about on par with the folks who thing 9/11 was a conspiracy or the moon landing was staged.
Boris:
Can you substantiate this? I’ve never heard that claim before.
Zeke:
It’s kind of interesting to me, and revealing, to see who buys this (there are a few 9/11 truthers hanging around too, as well as at least one “young earther”. That’s the grandest conspiracy of them all—the Earth was just made to look old via millions of piece of phony evidence planted by, I guess, God).
Pitiful, boris. Have you seen his Occidental records?
Zeke, it’s about allegiance, not place of birth.
=======================
“Can you substantiate this? I’ve never heard that claim before.”
I think that came from Anderson Cooper’s investigation. Hawaii apparently no longer certifies the long form.
Also, Boris, it is clear that Obama has made a great effort to prevent release of this birth certificate, and for what? Furthermore, there is a lot more than place of birth at question about his origins.
Carrick, the COLB released over two years ago is legal in court, but not the only document that could be legal. Boris is just wrong. He’s also badly informed about the whole controversy. I’m not surprised, it’s not really been elucidated in mainstream media. But we’re getting there.
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JonP
Evidence’?
Evidence? (And even if you have it– what’s your point. It’s still nuts.)
I do suspect the birther movement would not have had legs if Obama had released his birth certificate. But my reaction to that is: The birthers are still nutso. The evidence that exists is all consistent with Obama being born in Hawaii. There is actually quite a bit of it including a contemporaneous birth announcements in newspapers. Even if *somehow* mother, grandparents and father all colluded to create the false impression Barack was born in the Hawaii way back in 1961, it’s impossible for me to believe the illusion would hold up under the intense scrutiny of a presidential candidacy.
As an American who was born to American parents outside the US I know how difficult it would be to grow up and have no one ever spill the beans about where I was born. I’ve got uncles, aunts etc. My parents had neighbors who remember them. (My two sisters god parents are in Gautemala and El Salvador respectively). Her friend Chema drove her to the hospital in El Salvador when my younger sister was born. Do you think none of these people would spill the beans if there was a presidential election? Do you think if my parents had wanted to create a false record of birth in the US, that they could prevent the El Salvadorans from registering my birth? I sure don’t.
I’m pretty confident that if Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, there would be lots of evidence in that country. To my knowledge no one has found anything.
No I haven’t seen his Occidental records. Why would I care? Is Obama supposed to be dumb? Seems his magna cum laude graduation from Harvard law would disprove that rumor. Unless you are saying that degree is fake. Good luck down that road.
Kim,
Some of us have an allegiance to objective reality 😛
“Also, Boris, it is clear that Obama has made a great effort to prevent release of this birth certificate, and for what?”
AMAC hit the nail on the head. It makes the hard right look really, really, really, really dumb and petty and slightly racist.
Boris/Kim,
The certificate of live birth superseded the long form (which is not issued anymore), and if you needed to prove your birth in the U.S. (say, to be eligible as president) the certificate of live birth would be the correct legal document to use. That said, its likely that the long form birth certificate is also valid legal documentation, just not the more commonly used one.
Zeke,
I do not recall “echoing” Trump’s claims.
I never doubted Obama being born in Hawaii, ever since the Clinton Team raised the issue. And, I thought I made it clear that “birthers” were the loonies always looking for a conspiracy.
We can argue over where the money to the law firm was actually spent, but neither one of us will have hard evidence, the point being a lot of effort was put in to not release it and when it finally is released it has to be to you, me, and everyone here a perfect “wtf” moment.
Well, Zeke, wouldn’t you like a little more ‘objective reality’ about Obama than his carefully constructed biography? There are great gaps in that construct, through which a lot of ‘objective reality’ can be driven. No curiosity? Oh, well, nobody’s perfect.
Boris, playing this sort of game with the American people may be fun for Obama, but it is Un-American.
Now, let’s define that last word. Heh, the electorate gets to do that.
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Lucia,
Wait, wait… Does this mean I have to drop my “draft Lucia for President” plans? 😉
Boris, I make nothing of his grades. The American people have vast experience of people who’ve made more of themselves than their grades in school would have suggested.
It is the absence of evidence for much of his past that is suspicious. Let’s see it. The American people can be fair about it.
The problem is that the image that’s been created of his past is too much fantasy. How much is fantasy is left to the imagination, and he’s played this dangerous game with the public for too long.
He can only escape questions by complete revelation and discussion of all of his relevant past historical documents. Heh, that ain’t gonna happen, so the questions will persist, and impact him in a year and a half.
He’s really got a political dilemma, brought on by the inauthenticity that sticks out of him, like spines on the fretful porpentine.
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How exactly has Obama played a game and how is it un-American of him?
The birthers did their thing all by themselves. Are they also un-American? If they hadn’t wanted to look like a bunch of loonies they shouldn’t have acted like loonies.
Boris #74880,
I suspect that you will find a majority of people holding rather extreme political views of any type are really dumb…. or perhaps delusional.
I agree with kim. None of this really matters at this point and doesn’t prove anything either way.
Fake ID cards, counterfeit currency, forged documents, stolen identities… these are all realities. And the technology to produce these things is better than it ever was.
Just sayin’
Andrew
I’m disappointed. I thought this certificate was much cooler!
Re: toto (Apr 28 09:49),
… But was that typewriter font in use in Kenya, back in 1961? 😉
Kim
“Some people think he was a foreign student at Occidental. ”
So? He was born in the US. That means he was an American at birth. He has remained an American. What some people doesn’t change that.
Mark, I’m a little surprised you don’t get it. Obama could have done years ago what he did yesterday, but didn’t, and he’s resisted every attempt to get him to do so, until a carnival barker got under his skin.
Now, there’s the game. It’s not baseball, so it’s Un-American. It ain’t apple pie and motherhood either.
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Kim
That Boris might be badly informed on the birther controversy would, in my opinion, speak well of Boris. There has never been a scrap of evidence Obama was not born in Hawaii and plenty of evidence indicating he was born in Hawaii. Until there is at least a scrap of evidence suggesting he was born elsewhere, avidly following the story is mostly a waste of time.
Mind you: I watch Dancing with the Stars, which is also a waste of time. But I don’t criticize people for not watching it.
lucia, I grant he was probably born in America. But he’s probably also been Indonesian and has lied about it. What some people say doesn’t change that.
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Also, the “nefarious things in Obama’s past” meme seems to be mostly specious. Asking for him for “complete revelation and discussion of all of his relevant past historical documents” is rather meaningless; what specific things are you looking for?
lucia, you and so many others get hung up about the place of birth. That’s not the question.
By ‘whole controversy’ I mean all of the doubt about his origins and allegiance.
Arguing with you about meanings is not productive. My Daddy told me that all argument is a matter of definition, and we can’t seem to sustain agreement on definition of very much.
Sincerely, A Luke-warming Cooler.
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Kim I know he could have done it years ago. I still don’t see what is un-American about his behaviour. Perhaps you could be more specific.
Was it being a politician and obfuscating? Nope, that has a grand tradition in American politics (as in all other countries).
Is it allowing people to make fools of themselves? I wouldn’t say that’s un-American either. Comedians do it all the time.
What then is it?
Zeke, there are questions about his time at Occidental, and at Columbia. There are questions about his admission to Harvard Law School, about his being chosen for the Law Review. Now I’ve already told Boris that these things mean little to me. What means a lot to me is that they are completely unavailable for review.
I don’t really expect you to get it. Too much confirmation bias. Hey, I got it, too.
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Zeke, there are questions about his time at Occidental, and at Columbia. There are questions about his admission to Harvard Law School, about his being chosen for the Law Review. Now I’ve already told Boris that these things mean little to me. What means a lot to me is that they are completely unavailable for review.
I don’t really expect you to get it. Too much confirmation bias. Hey, I got it, too.
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SteveF–
I’m not absolutely sure. Growing up, my father during a conversation about girls can do anything that boys can, my dad– who can be mischievous– said,
“Well! (pause). Is that true? (pause.) Well! (pause). Of the four of you, only Peter can run for president.”
We all howled, and then he explained that you had to be born in the US. Mary Beth, Patricia and I were born in Guatemala, El Salvador and El Salvador respectively. Peter was born in Bufallo, NY.
But I said something about this at the Volokh conspiracy and one of the other commenters told me I was mistaken. That being born to American parents overseas is sufficient to be “natural born”. Having read a little more, I think the correct answer is, “No one really knows for sure“. If my parents had been in another country serving the US (i.e. military, diplomatic corp), I could serve as president. But my impression is that it’s not entirely clear whether I could be president. It’s not something I’ve ever looked into. We’d need a legal eagle to look into this further and then we’d know more.
The birthers really need to get some perspective. I don’t like Obama for many reasons, but this is ridiculous. As much as I liked Bush’s decisiveness (especially in contrast to the President of the day) the level of argument on part of the Birthers is making trying Bush for War Crimes sound bloody reasonable in comparison.
Hopefully this blows over and blows Trump out of contention for the Republican nomination in the longer run. There’s already gross incompetence in the White House, a Trump nom has the potential to make Obama seem the lesser of two evils.
Most jobs-minded Canadians recognize the value of our trade relationship to the benefit of both of our economies and Obama routinely reflects an incoherence on this. Canada is the USA’s largest supplier of foreign oil – something that Dems have been talking out of both sides of their mouths about.
Depending on our own federal election outcome on May 2 and who forms the next government here in Canada, there’s a good chance that America will see its potential stake in Canadian oil divided out with China if ‘The Donald’ were to win the Rep nomination.
This is Canada’s ultimate hedge against the sort of foolishness being discussed by the Democrats so often about ‘dirty’ Canadian oil. If you guys (through your leadership) think we’re ‘dirtier’ than your other sources of crude with their human rights records (the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela), we would be remiss to place too many eggs in the basket that is the American marketplace.
It’s sure looking like the USA is headed for an election in 2012 where the President will be decided by who lost, not who won. So far, Obama has been bottom-dealing himself a losing hand. Meeting whacky (Obama) with whackier (Trump) plays to Obama’s advantage.
Mark @ 10:05 AM
Thanks, that is a lucid and fair question. I’ll refer you to the American people for ultimate decision on the question. Obama is not acting as if his allegiance is to these United States. I believe he’s constitutionally unable to act thusly, and his past can inform such speculation. Let’s see it, not a fantasy novel from a sophist.
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kim (Comment #74894),
I sure would like to see some solid evidence of that… otherwise there is zero credibility to this claim. But in any case, he was a minor who was adopted by an Indonesian. Even if his stepfather wanted to officially register him as “Indonesian”, it is not like he (as a little kid) would have had any say in it. When he moved back to live with his maternal grandparents, do you think the Immigration officials considered him to be something other than an American? Surely there would be evidence if that were the case. Come on, this is all way beyond beyond.
Kim
Huh? In what sense do you think he’s “been Indonesian”?
For me the thing that this demonstrates most clearly is a worrying capacity for poor judgement. Like accepting the nobel prize and the dilly-dallying over Gadaffi. Delaying was silly. The time frame just looks odd for one thing, and he allowed things to spiral out of control a bit too much which, as AMAC says, has opened him to other forms of scrutiny.
You would think, given how awful conservatives say Obama has been as president, that they would want to focus on his record. Talking about Obama’s college transcripts or his “allegiance” is a completely losing strategy.
I experimented with Indonesianism in college. Everybody did back then. It doesn’t mean anything now.
This was played by Obama like a fine musical instrument.
The issues of documents would have been better spent forcing the release of his transcripts and papers on a timely basis from law school and Columbia, but would likely not have been significant either, but at least more interesting.
I always thought he was born in the US, but like lucia, have wondered why this was played the way it was.
Now it is clear: Obama is hoping to smear any criticism of him or his policies with the birther brush.
kim,
If “not acting as if his allegiance is to these United States” means “not implementing policies that conform to my ideological views”. As a U.S. citizen, I’m not too unhappy with the Obama presidency to date.
.
Regardless, the votes of the American people during the 2012 election will determine our next President, just like they determined our last. At this point I’d give Obama pretty good odds, though mostly because the Republican presidential roster seems rather thin at the moment.
Boris,
“Talking about Obama’s … “allegiance†is a completely losing strategy.”
I think you’re wrong. Not because I think he has no allegiance to the US but because it’s a good political step for his opponents to make. It’s vague and wooly and virtually impossible to prove outside of direct evidence of treason, but it resonates and is somewhat threatening.
CC @ 10:09
There is speculation that Obama has done this in response to polling which shows an enlarging percentage of the US population doubting his origins, rather than a response to the carnival barker, Trump.
The very term ‘birther’ is a misdirection, invented in order to draw an analogy with ‘truther’. As I’ve tried to explain, it isn’t about his birthplace, but about his bona fides.
His little tantrum yesterday demonstrates that he can’t really show them. I think it’s because he isn’t bona fidel.
====================
Cannuck–
I don’t think there was a snowballs chance in hell that Trump was going to be president. None. I don’t think he would have even survived the Iowa strawpoll. I think he’s one of those people who gets publicity for his other ventures by hinting around that he’s running. These sorts of people often show up early in the election cycle.
Trump had enough celebrity on his own and pandered to a subgroup, so he got coverage. As political strategy, I think Obama should have permitted Trump to create infighting among repubiclans, and suck the wind out of more rational republican’s ability to get coverage when they start hinting. So, in that sense, Obama should have continued to not show the birth certificate.
But then… I’m not a real political strategist.
kim,
As Dr. Jones said to Indy, “Let it go.”
hunter
I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t ‘wonder’ about anything Obama did. I do wonder about what the heck is going on in the mind of someone who honestly thinks there is any reason to believe Obama was not born in the US.
Lucia,
.
Well, you may not know for sure, but I think once the Birthers found out about your religious preferences, I’m pretty sure they would know you can’t run for president. OTOH, if you started attending church regularly and began talking like an idiot (like say, Sarah P), I think the Birthers would be willing to overlook the El Salvador thing. They really are wackos.
Well, lucia, he was adopted by an Indonesian, and lived there for awhile. That he did so as a child means very little, but I believe, on very little evidence, that he’s used an Indonesian passport.
Basically, my contention is that he’s lied about some of his past. Why is so little documentation available? My suspicions are not irrational, and are shared by a lot of people.
Yes, Zeke, the electorate will decide, and for that I am thankful.
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SteveF,
lucia could still be President. You just have to be a “natural born citizen” which includes all of the following:
Anyone born inside the United States *
Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person’s status as a citizen of the tribe
Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
Re: lucia (Apr 28 10:09),
> That being born to American parents overseas is sufficient to be “natural bornâ€. Having read a little more, I think the correct answer is, “No one really knows for sure“. If my parents had been in another country serving the US (i.e. military, diplomatic corp), I could serve as president. But my impression is that it’s not entirely clear whether I could be president.
I think that Sen. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, and some of these issues swirled early in his candidacy. IIRC, the view was that being born on foreign soil as the child of two US citizen parents qualified one as “natural born.” But maybe his dad being on active duty mattered?
Hunter, what should I let go? I’ve already let go the place of birth and have a long time ago. It’s the lucias and others who still want to hang the term ‘birther’ on those having doubts about Obama’s bona fides, the skeptics, so to speak.
SteveF, you should stick to science. You can find fewer idiotic things that Palin said that I can find contradictory things that Obama has said.
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Lose talk of ‘natural born’ is out of place here. Y’all do know that it has a specific meaning known to the Founders not synonymous with ‘native born’, right? Further, dy’all know that the meaning has not yet been satisfactorily adjudicated?
There is a coming national conversation about citizenship and allegiance. It is a very fertile field for demagoguery, and we’ll get a bumper crop of that.
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I guess what I find interesting in these conspiracy/lunacy issues is that partisan politics always looks at the other side as having a monopoly on these silly theories. We have the 911 conspiracies and the President Kennedy assassination conspiracies to go along with the Obama’s birth place nuttiness. I have heard some otherwise apparently intelligent people swayed by Oliver Stone’s nonsense on Kennedy’s assassination and have seen Kennedy conspiracy theories taken seriously in the MSM. It is kind of like in the climate debates where some partisans are forever pointing to the silliness of some on the other side and sometimes using it as evidence against more thoughtful arguments from the other side.
I’ve never really given a fig for the birther question, one way or the other. But I don’t think Obama wins any character points for his handling of it.
I’m not sure that he comes off looking less silly than the conspiracy nuts, now that he has released the birth certificate. I think there are quite a few people (like me) going “why couldn’t you do that before, and spare me having to hear about this lunacy?” Maybe he likes the attention, or was using it as a distraction.
I’d much rather chat about climate conspiracies. 🙂 The fact that the birther issue has invaded lucia’s blog kind of annoys me, and I blame Obama for that more than the birthers.
There will always be crazies out there, but he didn’t have to egg them on.
If I were American I’d be deeply embarrassed about this. How childish can politics get? USA is supposed to be a developed country full of well educated people. This is real banana republic stuff. On BBC radio this morning, the story was reported the only way that it could be: as satire. Your nation is becoming a laughing stock, although it’s denial of the impact of fossil fuel use on climate and it’s profligate use of energy is anything but a laughing matter, of course!
Amac
I don’t know for sure if it matters or it doesn’t. I haven’t looked into it a lot, but some things I read suggest that the active duty issue may matter. Or at least, that cases where parents were serving the US have been discussed and the answer is known. Otherwise… I’m not sure. Maybe a blog visitor will turn out to know for sure and be able to point to the court rulings, law etc. I don’t happen to know.
McCain could be president. Me? I’m not sure.
Nigel, get your BBC to look into the Globe, International business. I’ll try not to snicker.
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Just to stir the pot, here’s a link to Steve Sailer’s long essay What’s Obama Hiding? (written a day before yesterday’s release of the birth certificate). Lots of informed and reasonable speculation on the subject is on offer. As a bonus, Sailer’s name is worse than Voldemort’s in polite p.c. company, so fainting or hissing spells are possible.
The essay starts,
(Spoiler alert) – Sailer concludes with
Zeke,
I agree with that evaluation, even though I don’t think Mr. Obama has been a very good president… too much time and political capital spent on his health care program… and too much an ideologue for my taste, which shows in several really bad appointments, like at EPA.
.
IMO, the lack attractive Republican alternatives is symptomatic of the yawning political gap between left and right, which I find larger today than any time during my adult life. The extremes of both parties, but especially on the right, dictate via primaries that nobody interested in practical solutions to problems and political compromise can become the candidate…. for President or even local School board member. Reasonable centrists seem nowhere welcomed in the main parties, and so can’t be elected. All very troubling.
Yeah Nigel we have been hearing how stupid, ignorant and “uncivilized” we are since the mid-1700s. Whatever.
Kim–
“Birther” is the term for people who doubt Obama’s place of birth. I don’t even know what doubting his “bone fides” means. I disagree with many of Obama’s political positions.
I lived in El Salvador as a child. I got called “gringa”.
Uhmm… If you read the discussion of whether I can run for president, you will see that the answer is “yes” we know that the answer is not ‘satisfactorily’ adjudicated. That is I fall in the class of people where there could be a question. But Obama, born to an American mother in the US? He’s a natural born US citizen. It’s not even a close call.
See 14th amendement:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Obama was born in the US, subject to it’s jurisdiction at the time of birth, and so was a US citizen at birth. He is a natural born US citizen. The alternative is someone could be naturalized. The open possibly not fully adjudicated question is about me: I was not born in the US. I was not subject to the jurisdiction thereof (I don’t think.) I was also not naturalized. Am I natural born? I don’t know.
Here’s what may be a helpful analogy. The extreme skeptics who doubt the radiative effect of CO2 are perhaps properly termed ‘deniers’, though the mass of skeptics only think the atmospheric effect has been exaggerated and it not true. The extreme doubters of Obama’s story may properly be termed ‘birther’, but the mass of skeptics only think his story has been exaggerated and is not true.
There are flaws in the analogy, but it is meant to show how idiotic both ‘denier’ and ‘birther’ are when applied uncritically and broadside.
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I enjoy the technical discussion in this Blog. Please leave this sort of stuff alone. It invites partisanship and degrades the quality of the discussion.
lucia, if Obama was born in the United States, he is native born. By the meaning of the Founders, the fact that he had a father who was a British subject means he is not ‘natural born’. There is a distinction in meaning between ‘native born’ and ‘natural born’, not adjudicated by Wong Kim Ark.
lucia, this is a very common misconception and you accrue know shame by not knowing it. The mass of the American people don’t know it either, which is why I’m not depending upon this legal hair-splitting to swing an election. The bona fides bit will do that just fine.
That said, I’m not expert at the law. Nor am I expert at anything. Well, nothing you know anything about.
================
Kim,
A ringing endorsement of Ms. Palin if I ever heard one.
.
I have lots of issues with Mr. Obama’s policy choices; I did not vote for him, and I won’t next time either, unless the alternative is someone like Mr. Trump. I have issues with Ms. Palin because she seems just plain dumb… pleasant enough, like Bush the younger, but like him, not up to the job. I’m not sure why you think working in science disqualifies me from evaluating political leaders.
Bill,
Then don’t read it, really rather simple.
Heh, Steve, it’s just that you are more ‘acute’ in science than in evaluating political leaders.
Neither Bush nor Palin are dumb. You are dumb to accept this mainstream media presentation of them as such.
=================
Kim–
First I’m unconvinced by your notions of what the “founders” thought. But even if I were convinced:
1) The US constitution trumps British common law.
2) The US constitution in its totally completely unamended form included a provision for amendment. This was included by the “founders”, and reflects their notion that future generation have the right to modify the constitution in ways that the “founders” might neither anticipate or even agree with.
3) The 14th amendment was not crafted by “the founders” and by virtue of that Amendment, Obama is a natural born citizen as were all the previously enslaved individuals.
I have no idea how you think the case of Wong King Ark supports your view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark
Also, Steve, I’m pretty sure that history is going to show Dubya as better ‘up to the job’ than either his predecessor or his successor. We’ll have to wait awhile for the judgement, though.
===============
Mark:
I dunna.
While it may be red meat for the faithful, it is polarizing and drives away moderates (which the conservatives treat like sh*t anyway, but absolutely need when it comes time for the vote).
Nigel,
And I suppose you imagine the Brits spending a fortune supporting the Royal family, and going bonkers over the Royal wedding, doesn’t make lots of people think you are all crazy? Come on Nigel, there’s plenty of nuttiness in British politics as well… including a rather bizarre tendency to become hysterical over global warming. Watch what happens when the wind farms start making the lights go out.
lucia, I told you I’m not expert, but note that WKA agrees he’s ‘native born’. WKA didn’t adjudicate ‘natural born’. The 14th helps you with ‘native born’, but not ‘natural born’.
It’s a fine legal distinction, probably irrelevant in this century’s politics. As I say, the question of his bona fides will settle the issue of allegiance for me.
So, let’s see ’em.
============
Look, lucia, you can google this and find support for many points of view. It is my belief that the Founders used ‘natural born’ to exclude someone whose parent was a British citizen. The term is hardly used anywhere except in specification for eligibility for President, and it is partly for that reason that ‘native born’ and ‘natural born’ have become conflated.
=================
Kim,
No need to be insulting.
You assume far too much about my evaluations. I voted for George the younger the first time, but had come the conclusion he was too stupid to be a good president based on his actions during his first four years. I held my nose (very tightly) and voted for Kerry. I have taken the time to listen to what Sarah Palin has had to say on a dozen different occasions. My conclusions about her are my own; they have nothing to do with MSM portrayals.
lucia,
There’s this Congressional Research Report that fits your case (and mine, as I was also born to US citizens outside the US).
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30527.pdf
“Most constitutional scholars interpret this language as including citizens born outside the United States to parents who are U.S. citizens under the “natural born†requirement.”
Ferinstance, lucia, I suspect you may be ‘natural born’, though not ‘native born’. So now, let’s get on with the committee.
===========
Tamara,
Sure, but those scholars aren’t Birthers. I’m still not going to push my Lucia for President idea. 🙂
Kim-
INAL, but the actual majority opinion is here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZS.html
It starts with
I think you are confused about what was adjudicated. That Wong King Ark was “native born” was an undisputed fact agreed to by everyone. All that means is he was born on american soil. The question was he “native born” wasn’t ‘adjudicated’. The questions adjudicated were whether he was a citizen at birth and whether he remained one.
The ruling was that he was a citizen ” at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,” .
I have no idea how you think this casts one iota of doubt in Obama’s being a natural born citizen.
Well, objectively, according to scores, Kerry and Bush had about the same intelligence. Palin’s political intelligence is superb, her knowledge base is not fully developed.
Mileage varies on Bush’s two terms. It’s the ‘good old days’ as far as a lot of people think.
‘Dumb’ was a poor word for you, but it had some symmetry. It is clear that the mainstream media has portrayed both Bush and Palin as dumber than they are.
==========
You are failing, lucia, to see the distinction between ‘natural born’ and ‘native born’. That you are failing to see it does not mean you are blind, rather that you aren’t looking.
==========
“her knowledge base is not fully developed”
You mean it’s retarded.
Kim
Only suspect? I am definitely not “native born”. I was born in El Salvador. But the constitution doesn’t require presidents be “native born”. It requires them to be “natural born”.
Tamara provided a pdf that says
So, evidently, most though possibly not all constitutional scholars think I am not barred from being President. That would answer SteveF’s question about me (and evidently Tamara). But this doesn’t have anything to do with Obama who is both a natural born and native born citizen.
Kim,
With each post your position is weaker and more muddled.
Just out of curiosity, and without the lawyer’s caution about asking questions without knowing the answer, what do you consider, Steve, to be the most idiotic thing Sarah Palin has said?
=======================
Wow. 95 comments on this in a morning? I am soooo out of touch to find out this is even an issue. Glad I was in Europe for all the Swiftboating and draft dodging stuff.
I guess nothing important is going on.
Naw, lucia, I understood that you are not ‘native born’. This is one reason it is so difficult to argue with you. I did not ‘suspect’ you weren’t native born, I knew it because you’d said so. So why go off on that? Similarly, I did not say that WKA adjudicated ‘native born’. I said it didn’t adjudicate ‘natural born’.
And Jon P, this is a very muddled situation. What is my point, other than that Obama is proving inauthentic.
==================
Lucia
Re: “Natural born citizen” vs “citizen”.
First, requiring the President to be a “natural born citizen” must mean something different from “citizen” required of senators.
Article I clause 3:
This can be satisfied by 14th amendment citizens.
However, the President must be a “natural born citizen” which must mean something different.
Article II Clause 5.
US birth is necessary but insufficient.
The key document is John Jay’s letter of July 25, 1787 to George Washington, presiding officer of the Convention:
Jay’s recommendation was incorporated and adopted without comment.
The key issues are allegiance and foreign influence. Thus the requirement that both parents be citizen’s at one’s birth, and to be born in the country.
This follows from Ememrich de Vattel in The Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19, section 212
The Continental Congress (1781) required:
Journals of the Continental Congress, ARTICLE XVIII, 24 July, 1781, Article 3 (page 805) (Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 25, II, folio 21).
The authors of the 14th Amendment upheld this distinction etc.
See detailed discussions at: NaturalBornCitizen.com
Obama’s (long form) Certificate of Live Birth provides official evidence for the first time that his father was born in Kenya and thus was a Kenyan/British citizen by birth. Consequently Obama had British citizenship/allegiance at birth. Therefore he cannot be a “natural born citizen” per John Jay.
Furthermore, Obama had “failed to qualify” by refusing to provide prima facie evidence of his qualifications prior to his inauguration, thus breaching US Constitution Amendment XX Section 3.
Thus Obama is ineligible, he failed to qualify, and consequently his inauguration was Null and Voice.
Few are familiar with the details, thus the misdirection and focus on Obama’s birth in Hawaii, rather than on his British citizenship by his alien father who was never a US citizen.
See news & articles
Nope, lucia, British subject father means he is not ‘natural born’. It’s that simple, and that impossible to believe.
=======================
Well, thanks, David. I see expertise; I can retire.
================
Gringa (AKA Lucia),
Estoy cansado de este tema. Hasta luego.
Just to throw another log on:
“Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886), 21st president of the United States, was rumored to have been born in Canada.[41][42] This was never demonstrated by his Democratic opponents, although Arthur Hinman, an attorney who had investigated Arthur’s family history, raised the objection during his vice-presidential campaign and after the end of his Presidency. Arthur was born in Vermont to a U.S. citizen mother and a father from Ireland, who was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Despite the fact that his parents took up residence in the United States somewhere between 1822 and 1824,[43] Chester Arthur additionally began to claim between 1870 and 1880[44] that he had been born in 1830, rather than in 1829, which only caused minor confusion and was even used in several publications.[45] Arthur was sworn in as president when President Garfield died after being shot. Since his Irish father William was naturalized 14 years after Chester Arthur’s birth,[46] his citizenship status at birth is unclear, because he was born before the 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment, which provided that any person born on United States territory and being subject to the jurisdiction thereof was considered a born U.S. citizen, and because he was a British subject at birth by patrilineal jus sanguinis.[47] Arthur’s natural born citizenship status is therefore equally unclear. “
Lucia
On Natural Born vs 14th Amendment see:
Justice Hugo Black in DUNCAN v LOUISIANA Indicates Obama Would Not Be Eligible: Ineligibility Echoed by Former Attorney General Jeremiah Black etc.
Donofrio details at NaturalBornCitizen.com
PS Errata: Emmerich de Vattel
Benjamin Franklin had three copies of 1758 Law of Nations in French, on of which he gave to the Library Corporation of Philadelphia where it was extensively studied by the constitutional convention.
Note Tamara, who nominated the Justice who, in WKA, chose not to adjudicate ‘natural born’.
================
And a little more (I’ve allowed myself to be sucked in):
“The eligibility of Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) was questioned in an article written by Breckinridge Long, and published in the Chicago Legal News during the U.S. presidential election of 1916, in which Hughes was narrowly defeated by Woodrow Wilson. Long claimed that Hughes was ineligible because his father had not yet naturalized at the time of his birth and was still a British citizen. Observing that Hughes, although born in the United States, was also a British subject and therefore “enjoy[ed] a dual nationality and owe[d] a double allegiance”, Long argued that a native born citizen was not natural born without a unity of U.S. citizenship and allegiance and stated: “Now if, by any possible construction, a person at the instant of birth, and for any period of time thereafter, owes, or may owe, allegiance to any sovereign but the United States, he is not a ‘natural born’ citizen of the United States.”
There is an issue that the released PDF shows the document to have multiple layers, so it was pieced together. Others have shown this to probably be caused by scanning software, perhaps with OCR not turned off. National Review managed to create the same effect with their cover.
Tamara
Donofrio provides the quantitative details on Arthur, and why he was NOT a natural born citizen.
Errata
Should have been “Null and Void”
Heh. If this were true, then every other president was also ineligible. Which mus mean I don’t have to pay taxes or something.
kim,
I think all we’ve managed to show is that “natural born” is subject to interpretation, and has likely been violated by candidates and sitting Presidents.
I am sure that if I chose to run, and by some miracle became my party’s nominee, my opponents would strongly question my eligibility due to being born on foreign soil. Low-hanging fruit.
Boris
That is a problem we have when member of Congress breach their Oath the uphold the Constitution.
Upholding qualification is especially needed when someone appears NOT to be eligible, as pointed out even before the election.
David L. Hagen’s comment is a great example of how even this step won’t end the loony birther nonsense.
Though I did chuckle at the “Null and Voice”
David L. Hagen,
Thanks for the link, an interesting parallel.
In both cases the focus of the investigation was on the location of birth, rather than the parental allegiance.
I think that speaks to a fundamental principle of American society. We are independent and don’t feel that we are bound by our parents’ affiliations. Jus solis is more meaningful to us than jus sanguinis.
how even this step won’t end the loony birther nonsense
Jonah Lehrer commented about this .
SteveF: “IMO, the lack attractive Republican alternatives is symptomatic of the yawning political gap between left and right, which I find larger today than any time during my adult life. The extremes of both parties, but especially on the right, dictate via primaries that nobody interested in practical solutions to problems and political compromise can become the candidate….”
Lucia’s neighbor, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, seems fiscally conservative enough to be nominated, but reasonably moderate on other issues.
David L. Hagen
Yes. They two are different things. There are lots of easy examples: Arnold Schwarzenneger is a citizen, but not a “natural born citizen”. The same goes for my father-in-law who was born in Sweden of Swedish parents, moved here when he was about 6 years old and naturalized at 18 yo after he was also drafted to serve in the Army.
John Jay’s letter doesn’t even prove what John Jay would have ruled on the meaning of “natural citizen” had he been presented with a case of a person who was born in the US of non-citizen parents.
The constitution didn’t use this wording. It would have been easy enough to say both parents must be citizen’s at birth — but those words weren’t chosen.
Look, I’m not a lawyer. But it seems to me that if you want to make a strong case for your POV, it would be more convincing if you cited SCOTUS rulings particularly those written after the ratification of the 14th amendment, not 1758 texts by by an Ememrich de Vattel.
Could you name the actual cases since ratification of the 14th amendment wherein the US has ruled that someone born on US soil is not a natural born citizen or even not a citizen at birth? (I know of 1). When you list them, we can go over the characteristics that make those individuals not natural born citizens or even not citizens– and we can see whether Obama fits in those exceptions. Betcha he won’t.
But I could be wrong– so if you are aware of actual court cases that suggests Obama would not be deemed a natural citizen, cite them, then we can look at them. As far as I’ve ever seen (and what I’ve seen is admittedly limited) since the ratification of the 14th amendement, SCOTUS has never ruled that a person situated as Obama was at birth would not be a citizen at birth. And it also seems to me that all ‘native born’ who are ‘citizens at birth’ are what SCOTUS would rule as natural born citizen.
Beyond that: If there are further questions, this would need to go to the 9 guys and gals wearing those black robes.
BTW: The blog post quoting Hugo Black (who died in 1971(: It only touches on something absolutely no one disputes. If you are born in the US and both your parents are American citizens, you are a natural born citizen. This does not tell us anything about other categories of people who might also natural born citizens.
Tamara
Yep. With respect to Obama, it might be nice for Kim or David to point to SCOTUS rulings indicating that persons with his background are not considered “natural born citizens”
Yep. Seems to me that you and I represent the cases that might be ruled not “natural born”. Could my impression about the probable ruling vis Obama be wrong? Sure. But if the case got to SCOTUS, I’d be pretty confident that Obama would be deemed “natural born”.
Lucia, I’m amused you’d post this.
If I did it the first complaint from the trolls would be:
“This is what we get from ‘Best Science Blog’ “?
So let me take an obligatory stab at it in this context:
The Blackboard – Where
Climate PoliticalBirther Talk Gets Hot!😉
Anthony,
To be fair, if you posted it primarily to refute birther nonsense (as I presume Lucia did), you would only really get complaints from birthers (though some folks might cherry-pick remarks from the comments to cast aspersions on the blog…).
Lucia
The Constitution is generally interpreted in the light of the intentions of those who wrote it. The Emmerich 1758 citation is evidence from the textbook the Founders had that defined the term.
1) Having just won independence from Britain, and
2) John Jay urging a “strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government”
would the Founders have accepted a British citizen with allegiance to the Crown as President of the USA?
Thus Obama’s British citizenship disqualifies him.
See:
John M. Yinger, Trustee Professor of Public Administration . . .:
On Supreme Court review, <a href="http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/justice-hugo-black-in-duncan-v-louisiana-indicates-obama-would-not-be-eligible-ineligibility-echoed-by-former-attorney-general-jeremiah-black/"see more of Donofrio's post:
Zeke,
To be even fairer… Tamino, Eli, et. al would write posts about how Anthony was a birther or was fueling the birther fire no matter what the context or intention of the post.
It is noteworthy that the first ‘birther’ was somebody in the Hillary Clinton campaign. That is how the issue started. Obama did not bury that controvery with the long form document at that time. I suspect he did not do so because he would then be expected to address and document other blanks in his biography — why the lockdown of all academic records, for example? We were permitted to know the grades and course selection of Bush, Gore, Kerry and, I think, Clinton. Why does Obama get a pass, especially given that he has a vastly sparser public service record than any of his predecessors?
The birth certificate thing was enlivened by the fact that Barrack Obama has arrogantly demanded that we only get the version of himself that he finds politically useful. He has received more cooperation in that effort from the media than any politician since FDR. It is his unusual lack of candor that fuels conspiratorial thinking.
The fact that a buffoon like Donald Trump actually moved poll numbers and forced the release of the birth documents indicates that a lot of people are still uncomfortable with what Barrack Obama chooses to conceal about his core beliefs, his personal record and their origins.
Anyone who chose to pal around with utterly despicable people like Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright and then appears on the stage to declare himself a trans-partisan figure needs, at a minimum, to fill in the blanks. Obama never has.
Lastly, if he were doing a great job in office, nobody would care. The fact that he has proven to be utterly mediocre on all fronts only increases the tension between the reality (much still unknown) and the oversold messianic image. Anybody who thinks that Obama’s perception problem is in any way lessened by snark about goofy birther utterances needs to hop in the Prius and leave campus more often.
lucia (Comment #74847)
Wow! I think you just trolled your own blog 🙂
Anyways, my 2-cents:
I get how this all started within the Democratic nomination process but now? Seriously do some fringe Republicans really want to beat Obama on some technicality? Imagine if somehow they did now disqualify Obama somehow – do they think that would give the Republican candidate more legitimacy? The very best that such a move could achieve would be to drive a wedge deeper into America’s cultural divisions – but just not quite far enough to do permanent harm. As a nation the USA would end up even more divided, more partisand and hence essentially weaker and less able to resolve any of its problems. A future GOP government would find itself with less of a popular mandate and less able to act.
There is a reason why even Coulter and Beck eschew this nonesense
lucia,
Actually, those two statements were mine, not kim’s.
And I agree with your interpretation of Obama’s citizenship.
From Wikipedia:
“In a 1829 treatise on the US Constitution William Rawle wrote that “every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”[18] During an 1866 House debate James F. Wilson quoted Rawle’s opinion, and also referred to the “general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations” saying
…and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except it may be that children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments, are native-born citizens of the United States.
[19]
In a 2008 article published by the Michigan Law Review Lawrence Solum, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, stated that “[t]here is general agreement on the core of [the] meaning [of the Presidential Eligibility Clause]. Anyone born on American soil whose parents are citizens of the United States is a ‘natural born citizen'”.[20] In April 2010 Solum republished the same article as an online draft, in which he changed his opinion on the meaning of natural born citizen to include persons born in the United States of one American citizen parent. In a footnote he explained that “[b]ased on my reading of the historical sources, there is no credible case that a person born on American soil with one American parent was clearly not a ‘natural born citizen.'” He further extended natural born citizenship to all cases of jus soli as the “conventional view”.[21]”
Go to a law blog and say that. . . The Constitution ultimately interpreted by the 9 justices sitting on the SCOTUS bench.
Emmerich was not one of the Founders. The Founders were not involved in writing the 14th amendment. The Founders had many books on their collective shelves. They adopted some ideas from books on their collective shelves and rejected others. The mere presence of a book on someone’s shelf tells us very little.
No. Even without quibbling over the definition of “natural born”, one must be a citizen of the US. Around the time of the writing of the Constitution, duel American/British citizenship was a rather moot point. You could be one or the other but not both.
That said: many of the founders, including some who became president, were born British citizens. Washington has served in the British military. Certainly, many had father’s who were British citizens. Collectively, the people writing the constitution and those ratifying it may have had a range of notions about what they meant by “natural citizen” at the time. The Founders (most likely Madison) picked certain language, and they did not chose words that specifically said that to qualify for president, both one’s parents needed to be US citizens at one’ birth. Certainly, the 14th amendment doesn’t limit birth right citizen ship to that class of people, and it at least seems SCOTUS hasn’t done so since Dred-Scot.
Other points: Yes. The constitution requires you to be a natural citizen. Bolding a phrase that says that does not magically define “natural citizen” to mean what you insist it means.
You are getting repetitious with the Hugo Black quote. My previous reply to that was
Repeating Black again will elicit the same response.
Look: Maybe if you can find anyone with standing to take this to the courts, then maybe the Supreme Court would rule the way you think they ought to rule. (Though, I doubt they would). Thus far, what we know is the Chief Justice swore Obama in. At the time Obama was sworn in the fact that his father was Kenyan was undisputed. As far as I am aware, that fact has never been disputed. So, it seems rather unlikely that Chief Justice Roberts (who I understand is a rather conservative fellow) agrees with your interpretation that Obama does not qualify owing to the fact that his father was not a US citizen.
So, yes. You can find ambiguous letters written by Jay to Washington — these are not court rulings. You can find books on Benjamin Franklin’s shelves– I understand he owned lots of books. You can talk about the founders and ignore the actual words of the 14th amendment. You can find speeches where someone points out that it is undisputed that someone who meets two qualifications– each of which likely confers ‘natural born’ status on it’s own— is a natural born citizen, and that no one has ever disputed this type of person is a natural born citizen. But you don’t have one scrap of evidence that– since the 14th amendment was ratified– SCOTUS has ever ruled that anyone situated like Obama is not a natural born citizen.
Maybe they would rule the way you think they ought to. But it seems to me that they likely would not.
Surprise surprise surprise it is all racism.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381527/Donald-Trump-racist-Bob-Schieffer-attacks-Apprentice-host.html
Bob Schieffer host of “Disgrace the Nation”.
Interesting other assertion Bob makes about needing access to a President’s records, does he not work for CBS who were so crazy about Bush records that they just made their own?
MSM sux
Tamara @ 1:42
Your first two Wiki excerpts contradict each other. Close observers have been amused by Solum’s change of heart.
lucia, WKA specifically refused to adjudicate the issue.
============
lucia, an originalist is going to support this fine distinction between ‘native born’ and ‘natural born’. You are right that the nine justices can decide. They just haven’t yet.
=============================
George Tobin (Comment #74987)
April 28th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
“It is his (Obama’s) unusual lack of candor that fuels conspiratorial thinking.”
————————
Right, blame the victim. It certainly could not be the fault of those well-meaning character assassins of the vitriolic right.
Well before the fall 2008 election, well before we knew much at all about Obama, I began receiving those wonderful chain emails, all in capital letters with more-than-sufficient exclamation points, and all highly authoritative claiming Obama was a Muslin, a terrorist sympathizer, a student at a Madrassa, an enemy of the American way, a racist, etc, etc. etc., etc. I received them from (former) friends, from acquaintances, and from people I barely knew. I had never received such a level of such vitriol in any previous elections. But I don’t remember thinking . . . “If he had would only demonstrate more candor and address all these serious concerns.”
Zeke to be fair, I wouldn’t post it at all as it is so far off topic from science, weather, climate, and technology I’d be unilaterally raked over the coals for it.
That’s why I was surprised to see it here. Even Lucia’s posts on knitting have some relevance to those of us who remember the orange wiener dog that was the original mascot of this blog.
I appreciate the sentiment about Tamino and Rabett from JonP. Some opinionators profess climate skeptics and birthers to be one and the same.
Anthony Watts
The topics getting linked elsewhere is partly why I posted.
The Birthier Issue is not new, as mentioned before it has been used by opponents against Chester Arthur, John McCain but have you heard about Andrew Jackson. In Jackson’s case partisans suggested that his mother was a common prostitute selling herself to British soldiers and sailors. Some even went so far to suggest that Jackson had actually been born aboard a British vessel. My take on this is that cloaking mudslinging as legal arguments is still mudslinging. It is more interesting to me to ask why the President produced the Birth Certificate now. Was he just responding to the Media responding to Trump. How long will he let the college transcript issue linger. Truthfully I think the grades think is more interesting only becasue he has been hyped as “the smartest guy in the room”.
George Tobin (Comment #74987)
There’s a big difference between criticizing the job Obama is doing and disputing he was born in Hawaii.
Equally, politicians will hide things that might prevent them from being elected. The same Warren G. Harding didn’t want the stories about his philandering to get out. The constitution doesn’t bar philanderers from the presidency, but politicians sometimes don’t want everyone to know anything.
Re: lucia (Apr 28 14:05),
> The topics getting linked elsewhere
???
Note, lucia, Solum’s change of heart. In 2008 his opinion was that Obama did not fit in ‘natural born’. In 2010, his opinion had changed, making Obama eligible. His reasoning for the change is based on ‘review of historical sources’ and ‘conventional’ view. Nothing about Supreme Court decisions here.
As you can guess, review of historical sources, and description of the ‘conventional’ view is fraught with inevitable differences of opinion. The learned Professor managed it himself within the space of two years. Amusing, and chilling.
====================
Re: Rule of Law
Lucia: “The birthers are still nutso.â€
Zeke: “loony conspiracy theories†“The birther nonsenseâ€
Carrick: “This birther meme is arguable as dumbâ€
Jon P: ““birthers†were the looniesâ€
I am addressing upholding the Rule of Law and enforcing the Constitution, not a “birther†conspiracy. This is no laughing matter. During the 20th century, 33 republics/democracies succumbed to tyranny by failing to uphold their constitutional protection. Germany to Hitler. Russia to Lenin & Stalin. China to Mao Tse Tung. That directly led to communist governments killing more than 100 million of their own citizens (compared to 39 million in all 20th century wars.) See The Black Book of Communism
Requiring the President be a Natural Born Citizen was a specific protection against tyranny. The Founders were so concerned over foreign influence that they created the Electoral College. When political correctness supercedes the Constitution, that is a major step towards tyranny. The founders strongly opposed setting up a democracy because of the historic danger of descending into mob rule.
The courts have avoided addressing this issue on its merits. Until they do, or Congress works up the courage to address it, we are in for more trouble. Hopefully State legislators will bring some sanity. See:
Eligibility bill gets OK in Oklahoma
Hopefully that will give standing sufficient for the courts to address the question.
“But the fact is some political opponents will sometimes claim almost anything if they think it will result in the political outcome they like.”
ergo Global Warming
Andrew
Shorter David L. Hagen: electing people who had one parent who was not a citizen leads to Hitler.
I’m with Tamara: this is the 21st century and we live in a pluralistic democracy fundamentally incompatable with the doctrine of jus sanguinis.
Wow!!!!!
From here in the UK this stuff is truly mindblowing. To think that someones exact birthplace means they forever after owe an ‘allegiance’ to it that will always come first in whatever they do might have seemed reasonable to the founding fathers. But hey we are now living in the 21st century.
What is wrong with you people?
Lucia
“Around the time of the writing of the Constitution, duel American/British citizenship was a rather moot point. You could be one or the other but not both.â€
On the contrary. Benjamin Franklin warned: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” 1776 – precisely because Britain still considered them British subjects and thus traitors.
The “grandfather clause†– “or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution†– was explicitly to address the issue that most of the signers were British citizens by birth, and by any definition, not a “natural born citizenâ€.
Dave Andrews
“birthplace means they forever after owe an ‘allegiance’ to it … now living in the 21st century.”
It appears legally that Obama is STILL a “British overseas territories citizenâ€. He has never renounced his British citizenship. See: A British Citizen as President of the United States
“In 1981, Obama became a British overseas territories citizen by virtue of the latest BNA, which was amended by the British Overseas Territories Act 2002. . . .subject to practically the same laws as any other British citizen.â€
Based on Jay’s letter and the purpose of the Electoral College to exclude foreign influence, would “natural born citizen†include someone who continues to hold foreign allegiance?
Kim–
You might want to click the link to Solum’s article and read it before concluding he had a change of heart. I would suggest that his paper discusses the special case of McCain, and discusses why that was a thorny constitutional issue for originalists. It may be that when Obama was elected, he wanted to be sure the people quote mining would not mis-interpret the meaning of his document and so modified to eliminate any possibility that people would think he was suggesting that either the conventional or original view was that Obama would not be a natural born citizen.
Zeke
Be serious. It only takes one in a million to sink a democracy. Thus the importance of upholding constitutional protections against tyranny. Ask those who lived under the USSR or other communist countries.
Well Dave Andrews, as David Hagen points out it comes down to whether we have the rule of law or the rule of conventional opinion. The Constitution could have been amended. Wong Kim Ark could have adjudicated the question. But neither happened.
So here we are without resolution of the question, and the well already desperately poisoned about a debate that clearly needs updating.
===============
Dave Andrews–
Oddly, much of the theory about perpetual allegance came out of England. But it never affected who all-a-y’all picked as monarchs, who from time to time were from other countries.
Your constitution still bars Roman Catholics from the throne, right? The mere existence of UK monarch is mind blowing for me– that you bar RC’s… mind blowing. So, I think we should just call that a draw.
(In all seriousness, we do enforce the US constitution. We also get in arguments about it all the time. I just don’t think SCOTUS would interpret it the way David and Kim want them to and I think rulings since shortly after the civil war strongly suggest that SCOTUS would not rule as David and Kim would wish them to rule. But it is true that the specific case involving a sitting president has not been adjudicated. That said, I think the rule about the government not being permitted to make me provide quarters for army personel may also not have been adjudicated. But people don’t argue about that one. )
David L. Hagen,
We managed to change to constitution significantly in the interrum to allow folks like women and non-whites to vote, among other things. Somehow our democracy has survived, despite not rigidly adhering to a document written during a time 300 years ago with drastically differing social norms and structures.
Also, this entire discussion is moot, as Lucia pointed out, given that the chief justice supreme court has implicitly indicated that he does not agree with your interpretation of that particular constitutional clause by swearing Obama into office.
Denialist fits Kim like a glove.
The point for you, lucia, is that Solum distinguishes between ‘natural born’ and ‘native born’. The reasons for his back-pedaling are speculative, but the act itself is amusing.
=========================
Jon P
How would I know what’s in it if I didn’t read it first?
How so, Eli? I accept that CO2 has radiative effect and that Obama was born in Hawaii.
And please, lucia, stop telling everyone what I wish. I also think that the concept illustrated by the distinction between the two terms is probably out of date. It is a poor way to judge allegiance.
I wish this issue had been adjudicated before it became pertinent. I’m willing to accept what the will of the people and the judgement of the Justices decides.
====================
David L. Hagen–
The difficulty is that I think you are misinterpreting the constitution. I’m all for upholding all real provisions in the constitution. But I’m not for upholding misinterpretations or creating precedents to bar a particular person merely because someone doesn’t happen to support him.
Those precedents that seem meaningful suggest that the 14th amendment combined with the “natural born” rule would translate into Obama being a “natural born citizen”. Citing a german guy or John Jay’s private letter to Washington just doesn’t seem persuasive relative to rulings that with minor exceptions consistently interpret people born on American soil as citizens from birth. As far as I am aware, there are absolutely no ruling that make any distinction between “citizen at birth by virtue of being born on US soil” and “citizens at birth who would gain citizen ship both through their parents and by virtue of being born on US soil.”
A case without even 1 single ruling in it’s favor, that is based on words in a book by someone who isn’t even a founder of any sort, and a private letter and which– worse yet– ignore the effect of the 14th amendment just doesn’t sound very strong. You want to hang your hat on that– fine. But I find it utterly unpersuasive.
Wow!!!!!
“From here in the UK this stuff is truly mindblowing. To think that someones exact birthplace means they forever after owe an ‘allegiance’ to it that will always come first in whatever they do might have seemed reasonable to the founding fathers. But hey we are now living in the 21st century.
What is wrong with you people?”
Good show David. If we Americans keep up this bloody nonsense at this rate, we, in no time at all, will have a national endowment set-up with representatives who must have a proven lineage to succeed in spending that endowment and will be given the privilege of handing out national titles like Sir and Lady. You’ve, got it old boy – 21st century indeed.
PS: With all the attention we are spending in the US on the current Royal silliness in GB, you do have to wonder “what is wrong with us people”.
Woa!
The yawning gap between left and right (my comment #74929) could no be more evident than in this thread. Too bad.
Kim–
As far as I can see there is no backpeddling on Solumn’s part.
I’m pretty sure nothing is ever adjudicated before it is pertinent. Courts will refuse to hear cases on moot points. Hearing these is a waste of time.
You seem to be insisting there is some important concept illustrated by the distinction. “Native born” is “born on US soil”. It seems that the closest court precedents point to nearly “Native born” to be being citizens from birth, that Obama would not fall under any exception, and most likely, the court would interpret his being a “natural citizen”.
Solumns original paper was dicussion interpreation of the phrase and was applying things to the specific case of McCain.,/i> For that reason, the statements compare: Native born vs. McCain who is not native born. Would the founders have considered McCain an natural born citizen? That’s the question that paper addresses.
The fact that McCain is not native born but might be ‘natural born’ does not tell us anything about Obama– who is native born. And the courts seem to consistently rule the native born are also natural born.
I am amused that you think the slight revisions indicate any sort of change of heart on Solumn’s part.
Lucia
de Vattel’s definition and the Continental Congress’ definition of “natural born citizen” were the direct sources the founders had. John Jay’s letter led directly to adding “natural born citizen” to the Constitution.
Justice Black defers to the authors of the 14th Amendment as knowing best its meaning.
Note that they distinguished “natural born citizen” from “citizen”
The 14th Amendment did NOT redefine “natural born citizen”, only “citizen”.
John Bingham, aka “father of the 14th Amendmentâ€,
Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862)
SENATOR HOWARD (cofather of the 14th amendment)
(Congressional Globe, 39th Congress pg. 2893 (1866))
– Rep. Thayer, March 2, 1866. (Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Session, p. 1152 (1866))
Without a legal case, we go with the best evidence available on what the Founders meant at the time.
See Donofrio’s post on J. Black:
Re: kim (Apr 28 09:45),
kim. I could care less about the presidents life before 2008. where he was born, where he went to college, if he’s a muslim or wiccan,his grades, girlfriends, dope or no dope, beer or jack, powder or rock. men women or goats. the years since 2008 outweigh all the cool and unusual things before that. but then i’m evil
he doesnt have tiger blood and is not winning.
“Well, he didn’t spend millions. That particular bit of misinformation came from the fact that the Obama campaign’s legal bills after the election were $2 million. Since the same law firm wrote a letter addressing the birther complaint, suddenly some argued that all of that money was used to hide the birth certificate when it was actually used in the normal wind-down of a mufti-million dollar campaign.”
Gee, THAT trick sounds familiar too!
Moshe, oh, yeah, there’s that, too.
===============
David–
1) The founders did not write the 14th amendment.
2) Here is the majority opinion in Ducan vs. Lousiana which that article you link seems to think would tell us Obama isn’t eligible to be president. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=391&page=145
Please find text in there that discusses the “natural citizen” clause. It seems to be a case granting a black boy the right to a trial by jury.
3)What Hugo Black actually said had nothing to do with interpreting “natural citizen”, it had to do with whether or not the 14th amendment was incorporated into the 1st-8th amendments.
4) Back to the Bigham and Howard quotes:
(a) That they, at some point in their lives, noted that everyone recognizes that people who were both US citizens by virtue of being native born and also by lineage doesn’t mean that they were saying people who were native born only were not natural citizens.
(b) Whether you like it or not, SCOTUS has consistently interpreted native born babies whose parents were not US citizens as qualifying for citizenship under the 14th amendment. Unless there is a specific exception ( native americans not subject owing to treaty rights, parents are foreign diplomats or members of an invading army) these native born babies are views as “subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof”. So you can quote Howard however many time you like, the supreme court seems to have never taken that phrase to mean that a kid whose father is not a US citizen does not get citizenship.
MT, Obama diligently fought every effort to show his birth certificate to any court, including using DoJ lawyers recently.
So why did he spend taxpayers’ money avoiding something as simple as what he did yesterday?
=================
Re: Michael Tobis (Apr 28 15:45),
> Gee, THAT trick sounds familiar too!
???
Kim–
You seem to have violated my kim-specific rule that you provide links instead of sending us on wild goose chase. I told you I would moderate you if you did that. I set that comment to moderated and will now moderate and only release those comments I just to not be of the “wildgoose chase ” variety.
If you think you read something at another blog, online paper, paper etc. please tell us where it is and provide a link. Or don’t tells us about the story.
kim & David L. Hagen —
You should realize that the case(s) you are making that Pres. Obama is unqualified for his office by the circumstances of his birth are very unpersuasive to most Americans. (Perhaps you do.)
1) Rightly or wrongly, we have lived with major changes in the constitution. E.g. those wrought by Abe Lincoln and the Unionists during the Secession Crisis of 1861-65, and the transformation of the interpretation of the Commerce Clause in the 1930s. Your concerns seem rather small compared to those issues.
2) Assuming for the moment that you are right and Lucia is wrong on these points — there is no cure that isn’t worse than the problem. Maybe it wouldn’t be that way if this movement was led (with a heavy heart) by those who love and admire Pres. Obama, but feel duty-bound to deliver him unto his political enemies. But as it is, this looks like politics-inspired hoo-ha that is clothed in Constitutional concerns.
Sorry to be the bearer of this news 🙁
Kim–
The comment still did not include a link.
Lucia,
“The comment still did not include a link.”
.
Galileo… do you see the rack over there?
.
Perhaps not, perhaps Galileo is doomed to the (moderation) rack… Deserved, I agree.
SteveF–
To be clear, I
1) Manually put the first comment with a vague allusion to a source and a vague allusion to the story in moderation.
2) I set WP to moderate Kim.
3) I told Kim I set WP to moderate future comments
4) Kim left a second comment which contained no link. That was automatically moderated by WP.
5) I posted the comment to kim pointing out this second comment does not include a link.
If kim read an online newspaper/blogpost/forum whatever, I think (s)he can perfectly well drop a link so the rest of us can quickly find whatever it is (s)he is all excited about.
Lucia,
Maybe Kim can bring herself to comply…. maybe not. Linking to sources (where appropriate) is just common sense. It’s sort of like me choosing to learn Portuguese… so that 50 different people in Brazil I worked with would not have to struggle with English. Efficiency of communication is the key.
.
Kim,
Come on…. you can do it. It takes but a second. If you are not sure how, just ask someone.
AMac,
The attachment of the President by law and culture to our nation was of first importance to the writers of the constitution. The circumstances of ones birth, parents, where born, how raised forms the identity beliefs and loyalties of the adult. I don’t care that Joe Blow in the street thinks it is a small issue. The reason that we have a republican form of government and not a pure democracy is that mob rule doesn’t work!
The guys that wrote the Constitution were much smarter and better educated than the average citizen. That their document now made ours by the passage of time has been wounded by poor practice is no reason to ignore further assaults on it. As I see it the best course is to make sure we pay more attention. Certainly that we do not allow this to become a precedent.
Lucia, you surprise me.
Lucia
“native born babies whose parents were not US citizens as qualifying for citizenship under the 14th amendment.â€
So? The 14th Amendment only addresses “citizenshipâ€. It says nothing about “natural born citizen†nor does it redefine it. Every word in the Constitution means something. What else would be the difference between “citizen†and “natural born citizenâ€?
Following James Madison’s formal list, Congress obtained de Vattel’s French Droit de Gens (1758, 1773, 1775) and English Law of Nations (1759, 1760, 1787). So the Constitutional Convention had at least five editions to refer to.
In 1778 John Jay was elected president of the second Continental Congress. He was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1784. He would have been intimately conversant with the treaty with the US’s foremost ally France and its requirement that a consul be a “natural born citizen.†Jay’s concern to prevent foreign influence is further shown in his The Federalist essays 2-5 titled “Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence.”
Historically, citizenship flowed through the father. Only recently did Congress extend citizenship through the mother. 10 Stat. 604; 48 Stat. 797. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308 (1961). This reinforces Obama’s alien allegiance through his father.
AMac
Obama is only the 2nd person for which “natural born citizen” was an issue. Chester Arthur hid his British citizenship. I see Obama as having focused attention on the physical place of birth to distract attention from his ineligibility through his alien/British father.
Allowing two cases to go through without objection establishes a dangerous precedent nullifying the qualification requirement.
Perhaps this is why Bobby Jindal is not running for president. In fact if we look too closely we might find out he is not even a citizen, under one reading of the 14th amendment. It appears his mother was here on an F visa when he was born.
“Woa!
The yawning gap between left and right (my comment #74929) could no be more evident than in this thread. Too bad.”
I do not know what gap you are referring to but what I see is the usual partisan choosing of sides. From a libertarian point of view the political philosophies are unfortunately not that much different. It is difficult to see the difference between Bush and Obama except by those who have to strain mightly to defend the policies of their chosen one.
Maybe you meant yawning yap.
Kenneth Fritsch,
.
I think that Mr. Bush did lots of things which were contrary to his originally espoused philosophy.. mostly through stupidity and political expediency. Mr. Obama has done pretty much exactly what he said he would to do… within the constraints of political opposition in Congress. I 100% disagree about a lack of difference in political philosophy; Mr. Obama’s vision of the proper roll of government in people’s lives (that is, pretty much all government control, 24/7) is very different from Mr. Bush’s… even if Mr. Bush often abandoned his vision in a crass effort to gather votes. You can count on Mr. Obama to continue, in every way possible, to try to ensure equality of outcomes, not equality of opportunity, and mainly by raising taxes. I see huge differences, and I am surprised you don’t.
If Jindal was born here it doesn’t matter what his mom’s visa was. OTOH there is a sort of grim humor in him being a “birth tourist” dropping. Eli has friends who have US citizenship even though their parents were in the US as diplomats from other countries.
re: Bill (Comment #74934)
“I enjoy the technical discussion in this Blog. Please leave this sort of stuff alone. It invites partisanship and degrades the quality of the discussion.”
Oh I don’t know Bill; this post acts kinda like a Rorschach test. Flash an image and note the diverse array of psychological and emotional idiosyncrasies that emerge. So far it seems we have a connection between Obama’s heritage and and the potential for the death of millions, the treasonous act of visiting Indonesia, and a bunch of brits who ridicule US politics even while their own country goes gaga over the upcoming nuptuals of a, potentially, ruling monarch! Ahh, us Aussies, we’re not prone to this sort of political high jinx…well except for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Hanson
oh and,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Tuckey
and perhaps this guy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Hamilton
David L Hagen
Arnold Schwarzenneger is a citizen but not a natural born citizen. I already answered this. You are simultaneously not engaging responses to you and merely repeating yourself. I’m not going to keep repeating the same answers over and over.
Eli
These friends would seem to fall in one of the categories of “native born” who don’t automatically qualify for citizenship under the 14th amendment and so might not be “natural born”. Owing to international agreements (e.g. diplomatic immunity) diplomats are one of the categories of people who may not be under the jurisdiction of the US even while they reside here. Of course, this doesn’t mean they can’t be granted citizenship by laws passed by Congress– it only means it isn’t required by the US constitutions.
But I think if a US(i.e. native)- born child of foreign diplomat ran for president we would have court cases on our hands. In those hypothetical cases, I’d say: Diplomats. That’s one of the categories of people not under the jurisdiction of the US. That group might not be “natural born”; SCOTUS might rule they can’t be president.
The one thing I’m sure of: Schwarzenegger can’t be president. There are a whole lot of naturalized americans. They are citizens but can’t be president. This is certain.
SteveF (Comment #75048)
So Is Obama continuing most of Bushes policies because of stupidity or expediency? As to opposition in congress,What opposition? He had a majority in both houses until November 2010
What’s sick is that if we apply David Hagen’s rules to presidential eligibility, then John McCain would not be a “natural born citizen” since he did not gain citizenship at birth but by statute a year later.
So, to clarify, we would make him ineligible out of fear that he would have allegiance to Panama and we would ignore his service to the country, including spending years as a prisoner of war and getting tortured. Frankly, that’s moronic.
Yes, let’s undo the will of the people based on some deep level lawyering. That will make us a better country in no time!
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_2s6.html
Author: James Madison aka “The Father of the Constitution”. That is: The Founder who also happens to be credited as the primary author of the US Constitution.
I’m not going to suggest this particular founders view is dispositive particularly as he was discussing Article 1 and not Article 2. But this passage suggests Madison thought allegiance was more strongly tied to place of birth than to lineage.
Lucia
I agree that naturalized citizens (Schwartzenegger) are not “natural born”, and that citizens born under US jurisdiction of citizens are “natural born”. The issue is if one having foreign citizenship and allegiance by birth to an alien who was never a citizen would be a “natural born citizen” by virtue of birth in the USA to a citizen mother. There are numerous references and arguments that he would not be. e.g. See the POTUS Eligibility Law Review Articles by Attorney George Collins American Law Review Sept/Oct 1884:18.
2) and 3) The reference to J. Black was his deference to congressional authors to interpret an acts meaning. The Supreme Court refers to congressional statements, reports, debate whenever possible to interpret the law.
4a) re “doesn’t mean that they were saying people who were native born only were not natural citizens.”
I disagree. Note: Bingham’s statements in Congress:
“all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens.”
As citizenship passed from father to child, children of alien fathers “owe allegiance” to another sovereign by that alien’s allegiance to that sovereign and foreign citizenship.
Obama himself acknowledged he was a British subject.
“As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.†In the UK, Obama is by definition, subject to the Queen and to the UK’s laws, NOT independent. He has never renounced his British citizenship.
Consequently, by Bingham’s definition, Obama is not a natural born citizen, even though he is native born.
4b) the 14th amendment neither mentions nor redefines “natural born”. Citizenship under 14th amendment is irrelevant.
The qualification:
“or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” was added to cover all the Founders as none of them were “natural born citizens”, having been born before the Declaration of Independence, and many of British subject parents.
Jay’s letter provides the basis that “natural born” was to avoid Foreigners in the highest levels of government, especially as Commander in Chief – both by influence and allegiance.
For further evidence, see http://www.NaturalBornCitizen.com under “alien father”
Lucia
On James Madison’s recommendations as book subcommittee chairman, Congress obtained Emerich de Vattel’s “Droit de Gens†French 1758, 1773, 1775 editions, and the Law of Nations English translations 1759, 1760 and 1787 London editions. Papers of James Madison Vol 6 p 67. (The Library of Congress still has those volumes, plus numerous other editions. See http://www.loc.gov) The Constitutional Congress was thus familiar with Vattel’s definitions on natural born citizen in both French and English.
For Vattel’s influence, see Vattel’s Law of Nations and the Founding Fathers and
Law of Nations
David L Hagen–
The link to the article by Attorney George Collins is here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19071886/Are-Persons-Born-Within-the-United-States-Ipso-Facto-Citizens-Thereof-George-D-Collins
The article appears to have been published in Sep/Oct 1884. It’s worth nothing that the the position he takes was specifically repudiated in the 1898 the SCOTUS ruling in the ruling about the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark! So while this guy may have been relating the theory of those who wanted to persuade the government that Wong Kim Ark was not a citizen, the SCOTUS ruled otherwise. That is: SCOTUS thought that argument was wrong. Dead wrong.
And according to the US constitution– by provision established by the Founders, with respect to interpretation of American law SCOTUS rulings trump a scholars theory.
David–
I haven’t said founders didn’t read Vatell, nor that they weren’t influenced by him. Founders also read Cicero and were influenced by him. They read all sorts of stuff.
But the fact is:
1) You can’t seem to find a single SCOTUS rulings to support your interpretation, and the SCOTUS rulings on citizenship suggest that they would rule that baring certain conditions that do not apply to Obama, a child born in the US is a natural born citizen.
2) The quotes you are pulling from various places to say that no one ever doubted that people born in the US of American parents are natural born citizens do not say that group is the only category of citizens. If you read the case of the woman who wanted to vote, you can see that the court absolutely does not say that US born kids of non-US citizens are not natural born. They say the point would be irrelevant to the case at hand so they aren’t going to discuss that point. That’s very common in these cases. The courts often don’t engage moot points. (My impression is that avoiding moot points is the rule not the exception.)
3) The theory in the scholarly article saying US born kids of non-citizen parents and which specifically discusses the issue of chinese kids– like Ark– was specifically repudiated by the majority in SCOTUS. It doesn’t make sense to suggest that that article proves what US law is because it’s a case someone suggested and when the exact case arrived in the laps of the Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court ruled the exact opposite way. The fact that anyone would try to make the case quoting that article shows just how weak the case must be.
4) If you are going to push the original intent of the authors of the constitution, Madison trumps Jay by a long shot. Madison trumps everyone. Madison seems to think location of birth dominates parentage.
5) If you are going to diagnose what Madison thought, it seems to me that what he actually said about citizen ship and allegiance trumps paragraphs contained in books he ordered to fill library shelves.
Bill,
Of course you had to read it, because the title of the post and big graphic image just below the title are very vague as to what this post would be about .
MT,
Glad to see you have your tourettes under control today.
Sure Eli on your blog call Lucia’s blog a swamp. That is all you Rabetts have is making believe you are furry rodents, come up with “cute” insults, and pretty much leave Rabett droppings everywhere you go,iow nothing constructive. Just go back to your echo chamber.
Lucia,
My understanding is that a “natural born citizen” would qualify to be a citizen of a nation by Natural Law as opposed to requiring a nation’s civil law. Natural Law was thought to be a higher level of law than civil law, immutable and the property of all mankind. It was understood by the writers of the Constitution that Natural Law and Natural Rights were born with humankind. That as such they could only be discovered and not created. Some would have said God given, others perhaps the natural property of man in the world. No matter. Civil law that conflicted with Natural Law was considered to be illegitimate. Civil law can allow citizenship status to be very expansive. We could grant nearly everyone citizenship like the last days of the Roman Empire if we wished. But ask yourself what type of citizenship would be beyond the reach of legitimate civil law to deny and there you find the definition of a natural born citizen. The American example:
American as resulting from being born the child of two American parents on American sovereignty territory and having continued in that state by not voluntarily relinquishing it when of age by an affirmative act.
Nothing to legitimately contend. That is very close to Vattel and from what I’ve read, the original understanding of natural born citizen status.
I’m not sure his British citizenship persisted after the independence of Kenya in 1963. In any event, he gained Kenyan citizenship at that time, and automatically lost it when he failed to renounce his US citizenship and swear allegiance to Kenya upon attaining adulthood.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html
Provided that the debate is an honest one I cannot think that it ridiculous. By honest I mean not proxy.
Allegiance is a an issue for all sovereign states and how it is determined is no bussiness of others.
As I understand it, the US’ focus of allegiance is its constitution. For besides it practical value, it has a conceptual standing revealing what it is to be American. So it may be, in practical terms, what American’s bear allegiance to, and be a test for what separates patriotism from treachery.
It also seems to me, that in the Presidential case special provision was made to deter tyranny, perhaps particularly foreign rule. I cannot otherwise see why the natural born restriction should not be more broadly applied.
Is that how the important emphasis on being natural born is broadly preceived?
FWIW, individual English and Bristish monarchs have been popularly distained and subject to well deserved ridicule, and many of us couldn’t care less about the private lives of royals. The heirs are condemned by act of birth to be Head of State yet politically impotent and thereby save us from tyrants and presidents alike.
Although they are, for their time, the focus of allegiance. They are perhaps only the crown made flesh. And they in turn are sworn to govern by the laws and customs of their peoples. So in that way it is by laws statute and common that we define our essence. As noted above being foriegn is no hinderance to monarchy but perceived allegiance to the Papal Throne is.
You might like to muse on criticism of how you determine elligibility to govern, when it comes by way of peoples from your common ally and oldest enemy; in light of the fact that few or less of us know how we determine the same.
As best as I can judge ours is a model that Rome would have been proud of, as it is but citizenship and residence that qualifies one for parliament, and then to high office and the power to govern in the name of the monarch and by prerogative powers. I am no constitutionalist but as far as I can determine UK citizenry is extended to all citizens of the Commonweath of Nations, although not vice versa. So perhaps we could hand the executive powers to any of about 1/4 of the world’s adult population but in practice they would be inconvenienced in that they could not be privy to the secrets of state.
This only distracts from the really important question: Why is she not at the wedding?
Her behavior towards the queen may have been socially awkward, but her husband (also not invited) is a very important man after all, having been prime minister for ten years.
John G. Bell
Sure. And we have indications that Madison thought that place of birth trumps parentage when determining allegence.
Vattel is not the constitution. Vattel is not cited in the constitution. Vattel is not even American. I don’t think Vattel was even a member of any government. Vattel is a book that was on the shelves of people’s libraries. This does not even begin to suggest that people agreed with him on his definition of “natural born citizen”. Vattel is no more dispositive than the Bible, Cicero or Nietze.
BTW–
Back when the issue was whether McCain was a natural born, a bunch of attorney’s at the Volokh conspiracy had a conversation about this issue:
http://volokh.com/2008/02/28/natural-born-citizen/
More McCain
http://volokh.com/posts/1220632296.shtml
http://volokh.com/posts/1204655862.shtml
Discussion of Obama & citizenship:
http://volokh.com/posts/1227910730.shtml
http://volokh.com/2009/11/18/plaintiffs-posit-that-because-his-father-was-a-citizen-of-the-united-kingdom-president-obama-cant-be-a-natural-born-citizen/
(Title: Indiana Court of Appeals Rejects Claim That “Because His Father Was a Citizen of the United Kingdom, President Obama Is [Not a Natural Born Citizen and Therefore] Constitutionally Ineligible to Assume the Office of the Presidentâ€)
The only issue regarding Obama and the birth question was if he was born in what is considered the United States, and if he had by the time of his election attained the required age.
This is the constitutional standard.
No one has produced evidence Obama has not met those standards, and Obama has produced good evidence he does meet those standards.
To continue challenging is pointless irt Obama.
Obama played this perfectly- he allowed much of the criticism of him to cluster around the birth non-question instead of his list of policy failures and questions about the quality of his job. So he is now going to be able to say, for at least some time, that those who are opposed to him are all birthers, and avoid facing the real questions about his job. Will this last until 2012? We will not know until 2012.
The research into the historical context in which the framers made the choice to set the standards as they did is interesting in general, but the issue, unless devastating incontrovertible new evidence is produced, is over. I doubt if there is that sort of evidence to find.
Time to move on and deal with real issues.
Alexej: Her behavior towards the queen may have been socially awkward,
Either Alexej is posting on some British sites and mixed up his tabs… or Lucia has some history with Aunt Bess that I’d like to know more about ! 😉
Lucia
Thanks for detailed comments:
1) Equally there is no SCOTUS ruling re “natural born citizen†either way.
2) I was addressing “natural born citizen†not “citizen.â€
3) Only addressed citizenship, not presidential qualification of “natural born citizen.â€
4,5) Madison explained in Federalist 62:
See The Founder’s Constitution for original documents
Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1833) 3: Sec 1472-1473
Relative Qualifications:
Note the progression in qualifications from Representative to Senator to President:
Residency: Inhabitant of represented State – Inhabitant of represented State – 14 years resident of USA (i.e., of age since the Declaration to 1790 ratification ~ 14 years from 1776 Declaration)
Age: 25 < 30 < 35 years (= 21 of age + 4, 9, 14 years residency)
Citizenship Type: Citizen – Citizen – Natural born citizen
(by natural or civil law vs by natural law)
Citizenship Duration: 7 years citizen < 9 years citizen =35)
This infers using a more not less restrictive interpretation.
Errata
Madison Federalist 62:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed62.asp
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s19.html
Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1833) 3: Sec 1472-1473
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_5s2.html
For original documents see:
The Founder’s Constitution
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/
Avalon, Yale Law
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/
AMac (#comment-74928) mentioned Sailer’s articles about Obama.
Well, I’m quite fond of Steve Sailer. He’s right that there were “father problems” influencing GWB and Obama as well.
I learned to hate “father problems” – it seems to me that this surfaces in almost every US TV show sooner or later 😉
It spoiled for me the X-files together with another oh so loved device – Mulder’s fictional guilt trip over the disappearing of his lil’ sis.
And I’m not very pleased to see the symptoms in real persons, especially in such a position like that of POTUS. Regardless of the place of birth.
I interpret “Natural Born Citizen” as anyone who is not a naturalized citizen. See Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8
Powers of Congress
…..
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
so it’s up to Congress to determine what is a natural born citizen, and how a non-natural born citizen can be naturalized.
Check
INA: ACT 301 – NATIONALS AND CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AT BIRTH
Sec. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401] The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;
(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669; 22 U.S.C. 288) by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person (A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or (B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and
(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States. 302 persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899
(c) makes Lucia and John McCain natural born citizens of the US,
(a) makes Obama a natural born citizen of the US.
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of the US” is distinguishing aliens working for foreign embassies- having diplomatic immunity- from those legally residing in the US NOT subject to diplomatic immunity.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.f6da51a2342135be7e9d7a10e0dc91a0/?vgnextoid=fa7e539dc4bed010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=fa7e539dc4bed010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&CH=act
I’m of the opinion that because he is President there is no way any politician(Trump is not a politician)would seek to prove he is not American.How would that make the USA look in the eyes of the world,as it is the USA has been made to look pretty dumb by Obama refusing to release his certificate until now.
Why did he release it now?Did Trump(who is not a protected species)scare him?Or was he playing mind games all along?Either way the man has done himself no favours.
I keep hearing how great the American political system is.Yeah right!
Isn’t it time clear guidelines were written down,such as a candidate for President publishes his college records,and his birth certificate before he gets to be POTUS?
“Obama himself acknowledged he was a British subject.”
Ironically, it appears that the British monarch is the only one to whom Obama won’t show obeisance. 🙂
David L Hagen,
.
Seems to me that none of that matters. Court rulings are what matter, and there is no chance over the next 5 years that a Federal court is going to seriously entertain this case. You should let it go.
.
Whether you, me, or anyone else likes it or not, Mr. Obama is the duly elected POTUS, and based on the apparent weakness of potential Republican opponents, there is a very good chance he will be elected again. You are tilting at windmills my friend.
Yes. I’ve already said this.
Yes. And I think you should certainly be aware that I noted that you are addressing the difference as I have more than once provided examples of a known difference. Arnold Schwarzenneger is a citizen but not a “natural born citizen”.
For a more detailed argument, I found to my surprise that my view happens to match the one taken by the Indiana Court of Appeals in Ankeny v. Governor pdf which wrote the following footnote:
Footnote 14 reads:
The context of the footnote is:
[Note: The court mention Vattel as the governing document for interpreting the phrase “natural born citizen”, the pointed to English common law,. They also mention that this view was in force in all the colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence and persisted. Why anyone would think the fact that a paragraph in a book by Vattel — who was not an American, founder or– unless I am mistaken– even a legislator elsewhere — would superceded the common undestanding of the legislatures of all 13 colonies, and the 1st Congress and early Congresses is a point you need to support iwth something more than the observation that Ben Franklin read the book and said favorable things or that Madison instructed the librarian to stock the book.]
The Indiana appeals quote continues– and I should note quotes what Joseph Story really thinks about who is a natural born citizen:
So, while you can show that Story was did discuss the constitution’s prohibition about Foreigners, It seems highly unlikely that Story viewed “children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government,” as “Foreigners”. To make the case that Story would have considered Obama a Foreigner, you need to find something that suggest he didn’t really mean what he wrote in “Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors”, decided in 1830. Because when ruling in Inglis v. Trustees his writing suggests he would not apply the word “Foreigner” to children born in the US and so would not consider Obama-sama-rama a “Foreigner”.
The Indiana Appeals court continues
I would like tho note that if you download Ark, the Supreme Court is not the slightest bit concerned about the notions of Vattel– a Swiss philosopher. They seem to be under the impression that when figuring out the meaning of a phrase in the constitution they should look to:
1) Laws in the 13 colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence– none of which, it seems would consider a child born on their soil a “Foreigner”. (That is: unless it’s the child of a diplomat.)
2) British common law which influenced the laws in the 13 colonies.
3) Laws actually passed by the early Congresses– like the 1st, 2nd and so on.
But the Indiana Court continues:
So, it seems to me that the Indiana Court are pointing out exactly what I am pointing out: The argument that Obama is not a natural born citizen is made by omitting references to relevant SCOTUS rulings, and is based on things normally given light ( or no) deference (i.e. Vatell or letters from Jay which use the term “foreigner” without in anyway suggesting Jay’s use of “foreigner” differs from that used by the legislatures of the 13 colonies, states &etc.) and requires us to assume that rulings on the definition of “natural born citizen” in federal circuit courts are wrong. Moreover, the argument that Obama is not a natural citizen requires us to accept arguments that actually contradict SCOTUS– as they are the exact same arguments advanced to explains why Ark wasn’t a citizen at all.
Those arguments failed in that case– there is no reason to believe they will magically be transformed into winning arguments when applied to the slightly different concept of “natural born citizen”.
—
On the Senator/President thing: Yes. The qualifications for president are stricter. Everyone agrees on this. For example: Schwarzenneger could be Senator; he can’t be President. This observation that the requirements for being president are stricter than for being Senator does not buttress your case that having a Kenyan father means Obama is not a “natural born citizen”.
—
I admit I might be wrong. As I myself have said several times in comments above, the specific issue of “natural born citizen” has not been specifically adjudicated by SCOTUS. Clearly, people have a right to try to push this through the courts. As I’ve also said: I’m not a lawyer.
But it seems to me that if you got your case into the Courts at all — which seems unlikely — and got it to the Supreme Court– SCOTUS would rule that Obama is a “natural born citizen”. The web pages you are pointing to make a highly unpersuasive case for the position that he is not a “natural born citizen”.
Noelene (Comment #75076)
I think you are new. But I have an unusual rule at my blog: You should avoid arguing by asking rhetorical questions. You may use rhethorical questions, but you must tell us what you think the answer is, preferably in the comment where you post the question. So please: No comments that attempt to make points by merely asking rhetorical questions.
Yes, but is Lucia a natural born citizen? That is the real question. With Obama, it’s a fait accompli. Your eligibility is a more interesting question, since it seems a real possibility that someday a person born outside the USA to US parents will want to run. 😉
Lucia,
Sorry about the rhetorical question in #75084.
SteveF– You seem to have given a sort of answer. Nolene, not so much.
Anyway, yes. I think the question of someone like me might hypothetically be an issue. This would particularly apply if I had at the age of 21 moved back to El Salvador, served in government there, then returned at the age of 50, run for president and somehow, rather miraculously gotten elected.
Having clicked links and read more, it does seem that various laws have tried to deal with the issue of how to treat children of US citizens born outside the US. That’s where you start to pile up conditions like:
1) If both parents are US citizens and both have lived in the US some amount of time, you are a citizen.
2) If only one is… then your Dad has to have lived in the US at least ‘N’ number of years. (These are old– so, yep. Dad’s.) or
3) If only one is a citizen then that parent can’t be naturalized.
The conditions granting birthright tizenship to people born outside the US have shifted and changed over time. But the situations similar to my sisters Godmother or my other sisters Godmothers daughter are ones that need to be considered. Here they are:
P’s Godmother: Born in Palestine. Family move to France, then Texas. Spent teen years in TX. Naturalized as soon as she could. Nearly immediately, met handsome Salvadoran. Married, move to El Salvador. Had 5 kids. All kids got American passports. One (Mario) eventually moved to US–but lives in US and El Salvador. I don’t think any of the kids married American’s. I don’t think any of the other had children born in the US. Should the US give US citizenship to the children of the other 4 kids?
M’s Godmother’s daugher: M’s godmother lived in US while her husband was studying radiology. Gave birth to their 3rd child, Maria. She then moved back to Gautemala. The third child is a US citizen. As a child, Maria spent two school years in the US– living with us. 🙂 (She was gorgeous. All the boys were gaga over her.) As an adult, she resides in Guatemala. If Maria married a Guatemalan and gave birth in Guatemala, should her kids be granted US citizenship?
In contrast to a child of an American mother, born in the US, who mostly grew up in the US, these “grandchildren of American citizens” cases are ones where the connection to the US is getting rather tenuous. It’s the perpetually believing lineage that matters rather than birth place that mostly opens the potential for anyone someone would consider a “foreigner” being president that strikes me as a bigger concern– and it also seems that may well have been the understanding of common law at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the constitution.
Though of course I can’t be certain of that and haven’t read widely on it. That said: it strikes me that the people who are insisting Joseph Story’s and John Jay’s use of the word “foreigner” was meant to describe people born on US soil have likely read rather less than I have!
Well, besides the wonderful excursions into IANALand, the take home from this, and the entire birther nonsense (Hunter has a good summary) is that rejectionism is as fungible as money and twice as sticky. Kim played exactly the same cards with respect to Obama’s citizenship as she plays with climate issues.
This doesn’t mean that hunter, or Tony Watts signed on to the birther movement, They didn’t. Eli has his doubts about Lucia for starting this, but she may have learned a lesson.
So bottom lines
a) You can’t have a dialogue without running the crazies on your side out of the room or at least telling them to shut up when they keep telling you the sun is made of iron or they need data they had for years. Keeping your pet around just shows you are interested in gumming up the works.
b) The World Trade Center fell because of the fires started by the planes crashing in to it.
Although it’s irrelevant, I can’t pass up the opportunity to correct the Indiana Court of Appeals, who wrote (as you quoted): “For all but forty-four people in our nation’s history (the forty-four Presidents)…” In the customary numbering of U.S.Presidents, Obama is deemed the 44th President. However, Grover Cleveland is deemed the 22nd and 24th, having served non-consecutive terms; thus there have been only 43 persons who have served.
Eli
Huh? I can’t even guess what information content is concealed in this sentence. For that matter, I have no idea how your “bottom lines” fit into anything.
Lucia,
.
You have obviously thought about this subject matter more than most (and for sure much more than I have). As a practical matter, at least in complex cases, cultural, linguistic, and emotional connection seem to me to be terribly important, but I suspect those things are ignored by most courts.
.
Many years ago I met a young woman in Colombia (she was in her early 20’s at the time) who spoke English perfectly… with a New Jersey accent. She told me she was born in Colombia, but had lived in the USA from 6 months old, the daughter of illegal residents. She grew up speaking English and going to public schools; her parents seem to have decided that there was little need for her to speak Spanish, so they spoke only English with her. Her parents were eventually found out (during some kind of legal dispute) and the family was deported to Colombia when she was 16. When I met her, she had learned Spanish, but still had an obvious English accent. She was for sure legally a Colombian, but in every other possible way she was an American, and wanted nothing more than to return. She understood the chance of that happening was slim. It was very sad.
HaroldW (Comment #75088)
Somebody pointed out the miscount in comments at the Volokh conspiracy. Grover Cleveland may have had enough gravitas to count for 2. 🙂
kimmee… how about Obama provides his marks when Bush provides his – hey?
Eli Rabett (Comment #75087),
What? World Trade Center? What? Whatever message(s) you imagine you conveyed in your comment, you did not succeed. Perhaps you could clarify… a lot.
Lucia, a poster called Spaulding responded to me on another blog
when I posted this:
“I recall reading that a copy of Vattel;s “The Law of Nations” checked out from Franklin’s library was found at Washington’s residence after his death. In it Vattel defines natural-born citizens as “… those born in the country, of parents who are citizens”. Note parents is plural. I do not agree that the SCOTUS is free to redefine it. In particular Vattel felt “… in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.†Franklin prized the book enough that he bought three copies of the French Edition of “Le Droit des Gens” for reference. Perhaps Washington’s copy was one of the three.”
Spaulding’s response:
“Yes Fritz Bell, Vattel’s great work played a cardinal role in our founding. Vattel was the first text book in our first law school, created at William and Mary by Thomas Jefferson, who restructured the school in 1779. Among early students were John Marshall, James Munroe, and James Wilson. Hamilton, you will discover, regarded Vattel as his primary source not just for international law, but for the structure of a consitutional republic, and said so often, including in letters to Washington and others.
Historians discovered newspaper accounts of Washington’s first day in office in New York in 1789, describing his new desk as clear but for a copy of Vattel’s Law of Nations. Vattel was a constant source for the lectures of Samuel Adams and Hamilton. Vattel was the most cited legal source in American jurisprudence between 1789 and 1821 (Grotian Society Papers 1972). Franklin acquired early English translations in 1762, to bring back to The Colonies. …”
So your response to me:
“Vattel is not the constitution. Vattel is not cited in the constitution. Vattel is not even American. I don’t think Vattel was even a member of any government. Vattel is a book that was on the shelves of people’s libraries. This does not even begin to suggest that people agreed with him on his definition of “natural born citizenâ€. Vattel is no more dispositive than the Bible, Cicero or Nietze.”
Is that of a person who has not made enough of an attempt to understand these matters. Do so and I am sure you will be worth listening to.
Eli,
I have a question for you.
You know the facts leading up to Jones’ request to delete mails.
Holland FOIA to CRU for mails
CRU discusses how they will respond.
Jones sends a mail to Mann
and Mann responds. please note the subject in the mail.
A question for everyone but especially Eli.
I think that anybody who DENIES that this mail was written as a result of Holland’s FOIA request is a fact. I think anyone who denies it is a looney tune.
Do you agree?
So Eli, would you run crazies who deny the connection between the FOIA request and Jones mail out of the room?
“I see huge differences, and I am surprised you don’t.”
SteveF, I thought we were talking about the partisan yap and gap and not the espoused political philosophies of the Bush and Obama. I agree with your assessments of the political philosophies (even though the differences are often a matter of degree and not principle), but that is not necessarily how the politicians have ruled.
To what I was referring was those partisans who defend in their own party what they would criticize in the other. It becomes a matter of rationalizing their party by hypocrisies. I wish there were a large gap in political philosophies under discussion and not simply a choosing of sides.
Re: Eli Rabett (Apr 29 09:13),
Indeed. So when is, say, Real Climate going to
shut upmoderate its peanut gallery? I also didn’t hear much objection from the warmer side when in 2004 UK’s chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said that if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere aren’t reduced, Antarctica may be the only habitable continent on the planet by 2100. That statement is at least as silly as the iron sun thing.John G. Bell (Comment #75094),
.
Honestly, I find your take on this a bit strange. I do not believe any Court is going to seriously entertain the proposition that Vattel is more important than the words of the Constitution and relevant Federal Court cases. Then there is the on-the-ground reality that Mr. Obabma is in fact the POTUS, elected and sworn into office. Do you believe that reality will be ever be changed through a legal argument about what constitutes “natural born”? Do you believe any Federal Court would not just dismiss the case? (Those are not rhetorical questions.) IMO, you are tilting at windmills.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #75097),
Worse, there is no rational/logical connection between “the iron sun” thing and climate change (no matter how bizarre the iron sun theory might be), while claiming that Antarctica might be the only habitable place on Earth by 2100 is exactly the kind of ridiculous CAGW rant that is commonly used to frighten and confuse the public… and these rants are seldom (if ever) shouted down by the main stream of AWG scientists and their vocal public supporters like Eli. When folks like Eli will admit that James Hansen’s insane ravings about the West Side Highway soon being underwater are utter rubbish, then it may be time for serious discussion.
Re: Eli Rabett (Apr 29 09:13),
As best I can tell, your comment is an indirect endorsement of aggressive moderation by the blog host. Which is not how Lucia runs this site, we can agree.
In my own experience as a commenter, aggressive moderation has its own issues. (I don’t know your own policy – I’ve always been treated fairly at the Bunny’s den.) In particular, I’ve tried to participate in threads concerning the Tiljander data series at three prominent Pro-AGW Consensus blogs, and had my remarks fail moderation. (These were posts where the host blogger was already discussing this issue.) So a real conversation never developed — it was more a matter of “What you can’t say”, as outlined by Paul Graham’s essay of the same name.
You aren’t the first to note (if that was your intended message) that a light/no moderation policy causes a Signal-to-Noise problem. What many people have to say isn’t worth listening to, much of the time.
There is a work-around to the problem. And that is to skip over those comments that are likely to fail my own S/N filter (e.g. those that include the phrase “iron sun”). If it turns out I’ve missed something crucial, I can go back, later.
There are two behaviors that make this strategy more effective. First, I decided that it’s not my job to correct the mistaken ideas of all other commenters. Most are content with their ignorance or illogic. And second, I’ve had to accept that some people may interpret such non-correction as a tacit endorsement of whatever wacky notions are on display.
No, it isn’t. Not as a matter of belief, and not on a tactical level either. (The latter seems to be along the lines of what you might be implying with respect to Lucia, when you write, “Eli has his doubts about Lucia for starting this, but she may have learned a lesson. “)
I suspect this is a common blog-reading strategy. Perhaps this exposition will help you arrive at a less-jaundiced view of the readership of blogs whose threads include comments that are silly, yet un-rebutted.
Pertinent to the discussion of this thread was an article in today’s Chicago Tribune about the Obama birth issue by regular columnist, John Kass. He writes a not so flattering picture of Obama, but in it makes clear that Obama is every bit a US home grown big city, and at the same time uniquely Chicago, politician. While the article drips with irony and dislike of Obama, it does reinforce the point that regardless of place of birth or parents place of birth we have a diverse citizenry in the US that renders most people living here for any length of time very “American”.
In my past life in the business world I was acquainted with business people who were on assignment in the US from other countries for relatively long periods of time, but planned to return back home eventually. Some of those with younger children told me that they wanted to keep their children from being Americanized (to make the transition back easier) and would send them to a school restricted to students from their country and would speak only their native language at home. Even with these restrictions a number of the parents told me that the strategy failed and some of the parents remained in the US for indefinite stays.
I think a lot of the problems of who is eligible for being President could be cleared up with a simple constitutional amendment and one that was encompassing of who is eligible. Schwartzenegger might have made some have second thoughts about an amendment, but the likes of a Lucia should bring more favorability even though she has the religion problem, like others of us would have, in getting elected unless we lied about it like a number of politicians do.
AMac (Comment #75100),
What a great essay you linked to!
I note that he was careful to not actually point out any current fashions masquerading as morals, but…. boy-oh-boy… reading the essay a lot sure came to my mind. I especially liked the “lack of humor” among proponents of a position as a telling indicator that their ideas are probably rubbish… the ring of truth there is so loud that it is almost deafening.
David–
That a commenter called Spaulding made a bunch of claims about Vattel does not elevate Vattell to the level of “Founder” nor does it mean the founders agreed with his specific views on “natural citizen”.
We know for sure his views on estabilishment of religion were not embraced by the founders. His views are the government should establish a national religion, if necessary it can establish several and if the locals don’t like any of the established religions, they can pack up and move. So, his views on freedom of religion are: No one can make you believe a particular religion, but if you don’t like the one we estbalished here, you can move.
For specifics refer to:
129 and 130 here:
http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm
Also, if you read his section on “Inhabitants” you’ll find that those with non-US citizens on American soil are not only not “natural born citizens”, they aren’t citizens at all. See section § 213. Inhabitants.
So, Vattel isn’t he’s not claiming parentage makes the distinction between “natural born” citizens and other types or citizens. It’s clear that he thinks those born to non-citizen fathers have no more rights than their fathers. This is not the case in the US. Those born of non-citizen fathers in the US have the full rights of citizens born of citizen fathers.
Sam Adams was a brewer and firebrand, not known as a scholar. Do you have any notes from his lectures? Did “Spaulding” share any links to show that Adams shared Vattels views on who was a citizen– natural born or otherwise?
Hamilton was really into establishing a bank. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he liked some of Vattels views on monetary policy. (http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm — see Chapter X.)
Possibly, in his last dieing minutes, he came to agree with Vattel views on duels. but I suspect he didn’t buy into section See § 175 of Vattel until that time. Too bad or he might have lived longer. Out of curiosity, did this Spaulding fellow provide you any evidence that Hamilton agreed with Vatell’s views on who was a citizen?
Information on what either Adams or Hamilton said or wrote would be useful since even if their lectures included Vattel, that those bits could be used as examples of what is common in other countries. Anyone who reads Vattel can see that it would be useful as a jumping off point to explain the range of laws (including conflicting ones) that applied in other countries. The full thing– as opposed to selective quotes– appear to be here: http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm
Lucia (or anyone else)
In your studies on this subject have you come across any definitions of the specific phrase “natural born citizen[s]†prior to the ratification of The Constitution other than Vattel?
Lucia
Thanks for detailed extracts to “natural born citizen”.
Other court cases continue. In particular:
Wiley Drake, et al v. Barack Obama, et al Case Number: 09-56827
US Court of Appeals oral argument scheduled May 2, 9am, 9th circuit court of Appeals, Pasadena division, courtroom 1.
It will be interesting to see which views prevail in the long run.
SteveF. Thanks.
So back to matters engineering and writing patents.
peetee:
you mean this?
Kenneth–
Thanks, but I would be a very bad president.
It is true that people discuss changing the “natural born” clause rather frequently. When I think through hypotheticals, I’m not entirely sure they should. It’s something that needs to be carefully thought out.
Possibly, citizenship combined with a minimum of 14 years of the past 21 years sustained residency in the US or some sort of government service would be enough to avoid anyone who could realistically be considered a “Foreigner” who ought to be inelligible. (That is: I think living in the US, or serving in the military or diplomatic corp from 2001-2014 should qualify you to assume an office at the end of 2014, as would 14 years during the periods from 1993-2014, but spending 14 years from 1960-1974 is maybe too long out of the country to serve in 2014. I don’t know how you’d get elected in that case anyway, and certainly, you couldn’t really fall into any conceivable succession plan in the event the pres, vp, speaker etc. are killed. But … still.. something like that.)
This would let Schwarzennegger run– also me. But people like my sister’s godmother’s daughter or granddaughter cold not run. It would be difficult for some foreign power to manuever to get a citizen naturalized and put in place to take over the position of commander in chief. So, that should mostly put that fear to rest.
Any brightlight rule is going to have “bugs” as well as “features”. The current “but” is people argue about what “natural born citizen” means.
No. But I don’t think this is an important point.
David L. Hagen (Comment #75105)
I clicked and read “Barnett”. I thought “Randy, no, no,no!!!!” Then I saw it was Pamela Barnett. (Randy Barnett is a constitutional scholar.)
Am I mistaken, or is the case being heard derivative in the sense that they aren’t going to listen to any case about Obama’s birth or eligibility, but rather oral arguments will touch on whether a judge acted improperly in a previous case (which would have been about Obama’s eligibility.)
Oh–BTW, I have to admit I’m intrigued by this cased being appealed in the 9th circuit court. On the one hand, I find it difficult to believe the 9th circuit– which is perceived as having a liberal bias, will rule in favor of Barnett/Keyes. On the other hand, at least at one time, they seem to be the most overturned circuit court. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/11/opinion/oe-fitzpatrick11
It will be intersting to read law blogs when the case is heard and ultimately, when the 9th circuit rules.
David L. Hagen (Comment #75105),
Thanks for the suggestion, but actually, I am not currently in the process of writing a patent application. I suggest go back to kidding yourself about “which view will prevail”. Let me make a couple of predictions:
1. The appeal will fail, just as did the original case
2. The appeal of that decision (should one be mounted) will also fail.
It is all just a waste of time and money.
lucia (Comment #75109),
I read over the original dismissal decision. Aside from commenting that the plaintiff’s lawyers attempted to turn the court into a circus, the content looked like pretty standard stuff… all legal language removed, he basically said that the constitution does not give Federal courts the authority to remove a president from office. Lacking jurisdiction simply means the court refuses to hear the merits of the case at all.
.
Maybe the appeals court will critique the original judge’s harsh characterization of the behavior of the plantiff’s lawyers, or maybe not. What they won’t do is reverse the principle decision of the lower court… case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
Conspiracy theories be darn. The fact is that that being a natural born citizen is a requirements to be president and it is reasonable to request original documentation to that effect. That cannot be said for school or similar records. Obama played cute with this issue as long as it was to his political advantage and when a recent poll came out that only 38% were sure that he was born a citizen he changed course. Smearing 62% of the people with a derogatory political term because they believe it is appropriate to request his original birth certificate is being partisan not objective. I am disappointed to see this politically partisan pontification on a website I highly respect. Get back to what this website does best; objective analysis of climate science.
“Get back to what this website does best; objective analysis of climate science.”
It does this at times. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Andrew
Lucia,
I am not David L. Hagen.
I always thought Mr. Keyes had standing. I was amazed that it was thrown out. Mr. Obama won his first state senate race due in large part to having his Democrat opponents in the primary invalidated so that he ran unopposed. This would be some sort of cosmic justice if Mr. Keyes was able to turn the tables. But as they say justice delayed is justice denied.
Please get back to writing about math and science where you have demonstrated that you have great talent.
AMac, since Eli hardly ever moderates (and when he does the bunny only moves it to the Rabett Hole)** you are not making a lot of sense. On the other hand, you get what you encourage which was the point. Kim was moderately amusing to Lucia as long as she was biting others with her patented style.
**Viagra spam excepted, and as Eli grows older maybe not even that.
mosher: WGAS?
John–Sorry.
On this:
I have to admit I don’t remember this. Who was invalidated during the Democratic party? I know mosely braun didn’t run, but I wasn’t aware her candidacy was invalidated. Whose was?
OTOH: The Republican party candidate Jack Ryan stepped down after his embarrassing divorce records from Jerry Ryan obtained by the Chicago Tribune under FOI. details involving allegations to visit sex clubs here.The Rep. party then made the absolutely insane decision to slate out-of-state far right wing not popular with Illini voters, Keyes who proceeded to say some amazingly silly things. For example: He accused John Kass of being a Daley supporter. That lead to some hilarious columns.
Keyes was very unpopular and got very few votes. Obama won by a landslide
I would say that the only Court that has jurisdiction for removal of the President from office on any grounds is the US Senate after indictment (impeachment) by the House of Representatives. No Federal judge in his right mind would hear the case. Not that there aren’t a lot of Federal judges that are questionable in that regard.
Eli–
I’m not sure why you think whatever it is you think.
I told Kim to stop dropping wild goose chase links on this thread, and after some back and forth told her that I would moderate her if she did not stop:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/where-is-the-trend-relative-to-all-runs/#comment-74183
Kim is moderated specifically for “wildgoose chase” linkless comments which she often drops and which I find annoying. She dropped a wildgoose chase comment. I moderated and announced that I had imposed the moderation specifically to monitor for wildgoose chase comments.
Steve understood this– you’ll see the reference to “galileo” and the rack on the previous thread.
Re: Eli Rabett (Apr 29 13:44),
> you are not making a lot of sense.
Sorry to hear that. Thanks for the commentary and link, anyway. YMMV as they say.
I’m reading this blog with increasing astonishment and anger. How can an absolute trivial non-issue as Obama’s birth certificate become such a mega thing.
.
Why is it that Obama is not attacked on real issues like the fact that he and his guvmint has done absolutely NOTHING to curb the power of the financial institutes?
.
I’m sure Obama is mighty happy that his opponents are more than busy playing around with poppycock instead of the real failures of his government. Then again, I’m not surprised seeing the opponents protagonists are a gun happy, job hopping, clueless hockey mom and a 2nd hand car dealer with a bad hair cut.
Hoi “The Bodge” Polloi (Comment #75126) April 29th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
No government has done much to curb financial institutions since the War of 1812. Do a search for “money as debt” – you’ll find that the source of inflation does not lie in “government printing presses,” but in the “partial reserve” system that permits banks to issue checks for money they do not have on deposit. There are actually two basic conflicting ideas on the origin of value. One places it in the work that individuals groups perform to improve material from basket materials to superhighways. The other allows banks to determine “value” by loaning non-existent money on the promise that the recipient will share the proceeds of their work with the bank at what amounts to usurious rates over time. The “gun-happy hockey mom” and the “2nd hand car dealer” will not achieve any more than any previous administration as long as banks are the only source of money supply – which, BTW, is contrary to the US constitution.
As an aside for those concerned that Obama may have a foreign passport, quite a few people carry more than one passport legally. Since Obama’s mother was a US citizen, WHERE he was born was never anything but stupid, distracting irrelevancy by characters who never have studied the constitution. He has derivative citizenship through his mother as well as through his birth location. I now know quite a few women who are rather aggravated by this deliberate focus on his father.
re: Carrick (Comment #75106)
excellent! Cause Bush only “released” his Yale marks after they were, uhhh… hacked… er… leaked! Prior to that he (his 2004 campaign) heavily resisted the release on confidentiality grounds. But don’t let that stop the kimmee types from casting aspersion towards Obama over his marks/his acceptance to Harvard/so-called timeline gaps. Birther of another feather – hey?
Alice Palmer, Gha-is Askia, Marc Ewell, and Ulmer Lynch. There may have been others but it was everyone else.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Senate_elections_of_Barack_Obama
peetee:
How is that relevant?
You said “how about Obama provides his marks when Bush provides his – hey?”
Well they were released, whatever the reason.
Personally I think all presidential candidates should release their full transcripts as part of their “application” for the job. This has nothing to do with birthers, or birthing, or hope and change, or just change.
Here, let Eli google that for you
John G. Bell–
Ahh. Ok. I mis-read. Since you mentioned Keyes and “cosmic justice”, I thought you were talking about the race for US Senate which ultimately was between Obama and out-of-state replacement to Ryan, Keyes. I didn’t know that about the earlier run for state senate. In Chicago, the democratic primary would be the one that mattered, so everyone else failing to qualify there would clinch it for him.
The Republican’s gave Obama quite a gift by slating out-of-state unpopular Keyes against him.
Carrick,
My guess is that neither Geoge W. or Mr. Obama are going to set the world on fire with their intellects. I mean, would you suspect either of them understands much of say, linear algebra, how a computer works, or heck, even basic thermo? Nah, politicians are elected for lots of reasons, but brilliant analytical thinking is not one of them.
Lucia
Consolidated case including Barnett, Keyes etc. and Drake etc.
The case PACER record is posted at:
http://venturacountyteaparty.ning.com/profiles/blogs/9th-district-court-of-appeals
Obama had defaulted in not replying. Orly asked for default judgment against Obama per rules. I understand the issue is whether default should stand/Judge David O. Carter’s (mis)handling of it/promising trial on merits/doing the opposite.
Obama’s posting his long form BC may be to try to argue that this is now moot.
Barnett Appellant’s opening brief
Drake Appellants reply brief
http://usjf.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Brief-1.pdf
“KEYES and DRAKE were running for President and Vice President of the United States, respectively, and were on the ballot in California. . . . were harmed in that one of the
competitors for the office of President ran for that office without the right to do so, thus denying APPELLANTS the right to compete fairly in the election.”
Appelle’s response
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Barnett-v-Obama-response-to-appeal.pdf
SteveF
I was referring to myself to get back to work.
Re: Carrick (Apr 29 14:54),
While we’re at it, complete financial and employment history, including income tax records and current balance sheet for candidates and their spouses. Existing blind trusts could stay blind with only a total value provided.
Re: SteveF (Apr 29 15:07),
Save us from intellectual Presidents. I want someone who has failed at something somewhere along the line so he or she knows they aren’t perfect. Also someone who has been shown capable of delegating because no one can do it all. Oh, and a constitutional amendment to raise the age of eligibility for President to 55 from 35.
Re: Eli Rabett (Apr 29 13:45), it’s simple Eli.
You cannot answer a simple factual question.
In addition to banning looneys who refuse to acknowledge facts, I’d propose kicking people out of conservations who cant answer simple factual questions.
As you know the mail was sent in response to an FOIA request. As you also know the Russell inquiry could not bring itself to admit this fact, they denied it.
The point is we see denial of facts on every side of almost every contentious issue. obama’s birth (WGAS) but yes, I think he is qualified to be president. 9/11? it wasnt bush. see easy. The Jones letter (WGAS) yes it was sent as the result of an FOAI request. The interesting thing is this. When something doesnt matter (WGAS) thats the time when it is easy to admit a fact.
That you cannot admit that fact, doesnt led me to believe that you find the fact unimportant.
David
Not replying to whats specifically? (The various documents seem to include quotes from something or other Obama’s team wrote.)
Lucia, Obama knocked out his opponents when he ran for the state Senate. Also, his biggest opponents were both hurt by unsealing of divorce records, Jack Ryan and one of the Democrats.
MikeN–
There are two races being discussed: 1) Race for state senate seat. 2) Race for US senate seat.
Could you explain what you mean by the phrase “knocked out”? And which race does this apply to?
Yes. Ryan was hurt by the unsealing of divorce records as I noted above. He was running as a conservative, and the allegations of trying to get his ex-wife to got to weird public sex establishments was an embarrassment so he dropped out. Then the Illinois Republican’s got the brilliant idea to slate Alan Keyes, who was utterly unfamiliar with Illinois politics, voters etc. Just about no one liked Keyes.
Keyes’ got very, very few votes and Obama had no trouble defeating him.
I don’t remember the name of any democrat who was hurt during the race for the US Senate– but that’s just my poor memory. The Republicans were working so hard committing hari-kari that year that it’s hard to remember what the Democrats did. Can you name the Democrat?
Disagree. FDR learned from and dealt with the Crisis (Glass-Steagall, Pecora Commission), Obama does not, the Volcker Rule was a joke. But what can you expect when most of his financial guys worked for Gold Sacks?
Bleary-eyed, a day spent on another extremely crucial research project, found out that the definition of a “U.S. citizen for tax purposes” has either just been redefined or is in the process thereof. What that definition actually is or is planned to be will have to wait til tomorrow. But they don’t mean native born or natural born, haha
What did I write that cued moderation?
Peetee,
Ah the ole “cause he did i too” defense. Maxwell Smart would say “That’s is the 2nd lamest excuse I ever heard!”
Perhaps this is just another example of how like Bush Obama is? Is that your point?
I want transparency in governement; open sessions, bills posted online, committee hearings on legislation open to public, donor lists, visitor logs and so on,I also want transparency in the background of those who WANT the job of President, Senator, Representative.
Lucia
I think he is referring to this.
In his first race for office, seeking a state Senate seat on Chicago’s gritty South Side in 1996, Obama effectively used election rules to eliminate his Democratic competition.
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-05-29/politics/obamas.first.campaign_1_obama-campaign-barack-obama-chicago-politics?_s=PM:POLITICS
I’m surprised to see this discussion here. It’s interesting and all, but not what you do best. Stick to the angels dancing on the head of the climate change pin. Sorry. That comes across as a bit snarky. But I’ve been reading Gavin and Kevin and Michael over on WUWT about tornadoes and I’m testy. Don’t much like people, especially “scientists,” trying to make political hay out of what happened. It passeth understanding.
I’m mostly with Kim here. To start, calling people birthers is like calling people who have reservations about what role mankind has played in climate change “deniers.” No one who has spent any time trying to get at the issues in climate denies that the planet seems to be (however momentarily in geological time) warming and that human activity plays and has played some role in what we are observing. What, how much, how it can be measured and what, if anything, ought to be done about it are questions reasonable people should be able to disuss without resorting to pet names for those who disagree with them, or reaching for a firearm.
I’ve not paid much attention to the birth certificate issue. I didn’t even know until a day ago that an officer went to prison as a result of all this. It is true that H. Clinton was the one who got the ball rolling on the issue. It is equally true that John McCain, when asked to supply proof of citizensip (since he was born in the Canal Zone, he had to; a pro forma thing) did so without hesitating. You remember him, right? Spent time in a POW camp? A naval officer on flight status?
I have no idea why the information Obama released the other day wasn’t released two years ago. I see no reason at all why what some say is a million dollars (in taxpayer money) was spent to impede the release of this document. But for Obama and his supporters to suggest that anyone who wondered about this is a racist (New York Times) or a moron is hogwash: Obama’s stonewalling on the issue is what brought us here, and why more and more people began to think something was fishy. So now he’s pulled the seat out from under the doubters. Larf, larf.
Don’t know who said it but someone earlier in this thread said Obama must be pretty smart b/c he went to Harvard Law and got on the Law Review. There are a lot of reasons why someone makes Law Review. In Obama’s case, well. There were some oddities. For instance, nothing written–not a single article–except some sophomoric piece on law and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Usually, the people on Law Review are at the head of the class, and they are writing maniacs. Was Obama at the head of his class? Who knows?
Is Obama smart? Sure, he’s smart. Is he an intellectual? No, he is not an intellectual. Neither is John McCain for that matter. Then again, McCain never said he was.
Now, some on this thread are making those old accusations again, suggesting that anyone who wonders about Obama’s grades is a birther of another stripe. The problem here is the claims the man makes for himself, claims his supporters echo. Or do some people here not get the idea that Obama is arrogant? Point is, someone who goes around saying how smart he is has to sooner or later provide evidence of same. Right? You all have listened to Obama. How does he sound on “global warming” (he’s still stuck on that)? How is his grasp of finance and economics? How’s his sense of history? You all impressed? Hell, everyone says George Bush is stupid. And I would admit, the man isn’t a genius. But have you listened to Obama? Parsed any of his speeches?
As I said, this thread, and my comments, really don’t belong on this site. I apologize for wasting people’s time. Every time I come here, I get an education. But today? I’m not so sure.
steven mosher (Comment #75138)
April 29th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Sure. Admit that McIntyre’s ‘auditing’ was partisan sniping and harrassment. That’s a fact, there is evidence.
Ultimately the people of America believed Obama was an American citizen,and voted for him.I think it is his actions,not any talk about a birth certificate that have made people question who or what he really identifies with.
I did leave out a 3rd option in my post,and that was that a poll showed only 38 percent of Americans believed he was American,I guess it comes down to whether you believe a piece of paper makes you American or not.
Re: bugs (Apr 29 19:45),
> Admit that McIntyre’s ‘auditing’ was partisan sniping and harrassment.
I’m not Steven Mosher, so I won’t answer for him. I’m also not a mind reader. That said, let me take a shot:
McIntyre’s auditing looks to me like it could be partisan sniping, part of the time. (Harrassment? I’m persuaded that certain pro-Consensus scientists believe that they’ve been harassed, but I haven’t seen evidence that shows that to be McIntyre’s motivation.)
Bugs, you didn’t ask, but most of the time McIntyre’s auditing looks to me like the actions of somebody who’s interested in the science, knowledgeable about the science, and put off by the poor practices of certain prominent climate scientists, mostly working in paleoclimatology.
On the one claim that I’ve looked into most extensively — that’d be the
fourthree Tiljanderproxiesdata series — McIntyre has been entirely correct, and his pro-AGW Consensus scientist-advocate adversaries have been wholly in error.I could cite a number of other examples.
None of that makes McIntyre or any of the other parties to these disputes either angels, or devils. People are complex.
By the way, if you review Comment #75138 that you copied, you’ll see that Eli has yet to answer Mosher’s simple, direct question. You piled a challenge of your own on top, rather than answering the simple, direct question yourself.
Blair Hull was at one point considered the leader in the Democratic primary, then the media got his divorce records unsealed.
Kendra
Nothing. I did something that accidentally deleted all emails in the data base about 2 weeks ago. I then set to not moderate first comments for about 2 weeks and I resumed. So lots of people are going to get moderated once. I was out at a play…. just got back and released your comment.
Lucia
See Right Side of Life for docs & comments.
Barnett v. Obama
Taitz motion for summary judgment following no Obama response:
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=3068
Then the case gets transformed. Carter persuades Taitz to move the case forward.
http://www.therightsideoflife.com/2009/07/14/keyes-v-obama-judge-agrees-to-move-case-forward/
Carter’s action enables Obama to respond.
Subsequently Carter dismisses. etc.
David L. Hagen
You are providing a bunch of links to web pages, but I don’t think any of it is answering my question. If you understand my question, the answer should be very short. I’m asking because I want to know….
On this:
Respond to what? I get that there are a whole bunch of proceedings and a bunch of blogs and web pages etc. What is Obama enabled or requested to respond to.
Titan,
I didn’t realize the word was considered derogatory. If there is a neutral word, I’d use it. That’s the word used at the site David L. Hagen is linking and it seems to be sympathetic to the movement. But if there is another word, I’d be happy to use it. Is there a word used to describe the collection of people who are working to have Obama removed from office on the basis of not having been born in this country? I also saw the word “dueler” and “illegitimazers”.
On the other issues: I don’t know Obama’s IQ, his college grades etc. I don’t really care, but some voter do. People seem to request these of nearly all politicians these days, so it really doesn’t bother me if people clamor for these.
Suggesting his grades may not have been so hot strike me as not at all like suggesting he wasn’t born in Hawaii. There was tons of evidence of his birth. Grades are generally fairly private. While I suspect his were probably pretty good, it’s also true that some young people get poor grades for a while, and then turn it around. No big shame in that. I don’t care but if other voters do, they do.
re:
Eli Rabett (Comment #75014)
April 28th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Denialist fits Kim like a glove.
and
kim (Comment #75017)
April 28th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
How so, Eli? I accept that CO2 has radiative effect and that Obama was born in Hawaii.
Excellent demonstration how terms like “Denialist” are used. Strawman statement, short on substance. Result: Eli reduced his own credibility.
Lucia,
Could you pls remind all of us how this topic and the ensuing blog static has anything to do -whatsoever- with what are supposed to be the core themes of The Blackboard?
Unless you refocus -as I suggested on a previous thread here- you are in the process of loosing the plot, and your core readership will walk away.
Your blog, your call.
Boris and Brer Rabbit, just for you:
Natural Born and Under the Jurisdiction:
http://federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined.html
The attorney pressing the case against Obie has a very coherent presentation on Natural Born:
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=6325
Determining the basis for Natural Born:
http://www.michiganlawreview.org/articles/originalism-and-the-natural-born-citizen-clause
More explanation of the Vattel theory for the meaning:
http://itooktheredpill.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/george-washington-john-jay-and-vattels-definition-of-natural-born-citizen/
A view of the 14th Amendment clarifying the “Under the Jurisdiction” phrase including the statement of the author of the 14th and other authoritive persons:
http://www.14thamendment.us/articles/anchor_babies_unconstitutionality.html
Yes intent of the authors and the understanding of the meaning of a law at the time it was passed is important. Yes there have been laws passed with vague language where it has been promoted to do one thing and then enforced differently. The 14th is a perfect example.
peetee (Comment #75092) April 29th, 2011 at 9:25 am
kimmee… how about Obama provides his marks when Bush provides his – hey?
Once again, confusion about this being the 3rd W term.
“lucia (Comment #75091)
April 29th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Grover Cleveland may have had enough gravitas to count for 2”
The person who wrote Obamas inaguration speech did not know that GC counts for 2. And the person who gave that speech did not know either.
“lucia (Comment #75159)
April 29th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
I don’t know Obama’s IQ”
If that IQ were as high as the MSM pretend it is, you would know it. All the other prominent US politicians have an IQ around 130 (not adjusted or homogenised).
“SteveF (Comment #75134)
April 29th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
My guess is that neither Geoge W. or Mr. Obama are going to set the world on fire with their intellects.”
But if you would elect a president on what he did before (what he studied, his jobs, military service etc) you would elect W again.
Re: bugs (Apr 29 19:45),
Bugs.
I presented evidence. I showed it right here. I ask you to answer.
You present no evidence, only a claim that there is evidence, and you ask me to go first?
“Sure. Admit that McIntyre’s ‘auditing’ was partisan sniping and harrassment. That’s a fact, there is evidence.”
Partisan? McIntyre is a liberal. so are you claiming that he was harrassing conservatives?
harassment? The inquiry’s found no such thing. You don’t trust them?
can you explain how exercising your legal right to request information is
harassment?. Can you explain why CRU did not merely claim the requests were vexacious ? or why the independant inquiries blamed CRU?
Now, did Jones and Briffa feel harassed? yes. They said so. I might also have felt harassed. Unfortunately, my feelings have nothing to do with my legal obligations. So, was McIntyre partisan? I dont think his political affliliation had anything to do with his requests. Did he harass them? Well, they felt harrassed that’s for sure. would everyone feel harassed? I don’t know, the NOAA FOIA officer was really nice and gung ho about the 600 pages she sent me. And in those 600 pages I got to see how NOAA employees worked diligently and professionally to answer Steve’s and Anthony’s requests. There wasn’t a whiner in the whole stack. weird. and one request ( from somebody else) required them to get 60K pages of documents. professional, organized. unflappable. They actually had some form of document control.
Your turn.
Did the request to delete emails come as the result of an FOIA request for emails?
tetris
* This is a blog. I’ve commented on non-climate stuff from time to time before. Topics have included knitting, current events, food etc. This one is current events.
* Several other climate blogs commented on the birth issue-climate type link. For example Tobis, Kloor, and Kloor commented on Revkin. Example: http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2011/04/28/birthers-and-climate-denial/
This brought the issue to mind. Intially, the main reason I posted the birth certificate is to be able to point back to the document– to do that, I want the image in a blog post.
It turns out lots of people want to discuss this. I see no particular reason to moderate comments any differently from other topics. I can tell based on comments that a few people seem to intensely dislike the fact that the comment stream is long– but the simple remedy is for you to not read it.
Alexej
I don’t know how high MSM suggests Obama’s IQ is;I don’t get cable. I also don’t care what Obama (or Bushs, Clinton, Bush, Carter, Regan’s ) IQ is. I don’t think extremely high IQ is very important in a President.
kuhkat
Some points:
* )
Inhabitants may be and have been subject to the draft. My father-in-law was drafted at 18. So where his two brothers. So was may dad’s friend Rudy Grijalva.
*) That specific argument about citizenship is contradicted by the ARK case in SCOTUS. You may like it, the guy writing it may like it, but lower courts must give past SCOTUS precedents deference and the current SCOTUS will give it strong deference. If you read the ARK judgement, you will also read the strong counter argument to the case at that blog post. I find the argument SCOTUS adopted in Kim more persuasive than the one you site– and I suspect the future SCOTUS will too.
*) The US constitution including amendments, not “natural law” is the law of the land. The only way “natural law” seems to come in is if we are discussing an un-enumerated right under the 9th amendment. The definition of “natural born citizen” has nothing to do with “un-enumerated rights” or the 9th amendment.
Re: steven mosher (Apr 30 02:43),
> Did the request to delete emails come as the result of an FOIA request for emails?
I’m not bugs, but let me take a stab at this.
Yes.
Direct question. Simple, clear answer that is consistent with the evidence. An answer that I am able to state, independent of my views of the extent of the human contribution to recent global warming. And independent of my views of Pres. Obama’s birthplace.
Yes is the only answer that is consistent with the evidence. (Unless, per one of this thread’s themes, one is prone to conspiracy theorizing.)
Here’s a paraphrase of Steve Mosher’s question in #75095.
Phil Jones’ (CRU) email to Mike Mann (Penn State). Link.
Mann’s reply to Jones. Link.
bugs,
You are a ridiculous pompous ideologue and you deliberately fool yourself and try to fool others into things that are not true.
You fool no one but yourself and other weak minded people.
Re: hunter (Apr 30 06:16),
Your anger is leading you to believe that you can see into a stranger’s heart. That is particularly difficult to do with one’s adversaries.
And now for something completely different:
For anyone interested in Miskolczi’s papers on the greenhouse effect, Science of Doom has a series of three posts up dissecting them (part 1 here).
He finds that Miskolzci is just wrong. What else did anyone expect.
Re: bugs (Apr 30 07:07),
> What else did anyone expect.
You’re funny!
Re: bugs (Apr 30 07:07),
Saying someone is wrong is different from and much less informative than showing why someone is wrong.
bugs would do better to spend less energy on McIntyre and Watts and more on substantive issues, unless his goal is to make sure people read what their blogs.
John Norris:
Attacking Lucia and Kim at the same time—great job, double prizes. Old farts like Joshua have a real problem with uppity women who don’t parrot the puerile dreck he writes.
Whew, thanks Lucia, could only imagine “taxes” as a nono, sorry if I missed an announcement from you about that – I haven’t read all of previous!
AMac (Comment #75180) April 30th, 2011 at 6:42 am
But a person can discern and form a pretty good opinion. bugs has been posting on climate blogs for a long long long time now.
This whole thing about Barrack Obama and his sacred birth certificate and mysterious grades is just silly to me from any angle. Hundreds of professional investigators and MSM employees were shipped off to Alaska to dig up anything and everything they could find on a certain Gov. Sarah Palin when it was announced she was running with McCain for VP.
“lucia (Comment #75173)
April 30th, 2011 at 5:59 am
I don’t know how high MSM suggests Obama’s IQ is. I also don’t care what Obama (or Bushs, Clinton, Bush, Carter, Regan’s ) IQ is. I don’t think extremely high IQ is very important in a President.”
The MSM suggest that in a room full of people Obama can count on being the smartest one. That would imply an IQ of about 145 to 150.
On the other hand it might mean that all the people in the room are members of the MSM. Then 120 is enough.
McIntyre continually makes the scientists out to be devils, even as the smears he spreads get smaller and smaller. He is attacking a rapidly shrinking target.
*Cryosphere is shrinking
*Sea levels are rising
*Temperature rising
*CO2 levels are rising
The paleo stuff, being the newest, was always the easiest target. It was always used to impugn scientists integrity as individuals and to undermine the whole case for AGW. Which is not the case. The ever dwindling number of topics McIntyre addresses is evidence he has substantive to offer. His early efforts to address the whole AGW case have come to naught, and he just chooses to ignore them now, and pretend they don’t exist. The idea that “None of that makes McIntyre or any of the other parties to these disputes either angels, or devils.” is anathema to him.
As for the delete emails request, RC addressed this not long after climategate.
Re: bugs (Apr 30 08:08),
bugs — If there was an answer to Mosher’s simple and direct question in your #75191: I missed it.
But you’re in good company. More precisely, you have a lot of company.
Crimethink is tough to do!
Bugs,
Does “ill-advised” mean “wrong”?
You don’t have to go back and search RC. I’m just asking you.
AMac (Comment #75192)
April 30th, 2011 at 8:16 am
Crimethink. I see where you are coming from, and always have been. It makes no difference really, they have been accused of criminal conspiracy from long ago, plenty of people had no doubt of it, and will never be convinced otherwise.
John M (Comment #75193)
April 30th, 2011 at 8:17 am
By ill advised, I mean ill advised.
Alexej Buergin (Comment #75169)
Actually, one of the issues that gave me pause prior to his election was exactly Mr. Bush’s relative lack of experience in accomplishing something on his own. He was born into a wealthy and politically connected family… he sure didn’t get into an Ivy based on his searing intellect or all the great things he had done in his formative years. OK, I understand the Ivy’s always have a place for such kids (and that is never going to change), so that is nothing to hold against Bush. A well known politician who accomplished a great deal before entering politics is a rare bird indeed, so once again, that is nothing to hold against him. What soured me on Mr. Bush were some of the really dumb things he did once in office, not his background.
I agree completely that there is no correlation between a person’s IQ and his performance as president. Two of our least effective presidents, J.Q. Adams and Woodrow Wilson, were brilliant. Nixon was smart. Carter is smart. Nor is there any connection whatsoever between college grades and the presidency. Why are we even talking about these things then? Because Obama, a world class narcissist, and his supporters make these outlandish claims about his intelligence and his ability. They say he’s a genius; we say “show me.”
We find ourselves heading back to his “paleo” record because we have nothing else to go on. No job record, no military record, no executive history. His brief performance as a congressman and then as senator was laughable; pure self-promotion.
All this speculation would blow away, of course, if he was doing a good job. Is he? What would be the evidence? I listen to him and I come away thinking: the man doesn’t seem to know a damn thing about anything. We mocked Bush! Why is no one mocking Obama? We put the Wizard of Oz in the white house. Smaller mistakes than that closed out the Roman Empire.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #75185)
April 30th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Other sites and people have been saying from the start why he was wrong. I don’t know why it takes SD to make a statement that it is believed.
Titan 28
Your answer the “why” seems a bit off the mark. People wanted to see Kerry, Bush II, and Gore’s grade. I don’t remember if they asked to see Clinton’s, Regan’s or Bush II’s grades. Clearly, some people want to see some people’s grades. I don’t care what their grades were, but some people want to know. Those people ask.
Is it true that detractors want to see grades more often than supporters? I think so. But the fact is, if you run for President or Vice President, you should count on people asking to see your grades.
The US Constitution doesn’t require you to reveal your college grades, but people will ask. If you don’t fork the grades over, your detractors will insinuating their suspicion about your motives by the mechanism of rhetorical questions. As a candidate, you have to figure out how you are going to deal with this– but you can’t delude yourself it isn’t going to happen.
I don’t care what Obama’s grades were at Occidental college. I don’t care what his SAT scores where, what his high school class rank was or anything else. I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually know them– but I don’t happen to care one way or the other. Maybe we’ll learn he got straight A’s at Occidental; maybe we’ll learn he got all F’s. The latter could be consistent with being very smart but, for some reason, unmotivated to study those years.
Clearly the guy is not an idiot. My reason for not supporting him has nothing to do with IQ or grades in school, or even being a tough-guy Chicago politician. My reason is simple: I object to the programs he wants us to enact. That’s it.
bugs (Comment #75195) ,
I am amused, but I understand you will never admit any person who supports the Team’s view on global warming is “wrong”.
.
But I’m not sure “wrong” is even the correct word here… too much moral content, and “ill advised” is what your lawyer would probably tell you if you asked about destroying information that was the subject of an FOI request.
.
I think “illegal” is the proper word, since it is clearly unlawful to destroy information that is the subject of an FOI request. And it does appear that at least some of the people involved did delete information, as was requested by Jones. Maybe there was absolutely nothing improper in the requested documents, and Jones acted in an “ill advised” way out of anger/frustration. Maybe there was something improper in the documents that he wanted to hide. But that does not matter. The point is that we do not need to consider Jones’ motives (nor anyone else’s) we need only look at their actions… those were clearly illegal.
By ill advised, I mean ill advised.
Great bugs!
At least now you’re answering questions, even if only by tautology, so let’s go back to square 1:
Your RC bible seems to allow you to accept that there was a request to delete e-mails.
Now, as to the reason for the request…
(The reason, of course, gives us a clue as to the difference between “ill-advised” and “wrong”.)
Re: bugs (Apr 30 08:25),
No, that’s not it at all. I meant crimestop, which is a term that Orwell invented for his novel “1984.” It has nothing to do with any criminal conspiracies that “they” were accused of “long ago.”
bugs:
Other sites and people… as in unthinking sychophants maybe and trenchant ideologues. Some of what he says is on the mark, sometimes McI obsesses on things I don’t find interesting.
You’re not being honest if you are claiming everything he says is wrong.
Carrick,
“Old farts like Joshua have a real problem with uppity women who don’t parrot the puerile dreck he writes.”
.
LOL.
I think your comments are becoming more colorful; perhaps Fuller’s style is more influential than I imagined. I don’t think his disdain is limited to ‘uppity women’… he treats everybody who disagrees with his puerile dreck about the same, as far as I can tell.
Dunno if I qualify as a birther, but if Obama would expend the trivial effort of designating several reporters including Joe Farah as acting on his behalf per HRS §338-18(b)(7), and they all inspected the vault copy and called it good, I would consider the matter closed.
Alan D McIntire –
How is that conclusion reasonably derived from the provision you cite?
I found a tib-bit of info, which does not necessarily result in any conclusion on my part, but I am interested to see if people can provide additional information. Above, I was asked if anyone other than Vattel wrote “natural-born citizen” prior to the writing of our present constitution. I said no, and I also think it doesn’t matter. (I didn’t discuss why I think it doesn’t matter, that would take paragraphs.)
But the following struck me as well: Do we actually know what Vattel wrote: It struck me that Vattel wrote in French, not English. People are posting snippets in English, and as far as I can tell, the date of the translation is not provided. (Many books are translated many times.)
As I speak some French, I hunted down a French version of the paragraph:
In the translations have been quoted as evidence that “natural born citizen” must agree with Vattell translate “Les Naturels,” to “natural born citizen”. It’s not clear to me that “Le Naturels” must translate to that specific phrase — certainly it could be translated to that specific phrase particularly by someone who was already familiar with the phrase “natural born citizen”, or who, reading de Vattel, decided on his own that the phrase in the US constitution ought to translate to “Les Naturels”. But that’s not quite the same as suggesting de Vattel actually used “natural-born citizen”.
Aware of issues surrounding translation, I looked around for the dates corresponding to the Vattel translation being quoted. It would also be interesting to read the name of the translator. Generally, no dates are provided in the various blog posts– no joy. Then I found this:
http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel.htm
Which include the following front matter:
This version contains the oft-quoted translation:
But it is worth nothing that this translation was written in 1883– long after the constitution was ratified and even after the 14th amendment was ratified.
It’s hypothetically possible that the 1883 translator is the one who chose “natural-born citizen”. Clearly, de Vattel, who wrote in French didn’t actually use it, and the
So, does anyone happen to have access to the text of translations that predate the Constitutional Convention?
(Note: I don’t want anyone to think that I consider de Vattel to matter all that much. It’s clear the founders disagreed with his views on plenty of stuff- for example they disagreed on his views about establishment of religion. But I am interested in knowing how “Les Naturels” was translated prior to the drafting of our constitution.)
Any French speaking readers not utterly bored might also want to suggest how they might interpret the precise term “les naturels”– particularly if they had never read Article II of the US constitution.
I am going to suggest that we answer the question.
should bugs be banned?
Eli suggested that
” You can’t have a dialogue without running the crazies on your side out of the room”
Somebody, like bugs, who cant answer a simple factual question is some kind of crazy.
Lucia,
It’s not the length of the traffic. It’s just that the comments are flying so far below sea level..
Re: steven mosher (Apr 30 10:29),
> Eli suggested that, “You can’t have a dialogue without running the crazies on your side out of the room.†Somebody, like bugs, who can’t answer a simple factual question is some kind of crazy.
Um… Eli has been no more capable of answering your question than bugs.
No to banning. Bugs’ position is the mainstream one, among prominent pro-AGW Consensus advocates and scientist-advocates. What’s different is that bugs doesn’t just haughtily dismiss the presumptuous peasants with a wave of the hand. Instead, he answers with words. And addresses the issue repeatedly.
As Citizens, one of our tasks is to decide, Who Should We Trust? Bugs is as helpful in tackling that question as are the denizens of websites like OIIFTG and RealClimate.
Of course, there are plenty of similarly helpful individuals on the other fringe. Lord knows.
Mosher,
I don’t think bugs can’t answer a simple factual question, I think he simply chooses not to whenever the factual answer would weaken his argument.
.
I do not think this is at all unique to bugs… there are lots of people who do much the same. Note the routine reply from many climate scientists whenever asked a direct (but inconvenient) question: “That is a poorly posed question, so I can’t answer it.” Translation: “I don’t like the factual answer to that question, so I refuse to reply…. instead, I will reply to a different question, one I like the answer to.” It is always thus (on the left or the right) with people who are more motivated by a desired political outcome than a rationally defensible POV. For these folks, politics always trumps reason.
Lucia,
I am always a bit uncomfortable with most translations, if only because there are so few people who are fluent enough in both languages to not lose (or gain) meaning in translation. Too often combinations of words with “obvious meanings” in fact have a slightly different (or more subtle) meaning to the native speaker than the obvious meaning conveys. I suspect the only people who can do a really accurate translation are those who speak both languages not just fluently, but “natively”, or very close to it.
SteveF–
I found an alternative translation. I don’t know the date of the transalation, but this one does not include “natural-born citizen”. For those who want to read the full book, it’s online at:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&retailer_id=android_market_live&id=DeyiAAAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PR29
(I had to log into my google account to read it.)
Here is a screenshot of the paragraph, which appears on page 185 when I load the book on the web:
Note Vattels long phrase is transalated to “the natives”.
I also found list of English translation and took a screen shot. According to that list, 2 English language translations existed pre-1789. I haven’t discovered which version (whether translated or not) Franklin might have had, nor which version anyone in the US might have read. I still don’t know how the “key” sentence appeared in those two versions.
But clearly, the argument that the phrase phrase literally came from Vattel cannot be true: He wrote in French. Right now, I don’t even know if the phrase could have even come from an English language translation of Vattel. At a minimum we know that some translations do not translate it to “natural-born citizen”.
SteveF–
There is one frequent reader who seems to have native facility in French. However, he might find this whole Obama business boring. But it’s actually worse than you suggest because in this case, we need to identify the proper 18th century translation of “Les Naturels”. It’s highly unlikely this can be accomplished with any degree of confidence, but to the extent it might would require quite a bit of research.
Oddly, during the course of the research, the translator would need to identify a sizable number of American uses of the exact phrase “natural-born citizen”. If these exist, then we probably wouldn’t need to know the translation because those uses would likely show us exactly how “natural-born citizen” was used in the 18th century!
But currently the ‘proof’ that the Founders got the phrase from de Vattell provided in the linked pages above seems to come from the fact that a translation written in the late 19th century translated de Vattel’s “Le Naturals” into the language of the US constutition. Of course, by the 19th century, the language of the US constitution would have been familiar to educated American’s with a high-school education. His decision to use Madison’s choice of words to translate Vattel can hardly stand as evidence that Madison’s choice came from Vattel.
So…. I hunt for the early translations. Out of pure curiosity.
This is a snapshot of the list of early English language translations:
(Shoot! I’m not keeping proper track of the precise version and page # for each screen shot. I guess work will be required to sort out. )
I’ll be damned if I know how anything by Vattel would trump the Naturalization Act of 1790 – which, as I read it, confers natural born citizenship on any foreign-born child of one citizen parent – as prima facie evidence of the prevailing contemporaneous definition of the term.
Lucia,
He is describing the structure of a civil society, and in particular the types of citizens, in that light, perhaps ‘Les Naturels, ou Indigènes sont…..’ may more clearly be translated as “Natural, or native citizens are those born within the country to parents who are citizens.”
Which also conveys the (European) idea that your parents must be citizens for you to be a “native citizen”. Just place of birth didn’t cut it for citizenship in Europe.
SteveF–
Yes. I now also found an 1891 American text book that discusses how American law differs from Vattel on this point. 🙂
The reference is by Gilmore
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&retailer_id=android_market_live&id=f70MAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PR5
What is clear is that English law considered children born in England citizens. Many other European countries did not. England’s colonies generally followed English law. So, those who are hanging their hat on Vattel need to make a case that Vattel’s notions of citizenship were those adopted by the founders.
As for Vattels more general influence: It is pretty clear btw, that Vattel did influence ideas like the Monroe doctrine, and the legality of seizing property during war etc. American’s seemed to have loved up those portions. But it seems that he was not so influential in other areas.
What is worse, doubting Obama’s place of birth or exploiting the tornado outbreak by claiming it is the fault of those who live there for not believing in global warming?
This is not meant as a rhetorical question, by the way.
I would like to know what people think.
Would it not be a job for the Supreme Court to clarify this issue? They had more than 222 years to ponder it, after all.
Lucia,
Google Law of Nations translations and you will get
http://www.birthers.org/USC/Vattel.html
Perhaps it will help you find your way.
Natural born citizenship status was explained to me by my father when I was about 13 years old. I was born in a birthing room at a W. German hospital exclusive to the American wives of American military men. The German state had by agreement with the US designated that birthing room as under US sovereign control like an American embassy. It was located in a German hospital outside of an American military base. My dad explained that dual US German citizenship was available if I applied to the W. German government and was accepted. I had only a limited amount of time to apply as it was an age limited offer by them. But that if West Germany accepted, as a dual citizen I would no longer be qualified to become a US President. He told me to consider carefully but the choice was my own. I think it was the first adult decision I made. I decided to retain my natural born status out of respect for the effort that had been made on my behalf to have it. Perhaps thousands of other Americans were born under similar circumstances.
You come late to the party on this issue. That talk was back in 1970.
That cannot be reasonably inferred from the Constitution, which is why Jefferson was so incensed at Marshall’s insinuation to that effect in Marbury.
Whoever wants to know if the problem with Obama is that he is too smart (and not too dumb) for his job, can read the Post (Washington or New York, but the latter is more entertaining).
Yguy–
I agree it can’t be inferred from the Constitution– but it’s the way it ended up working out. Jefferson was incensed but then went along with the decision.
“yguy (Comment #75224)
April 30th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
The Constitution [is] ultimately interpreted by the 9 justices sitting on the SCOTUS bench.”
Are you saying that we just have to wait a bit longer for Mr. Kennedy to make up his mind?
Lucia,
People may hang their hat on Vattel, or not.
.
The federal courts are not ever going to claim jurisdiction over removing a sitting US president. How could they? The President can refuse to honor a Federal court order… how would a court enforce an order except through the executive branch? He can instruct the Attorney General not to prosecute him for any and all crimes he is accused of. The Constitution makes one and only one provision for how a president may be removed from office, and the Federal courts have nothing to do with it. The whole Birther charade of going to Federal court and talking about the framer’s original intent is disconnected from the plain words of the Constitution…. what a terrible waste of everyone’s time.
My way to what? You have linked to a page that:
1) Does not provide the text in the original language. (I have–see above.)
2) Does not cite the edition of the translation.
3) Doesn’t cite the name of the translator.
4) Doesn’t cite the year the translation was published.
Moreover, the page gives a false impression of the provenance of the English language text by writing only “written by Emerich de Vattel in 1758. In book one chapter 19, “.
In fact, the text immediately following was not written by Vattel. Based on what I find at google, that text is a 1880 (or there abouts) translation by a guy named “Chitty”.
One this seems almost certain: Vattel never wrote the term “natural-born citizen” anywhere. At. All.
As for your father’s explanation: He may have been correct, or he may have been mistaken. It also may or may not correspond to the notions of the founders. Whether or not kids born outside the US are “natural born” appears to be an open question. Like you, I was one of the thousands (or more) born outside the US and gained citizenship through my parents. See above.
By the way: the talk during the 60s differs from your recollection. The talk was kids born outside the US could lose their citizenship if they did not return and spend a minimum number of years in the US prior to reaching the age of 18. The result was as a child, it was explained to me I stood in the very real danger of having no citizenship in any country whatsoever when I reached 18. (The risk did not materialize partly because we moved to the US and partly because– I was told– the law was changed. I’m not entirely sure about the applicability of the law, but there were some odd laws passed during the McCarthy era. )
Luci
On Vattel – Franklin had the original 1758 edition. Madison had Congress buy all the French and English translations as they came out. See loc.gov catalog, including:
“Droit de Gens†French 1758, 1773, 1775 editions, and
The Law of Nations English translations 1759, 1760 and 1787 London.
On the distinction between “citizen” and “natural born citizen”, consider Chief Justice Marshall:
“Affirmative words are often, in their operation, negative of other objects than those affirmed; and in this case, a negative or exclusive sense must be given to them or they have no operation at all. It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.â€
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 174.
Over 10,000 Google hits
The US Dept of State’s 7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency (TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998) assumes two citizen parents:
Senate resolution 511 cosponsored by Senator Obama held McCain was:
See: Why do both Obama’s State Department and the Senate require two US citizen parents for those born abroad to attain natural born citizen status?
Re: ” Carter’s action enables Obama to respond.”
Respond to what?”
I understood Obama defaulted by not filing any response, giving Taitz the right to ask for default judgment according to the rules. Carter required Taitz to start over with notifying Obama, allowing Obama to respond.
PS “Birther” has been used very derogatorily by some trying to pain them as irrational conspiracists. i.e. with no recognition of
1) multiple lines of evidence for both Hawaii and Kenyan birth, nor
2) recognizing the constitutional issue of the “natural born citizen” qualification Article II, sect 3, and
3) the requirement that the president elect must qualify or step aside for one who does per Amendment XX sect 3.
I prefer “constitutionalist” vs “populist”.
SteveF (Comment #75228)
It appears in the appeal to the 9th circuit above, the lower court says the courts kick the can to the legislature on this one. The 9 justices in SCOTUS could very well decide the exact same thing. They get to interpret the constitution– they also can sometimes decree that certain decisions and interpretations are entirely up to the legilature and other to the executive. (And some are prohibited both.)
Luci
On SCOTUS using Vatel’s definition, I came across:
Vattel & the meaning of the Constitutional term “Natural Born Citizen”
You seem to imply duplicity on Jefferson’s part, but the facts do not support such an implication. The immediate result of the decision was in Jefferson’s favor, because the SC refused to order delivery of the contested commissions. His objection to the declaration that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is” hardly necessitates repudiation of Marbury in toto to remain consistent.
As for how it ended up working out, I submit that Lincoln’s unpunished disobedience of Ex Parte Merryman (even though it was only a Circuit Court ruling) serves to validate Jefferson’s view.
Lucia,
Sure, the SCOTUS gets to interpret the constitution. But WRT the Birther lawsuit, should it ever reach them on appeal, they will back up the lower courts and refuse to hear the case. The SCOTUS may sometimes make questionable decisions, but they are too smart to try writing an entirely new method into the constitution for removing a president from office. Sheez.
David–
Thanks for finding out which versions people had.
I assume we both agree the French language texts did not use the term “natural-born citizen”. We can see that text and it did not. Have you found how sec 212 was translated in the English language versions. If it does not, the claim that the Founders got the term from Vattel absolutely cannot be true. OTOH, if it’s there, your claim is not impossible. So, to support that, you should go find the original and show us how “Les Naturels” was translated.
I’m familiar with that. Everyone is familiar with that. But you seem to be overlooking the fact taht the words “natural born” do have a very obvious effect: Schwarzenneger is a citizen but not natural born. That is sufficient to give the words effect.
I think you will recall that I previously mentioned Schwarzenneger in
And later in
Next time you are tempted to bring up the issue of the difference between “citizen” and “natural born citizen”, please ask yourself: Is the answer “Arnold Scharzenneger”?
Any response to what?
Even the appeal concedes Obama or his lawyers responded to something. So, you are going to have to tell me what you think he did not respond to, and them I’ll be able to read the various things to figure out whether or not Obama responded to that thing and/or whether or not a response was required. In your last answer to my question, you linked a bunch of blog posts. Clearly, Obama is not required to respond to those. So…. what didn’t he respond to? Why should he have been required to respond to it? Just finish your sentence so I know what you are talking about.
Re: bugs (Apr 30 08:33),
I have always thought that Miskolczi was wrong. A brief scan of his paper was all it took. The same goes for G&T. But I couldn’t explain why Miskolczi was wrong to someone else by anything much more substantial than gut feeling. Nor did I see an analysis of why he was wrong by anyone else that made much sense either. SoD’s analysis is much better than anything else I’ve seen. Zagoni’s defense in the comments is pathetic.
yguy,
And that was the most clever part of Marshall’s strategy. Had the Court tried to force Jefferson (or Congress) to do something, Jefferson (or Congress) would almost certainly have refused, leading to a constitutional crisis, and ultimately clarification of the constitutional authority of the Judiciary via the normal process of constitutional amendment by Congress and the States, and (my guess) scaling back the authority Marshall claimed the Court had. It was a terribly clever political ploy/power grab.
Lucia,
It is true that many consider natural born status not be available to all children born abroad of two American parents but I don’t think that there is any debate over the status of that subset of children that are also born on US sovereign territory.
I never heard that 60’s talk as I was a two year old when back on US soil.
As for the Founders not understanding Vattel because they didn’t speak or read French… I guess you think Franklin wanted something to decorate his coffee table to impress visitors. In fact they lived when he was a contemporary and due to that alone were well equipped to understand him. French was the Lingua franca of the world in the late 1700’s.
Re: Carrick (Apr 30 09:11),
bugs and I were talking about Miskolczi, not McIntyre here.
David L. Hagen
With respect to this comment: It would help your case and not waste other people’s time if you would edit your list of cases where SCOTUS used Vattel’s defintiion to exclude cases where SCOTUS clearly did not use Vattels; defintion. For example: We’ve already discussed Minor v. Happersett and they do not agree with Vallet except in so far as they agree on the cases that everyone agrees on. They do not then go on to agree with the rest of what Vallet claims– and it is the rest of Vallet’s claims that are under dispute. The majority decision in MINOR V. HAPPERSETT is here.
Now, I’m going to ask you: If I waste my time hunting down the majority opinions in the other cases, am I going to find the same thing? Because, quite honestly, I’d rather you just made your case rather than dropping names of cases that clearly do not support your view and forcing me to waste my time to discover they don’t begin to support your claim.
David–
Also, on those other cases you say were SCOTUS decisions, is there any chance you can provide links to the majority opinions on those cases? As you haven’t quoted any text, I tried to find them on FINDLAW, but I’m having some trouble.
David
Here is “The Venus”. It is a case form 1814.
http://supreme.justia.com/us/12/253/case.html
Vattel, Grottius and Burlamaqui are all cited.
1) The Vattel translation does not use the term “natural born citizen”. The translation reads “The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.”
2) The article is not trying to determine is a natural born citizen.
3) The case involved the rights of naturalized citizens domiciled outside the US.
4) The naturalized citizens were not natives, not indigenes and certainly not natural-born citizens. They were born outside the US. There is no dispute on this issue.
I know all sorts of people are putting up lists of things at places like Sean Hannity’s page:
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1216821&page=3836 . But I’d find it a kindness if you would consider reading these things before suggesting they show that the courts used de Vattel to figure out who was a natural-born citizen. I knew the first didn’t because we’d already discussed it. The next one I found ws The Venus, which doesn’t make the case you claim. I’m not going to waste my time on the others.
If you do the work, find links and explain how you think they make your case, we can discuss those. I’m going to go make Lasagne now… then family over etc.
John G Bell,
Your comment about the birthing room shows how ridiculous this discussion is. How on earth can one honestly say that I was born in Germany but because of an ‘agreement’ I was actually born in the US?
According to the constitution, as others have interpreted it here, you would automatically be German and never be able to forget you owe allegience to that country.
wot I lurnt from all dat:
1. the US constitutions uses the term “natural born citizen” as a qualification for President, but doesn’t explain it.
2. elsewhere it does explain who counts as citizens
3. the qualification was there as a precaution to stop some foriegn princeling hopping over to the US, getting US citizenship, throwing some bribes around and getting themselves elected president a not unfeasible scenario)
4. these days there are all sorts of complex situations in which people are not literally born in the US but which the law regards them as being born in the US (on a military base etc)
5. other presidential candidates have had funny issues on this point but generally they’ve been resolved on a sensible basis (born in the Panama Canal Zone, born in a US state before it was a US state etc)
6. none of this seems to have much to do with Barack Obama’s dad’s nationality and parent’s nationality doesn’t seem to be relevant if the person was born in the US.
7. Obama was born in the USA
JohnGBell–
I didn’t say they didn’t speak or read French. In fact: I think that Franklin read French argues strongly against the theory that the term “natural born citizen” originated in de Vattel who appear to never have used the term. The earliest translation using that term seems to be from a time long after Franklin’s death. So: Franklin likely read de Vattel’s version in French, which does not use the term “natural born citizen” and so there is no reason to believe his use of “natural born citizen” would come from Vattel.
It is worth noting that the translation of Vattel mentioned in “The Venus” SCOTUS case David cited, did not use a translation involving the words “natural born citizen”. So, in 1814, Marshall didn’t translate de Vattel to say anything about the meaning of “natural born citizen”. Nothing. Bupkiss. Zip.
That Chitty transalted it to “natural born citizen” later long after Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Marshal and Jay were dead tells us nothing about what the Founders might have meant by “natural born citizen”.
The claim on that web page that de Vattel is the source for the meaning of the term of art “natural born citizen” is looking more and more dubious.
Shanks and Dupont:
This is cited as supporting Vattel? Sheesh. Here’s the opinion:
http://supreme.justia.com/us/28/242/case.html
Here, we have her birth and residence in South Carolina making her a citizen of South Carolina. This is in clear contradiction of Vattel who does not consider this relevant. In Vattel, if she had been a citizen of some other country at birth owing to a foreign father, she would go on being such when she reached majority. If the US held with Vattel, staying in the US would not turn her into an American.
This is followed by
While she was a minor she might— not might be deemed to hold her SC citizenship because of her father was an SC citizen– which he was. But this doesn’t imply that must be the only reason. (Vattel would claim it’s the only reason). Instead, it reads like the reasoning is that since she already has SC citizenship no one even needs to consider the question of “might” any further.
In her early years (pre 1783) she was a citizen of SC both by birth and parentage. There is no question. She was a citizne of SC (Note: the inheritance issue claims she was a British citizen, which she did eventually become owing to a treaty agreement in 1783 resolving the dillema of colonist who left the US during and after the War of Independence. Those who moved to England took on English citizenship– which after all was considered their allegience before the Declaration of Independence. So this whole “war” issue matters here.)
But get this: This case actually discusses the possibility that this woman could have duel citizenship:
At most, then, she was liable to be considered as in that peculiar situation in which she owed allegiance to both governments ad utriusque fidem regis.
That is: This particular woman might, owing to her peculiar circumstances be simultaneously have been an American and British citizen. If so, there were duel citizens created at the moment the American’s and British signed the treaty of Paris. That is: from day 1 of the nation!
Anyway, it is rather unbelievable to see anyone suggesting this case should be interpreted as suggesting people did not gain citizenship owing to birth place. It clearly said Ann did. It also suggest she might get it from her father. (Though it doesn’t matter because she was American by birth.) Then it suggests she might have had duel citizenship.
It says nothing about how her duel citizenship might have affected her ability to qualify for US President. I think the court would have considered that point moot as it didn’t affect the inheritance claim. 🙂
> What can’t we say? One way to find these ideas is simply to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for. [Paul Graham, **What You Can’t Say**]
Dave Andrews,
I said that I was born on territory exclusively ruled by US Civil Law. You are not free to say that I said something else.
Lucia,
It is clear to me that Vattel when he says “Les Naturals …†he is referring to a type of citizenship and that that type is a birthright citizenship. So to me that it was translated into natural born citizen is according to his notions as I see it.
That the term “natural born citizen” isn’t in an early translation of Droit des Gens is new knowledge to me. Thanks.
I will ask my sister who was born in France and speaks French what she thinks. Thank you for taking these issues seriously.
I searched for all cases since 1963 citing “Reynolds” here:
http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html#dirsearch2
Could you give a tip on how to find “EX PARTE REYNOLDS, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel)”
Is it http://supreme.justia.com/us/98/145/
REYNOLDS V. UNITED STATES, 98 U. S. 145 (1878)
John G. Bell–
The claim on one of the web pages is that the words in the constitution come from Vattel. This is clearly untrue. A further claim seems to be that the founders picked that set of words owing to the influence of Vattel: This seems to be untrue.
As for your telling me what that passage in French means to you: That is hardly an argument to tell us what it meant to the founders nor an argument to suggest the Founders notions of what “natural born citizen” were those described by Vattel. I’m hunting through the citations David L. Hagen provided– it looks like they don’t support the notion that courts have ever applied the notions of Vattel. But I haven’t looked at them all. I didn’t find ExPart v. Reynolds which seems to have to do with American Indians. I haven’t found the Ward one. But the remaining — which I have read–suggest the courts did not apply the definition of Vattel.
BTW: I speak French pretty well. I was an exchange student. My knowledge of 18th century Swiss French is pretty much zip.
Carrick (Comment #75204)
April 30th, 2011 at 9:11 am
I don’t think everything McIntyre says is wrong, I do think that he makes far more of what is right than it is worth, and quietly sneaks away when he has to give up on his crusade of proving the ‘hockey stick’ is wrong. McIntyre is ‘only interested in finding out what is wrong’, then performing an amazing song and dance act about how awful it all is. If he was an auditor, he would be saying what is right, which is far more than what is wrong. I don’t doubt that there is ‘wrong’ in the IPCC report, I have always thought that. What amazes me is how right it is. For such a large body of scientific work, much of it bleeding edge, they did an amazing job. Which is why this obsession with ‘wrong’ is puzzling. One of the first references SOD makes in his dissertation on Miskolczi is to the IPPC report.
steven mosher (Comment #75138)
April 29th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Which is what I tried on you, Mosher, to see if you walk the walk.
Is Mcintyre wrong here?
http://climateaudit.org/2005/04/23/moberg-satellite/
A simple yes or no will do.
Running someone out of the room means basically calling them out when they spit the crazy.
As to German citizenship, it has always passed by birth to those who hold German citizenship, and did not depend on where one was born. This was somewhat modified in ~2K to take into account the large number of ethnic Turks living in the BRD. Although anything can be changed by treaty, the story about the “birthing room” would need a much stronger backing.
steven mosher (Comment #75209)
April 30th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Now you get to the problem Jones had. You can’t have a dialogue with crazies. He doesn’t know how to deal with crazies, they continually abuse him and threaten him, they then harass him. WUWT is just crazy, there is hardly a crazy he won’t publish. McIntyre is giving signs of unhealthy OCD these days, because he has had to keep going with less and less. It is like the ‘god of gaps’ for believers. At first, you have it easy as a believer, there are all kinds of things that you can say ‘explain this’, or ‘explain that’. So it was in the glory days for CA. So many gaps they were asking about. Only, most of the gaps were actually in their understanding of the scope and depth of climate research. As time has gone by, the ‘gaps’ are getting ever smaller and smaller, leaving McIntyre with less and less to write about. The scientists are fine, they have been consistent from the start, and the evidence they are correct just keeps rolling in.
* Cryosphere.
* temperature record
* physics
* CO2 levels.
* sea levels.
So how does Jones deal with the crazies. You can’t deal with them. They only seek to find errors, not find the big picture, which he is fairly certain is correct, because the whole scientific community has researched it and found it to be fundamentally sound.
http://climatesight.org/2010/03/07/freedom-of-information/
How do you deal with the crazies?
I believed Obama was likely born in the US, but wondered why he wouldn’t just release the friggin’ paperwork. What is the point?
I also have to say it simply pissed me off that he didn’t care enough about the public concern to produce the document. Certainly it is a reasonable question for a president. The non-release of a simple piece of paper demonstrates that his narcissism rivals the best of RC. Not that it matters to a public that at a 40% plus level, thinks spending trillions more than you have per year is somehow doing a good job.
too many morons, too little time.
John G. Bell
It seems to me that there are a variety of theories for why Obama can’t be “natural born”. At least one is that according to the prevailing laws when he was between 0-2 yo, he would be eligible for duel UK/US citizenship at the age of majority and after the age of 2 was eligible for US/Kenya duel citizenship. (These changed, so when he reached the age of majority, he was only eligible for US/Kenya citizenship.)
Under this theory, the mere fact that Obama was eligible for duel citizenship under his father, meant he could not be President. Under this theory, your father’s explanatio to you would have been wrong: You could not be president no matter what you did when you reached majority.
Under your father’s theory: If you could be eligible to run for President, so could Obama.
Mind you, I don’t know whether your father was correct. But under your father’s theory, it seems to me that Obama is eligible and so are you.
Lucia,
A literal translation is often a poor one. The later translation may have used natural born citizen because they realized that the terms used in the Constitution were a better translation of Vattel’s French in context than the earlier translation and that they knew of the close relationship between the two from their historical knowledge of the writing of the Constitution and wanted to make the connection more obvious to the reader.
I think it interesting that Vattel doesn’t talk of the case of the bastard child’s citizenship status at birth. I wonder if a Natural Law case could be made for birthright citizenship for a child thus situated were it born under US Civil Law of a citizen mother. I’d like to think so as the biological father being unknown he could not confer foreign loyalty or obligation. So the question is, could legitimate civil law deny this baby citizenship. I’d like to think no. I think that if Natural Law says otherwise it would not be politically viable with the number of bastard children in our society.
John G. Bell
Sure. But that’s irrelevant to my point. My point is: To try to make the case that the phrase “natural born citizen” means what Vattel means, some of the web pages appear to claim Vattel a) used thatspecific phrase or b) the founding fathers use of the term came from Vattel– as it came form no other source. That is: The claim is suggesting that the founders decision to use that specific three word phrase is evidence that the founders agreed with Vattel. Moreover, the claim suggest we need look no further.
To determine if this claim is remotely plausible, we don’t need to find the best translation of 18th century Vattel’s work into 19th-21st century idiom. In fact, such a translation is utterly irrelevant as Founder didn’t speak 19st-21st century idiom. Rather, we need to see whether Vattel used that specific phrase– or barring that whether back in the 18th century — before drafting of the constitution-
anyone translated Vattel to use that phrase. If neither is true, then that particular argument for why we “know” the founders agreed with Vattel falls apart.
It clears that Vattel did not use that term. He wrote in French. The word clearly do not literally translate to “natural born citizen”. Moreover, back in 1814, the translation in a SCOTUS ruling did not translate what Vattel wrote into “natural born citizen”. In the late 1800s, another scholar also did not translate those words into “natural born citizen”. So, it’s clear that at least some translators with no axe to grind about Obama (or Chester Arthur) did not translate that phrase into “natural born citizen”.
Or, the later translation may have arisen becuase “natural born citizen” had now entered into the lexicon, and the translator thought Vattel would consider this to be the definition of “natural born citizen”, had he been asked. But this tells us bubkiss about whether the Founders would have agreed with Vattel. They — possible familiar with what he actually wrote– chose a phrase he did not use. They did not cite him. The didn’t mention him in the well of Congress. They didn’t mention him in the Federalist papers (as far as I am aware.) A translators choice 100 years later isn’t evidence that their choice of words suggest they agreed with Vattel on this point.
This is addressed by in a text by what appears to be a professor written in the late 1800s. His view seems to be that Vattel doesn’t align well with US law and clearly overlooks many questions. I’ll post the screen shot and give more info later.
Mind you: this professor is not SCOTUS. But by the same token, he clearly had no axe to grind about Obama when he wrote his opus back in the late 1800s.
Natural law– whatever it might be– is not the governing principle of US jurisprudence. So…I think it really doesn’t matter what “Natural Law” might say on this. The question is what does the US constitution say. My impression is also that except for the 9th amendment which mentions “un-enumerated rights” (and to some extent provides a foundation for things like the right to privacy) the US constitution really doesn’t have any place for “natural law”.
Lucia
“Naturels” was officially translated “natural born” by the Continental Congress in 1781. See
Absolute proof the Founders knew and accepted Vattel`s French “naturels” to mean “natural born”
Reposted by: CDR Charles Kerchner (Ret) Lead Plaintiff
Kerchner et al v Obama et al http://www.protectourliberty.org
See Google Books for Naturels “native born†before 1800.
At least three books in 1704, 1742, and 1743 show “les sujets naturels†was historically translated “then natural born subjects†and vice versa. See Rymes’ Feodera ,with translations of all British Acts into French, a copy of which Madison ordered for Congress. As Secretary of Foreign Affairs, John Jay would have used Feodera while working with France.
“The Law of Nations” and the Declaration of Independence
As Secretary of Foreign Affairs, John Jay would have used Fedeora as the standard translation of British Acts to French including “Natural born subjects†as “les sujets naturelsâ€.
The Constitution requires “Citizen†for Representatives and Senators, and “natural born citizen†for Presidents. De Vattel describes cityoens (citizens) and then contrasts “les naturels†(“natural born citizensâ€) as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.†De Vattel’s Book I, Chapter 19, section 212.
That appears to be standard usage before drafting Constitution, officially translated by Congress, and Jay used both Vattel and Rhymer’s Foedera.
I found the following under: Vattel’s Influence on the term a Natural Born Citizen
Lucia,
Not as I read the British Nationality act of 1948. By that he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent at birth. As to me not being a natural born citizen because of the possibility and not the actuality of dual citizenship, that is ridiculous.
I do think you are right about him not being a Kenyan at birth as well.
We agree that he was born American and probably on many other things.
As this seems important to you I hope you find the answer what ever it may be.
Errata: Rymer’s Foedera with naturels “natural born”
Re: bugs (Apr 30 17:47),
As you know or should know, there are factual errors in the account of the FOIA issue by Climatesight that you copied to the thread. His or her narrative also integrates several “because of X, Y then followed” steps that appear to be incorrect.
David–
I clicked your “proof”.
I don’t see why in the heck base would we conclude that the phrase in the constitution (i.e. “natural born citizens”) comes from Vattel “Les Naturels” (with no word for citizen in sight) merely because someone translated “es sujets naturels” to “natural born subject”? (Note: no citizen. Subject.)
Natural born subject was a widely used term and existed in English common law. English common law held that the native born subjects were natural born.
This translation in no way suggests that the Founders didn’t just substitute “citizen” for “subject” in the very common place phrase “natural born subject” and doing so, believed that a “natural born citizen” was achieved by the same range of means as being “natural born subjects”. My understanding is in English common law prevailing in the colonies, “natural born subjects” included all those born in the colony almost no matter what the status of their parents. (Kids of foreign diplomats may have been excluded by treaty.)
This is a pretty bad argument for why everyone would use Vattel’s notions rather than British common law which prevailed in the colonies!
(Note also: the French ambassdors were French, not Swiss. So even if the French spoke the same language as Vattel, we can’t be sure the French accepted Vattel’s definition of “natural born”. The French often disagree with the Swiss, and may well have meant something else– which the American’s still translated literally.)
JohnGBell-
I don’t know what your point is supposed to be.
The British Nationalities act is here:
http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1948.htm
My understanding is british common law always recognized natural subjects by birth. That is discussed here:
If American “natural born” had the same meaning in the US as in England, everyone born in the US would be “natural born”. Obama would be “natural born” American.
I agree that it would be ridiculous for you to not be a natural born citien owing to the possibility that you would be granted German citizenship. My point is that the theory that Obama wouldn’t be a natural born citizen owing to the possibility of Kenyan or British citizen is exactly as ridiculous. But the notion that Obama is does not get natural citizen granted to everyone born in the US due to his hypothetically being able to have duel citizenship through his father is exactly the same as your hypothetical situation.
Lucia
Here is a Founder stating the definition of “natural” citizenship as being born to two citizens.
You noted:
Apuzzo observes that:
i.e., Ramsey in his definition of native right (natural) citizens born to two citizens differs from England’s “natural born subjects” of born subject to the Crown.
Apuzzo provides numerous other references.
How about applying your statistical analysis to the probabilities of “Natural born” as being born of two citizens from Vattel, Ramsey etc vs English common law?
David–
I sincerely do not know what point you are trying to make.
1) Are you trying to make the point that Vattel thought natural born citizens were only those born in a country of citizen parents. (Or at least 1 citizen parents.) No one disputes this.
2) Are you trying to make the point that Vattel was read by some Founders. Yes. No one disputes this.
3) Are you trying to make the point that word “Naturels” could be translated into “Natural born?” Sure. It might.
But what you are missing is the clain seems to be advanced in various blog posts includes is
That “natural born citizens” in the Constitution must come from Vattel.
With various “theoris” for why it must come from Vattel. One claim seems to be Vattel “coined” the phrase and so the phrase in the constition must come from him: He didn’t coin the phrase. He didn’t even string all three words together in French.
Oddly, in your defense of some Vattel theory you seem to merely be prooving that if Vattel was asked to describe who “natural born citizens were”, he would have said they were natives born of two citizen parents. Yes. Vattel seems to have though that.
But that doesn’t get us to anything that suggest the Founders though “natural born” came through ones Father. It is entirely plausible that the Founders thought being born in a country makes one a “natural born citizen” paralleling “natural born subject” in England. As it had in the colonies. As courts ruled during the early years– including the inheritance case involving the So. Carolina woman who left the American’s in 1783!
Lucia
I was providing info supporting n natural born = born to two citizen parents – within US jurisdiction.
Citizenship passing from the father is a separate thread of legal information. That evidences Obama’s disqualification by foreign citizenship and allegiance by birth to an alien father who was never a US citizen. (In addition to US citizenship via birth in Hawaii under Amendment 14.)
The British ruled Kenya between 11 June 1920 and 12 December 1963 as The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya.
Obama Sr. was born about 1936 and thus Kenyan/ Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
Obama acknowledged he had citizenship under
British Nationality Act (1948) § 5 (1), and thus was a “Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies” from birth – probably through today, having never renounced it.
Both Blackstone and Vattel affirm citizenship through fathers.
“. . . so that all children, born out of the king’s licence, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes,. . .â€
William Blackstone, Commentaries (1765) *154-57.
“ . .the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. . . .The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children.â€
Emmerich de Vattel, Law of Nations (1758), Bk. 1, Ch. 19, Citizens & Nations, p 101 sect. 212, sect. 215.
Until recently in the USA:
Savage v. Umphries (TX) 118 S. W. 893, 909; Judicial Definitions Words and Phrases 2nd Ser. (1914) West Pub. p 697.
What a fascinating thread!
But in all seriousness I think that there is something really wrong with a grown man who thinks he is a rabbit.
David-
It looks like you have 1 obscure Founder who might have thought what you think.
Ramsey does appear to believe that birth right citizenship required someone to be born of citizens. I suspect it’s going to be given low weight by courts because the view in that document is contradicted by the 1830 ruling in Shanks and Dupont which clearly recognizes SC citizenship by being born on SC soil. They found Ann Scott had birth right citizenship by virtue of being born there.
Also, you still have a problem with the 14th amendment– which is why well above, I’d asked either you or david (I don’t remember which) for SCOTUS case after the 14th amendment.
(BTW: It’s odd a guy publishing in 1789 Constitution didn’t use the phrase “natural born citizen” instead of “birth right citizenship”. It give the impression he might not intend to interpret the meaning of the Constitution itself!
David
Yes. But this is irrelevant to Obama. There is no evidence that the founders colletively were influenced by Vattel (not to mention all the people ratifying!) But British law would e familiar to everyone. Blackstone affirms allegience/citizenship through birth as follows:
and he deems aliens as
* http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_4_citizenships1.html
So, this understanding would inform the colonists, and suggest “Natural birth” could easily include being attained at birth. Moreover, the case involving the SC woman above indicates the SCOTUS recognized birth-right citizen ship through place of birth. Plus, the 14th amendement guarantees it. All this strongly suggests that even if Blackstone, the constitution and the law envisions additional ways of getting birth right citizenship, Obama would be a “natural born citizen”.
Another country can’t take away whether you are a natural born US citizen.
David–
Is Savage Vs. Umphreys SCOTUS? It would be nice if you would provide links to your cases as one reading the cases, every single one I could find did not support your case. (Above, I’ve also asked you to provide links for cases you listed as SCOTUS but which I have been unable to find. Specifically, could you find the majority opinions for:
EX PARTE REYNOLDS, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel)
UNITED STATES V WARD, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D. Cal. 1890) (same definition and cites Vattel.)â€. While your at it if Savage Vs. Umphreys is a court case, could you find the majority opinion for that.
MikeN
I agree with you. If they could, children of Iranian Males who naturalize could never be president because Iranians refuse to recognize that males can throw off citizenship.
MIkeN (Comment #75280)
“Another country can’t take away whether you are a natural born US citizen.”
Indeed. Consider the mischeif a nation antiptahetic to the USA could perform otherwise.
“Jimmy Haigh (Comment #75277)
April 30th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
But in all seriousness I think that there is something really wrong with a grown man who thinks he is a rabbit.”
Could be worse: A grown man who thinks he is several of those little animals who eat what is coming out of the backside of that rabbit.
jeff id,
I love the weasel words “likely born in the US.” It wasn’t “likely.” It was and is a fact.
Obama requested an exception to Hawaiian law to appease idiots who were never going to accept the “long form birth certificate” or anything else as proof that he really is president. And right on cue, they’re claiming it’s a forgery. Or they consider it “proof” that he can’t be president because his father was a foreign national, despite the fact that the courts have already ruled against this notion. So yes, too many morons, too little time. He should have taken a page from Dick “Deficits Don’t Matter” Cheney and told them to go F themselves, because that’s all they deserve.
BTW, here is a list of “reasonable questions” from 9/11 truthers. I’m sure Bush and now Obama should be expected to cave to the “public concern” of this particular batch of morons:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
John Bell,
Are you sure that by voluntarily taking on German citizenship you could have kept your U.S. nationality?
I became Swiss automatically, i.e. involuntarily, upon marriage to a Swiss. And, yes, in Switzerland also citizenship is through lineage, in fact, that lineage is traced to your “heimatort” – mine being a town I’ve never lived in, altho visited (cool name, translates to Fire Valley). My husband gained that, therefore Swiss citizenship, through his father and I gained it from my husband through marriage, therefore Swiss citizenship, any children the same. If I’m ever old and destitute, that is the town that will have to “take me in.”
It was a matter of great concern to me that I not be seen in any way to have renounced U.S. citizenship and at first resisted the idea of obtaining a Swiss passport but that fear was unfounded. The important point was that I never voluntarily became Swiss. However, until a few years ago, the U.S. took such a dim view of duals that you had to be extremely careful of any act that could be deemed a renunciation; e.g. accidentally showing the wrong passport to U.S. immigration would get you at the least an hours-long interrogation as that act could be interpreted as a renunciation.
I’m curious now whether, all things being equal, for me to qualify to run for president it would be sufficient to publicly renounce the Swiss citizenship. I could, however, become president of Switzerland. Of course, that hasn’t all the flimflammery associated with it as in the U.S. One needs to be elected by parliament to the Federal Council (like cabinet ministers, e.g. Minister of Transportation, etc.) They serve until they retire or, rarely, are removed. (lovely scandal when one was removed a few years ago.) The president rotates among these 7 and this year we have our second woman president in a row.
So, I don’t believe you could have retained your U.S. citizenship if you had voluntarily become a German citizen but, if so, would very much appreciate any evidence!
http://supreme.justia.com/us/28/242/case.html
In Shanks v. DuPont, where Ann Scott — a citizen of SC by birth — married Shanks:
(Note: The court recognizes birth-right citizen by birth in this. They don’t follow de Vattel or Ramsey above. No one cites de Vattel or Ramsey above.)
This link indicates that dual citizenship is not automatically lost by acquiring the citizenship of another country:
Losing American citizenship apparently requires an “intent” to do so.
My wife and both of my own children are dual citizens (Canada and US) and have lived on either side of the border without necessity of immigration papers and with full rights (voting, etc.)
RomanM– If your kids run for president, maybe we’ll finally have a court case to resolve all possible variations of the question. (Were your kids born in the US or Canada?)
Positive proof “Les Naturals” means native american!”
Title:Capt. George Vancouver: Village, Abandonne par les naturels du pays, et situe’ sur le Sound du Roi George III, dans la Nouvelle-Hollande.
Image:
(Ok. The “Positive Proof” is a joke because one of the web pages insists they have “positive proof”. But here you see that “les naturels du pays” appear to refer to indiginous people. This would suggest that French in 1800 permitted the word “les naturels” to mean more than 1 thing. Oddly [/sarc], this situation still perists, and equally oddly [/sarc] it also exists in English.
Obama’s take: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/30/white-house-correspondents-dinner-2011_n_855926.html
See video.
In reply to yguy ” To establish uniform rules of naturalization”, congress in effect has to define what is naturalization, who must become naturalized to be a citizen, and who is automatically a citizen at birth.
Again see
INA: ACT 301 – NATIONALS AND CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AT BIRTH
Sec. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401] The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
Congress has adopted my interpretation by passing legislation defining what is a natural born citizen. I overlooked item g earlier:
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years:
So Obama would have been a natural born US Citizen by virtue of item g of INA ACT 301, Sec. 301 (g) even if he had been born in Kenya, since his mother was a US citizen and had resided in the US at least 14 years when Obama was born.
lucia, one of each. The first was born in Washington, DC in 1967, when I was a graduate student. The other was born in Canada and registered with the US consulate (in 1971) as an American born abroad by my wife (who at that time was not yet a Canadian citizen).
The rules for the older one were rather interesting. When I registered his birth with the Canadian embassy, I was informed that he would remain dual until the age of 18 when he could make a personal choice as to which citizenship he would keep. If that decision had not been named by age 21, it would automatically revert to the country he was living in (I don’t know what the situation would have been had he been living in a third country).
By the mid-to-late 80’s when he was looking at entering graduate school in the US, he had discovered that the rules had been changed and that dual citizenship was no longer out of the question. If fact, he had his knuckles rapped for not registering with a Draft Board.
Several years ago, my wife was berated at a US border point for not producing a US passport and using her Canadian one which indicated that she had been born in Washington. She was able to acquire the US one easily enough and it was sent by mail to our Canadian address.
My guess is that there must have been some court cases in the 1970s testing the viability of US dual citizenship and that the case had been decided (without ANY fanfare) in favor of that possibility – possibly by SCOTUS.
RomanM–
I don’t know the laws now, but during WWII and the Korean Conflict, foreign national resident males were required to register for the draft. My father-in-law and his two brothers were conscripted and served. All three naturalized at the beginning of their services.
To avoid the risk of conscripts being treated as mercernaries, the US gov’t had floating naturalization boards going around getting all these conscripted kids naturalized as soon as possible. (Their alternative to entering the military and naturalizing when drafted was to leave the US for their home countries.)
My father’s friend Rudy Grijalva was conscripted during the Korean Conflict and naturalized. So, foreign nationals being subject to the draft happened during at least two eras.
I’d be interested in reading these. Sometime in highschool or college I remember my father commenting on the change in attitude toward duel citizenship since the time when we lived in Latin America. I don’t know if there was a SCOTUS ruling or if the balance of Congress just changed their views and the laws. ( I think part of the reason for all the “birthing room” theory had to do with weird laws during the McCarthy era, which I suspect never actually got tested in SCOTUS. When less paranoid Congress realized that these tortured theories about birthing rooms in Germany being “American soil” had all sorts of bizarre effects. What if the mother of the generals kid gave birth in a cab on the way to the birthing room? Was that kid not natural born? Does it not get citizenship? And so on. And of course, we get the example: John McCain might not be a natural born under the weird “birthing room” theory, so that had to be changed. Perverse hypothetical and actual effects. )
Kendra,
“Are you sure that by voluntarily taking on German citizenship you could have kept your U.S. nationality?”
Yes, but I am sure that I would have voluntarily relinquished my natural born status by the positive act of obtaining W. German citizenship. At that point I would, although I would still be a native and a citizen, become a dual citizen with divided loyalties. In this hypothetical situation if in some way I later lost this W. German citizenship I would not revert to natural born status. I would no longer have birthright citizenship. The thread having been cut can’t be restored, but in any case my American citizenship would be intact.
To lose your American citizenship is hard. It can’t be taken from you. You must actively demonstrate to the government that it is your wish to relinquish it after you have become an adult. Few acts qualify.
I would say you could lose natural born status by traveling under a foreign passport while an adult. That is a positive act. By obtaining and using the passport you on paper declare yourself to be a citizen of and under the protection of a foreign government. You would be a dual citizen.
“Kendra (Comment #75287)
May 1st, 2011 at 5:03 am
I became Swiss automatically, i.e. involuntarily, upon marriage to a Swiss.”
That law has been abolished 20 years ago; and foreign men did not automatically become Swiss citizens by marrying a Swiss women even before.
lucia, the rap on the knuckles came before he had attempted to enter the US. After living solely in Canada for almost 20 years, he had submitted documentation proving birth in the US in order to cross the border for the purpose of attending grad school without the need for foreign student forms.
After a little searching I found what appears to be an interesting Wiki entry on
US nationality law. It appears that the rules for people born abroad have changed constantly throughout the last century
John Bell
The US government web page that I linked in a previous comment seems to contradict your contention that “es, but I am sure that I would have voluntarily relinquished my natural born status by the positive act of obtaining W. German citizenship.” [Bold mine]
The same page also has the statement
Notice that to show your intention in renouncing the citizenship, you need to fill out a form saying that. As I recall (not completely sure of the details), other possible examples include serving in another country’s armed forces when they are at war with the US and acquiring property in a foreign locality which may not be acquired by Americans who are not citizens of that locality.
Alan D McIntire –
And just how do you figure such authority derives from the power to confer citizenship on aliens, which is what naturalization means?
More precisely, such statutes are consistent with that interpretation; but of course that sidesteps the issue, which how such an interpretation can be squared with the plain meaning of the naturalization clause.
JohnGBell–
I think Obama is probably a natural born citizen– but the matter has not been adjudicated. I think if it ever gets adjudicated he will be found a natural born citizen.
On some specific answers you are supplying: With respect to your notion of whether your claiming duel citizenship would result in your losing “natural born citizenship”, I’m pretty darn sure you are assuming you know the answer to a legal question that has never been adjudicated. I think you fall in the class that might not be a natural born citizen as these fictional-US-territory-birthing-rooms are tenuous. But, it seems to me the courts would likely find you a natural citizen for the same reason they would find me a natural born citizen– we both have two American parents.
That’s what I already think. But it’s interesting to try to figure out how David L. Hagen’s information and the known court cases might apply to you and to also read your theory that “birthright citizenship” and “natural born citizens” are different things. After all, they “Ramsay” essay written by a founder in 1889 David linked to would suggest they are the same thing. So if US citizenship law works the way it does in that Ramsay essay then either a) you would not lose natural born citizen ship by claiming German citizenship or b) you would lose both natural born citizenship and birth right citizenship by claiming German citizenship. Following Ramsay, you can’t have one without the other.
So do you have thoughts on the Ramsay theory of citizenship? Do you agree with it? Disagree? In either way, what is your basis.
RomanM
The wikipedia article linked to the SCOTUS case that affected interpretations of some of the laws:
http://supreme.justia.com/us/377/163/case.html
SCHNEIDER V. RUSK, 377 U. S. 163 (1964)
This means my sister’s godmother and my Dad’s friend Rudi Grijalva never lost their citizenship! (They didn’t happen to sue. But I remember my dad saying it stank that Rudi who had grown up in the US, conscripted into the army, served in the Korean war and then worked in El Salvador, had his citizenship revoked. It’s nice to read this sort of abomination can’t happen any more.)
bugs (Comment #75259) April 30th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
“How do you deal with the crazies?”
Simply meet the first FOI request in line with the spirit of the law.
btw – Try doing 60 consecutive “save and sends” and see how long it takes takes you. How does that compare to the 10mins approx a (very?) good typist would take over the 760words you cut and pasted from climatesight? How does it compare to the time it took you to read it? Do you think it is enough to bring a whole research team to a standstill?
John Bell,
Re taking on another citizenship voluntarily: I do not see a date on the length of validity of the info in the U.S. gov link, but I am thinking that the statement “with the intention of giving up U.S. citizenship” might be relatively recent and part of the liberalization of the outlook on duals as my understanding when I became Swiss was that the act of voluntarily taking on another citizenship included the act of renunciation.
So I’m not sure it applied at the time you had the choice to become German. I’d really like to see what the regulations were at that time, not now, as I do know that however it happened, the attitude was liberalized.
Alexej, I’m well aware of that! At the risk of sounding like a little old lady with white hair, I married while women still automatically became Swiss. I remember the clamor for equal rights for women resulted in them, indeed, receiving the same status as men who married Swiss, i.e. no automatic citizenship. So now both sexes are subject to the same bureaucracy and insecurity.
Re renunciation: Not so easy right now overseas! Depending on the country, the wait can be as long as 1 1/2 yrs, the cost is $450 (0 in fall of 2009) and the presumption is that it is for purposes of tax evasion, although one’s U.S. taxes and forms must be complete and up-to-date with all documentation for the past 5 years (and subject to audit for years preceding that as well as some years after renunciation). So now tax evaders include those who simply don’t want their pension fund or inheritance if foreign spouse dies to be plundered by the IRS or to be subject to double taxation from 0 up if the Wyden-Gregg bill goes through, which completely removes the foreign earned income exclusion.
Also, and I won’t go into detail, FATCA (get it? Fatcat, haha) comes into effect in less than 2 years and U.S. citizens are already feeling the effects of ostracism from financial activity.
For those of you whose kneejerk reaction is we all are fatcats, I’d like to point out that a third of us are “regular” people who are abroad “for love” – the net is cast the minnows are being caught in it, the sharks, of course, jump out.
Some are seriously looking at other acts that would amount to renunciation, such as swearing an oath to a foreign power, etc.
It runs out there is some interesting context of the Ramsey “dissertation”. It seems around the time David Ramsay wrote that dissertation,
“However, two days before the election, one of his opponents, Dr. David Ramsay, published a claim that Smith was ineligible to be a Congressman, not having been a citizen of the United States for the requisite 7 years. (This may have been in retaliation for rumors also circulated that Ramsay, originally from Pennsylvania, was a closet abolitionist.) A bitter exchange in newspaper letters and pamphlets ensued and Ramsay wrote an 8-page pamphlet titled: Manner of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen of the United States intended to convince Congress unseat Smith.”
That is: Ramsay’s theory is the popularly elected Smith could not take his seat in Congress because he hadn’t been a citizen for 7 years. This was discussed in Congress. It is in this context that Madison wrote:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db&recNum=211
After this, Congress decided Madison was right, Ramsay was wrong, and seated Smith. So, once again: It is true that Ramsay wrote that. It is possible he believed what he wrote entirely and there was no element of just convincing himself that the law was such as to unseat his opponent for the seat. But it is quite clear that the Congress disagreed with Ramsay. So, the full story strongly suggests that the majority of founders disagreed with Ramsay’s disseration.
Of course that’s my interpretation. But I suspect most originalists would tend to view this as evidence that for the most part, the Founders did not share Ramsay’s view.
There’s a section in the US passport that describes a lot of ways you can lose your citizenship. It seems to me that the easiest resolution of the John Walker Lindh affair would have been to strip him of his citizenship for taking up arms for a foreign army against the US. Why they apparently didn’t even consider doing this is beyond me.
Lucia,
As I see it natural born citizenship is the term used to describe a birthright citizenship discovered from an understanding of Natural Law. All other types of citizenship issue from civil law not Natural Law and are subject to redefinition and likewise a dilution of the intent of the founders to help protect the nation from seating a president contaminated by foreign influence or loyalty.
I think the writers of the Constitution were familiar with Vattel and Natural Law. That their definition of a natural born citizen would be “of two citizen parents and born on sovereign territory”. They said as much. Do I think that Vattel’s derivation is equivalent to the product of a perfect understanding of Natural Law? I don’t know. I am not wise enough.
John G. Bell –
If natural born citizenship is a natural right, what do you think would happen to the citizenship rights of those of us born American if the states unanimously decided to abolish the Constitution and become several sovereign nations? And if you agree that our American citizenship – be it natural born or naturalized – would vanish, how is it a natural (unalienable) right?
John G. Bell
Who is “they” and where and why do you think they said the agreed with Vattel?
yguy,
Please allow me the time to attempt an answer worthy of your question but consider this.
My initial notion is that you premise your question with the assumption that unanimity implies legitimacy of the action. We know that citizens may be denied their rights, even a birthright by the illegitimate action of a state though it be wildly popular. That is not so interesting. In our Civil War the Southern States denied their citizens the birthright of American citizenship on the grounds that it was necessary to protect and extend slavery. A disunion based on violations of Natural Law not the rebellion of a people against violations of Natural Law which our Founders had instigated. You may imagine that I think Lincoln was right in putting down the rebellion! I love the South but not its crimes.
Perhaps a birthright to a nation that egregiously violates its citizen’s Natural Law and Rights is no more a birthright than the inheritance of a toxic waste dump. A birthright to a nation that promotes and protects Natural Law and Rights is the inheritance of a goldmine. That the exchange of the latter for the former can not in any way be seen as a violation of an individual’s rights. The merits of all other cases are in proportion to the direction and magnitude of the change.
That is my crude quick answer. You are better off rereading The Declaration of Independence than waiting for something more polished from me.
yguy,
In the above I intended to say ” … the exchange of the former for the latter can not in anyway be seen as a violation of an individual’s rights.” and the edit button didn’t work. Rats!
lucia re (Comment #75289)
There is no question that birth to two citizens within US jurisdiction qualifies as “natural born citizen.†The question is whether birth to an alien father qualifies as “natural born citizen†vs just “citizenâ€. In Shanks v. Dupont, SCOTUS addresses both birth parent and birthplace, and observes that with children, citizenship was considered to follow the Father. With Obama, his father held a British passport, thus Obama had British citizenship at birth. See:
SHANKS V. DUPONT, 28 U. S. (3 Pet.) 242 (1830) http://supreme.justia.com/us/28/242/case.html
“If she was not of age then, under the circumstances of this case, she might well be deemed to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his natural character as a citizen of that country.â€
“If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country.â€
See Vattel, page 102: ‘By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers and enter into all their rights.’
See Appuzio’s discussion at: 10. Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F.Cas. 582 . . .
Bin Laden is dead. I want to see the long form death certificate.
David–
No. It does not. Selective editing and ignoring the true definition ofthe word “might” cannot magically transform the ruling into what you say. This is the fuller quote
I read this to say:
1) She was a citizen by virtue of birth & residence. That is: birth & residence grants citizenship. This happens irrespective of who her father was.
But also
2) She might also have gotten citizenship from her father. So, for example, had she not happened to have citizenship for other reasons, then as a minor, she would also be considered to be under the protection of her father and so have citizenship.
The only way to make this seem to agree with Vattel is to selectively edit out the clear recognition that she gained citizenship by birth. This is a clear contradiction of Vattel.
I read your second link, and similarly, it seems to rely on:
1) Bald claims
2) Selective editing.
3) Some true observations that happen to be irrelevant to figuring out the definition of “natural born citizen” and
4) Fanciful speculation about what the founders must have been thinking, giving no evidence based on anythign the founders actually wrote or said.
In contrast, the case against your interpretation includes:
1) SCOTUS rulings.
2) Quotes from the well of congress.
3) Actions by Congress to seat Smith even after Ramsey published his rather self serving dissertation suggesting Smith would not have birth-right citizenship.
As I’ve said: I’m not a lawyer, but I think that if this eventually goes to court, the courts are going to rule against the view of “natural born citizen” that you seem to prefer. Obviously, we aren’t going to resolve this in comments.
On ex parte Reynolds– I previously asked you for a copy of the majority decision. The reason I can’t take any of these claims seriously without seeing the majority decision is that it is manifestly apparent that these arguments are being supported using extremely selective editing. So, I can’t take any blog post or comment seriously unless the link. The web page you link to– guess what? It doesn’t provide links to the court case. And I note: That blogger distorts Shanks v. Dupont. I discussed that case above– giving the link for those interested. He also distorts Ark, and several other SCOTUS case– I already discussed my impression of these. Unlike the blogger you link I provided links to the majority opinions.
As I’ve said: I don’t expect everyone reading to come to the conclusion I did– but it does seem to me that the sources you are linking are extremely unconvincing for many reasons.
Fuller
I want to see the team of independent inspectors checking the body– on video. I want DNA testing. I want tooth analysis.
Now we can watch for the rallying around the martyr and the blowback.
I want to see the F###er propped up in a pine box infront of Ground Zero.
“lucia (Comment #75324)
May 1st, 2011 at 10:22 pm
I want to see the team of independent inspectors checking the body– on video. I want DNA testing. I want tooth analysis.”
First they publish a birth certificate that looks like a fake; then they bury a body “at sea” so nobody can independently verify that it was the right person. I remember my (long dead) mother saying at the time of Carters Teheran raid: “They can’t do anything properly anymore”.
Buried at sea = no pilgramige to the gravesite.
Alexej–I was joking. It would be best if there is verification of death, but I don’t feel any burning need for DNA analysis or toot analysis.
Bugs– If there is no DNA analysis, I think they should bury him at Graceland who, as we know, isn’t dead either.
Buried at sea = no pilgramige to the gravesite.
Indeed. After Nuremberg, executed Nazi leaders were incinerated and their ashes dispersed into rivers. According to Wikipedia, the Soviets did the same with the remains of Hitler himself later on.
ah bugs – back from those arduous “save and sends”! How long did they take again?
Lucia #75330,
Not Graceland! The resulting mix of Elvis and Osama worshipers might be a bit too volatile.
Buried At Sea? Huh? You have got to be joking.
Buried at sea my rear end.
Andrew
curious (Comment #75332) May 2nd, 2011 at 5:56 am
I’m sorry, was I supposed to respond to your nonsense.
bugs,
It is a straightforward question.
No wonder you need to dodge it.
(as per hunter comment #75312, “Record for ‘f’ words in a climate blog post?” thread)
to a Brit, this all seems quite amusing. I notice up above that Lucia commented on the fact that the monarch of GB cannot be a Roman Catholic. This is actually not surprising, since the monarch is Head of the Church of England. Therefore the monarch can hardly be a RC and makes it hard to support the concept of being married to an RC. There are much better examples but the point is that Britain is addicted to ceremonial.
The thing about the USA is that we are told that it was founded on rational, enlightened principles. Which means that this discussion about who can be President seems like a bunch of outmoded ceremonial claptrap. Sure it made sense when the USA was ungluing itself from Britain, France, Spain and Russia – you wouldn’t want an Alaskan Russian peasant as POTUS, would you!
However, the fact that 200 years later someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has spent most of his adult life in the USA, is obviously committed to the USA and has actually held high public office in the USA, cannot be POTUS is surely senseless – regardless of his abilities.
Hey guys – as a non-American, I am fascinated and appalled by this discussion. I’m not particularly impressed by Obama’s politics, but I was amazed to see an Afro-American President less than 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr, and thought it reflected well on your country. The proponents of the various conspiracy theories seem to me to reflect and underlying feeling that an Afro-American could not legitimately become President (i.e., he only got in by lying and cheating). Sorry if I am misreading this, and would be delighted to be corrected.
diogenes_1960
To an American, having the monarch be the head of the church is odd.
Some principles are enligthened. I think much of the US constitution is well thought out. Separation of powers is good. The provision permitting amendments are good. The decision to immediately amend and include the Bill of Rights was good.
But I was never taught that the purpose of declaring independence was any flash of enlightenment or even to create an enlighted government. The provision to maintain slavery was clearly not enlightened.
I agree. Some Americans agree and from time to time amending the Constitution on this issue is discussed, but the matter is never seen as a pressing issue. So it doesn’t get changed.
What is clear: The Constitution does not permit Schwazenneger to be President. This is indisputable. So, unless we amend the Constitution, he can’t become President. Period.
Gus
I’m can’t be sure one way or the other on the race issue. Some American’s are racist. So I suspect for at least some of those objecting to Obama, that might be an element. But all? Probably not. There are always people who would merely try to find absolutely any reason why some particular person should be kicked out of office. (As evidence that some people will hunt around for evidence to suit a political case: the sole bit of real “evidence” the Founders might have thought natural born required two citizen parents is from a leaflet written by a guy who lost an election to a candidate whose Dad wasn’t American. The loser, Ramsay, tried to claim that Congress couldn’t seat Smith because Smith wasn’t American long enough. The first Congress ignored Ramsay and seated Smith. Madison says flat out that birth place counts. Madison wrote the Constitution.)
And of course, some people do sincerely believe “natural born citizen’s” means citizen parents and born on US soil, always thought so. But there’s never been any SCOTUS ruling to that effect. Similar arguments were made for birth-right citizenship— and those have lost over and over again in the courts.
“Kendra (Comment #75311)
May 1st, 2011 at 11:16 am
I remember the clamor for equal rights for women resulted in them, indeed, receiving the same status as men who married Swiss, i.e. no automatic citizenship. So now both sexes are subject to the same bureaucracy and insecurity.”
That sounds like a long, complicated, degrading, expensive process; why does everybody have to imitate the USA?
reminds Lucia that Henry 8 created the Church of England when the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon for fear of alienating the then-dominant world-power. I think that the Founding Fathers saw the problems with combining Church and State and decided to keep them separate.
diogenes-
Note: I keep trimming your “name” to get rid of the email address. Put the email address in email address and name in name. That helps avoid spambots from filling your email with junk.
What with various Irish Catholic grandparents, and all my childhood and adult movie watching, I’m aware of the whole Anne Boleyn issue. Many American’s had immigrated precisely because of religious issues and different groups were dominated different states.
Oddly enough though, the formal requirement to keep church and state separate appears not in the Constitution but the 1st amendment to the constitution. There was a lot of discussion during ratification of the constitution, and many people wanted some guarantees that were absent in the Constitution inserted. So, the first job of the first Congress was to amend the US constitution. The first 10 amendments are called “The Bill of Rights”.
When my first wife passed away a decade ago leaving me and our young elementary age son behind, I applied for Social Security survivor’s benefits for the both of us. Not a bad chunk of change.
At the interview we presented the bureaucrat with the documents that were requested, which included all of our birth certificates, and yes, all were “long form” and bore seals that were contemporaneous with each birth (two in the ’50’s and one in the ’80’s) and looked their age. She looked each of them carefully front and back, felt the paper, and then told us this would be easy. Original certified copies that looked and felt right. She went on to tell us that if we’d presented modern computer printouts the SSA would have to go pull all the originals themselves to verify, and perhaps conduct a further investigation if there were irregularities.
I was never a “birther” as that required one to believe multiple Hawaiian officials would be willing to lie at best and commit treason at the worst in order to cover for the President, and a legal action based on some triviality of this mother’s age would never fly. Born in the US to a natural born citizen mother means indisputable American citizen.
However this is exactly the document that the SSA would require before they’d send *him* benefits, is exactly the document the birthers have been asking to see for years, and is exactly the same sort of document that John McCain provided the press just days after his ‘natural born citizenship’ was challenged during the campaign. The “Certificate of Live Birth” printout may be enough within the State of Hawaii for proof of birthplace, but it isn’t good enough for the SSA, which IIRC is part of the Executive Branch.
This circus could ended before it began; that it didn’t tells me that Obama wanted the circus in town for political purposes.
Re: lucia (May 2 14:48),
Needless to say that interpreting the phrase “an establishment of religion” in the first amendment has generated a lot of controversy over the years.
Lucia wrote
Like ‘butterfly ballots’ created by the loser’s own party and ‘hanging chads’ or ‘dented chad’ votes, as agreed to by a majority vote of 3 of one party and 2 of the other? Radical Dems spent eight years disputing both elections of Bush II (indeed, they still do), that some republicans would do the same to Obama is not at all surprising.
John G. Bell –
What precisely would be illegitimate about all the states agreeing to dissolve the Union?
Sure he was, but I’m at a loss to understand what that has to do with any contention of mine.
Greg
This would be an example. Of course in the case of Bush/Gore the SCOTUS ruling came rather quickly.
I guess the SSN guys are going to have to send someone to El Salvador when I apply for SS benefits. My original child born to American parents overseas is in tatters. I mean that it’s literally in 4 pieces. I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who doesn’t have an original in good condition.
yguy
I assume the amendment process would permit us to write an amendment dissolving the union. It could be done during a constitutional convention too. The constitution explains how to bring one of those about. I think everyone would agree both those procedures would be legitimate.
Alexej,
It isn’t really all that bad!!! About the same as getting a green card when you marry a U.S. citizen and emigrate to the U.S.
The historical reasons for women easily getting citizenship is they didn’t have the right to vote and didn’t serve in the military (in addition to the usual characteristics of a patrilocal/patrilineal culture, not that that’s at all unusual in human civilization). Even though women still do not serve in the military – keep in mind every Swiss male does, it’s a militia – once they got the vote, the question of “allegiance” became much more important.
Still, there was a period of time before that took place and the catalyst was the worldwide movement for women’s rights in general, which in this particular case simply equalized downward belatedly, as a side effect. On the positive side, due to the direct democracy aspect – initiatives, referenda, etc., once enfranchised, the power of women became greater, faster than in countries where women had the vote much earlier. So once that was set in motion, we ended up with women in the Federal Council quite rapidly and, as I mentioned, already the second year in a row of women presidents – this year, Micheline Calmy-Rey from the French part.
Not only that, but until modern times, Switzerland was a country of emigration – so, with no concern about the vote and military, there was no reason not to immediately make women citizens – plenty of room what with every Tom, Joe and Jane leaving at the drop of a hat and maybe a bit of incentive to keep a few men at home.
My “rustico” (little stone house) in the Italian part of Switzerland is testament to this emigration – it, and the entire mountain village, was abandoned when they all went off to “la Merica” – that’s how they wrote it after having only heard it – to make Italian-Swiss Colony Wine, haha. There’s a book at the post office in Sementina, my town, I intend to buy (only in Italian) about all the emigrants from Sementina and Monte Carasso, the neighboring village, to California. Needless to say, emigrants to every part of the U.S. from the German and French parts as well, e.g Wisconsin.
Now, the whole world wants to come here – maybe often just cause its closer than the U.S.
The upshot is, the modern bureaucratic state makes equal opportunity demands on all citizens to spend endless hours with forms, documents, notaries, each accompanied by a fee of some sort, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Lucia,
The SCOTUS was just doing what the Chief Justice of the Florida Supremes said they’d do when he was on the 4/3 losing side on the state court decision that the SCOTUS overturned. All seven Florida justices were Democrats and four of them were doing their damnedest to hand the Florida Electoral College votes to Gore, including disregarding prior SCOTUS rulings. Personally, I think the SCOTUS should have kept hands off but the result would have been the same after something of a constitutional crisis. Florida would not have ratified the election, it would be thrown to the Florida legislature for a vote and (being majority R at the time) the electoral votes would still have gone for Bush, who would have clearly won anyway had the state not been called for Gore by national news organizations before the entire state (in two time zones) had finished voting.
It’s really a shame FL had such a lame policy of what constituted a vote with the punch card ballots. California had them for years, and the law was clear: it wasn’t a vote unless the chad was completely detached. No dimpled chads, no hanging chards. No shenanigans. A lousy technology for voting perhaps, since multiple automated counts tended to count more votes as the decks were handled more, but election recounts were not three ring circuses.
My local lefty public radio CPB funds recipient had a long interview with a very left journalism professor last Thursday, and his view that Bush was an illegitimate President still figured prominently into his views. The left reaps what it spent so much time sewing.
I suspect the SSA will have an alternative method that will allow the trip to El Salvador to be skipped… unless they have embassy staff available to check out such things. Who knows, maybe a good facsimile is already in your FBI file. I expect mine is.
Greg,
My Dad went to the American embassy in El Salvador to file in the first place. I’m sure it’s a matter of Social Security phoning or sending a fax.
kim pretty much nails the birther sentiment, “It’s about allegience, not place of birth”.
After the release of the COLB by Obama in 2008, there was never any doubt that he was born in Hawaii, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Obama is a natural born citizen. It’s that simple.
Most Americans pledge and exhibit allegience to the United States of America by accepting a President who was elected in an election certified by the US Congress. Some don’t.
Allegiance is a motivation for some. For others, it stems from Obama as candidate promising more transparency in government – and his complete failure to adhere to the principle.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/09/sweet_blog_special_obama_trans.html
It was a constant reminder, that he really meant transparency for others, not himself.
Kan
This hardly makes him unique among politicians. Politicians preferentially reveal stuff and then give explanations for why the stuff they reveal is the stuff everyone should reveal while other stuff need not be revealed.
Can’t believe that people are going on about ‘natural-born’ – the meaning was entirely clear at the time the words were written, and simply and solely means a child born to married parents – the President is not permitted to be a bastard. The reason you can find sources saying otherwise is that this isn’t the first time people have tried to exclude a politician by twisting the constitution.
Ref: Comment #75455
Information in some biographies of Obama (e.g.’The Bridge’ by David Remnick, 2010, p53-54; and ‘Barack Obama’ by Dawne Allette, 2009, p15) indicate that Barack senior was already married to a Kenyan lady called Kezia at the time of his marriage to Anne – hence her filing for divorce in 1964. A quick web search suggests that in the UK and USA a child of a bigamous marriage can be considered illegitimate. In Barack junior’s autobiography (‘Dreams From My Father’, 2008, p.back edition) such details are absent, apart from the rather succinct ‘a separation occurred’, on p10.
bob_in_UK–
I suspect the comment that “natural” means “legitimate” was a joke. Anyway, I always understood “natural” was the child of two unmarried people. That is: Neither father or mother are married to anyone at all. In come countries, this sort of child could be retroactively decreed legitimate if his parents later married. However if one of your parents was married to someone else, you were out of luck. (This mattered for inheritance reasons.)
I’m pretty sure the Founder weren’t insisting that only citizens whose parents were never married to anyone could be president!
Wikipedia discusses terms for legitimacy with natural being closer to illegitimate than legitimate.
In the year 2134 52 clones of Bill Gates having bought their way into the Senate will define a natural born citizen as having been cloned from Bill Gates. The George Soros clones will then call a Constitutional convention and being more than 50% of the voting population in each State will remove the term natural born citizen and replace it with “clone of George Soros”. The rest of the population will wonder what all the fuss is about because they will recall that since the 50th President, Mr. Chin, the 3rd son of the president of the PRC and a 14 year old American girl, no one had payed any attention to the Constitution at all.
Lucia – The difference is that he made it a very large issue during the campaign in 2007 and 2008. Some of the proposals were quite novel and were directly aimed at the executive branch (you the whole anti-Bush thing).
“Obama said. “Now I know some will say that we can’t make this change. …That’s not how I see it.” [ibid]
He is now in charge of the executive branch, yet somehow forgot this plank in the old campaign platform (see NBBP election violations, CAIR un-indicated co-conspirator case).
Some people I know actually believed him. The long form was a reminder.
The Obama administration has been forthcoming on some issues and has stonewalled on others. Certainly the first time in history that a campaign promise has been broken. I’m sure everyone recalls Bush’s promise to regulate CO2. Then again, probably not. Personally, when I think of open government, I want to know who was on Cheney’s energy task force, and not the attending physician at Obama’s birth.
Kan–
I googled to find that quote in context. I don’t see how that speech even begins to suggest Obama was saying that individual politicians must be required to supply all personal papers to the public.
On the one hand: I wouldn’t mind if Obama made some sort of blanket permission for people to reveal any and all records that are ordinarily kept private by law. (For example: School’s aren’t permitted to just hand out school transcripts or records to anyone who asked. The student must give permission.) But on the other hand, I don’t think his failing to give permission for people to see his kindergarden, grade school, Occidental college records, his birth certificate etc. constitutes a broken political promise.
John G. Bell:
I think it’s funny to suggest all the clones will agree with each other on policy. My husband’s two brothers are twins raised in the same household and they don’t share the same opinion on everything. Other twins who disagreed on things: Romulus and Remus were supposedly twins, and one killed the other. But possibly Bill Gates/ George Soros would take care that his clones were not suckled by wolves and they’d be less inclined to murder each other during disputes over who takes over the Gates/Soros fortune.
Out of curiosity, in your future clone world, what would the Koch clones be doing while the Gates/Soros clones are taking over the government?
On more serious note: If the future is full of clones I suspect the natural born citizen clause will have to be modified as will laws regarding citizenship in general. Beyond cloning, if someone invents an artificial uterus to gestate humans, we’ll probably need to interpret or modify the 14th amendment to figure out when and where someone was “born”. But for now, that issue is moot.
Lucia,
Gates and Soros have defined themselves by their avaricious exploitation of flawed markets and unfathomable wealth. So they suggest themselves.
The Koch brothers I know almost nothing about. They are promoting the Tea Party and I have read they were important in its formation. I am not in the Tea Party and have never talked to anyone in it much less the Koch brothers so far as I know. If I were to give Koch clones some room in the joke it would have to be to assign them the sisyphean task of protecting an originalist understanding of and an adherence to the Constitution by our government and population.
We are still testing ” … whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” I am not optimistic. We were a constitutional republic based on natural law but the trend is to devolve into a more simple democracy. They never last long. I watched an Indian reporter describe the American government as ” … exhibiting evidence of being an immature democracy.” Imagine that! More like a 2nd childhood than the first.
So what does it mean to be born. One definition is “Brought into existence; created”. That could be said of a clone.
Ref: my previous Comment 75470
I see a problem. Not with the birth certificate, but with the *divorce* certificate.
After posting comment 75470, I became rather puzzled by the phrase used by Barack Jr. ‘a separation occurred’ (‘Dreams From My Father’, p.back, p.10). Why not just say that the parents were divorced, as described in my two other biographies of Obama ?
By way of introduction to the problem, consider this question:
Apart from being heads of state, what do Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) have in common ?
Answer: they are both said to be the offspring of a bigamous marriage.
This URL: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Annullment gives useful details about bigamy:
‘A void marriage is one that was invalid from its very beginning and, therefore, could never lawfully exist in any way. The major grounds for a void marriage are Incest, bigamy, and lack of consent.’
Hence it would appear that both Barack and Elizabeth were born out of wedlock.
A Royal Chaplain and advisor to King Henry VIII, and noted theologian, scholar, and academic, Bishop John Fisher, was *executed* by the King because he refused to accept that Elizabeth’s birth was legitimate. (At the birth of Elizabeth, King Henry had two wives – Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn).
But the problem lies with the ‘divorce’. It is not possible to obtain a divorce from a bigamous marriage. A bigamous marriage is always null and void from the outset, and a divorce can only be obtained from a valid marriage.
How can Barack Sr. and Ann have been ‘divorced’, as the biographers state ? Their marriage can only have been annulled. Surely the paperwork for a divorce and an annulment would be quite different ?
Perhaps Barack Jr., with his training as a lawyer, knew that his parents were not divorced, hence calling it ‘a separation’. And if their marriage had been annulled, then why not say so ? More questions than answers. Who first started the idea that there had been a divorce ?
In the biography of Obama called ‘The Bridge’ (by David Remnick, p.back, p 57) it states: “In January 1964, Ann filed for divorce, citing ‘grievous mental suffering’. In Cambridge, Obama [Sr.] signed the papers without protest.”
The author gives no source for this citation. I’ve tried to find another biography of Obama without success – it would be interesting to find one which adds more detail. Some online Divorce Record Search sites indicate that there is a divorce record in Hawaii for an Ann Obama. But it also seems that the search Terms and Conditions preclude looking up public people. Can there really be a divorce record, or is it an annulment ?
bob_in_uk–I don’t know if there was an annulment or a divorce. I also have no idea how one finds divorce or annulment records. I think this issue would have no bearing on Obama being a natural born citizen.
Greg Goodknight (Comment #75396) May 2nd, 2011 at 2:54 pm
However this is exactly the document that the SSA would require before they’d send *him* benefits, is exactly the document the birthers have been asking to see for years, and is exactly the same sort of document that John McCain provided the press just days after his ‘natural born citizenship’ was challenged during the campaign.
Except that John McCain didn’t do that!
As Phil mentions just above, McCain never released his birth certificate. He showed it to at least one member of the press (from the Post?), but even then, it’s not clear if it was a short form or long form version. Of course, there wasn’t the sort of controversy around his birthplace as there was with Obama, so it’s hardly surprising he didn’t release it.
By the way, for those who have been examining the details of what is meant by different types of citizenship, make sure you’ve read about United States nationals. It’s basically like being a citizen, but not. It isn’t really relevant to any of the issues being discussed, but it is good for context.
AFPhys (Comment #75104) April 29th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Lucia (or anyone else)
In your studies on this subject have you come across any definitions of the specific phrase “natural born citizen[s]†prior to the ratification of The Constitution other than Vattel?
Of course, in the document that most of the Framers were familiar with and used extensively (and required no translation), namely
Sir William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England”, 1765-1769, Book 1, Chapter 10.
In particular:
“The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.”
My emphasis.