"A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want." ~Barack Obama
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Posted on 07/24/2011 5:58:31 PM PDT by skimbell
When this episode in the American saga is written, historians will note that Barack Obama did not kill the Democratic Party; he was merely the murder weapon.
He represents the Democrats’ suicide cocktail of hubris and a tyrannical lust for power, the arrogance of thinking themselves above the law.
American politicians and journalists have degenerated so far that it is now possible for a President of the United States to present a clearly forged document on national television and no one blinks an eye.
We have an illegal President, a Congress that tolerates criminal acts, and an intentionally impotent judiciary...
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
..I would admit, however, that if the army started "outsourcing" the drone pilot function to some other country group I would have to say that pistols against the army would become necessary.
"A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want." ~Barack Obama
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Again, that is a "for now" proposition. Subject Americans to enough indoctrination and cherry pick the resulting cadre of socialized Obots, and it wouldn't surprise me that they would violate Posse Comitatus in an instant.
..I would admit, however, that if the army started "outsourcing" the drone pilot function to some other country group I would have to say that pistols against the army would become necessary.
As the "mechanized" ranks increase in number and capability, it will require fewer and fewer "meat world" controllers. A smaller group of people is easier to co-opt than a larger group of people. In terms of American Freedom, we have safety in numbers. Robots are reducing the numbers.
Try the "pistol" method on a robot guard, you will instantly make every other guard in the vicinity know exactly where you are and what you look like. With speed no human can possibly match, they will be racing to your position with infrared and other advanced sensors to kill you immediately, and that is if you can take out the first Robot guard with a pistol shot. The tools we use currently to hunt down insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan may someday be used on patriots here in America.
I'm afraid this game is best described by the movie "War Games." "The only winning move is not to play. "
Hopefully, everyone has been talking with their traditionally-voting dem friends about the demise of their former party. This article would make a great email attachment.
Actually, come to think about it,...it has already happened, twice that I can think of right away. The first time was when the Weavers were attacked and some of them killed by govt agents and the second time was in '92 when the Branch Davidians were assulted by army tanks, their "compound was burned to the ground and more than 80 people were burned...most of them were children....
...it will be necessary therefore to develop a way to take the robots out.
If they can be built, they can be destroyed....
I guess you are comparing the commonly-held definition of "natural born citizen" with the old, pre-Copernican, earth-centered model of the universe.
That gets at the difference between hard science and interpretive activities.
You can overturn a scientific theory through more accurate observation and carefully crafted experiments.
But with interpretative activities (you can't really call them "sciences") unless you can bring to light some long-unknown document you don't get the same kind of refutations.
It looks like what you're doing is trying to make one set of wills prevail over another set of wills, and that's not what happened with Copernicus and his scientific revolution.
If they can be built, they can be destroyed....
Sure. All you have to do is match funding and research talent with the US Government.
Only commonly held among the ignorant, and yes, it is just like the belief that the Sun orbits the Earth. At first glance it appears to be true, but deeper investigation reveals it is utter rubbish.
That gets at the difference between hard science and interpretive activities.
Science relies on interpretation of hard facts. This is no different, but for the lawyers penchant to worship "Precedent," thereby placing them in the role of "bad" or even worse "Non" scientists. They do not argue from "First Principles" rather they argue from the fallacy of Authority.
You can overturn a scientific theory through more accurate observation and carefully crafted experiments.
You can overturn a bad misunderstanding of History the same way, but for the obtuseness of people who refuse to accept the evidence presented to them.
But with interpretative activities (you can't really call them "sciences") unless you can bring to light some long-unknown document you don't get the same kind of refutations.
They didn't find a "Document" to discover the Neutron. It was a careful series of observations regarding the behavior of radioactive particles in experiments. By the same token, the behavior of the founders ought to offer another clue as to what their intentions were.
It looks like what you're doing is trying to make one set of wills prevail over another set of wills, and that's not what happened with Copernicus and his scientific revolution.
That is what you ASSERT I am doing, but the reality is more like Galileo v. the Church. Contemporary writings and statements of the founders demonstrate their intent to a reasonable degree of scientific rigor , and that intent is completely incompatible with Split nationality/divided allegiance. That there are those who refuse to comprehend the evidence which demonstrates this, and continuously cite as a substitute for proof, what other dogma spouters in robes have previously proclaimed, is evidence that they have taken on the role of supporters of the Church, Which was Unanimous, Ubiquitous, powerful, and WRONG.
We are constantly asked to believe, without the slightest bit of evidence mind you, that the founders would be okay with the Son of a Non-American (British even) as our Chief Executive Officer. We are constantly told that the Church of the Holy "precedent" proclaims that cases not even related to Article II eligibility somehow have revoked it in its original meaning. Sorry, I'm just not of the body of "Landru."
Like Michael Bay in Pearl Harbor you completely missed the point. Obviously, they didn't find a new "document to discover the neutron. Physics isn't an interpretative activity, so you can conduct experiments and discover the truth. You can't do that in constitutional interpretation. Unless you can find an as yet undiscovered document that decisively proves your hypothesis, you won't have a Copernican revolution in constitutional interpretation.
That's clear enough. Now go ahead and mangle it.
Contemporary writings and statements of the founders demonstrate their intent to a reasonable degree of scientific rigor , and that intent is completely incompatible with Split nationality/divided allegiance.
All of the founders were eligible for British citizenship/subjecthood had they chosen to retain it. They were no strangers to divided loyalties. None of them had been born American citizens. They all knew people of similar backgrounds to their own in whom loyalty to Britain had won out.
Some of their great leaders had been born abroad: John Paul Jones, Lafayette, Pulaski, Kościuszko, Steuben, de Kalb. Not to mention Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, John Witherspoon, James Wilson. Others were the children of those who were born abroad.
It's clear that they didn't want non-citizens or those who weren't citizens from birth to be elected president. It's also clear that they didn't demand that the parents or grandparents of a prospective president be American-born. Did they require that a president's parents be US citizens at the time of the president's birth? I don't think you can maintain that with any degree of certainty.
My point is that there isn't some principle of hostility and mistrust towards those whose parents weren't citizens that comes before the actual words of the Constitution. You can't reduce the Constitution to some principle that you like. You have to go by the actual wording and the understanding of those words, and they don't give you the certainty that you want and believe you have.
Those who read the propagandists like BladeBryan and are confused should analyze the responses, and trust that if we trust our abilities to reason, and the words of our framers, founders, and supreme court justices, more than the complicit mainstream media and various political allies of the statists, we will recover out legal foundation.
Note that the criticism by BladeBryan completely avoided any response to the words of two Chief Justices of the Supreme court (and I could have cited two more as well as numerous other justices), the author of the 14th Amendment which Obama supporters claim makes a “native born citizen” a natural born citizen - John Bingham who was elegantly explicity that the opposite is true, and Mr. or Ms Blade ignores the quotation from Senate Resolution 511, April 30 2008, signed by every US Senator.
People who know the truth are afraid because they know the left is fully capable of really imposing the dictatorship “of the proletarian” they believe in. We may some day find out why the “pundits” won't talk about it, but ask yourself why Beck, Levin, Limbaugh, Coulter,... assiduously avoid the words of Chief Justice Marshall, or Chief Justice Waite, or Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, or why justia.com, founded by Obama’s legal ally and campaign contributor, a Harvard Law classmate sanitized supreme court cases to eliminate references to Minor v. Happersett? They are trying to rewite history.
The “Pundits” are doing what they can by never letting the name John Marshall, or Morrison Waite, or David Ramsay, or by Benjamin Franklin, and envoy to France, who distributed our first law book to his colleagues in The Colonies in 1762, long before the revolution, Vattel’s “Law of Nations”. To dictators the truth is subservient to the objective, and history is an enemy.
Another technique of the Obots, many of whom are being paid by the group run by Anita Dunn (she may no longer be managing it since her husband, Obama’s left-wing White House Council Bob Bauer resigned his position), is to bury the naive with irrelevant citations of politically motivated presumed legal briefs. I've read most of them, and it can be illuminating to ferret the mode of deception, but you don't need to. That is why we have such a concise summary of our founding ideas in a Constitution, a Constitution written not in legal terms, but in the language of the common man at the time it was written, using terms defined in our common language and by our common-law, as Mark Levin noted in Liberty and Tyranny, and quoting a letter by James Madison to Henry Lee in 1824. To allow reinterpretation of our Constitution as language changes would render it meaningless, so use of the language of our framers, as Justice Morrison Waite noted, was quite deliberate, and designed to preserve original meaning. Try to find any words defined in the Constitution. There are a few, but very few, such as "treason." The meaning of natural born citizen was common language, and clearly defined in our most cited legal reference as a new nation, "Law of Nations."
The realm of our common law is muddled by opinions by those who, like Obama, Kagan, Sotomayor, and virtually all of the left, believe they should be allowed to reinterpret the intent of our founders and framers. One of our framers, justice James Wilson, and one of greatest legal scholars on the Court wrote extensively on the meaning of common law, not Blackstone's, but the common law of all nations, explains it in his Lectures on the Law delivered at the College of Philidelphia in 1792, Vol II.
Ignore the left-wing bar, unless you have the time. They don't count. But I'll leave with one more quote, by a left-wing attorney, who happened to be Barack Obama’s Constitutional Law Professor at Harvard, and who would not sink to lying about the history of our foundations - a credit to some integrity in this man, Larry Tribe, who has always wanted, since he began his studies to be a mathematician, to be known for rigor and intellectual honesty. Larry was joined by Ted Olson, whose wife would certainly have been horrified had she survived 9/11, in submitting a brief clarifying the meaning of natural born citizenship.
The following statement was written to support the candidacy of John McCain, and can be found in the Senate Archives for April 30, 2008 under Senate Resolution 511, sponsored by McCaskill, co-sponsored by Leahy, Obama, Clinton, Webb, and Coburn - all cronies. McCain's eligibility had been challenged by some very good, and clearly liberal, law professors, and was the subject of a half dozen Congressional eligibility hearings and three law suits. The most thorough explanation of McCain's ineligibility can be found at U of Arizona's Rogers Law School, Prof. Gabriel Chin, in July of 2008, and reported extensively in the liberal press, "Why Senator John McCain Cannot Be President: Eleven Months and a Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship."
Suddenly, having McCain's alleged ineligibility to silence questions about Obama’s eligibility made him a darling of the left, and with almost total control of the media, they set out to repatriate him. Tribe was on Obama’s campaign committee, but that doesn't mean he would sacrifice his reputation for veracity by lying about the law:
We have analyzed whether Senator John McCain Is eligible for the U.S. Presidency, in light of the requirement under Article II of the U.S. Constitution that only “natural born Citizen[s] ... shall be eligible to the Office of President.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 5. We conclude that Senator McCain is a “natural born Citizen” by virtue of his birth in 1936 to U.S. citizen parents who were serving their country on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone. The circumstances of Senator McCain's birth satisfy the original meaning and intent of the Natural Born Citizen Clause, as confirmed by subsequent legal precedent and historical practice.
The operative words are “...by virtue of his birth in 1936 to U.S. citizen parents.” The qualifier “...who were serving their country on a U.S. military base” has no context in the Constitution, though Larry tries to imply that it does. As Justice Marshall asserted, (paraphrase) every word in the Constitution must be assumed to have meaning. Larry and Ted waved their hands at the 1790 Nationality Act, which made children born abroad of two citizen parents “reputed” natural born citizens, but failed to note that the 1790 Act was corrected in 1795, completely removing any reference to natural born citizens. There is no other reference to natural born citizen in all of the US Code. There cannot be, since precedence is clear, we have a separation of powers and the legislature cannot amend the Constitution except by amendment or a Constitutional Convention.
That reveals the political mission of the Tribe/Olson letter to the Pat Leahy/Claire McCaskill SR511 hearings. Tribe played legal and syntactical games with his essay. That is the difference between lawyers and mathematicians, who cannot play syntactical games because a mathematicians get credit for finding logical or conceptual reason in published work; Larry would probably not have been a good mathematician. But his statement retains the integrity of the integrity, while distracting with a political wish. There were eight attempts to amend Article II section 1 during the five years before Obama became a candidate, by such as John Conyers (twice) and Claire McCaskill, both clearly working to insure Obama's presidency. There were some 25 other attempts to amend Article II Section 1 and none came close even to passing out of the House.
My opinion is that John McCain was willing, for a last shot at becoming president, to run interference for Obama’s patent ineligibility. No one needs to read the dozens of political legal essays, some of which, like Sarah Herlihy’s of Kirkland Ellis, working for Kirkland's Christopher Landau, partner with Bruce Ettelson, on the Obama and Dick Durban campaign committees, and partner with Jack Levin who received Obamas “Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the equity and venture capital community.”
This is crony capitalism paying respect to the Constitution only when it doesn't prevent them from running their political machine. Obama was never eligible and every congressman knows it. The only politician to raise the issue and act on it (Jim DeMint talked briefly, but wouldn't act) Congressman Nathan Deal, was a poster boy for what happens to those who raise the issue, he immediately faced ethics charges. As Scooter Libby showed, truth has nothing to do with political ambition and the power to direct money conferred by political power. Deal resigned and was subsequently elected Governor of Georgia; those of us who pay attention won't forget, just like we won't forget LtCol/Dr. Terry Lakin, who had too much integrity not to ask for verification of Obama’s eligibility before accepting the veracity of another deployment, as officers swear to do when the source of the orders is in doubt. Men and women's lives are at risk and they must trust their commanders with lives. Lakin was denied the presumed right to defend himself, present evidence, or even to present witnesses. Our nation is not now a constitutional republic, but we will return the precedence of our Constitution by whatever means necessary.
Just ignore the Obots unless they address the words of our Justices and Constitution. They are idiologues, and good at redirecting issues when the truth is a threat.
That's clear enough. Now go ahead and mangle it.
The documents already discovered are clear enough and Ditto.
All of the founders were eligible for British citizenship/subjecthood had they chosen to retain it. They were no strangers to divided loyalties. None of them had been born American citizens. They all knew people of similar backgrounds to their own in whom loyalty to Britain had won out.
On this you are absolutely right. The Founders Knew very well that they were NOT "Natural Born Citizens" and that is why they included a very specific exemption for themselves.
"...or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution..."
I am astonished you seem unaware of this yet persist in discussing this issue.
Some of their great leaders had been born abroad: John Paul Jones, Lafayette, Pulaski, Kościuszko, Steuben, de Kalb. Not to mention Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, John Witherspoon, James Wilson. Others were the children of those who were born abroad.
Again: "...or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution..."
It's clear that they didn't want non-citizens or those who weren't citizens from birth to be elected president.
As the Citizenship always followed the father, they would have considered anyone born to a foreign father as a foreign subject. Wives of American men were automatically naturalized until 1924. (If I remember correctly.)
It's also clear that they didn't demand that the parents or grandparents of a prospective president be American-born. Did they require that a president's parents be US citizens at the time of the president's birth?
Yes. That is the only thing they DID require.
I don't think you can maintain that with any degree of certainty.
I don't think you can possibly interpret it any differently.
My point is that there isn't some principle of hostility and mistrust towards those whose parents weren't citizens that comes before the actual words of the Constitution.
On the contrary. They welcomed Productive Foreigners with open arms. I have read the debate in Congress regarding the Naturalization Act of 1790. They WANTED foreigners to come to America and become useful citizens. They ENCOURAGED immigration of Foreigners. They had but ONE absolute requirement. The FATHER must take up residence in the Nation. They SPECIFICALLY banned basic citizenship for the Children of a foreign father, UNLESS he came to America to remain and be a citizen.
You can't reduce the Constitution to some principle that you like. You have to go by the actual wording and the understanding of those words, and they don't give you the certainty that you want and believe you have.
A term of art has meaning beyond the definitions of the individual English words. "Natural Born Citizen" is a synergistic composite that means more than just being born with a possible claim on American Citizenship, it means being born with an unquestionable claim on American Citizenship, because they wanted Unquestionable Allegiance to one and only one Nation; The United States. The one thing about the founders that I am certain of is that they were not fools. To argue that their Check on Foreign influence in our government means they would partially permit it is to assert that these men are simpletons who made a barrier that is no sort of barrier at all!
As the Supreme Court ruled early on, every word and phrase in the US Constitution serves a purpose, and that purpose is not trivial. Letting Half Foreign people rule our country is stupid as the current occupant has amply demonstrated. We wanted no part of Monarchistic interbreeding with Ruling Relatives in other Nations. The Founders knew all about this European practice and wanted no part of it. They knew fully well of the entanglement to be caused by having rulers of Mixed Allegiance, because they had seen the folly of these experiments in Europe! Why on earth would you think they would have welcomed such nonsense here?
Or it could be that Beck, Levin, Limbaugh and Coulter--not to mention just about every American jurist--find this theory to be too ridiculous to take seriously. The pieces of information you've selectively read on blogs might form a coherent theory in your head, but to most people it just comes across as the ravings of a crank.
I mean, in that paragraph alone, you pass off as fact a paranoid, half-baked theory from the blog of some guy who not long ago was claiming George Bush and Joe Wilson were conspiring to commit treason.
Just ignore the Obots unless they address the words of our Justices and Constitution. They are idiologues, and good at redirecting issues when the truth is a threat.
I feel they must be answered so as to encourage others to learn the truth for themselves. As long as they have opposition, Unknowledgeable people will see the issue as still in dispute until they weigh the facts for themselves. Lies must be opposed with the truth. If unopposed, the lies become the new truth. We must all hold up a beacon of light with which to guide men to their own honest reckoning. I say we should engage the defenders of Obama at every opportunity. We should force them to stare into the abyss of their own falsehoods until they can no longer bear the sight of it. Light makes the cockroaches scatter, and that's what we need most right now.
If they go unanswered, their lies may gain strength.
You left out Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers. Seriously, with the media weapon trained on someone, who can withstand that kind of abuse? Apart from that, you are putting forth argumentum ad populum. Don't you know that is a FALLACY well beneath the dignity of an intelligent person?
The pieces of information you've selectively read on blogs might form a coherent theory in your head, but to most people it just comes across as the ravings of a crank.
Argumentum ad hominem. ""Cranks" produced it, therefore you should not listen to them." Another childish argument.
I mean, in that paragraph alone, you pass off as fact a paranoid, half-baked theory from the blog of some guy who not long ago was claiming George Bush and Joe Wilson were conspiring to commit treason.
Yes, because he was wrong about one thing, he must be wrong about everything. Another Ad hominem through the proxy of Phillip Berg. (I assume you refer to him) Do you have any arguments that are NOT FALLACIES?
How about just proving your case on the weight of evidence? Hmmm?? You want to poke a hole in a theory? Find a fact that proves the theory wrong!
Spaulding wrote: “We may some day find out why the “pundits” won’t talk about it, but ask yourself why Beck, Levin, Limbaugh, Coulter,... assiduously avoid the words of Chief Justice Marshall, or Chief Justice Waite, or Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, or why [...]”
Because actual experts have already gone over it. You are merely pretending an expertise you do not have. For example, you list Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes on your side. Justice Hughes’ parents were British subjects at the time of his his birth, so according to the two-citizen-parent theory, he was not a natural-born citizen eligible for the presidency. If Justice Hughes agreed with your theory, why did he in June of 1916 resign from the U.S. Supreme Court to run for president?
Spaulding wrote: “The most thorough explanation of McCain’s ineligibility can be found at U of Arizona’s Rogers Law School, Prof. Gabriel Chin, in July of 2008, and reported extensively in the liberal press, ‘Why Senator John McCain Cannot Be President: Eleven Months and a Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship.’”
Had you read that paper you would know that even Professor Chin, arguing against McCain’s eligibility, accepted that natural-born citizen means citizen from birth.
“Larry was joined by Ted Olson, whose wife would certainly have been horrified had she survived 9/11, in submitting a brief clarifying the meaning of natural born citizenship.”
Where do you get off putting your crank theory on the late Barbara Olson? The lawyers who agree with you are a few losers such as Leo Donofrio, Mario Apuzzo, and Orly Taitz.
Spaulding wrote: “Obama was never eligible and every congressman knows it.”
You are wrong about Obama’s eligibility, and you are just plain lying when you put your theory on those who do not hold it.
Until you responded, I had no idea who Blade was referring to, and have never read Phil Berg's blog. I once heard him speak in a video of a press conference addressing eligibility at the National Press Club in Dec 2008, and noted his refusal to address jus sanguinis (inherited allegiance), even when asked, clearly showing an agenda. I had just read about Calvin's Law and David Ramsay, where Berg was clearly ignorant of what makes citizens and subjects so very different. The British applied jus sanguinis to make the child of natural born subjects, regardless of his place of birth, a natural born subject also. Thus Obama was, as he said, born a subject, probably natural born, of the Crown. There is little point attempting to ferret the truth from someone like Berg who obviously has an agenda, but Blade is clearly a follower.
The speaker after Berg at the conference was the then little-known Orly Taitz, who began her presentation by acknowledging the potential importance of mysterious documents from Kenya, but explained that the lack of a citizen father disqualified Obama regardless of where he was born. That was a clear and unequivocal statement, “QED” if you will, and I set out to see if her statement was valid.
Give credit to all the bright attorneys, and the hundred or so paid Obots, many of whom live here at Free Republic, for clouding the issue, but her statement is well supported. In fact, the Obots probably helped the non-paid bloggers, Bushpilot and rxsid by exposing so many of the devices designed to mislead. Taitz, I believe, decided that she was not equipped to do battle with the likes of Larry Tribe and Bob Bauer, or with hundreds of presumed constitutional scholars who share Obama’s socialist agenda, and went after the more tangible low hanging fruit, as many famous gangsters have finally succumbed to tax evasion or some peripheral transgression. Her exposure of obviously phony Social Security numbers and hundreds of what are probably money laundering addresses may some day pay off.
As Obot Blade noted, Beck, Levin, Limbaugh, and Coulter, don't address the words of Marshall, Waite, Ramsay, Madison, Gray, Hughes, or Bingham, but I have never heard any of them argue that what Jusitice Waite said in Minor v. Happersett was not true. They wouldn't dare. Nor do I believe they hold that view. The objective is to quell discussion of the real issue, the Constitution. The decisions of Marshall, Jay, Waite, and Wilson, have been peer reviewed again and again. It is nonsense to insinuate that any thoughtful pundit, particularly an orignalist, would not agree with the statements I quoted in my first comment. And they haven't, not one. They may be covering their fear of the progressive cadre by commenting on the quality of investigations into obviously suspect birth certificates, clues which were probably introduced as a false flag campaign to keep discussion focused upon what can probably never be proved, as documents will never be produced by Obama's FBI or CIA, and certainly not by Obama himself.
Who is so foolish as to assume Marshall, Jay, Washington, Madison, Waite, Gray, Hughes, or Bingham didn't mean exactly what they said? Who is so naive as to trust those who resort to ridicule before trusting the clarity and reason of some of our greatest framers and justices?
I will never forget the sniveling major media, who sound today more and more like NPR, when they, and the corrupt US Attorney from Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, recieved a full confession from Dick Armitage about his complicity in releasing the CIA background of Valerie Plame, before Scooter Libby was even charged, and then proceeded to drag him through a two year show trial the Soviets would have admired. I believe, and hope, that is the reason for the silence of our pundits.
Those critical of the party in the USSR paid, often with their lives. We are approaching the USSR where composers like Dimitri Shostakovitch are threatened, his family threatened, and forced to compose politically motivated works to support the party doctrine. Thus far, our pundits, while they make statements about absurd conspiracies, have never defined what they mean, and certainly none has ever contested the content or wisdom of Vattel, John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton or Washington, who lauded Vattel as their greatest legal philosopher, or Waite, or Gray who cited Waite first in Wong Kim Ark, used to confuse so many, or Hughes, who tried to fool us and then, in 1939, cited Waite as the correct definition in Perkins v. Elg. Even Pat Leahy and Larry Tribe cite the Vattel definition. But until we secure free speech, I suspect that we won't hear about ineligibility from our "pundits."
You must all trust your power to reason - to think for yourselves. Even with the scrubbing by Google and justia.com, we can still find printed documents complete with references on paper, or on the “Wayback Machine” (though I've read that it too is being scrubbed.) Most won't have heard of Leo Donofrio's remarkable observation (after his exposure of our first illigitimate president, Chester Arthur) that Obama's radical legal comrades edited our supreme court cases to conceal, or at least, to delay the discovery that Minor v. Happersett established legal precedence for the term natural born citizen. Justia.com, as soon as they had been found out, hurridly replaced most of the documents, but the evidence was captured on the Wayback Machine archives. Minor's use of the Vattel definition absolutely established precedence, but our government and courts are crawling with progressives, admirers of Mao, Stalin and Castro. They are now modifying our State Department Documents so not to point to obviously at Obama's ineligibility. We will likely pass the next election cycle before what remains of our legal system is engaged to confirm Obama's fictitious presidency(a dangerous precedent according to Vattel, as citizens lose faith in the civil society when justice is not "speedy").
You don't need to be a scholar to read the amazing John Marshall's decisions. Try The Venus, 12 US 253. It is about the dispensation based upon citizenship of cargo captured during the War of 1812. His writing was direct and concise, more like Vattel’s than James Wilson's or Grotius’. Obama has opened the door for many to our true founders and framers, one perhaps of few creditable deeds. James Wilson, who found Vattel’s works short on Roman and Greek examples, pokes mercilessly at the pretentious English, and explodes any notion that we revered or depended upon English Common Law. He demolishes the claim by British jurists that they even have a constitution, or that the House of Commons represents the common people. Surprisingly, Vattel is fascinating to read. With a few exceptions, if you take the time, you will realize that Vattel provided the blueprint for our republic. We didn't adopt it wholesale, but it was the first book in George Washington's new office in New York, and a veritable handbook for Hamilton, besides being our first law book at our first law school.
What didn't we adopt of Vattel’s. For one, Vattel believed that a citizen who performed a function critical to the well being of his state should not be allowed to expatriate until he had trained a replacement. His success was partly a result of the civil society and he had an obligation. That idea might still appeal to many. Vattel, however, was adamant about the right to repudiate ones citizenship, to expatriate, while for the French, born to a Frenchman, they owned you for life. That is jus sanguinis in the extreme. We did not restrict emigration in our Constitution or by statue, but clearly required both jus sanguinis and just soli citizenship of just our president.
Even if Glen Beck didn't either dare, or understand the significance of Vattel, Marshall, Waite, Bingham, he provided introductions to many of those others, including Sam Adams, for whom Vattel was next in importance to the Bible, and quoted hundreds of times in speeches, newspapers, and pamphlets, because Vattel’s republic was what we fought for. That Obots should be paid to disrupt discussions about our founders when so many who believe in our Constitution are out of work a result of our leader's adoption of Cloward Piven and rejection of our Constitution is disconcerting enough. Let them talk to each other, which they have done so often, and sometimes comically, as they flood the threads to dilute serious discourse. But I do agree with you, correct them where readers might be misled.
Thanks Blade. You are correct. I thought my comments were too long as it was, but this point, as DiogenesLamp pointed out, is worth clarifying:
Charles Evans Hughes was born to British Citizens. He had an illustrious law career and was appointed to the Supreme Court. He was previously governor of New York. As you say, he resigned from the court to run against Woodrow Wilson.
As much as we might have preferred an alternative Wilson, Hughes was challenged by a Missouri Attorney, Breckenridge Long, who later became Sec of State and an Ambassador for FDR. Long was an excellent attorney as well, and exposed Hughes ineligibility for failing to have two citizen parents in a legal brief, “Is Mr. Charles Evans Hughes a ‘Natural Born Citizen’ within the Meaning of the Constitution?” published in the largest legal newspaper in the country, “Chicago Legal News,” Vol. 146, p. 220 in 1916,”
Sharon Rondeau of Post and Email wrote an excellent article about Hughes and Long which you can find at her site. The Long brief can be found on Scribd.com - search for Breckenridge Long.
One of the remarkable aspects of this is that Hughes thought he could get away with it. He was warned by Long, who was clearly prepared to demand legislative and legal action had Hughes won the election. This is rather like Professor Chin's analysis of McCain's ineligibility. Presumably (who knows these days) an officer of the court, which most legislators are, has a responsibility to initiate legal action if they know a crime has been committed.
Hughes later served as Harding's Sec of State and was appointed Chief Justice where he cited Minor v. Happersett in Perkins v. Elg, in which Marie Elg could, having been born in NY of two naturalized parents, even though she returned to Sweden with her mother at an early age, was declared eligible, should she chose, and satisfied the residency and age clauses, run for the presidency. Hughes tried to suppress the Constitution, but later confirmed the clause which would certainly have generated a challenge had he prevailed in the election.
Interesting to ask if Obama's legal defense team studied both the Long and Chester Arthur cases to see how best to conceal his ineligibility. There are many similarities between Arthur's and Obama's concealment campaigns. Arthur had an associate in the press who even wrote a book questioning Arthur's jus soli eligibility. Arthur concealed, and later burned what constituted his birth records - he was born in Vermont in 1829. But Arthur did hold office where Hughes never did. Could Hughes have been prosecuted for accepting campaign donations knowing he was not constitutionally eligible. One certainly hopes that Obama will be, though the entire Democratic party is complicit, as are the Republicans, who knew all along.
Thanks for the question Blade, and thanks again to Sharon Rondeau for her excellent research and writing.
...with you on our side....
....how can we lose?
Far be it that someone should deceive in the pursuit of power. He was assailed on this very point by Breckenridge Long. I suppose the answer to your question would be related to whether or not the rules were supposed to apply to him or someone else? Your argument is a version of a false choice fallacy. That He must disagree with the premise is the only proffered answer, while the alternate choice which you didn't mention is that when the desire for power overtook him, he might have become a hypocrite. Contemplate that possibility now.
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/04/05/obama-not-the-first-to-have-presidential-eligibility-questioned/
"....You are wrong about Obama’s eligibility, and you are just plain lying when you put your theory on those who do not hold it."
There is certainly lying going on, but Spaulding is not the one perpetuating it. What you need is a good dose of Diogenes' Lamp to bring out the Honesty in you.
You have put forth one big argument from Authority. Do you have a LEGITIMATE argument perhaps?
...with you on our side....
....how can we lose?
I am not trying to be defeatist, I am trying to educate people to the severity of the danger we may face if steps are not taken to mitigate it now. I am pretty deep in technical know how, and what I see as possible is frightening to contemplate. We are incrementally ceding power to a governmental structure that will eventually acquire capabilities such that they will be effectively unstoppable by any armed opposition.
I have every intention of going down with the ship, I am just wanting to forestall the need for the ship to go down. We need to be realistic about what may be required to stop it.
So my great-grandfather couldn't become a citizen unless his father came over and became a citizen, and my great-great-grandfather couldn't become a citizen unless his father came over and became a citizen, and my great-great-grandfather needed his father to come over and become a citizen before he could become a citizen?
A term of art has meaning beyond the definitions of the individual English words. "Natural Born Citizen" is a synergistic composite that means more than just being born with a possible claim on American Citizenship, it means being born with an unquestionable claim on American Citizenship, because they wanted Unquestionable Allegiance to one and only one Nation; The United States.
Yet for years Congress extended citizenship to those whom another country could claim as citizens: for example, the mothers of presidents like Wilson and Hoover. I don't know the precise details, but dual loyalties and dual citizenship were probably involved there as well.
The problem with "natural born citizen" as a "term of art" is that there are different definitions of the phrase. Vattel wasn't the only source.
Spaulding wrote: “Is Mr. Charles Evans Hughes a ‘Natural Born Citizen’ within the Meaning of the Constitution?” published in the largest legal newspaper in the country, “Chicago Legal News,” Vol. 146, p. 220 in 1916,”
In which Breckenridge Long argued:
“Mr. Hughes was born before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, so the status of his citizenship must be considered as under the laws existing prior to the time of the adoption of that Amendment.”
The 14’th Amendment and the case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark settled the issue as far as the native-born. Breck Long was writing 18 years after the WKA decision, but considering a birth prior to the 14’th Amendment.
After Long’s 1916 essay, the two-citizen-parent theory went silent. In our time, no one advanced it, until 2008 when some people felt the need to deny that Barack Obama can be president. The first to dig up the long-dead theory seems to be Leo Donofrio, and it was October or November of 2008 when he started pitching it. If I’m wrong on that, please cite.
So the situation is that for all of Barack Obama’s life and quite some years before, all the standard sources on American law said that native-born citizens were natural-born citizens, potentially eligible for the presidency, and no one — including the participants here — was saying otherwise. Then when Obama runs and gets elected, some people start telling the rules different.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can cite something you put out on principle, before the issue was Barack Obama. Perhaps you blogged about how /Black’s Law Dictionary/ had the definition of “natural-born citizen” wrong. Perhaps you posted an open letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) disagreeing with his 05 Oct 2004 statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” If so, just cite it, and if it checks out I will admit that you are a respectable contrarian, rather than the kind of cheater who tells the rules different when he doesn’t like who is winning.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “There is certainly lying going on, but Spaulding is not the one perpetuating it. What you need is a good dose of Diogenes’ Lamp to bring out the Honesty in you.”
You may have missed what I was saying there. I think Spaulding’s legal theory is pure nonsense, but on that I simply said he is wrong. Where he is lying is in putting *his* theory on *other* people, people who disagree, as in, “Obama was never eligible and every congressman knows it.”
“Obama was never eligible” is merely wrong. We all get stuff wrong from time to time. “Every congressman knows it,” is a lie; it is the sin of bearing false witness.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “You have put forth one big argument from Authority. Do you have a LEGITIMATE argument perhaps?”
If the cited authorities are legitimate, and actually say what the argument claims, then Argument from authority is “LEGITIMATE”. You might want to look that up. Furthermore, we are considering an issue of *law*, where the questions really are what authority controls and what does that authority say. For all of Barack Obama’s life, the legal authorities held that native-born citizens qualify as Article II natural-born citizens. If you disagree I submit that you should have stated so on principle, before the issue was this particular president. If in fact you did, please cite.
“So my great-grandfather couldn’t become a citizen unless his father came over and became a citizen, and my great-great-grandfather couldn’t become a citizen unless his father came over and became a citizen, and my great-great-grandfather needed his father to come over and become a citizen before he could become a citizen?”
I’ve heard birthers seem to imply that, but very few and possibly by mistake. Most of the two-citizen-parents faction of the birthers make it all about the parents’ citizenship on the child’s date of birth. On that they actually disagree with their favorite source, Emerich de Vattel. Vattel wrote in French, and thus never dealt with what our term “natural born citizen” means, and what he did write is not what this birther faction claims.
“Les Naturels ou indigènes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de Parens Citoyens.”
The obvious translation of Naturels is “naturals”, so I looked is up in /Black’s Law Dictionary/, Ninth Edition. The most applicable of the given meaning is the native people. This is not just ‘native’ as in born here, as I am, but native as “Native-Americans” refers to American Indians. “Indigènes” obviously corresponds to “indigenous”, which again refers to more than one or two generations.
“Parens” seems to translate to “parents”, but that might not be correct. I don’t speak French. I’ve heard from a French-speaker that in this context “Parens” can means blood relatives, and not just mother and father.
Vattel did not present “Naturels ou indigènes” as a special class under the law, precisely distinguishing by the dates their parents became citizens. Rather, they are the indigenous natives. They were born here; their parents were born here; their parents parents were born here; and so on for longer than we can trace. Vattel’s concept of a nation’s “Naturels ou indigènes” does not map well to a nation formed from settlers who rebelled against their homeland.
Don't be obtuse. (Unless you really can't help it.) The act being discussed applied to children.
Yet for years Congress extended citizenship to those whom another country could claim as citizens:
Yeah, so? "Citizen" does not mean the same thing as "Natural Born Citizen." Congress doesn't have the power to extend or give "Natural Born Citizen" status.
for example, the mothers of presidents like Wilson and Hoover. I don't know the precise details, but dual loyalties and dual citizenship were probably involved there as well.
Why do you not know that is completely irrelevant? Prior to 1934 the wife of an American was immediately naturalized upon marriage. Children born to the marriage were Automatically "Natural Born Citizens" if their father was an American.
Again, for the thousandth time, the 14th amendment DID NOT REPEAL the requirements of Article II. What was the law of eligibility Prior to 1868 was still the law regarding eligibility after 1868. The Reason no one has brought the subject up since 1916 is because we have not had an illegitimate Presidential candidate since then. (The Barry Goldwater Kerfuffle notwithstanding.)
Again, let me repeat lest you forget, the Amendment to Grant Citizenship to freed slaves did not make Children born to foreign fathers eligible for President.
But Britain (or Canada) would still have recognized the mothers as subjects. So far as I know Wilson's (and Hoover's) mother never officially renounced British nationality.
Hence the children would have dual citizenship. With regard to their mothers' British (or Canadian) subjecthood, they would have been born with a (theoretical) dual loyalty or allegiance. Hence, by some of the natural born citizen theories, Wilson (and Hoover) would have been ineligible for the presidency.
Why do you not know that that is completely relevant?
No it is not. All evidence of which I am aware points to Obama being ineligible by the fact of his Foreign Father. Even the Entire US Senate argued that John McCain is a "Natural born citizen" by virtue of Jus Sanguinis. I think 100 US Senators beats a full deck of Judges.
We all get stuff wrong from time to time. “Every congressman knows it,” is a lie; it is the sin of bearing false witness.
It is a supposition of undetermined veracity. I wouldn't call it a lie.
If the cited authorities are legitimate, and actually say what the argument claims, then Argument from authority is “LEGITIMATE”. You might want to look that up.
Sorry, they don't get to make up facts. The "Authorities" must make their own arguments from first principles. Truth by Dicta may cause orgasms in courts but in the real world it's just a stupid version of "Might makes right." Stare Decisis is not an argument. It's the Legal version of "Shut up! Because *I* say so."
Furthermore, we are considering an issue of *law*, where the questions really are what authority controls and what does that authority say. For all of Barack Obama’s life, the legal authorities held that native-born citizens qualify as Article II natural-born citizens.
No they have not. A Bunch of people keep CLAIMING that they decided this, but the cases they keep citing have nothing to do with Article II eligibility.
Science does not work a certain way because "Scientists" say so. They describe what Actually is, they do not create it. This is also the role that Judges are supposed to serve, except that nowadays Judges can actually make crap up and everyone just accepts it. The Fact that the Supreme court has 5/4 decisions on law ought to be evidence that Half the judges don't know what the hell they are talking about. Change the political makeup of the courts and you change the meaning of the laws. Forgive me if I have less than contempt for such a system of laws by expediency and whim.
If you disagree I submit that you should have stated so on principle, before the issue was this particular president. If in fact you did, please cite.
I never thought the silly bastard would win. I couldn't believe he even got on the ballot. Then I couldn't believe the country was so STUPID as to vote for him! I thought that long before it got to that point someone would point out the obvious. (that he was ineligible.) Why should I have written about an eventuality that I didn't believe had any chance of coming to pass? Apart from that, I don't have to justify my opposition in allowing an illegitimate man to slither into our highest office.
The liberals still love him or wish he was more liberal.
The founders spoke and read French. The Editions of Vattel given to them by Charles Dumas were all in French.Benjamin Franklin used the French Version of Vattel as a code book to communicate with agents in Europe. 
The Founders did not need the term translated. They translated it themselves into the phrase "Natural Born Citizen." Learn what you are talking about.
So? When she was in England she could have claimed it if she wished. As far as the United States was concerned, She was an American Citizen, and so her son was therefore a "Natural Born Citizen."
Hence the children would have dual citizenship. With regard to their mothers' British (or Canadian) subjecthood, they would have been born with a (theoretical) dual loyalty or allegiance. Hence, by some of the natural born citizen theories, Wilson (and Hoover) would have been ineligible for the presidency.
You must have missed the part where I mentioned that Until 1934, wives were automatically naturalized upon marriage. Your point is moot.
Why do you not know that that is completely relevant?
Because it is at odds with the facts, as are most of the arguments to which I find myself responding.
Wilson would presumably have been eligible for dual citizenship in the eyes of the British government. Was he then a natural born citizen, even though his mother may have been recognized by the British government as a British subject all along?
It's amazing how you think this is all so simple and settled. If it's simple and settled -- a no-brainer -- then you lose because the consensus has already been established and it goes against your view. Only if there's some ambiguity and difficulty and uncertainty does your view have a ghost of a chance.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “Even the Entire US Senate argued that John McCain is a ‘Natural born citizen’ by virtue of Jus Sanguinis. I think 100 US Senators beats a full deck of Judges.”
Can you cite even a single one of those 100 Senators saying that a native-born child of a foreigner is *not* eligible? It looks like you made an elementary-school-level error in logic. You took the assertion that if one is born to American parents he is a natural-born citizen, and incorrectly inferred the converse.
Here is what one of those 100 Senators, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said about the eligibility of the native-born on 05 Oct 2004 before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.”
DiogenesLamp wrote: “The Fact that the Supreme court has 5/4 decisions on law ought to be evidence that Half the judges don’t know what the hell they are talking about.”
Some disputes are close calls, and that could not be farther from the issue here. Birthers have lost every case at every level. When decided by multi-judge panels, in every case where we know the vote, the ruling against the birther side was unanimous. The Supreme Court’s conferences are closed, but we do know that the defendants consistently waived response, and the Court did not call for a response, which it consistently does if it is going to hear the case. A single justice can call for a response.
The issue here is not 5/4 decisions or whether, “100 US Senators beats a full deck of Judges.” You have none of that. What you have are fantasies and flubs in basic logic.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “Change the political makeup of the courts and you change the meaning of the laws. Forgive me if I have less than contempt for such a system of laws by expediency and whim.”
Your contempt has nothing to do with who is eligible to President of the United States. Barack Obama doesn’t need to re-litigate U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. The issue was clear and settled by the time he ran.
DiogenesLamp wrote: “I never thought the silly bastard would win. I couldn’t believe he even got on the ballot. Then I couldn’t believe the country was so STUPID as to vote for him! I thought that long before it got to that point someone would point out the obvious. (that he was ineligible.) Why should I have written about an eventuality that I didn’t believe had any chance of coming to pass? Apart from that, I don’t have to justify my opposition in allowing an illegitimate man to slither into our highest office.”
The reason would have been there had you held the position on principle, rather than out of your sheathing hatred of the particular winning candidate, whom you call a slithering bastard.
The Laws of the United States in regarding it's citizens trump the laws of other nations that may lay claim to them. Upon Marriage, Mrs. Wilson became a US Citizen. The fact that another nation may still recognize her as a citizen is immaterial to how the US Government views her. We are bound by our laws, not England's.
Wilson would presumably have been eligible for dual citizenship in the eyes of the British government. Was he then a natural born citizen, even though his mother may have been recognized by the British government as a British subject all along?
Ireland extends Irish Citizenship to anyone of Irish descent. I am told that Italy and Israel do the same for descendents of their former nationals. None of this makes such people "Dual Citizens." The only way that Mrs. Wilson's son would not be a "Natural Born Citizen" is if Mrs. Wilson explicitly rejected her naturalized citizenship prior to the birth of the child. The Child would then be a defacto "dual" citizen.
It's amazing how you think this is all so simple and settled. If it's simple and settled -- a no-brainer -- then you lose because the consensus has already been established and it goes against your view. Only if there's some ambiguity and difficulty and uncertainty does your view have a ghost of a chance.
Not at all. The only thing required is to better educate people who have a false understanding of the issue. Your Argumentum ad populum is still a fallacy.
I have inferred that regardless of the Opinion of any of the Courts on Jus Soli, the Unanimous SENATE recognized Jus Sanguinus as the Standard by which "Natural Born Citizen" status is bestowed. To Argue that the Standard is Jus Soli, you must Argue that "Anchor Babies" are eligible for the Presidency; A ridiculous suggestion.
Here is what one of those 100 Senators, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said about the eligibility of the native-born on 05 Oct 2004 before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.”
He is both right and wrong. The Confusion is the result of people taking the meaning of the individual words and substituting that meaning for that of the term of art used in the Constitution. People nowadays mistakenly believe that the 14th amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. They fail to realize it only applies to people born here of parents who are here legally. (Subject to the jurisdiction thereof.) Someone born here of Foreign Parents who are here legally, may claim American citizenship because they were born in accordance with the requirements of the 14th amendment. However, this is not at all what the founders meant when they wrote Article II. They specifically meant children who are born to American Parents. The Naturalization act of 1790 indicates they didn't care at all WHERE the children were born, but the Father had to be an American.
Some disputes are close calls, and that could not be farther from the issue here. Birthers have lost every case at every level. When decided by multi-judge panels, in every case where we know the vote, the ruling against the birther side was unanimous. The Supreme Court’s conferences are closed, but we do know that the defendants consistently waived response, and the Court did not call for a response, which it consistently does if it is going to hear the case. A single justice can call for a response.
To my knowledge, they haven't lost a single case yet. They keep getting excluded from court because the courts keep claiming they don't have a right to sue. We won't find out how good this athlete is until we let him take the field. Even then, 4 of the Judges are guaranteed to decide the issue wrongly. (The idiot democrat judges.)
Your contempt has nothing to do with who is eligible to President of the United States. Barack Obama doesn’t need to re-litigate U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. The issue was clear and settled by the time he ran.
You are right. Wong Kim Ark proves that Barack is not a "Natural Born Citizen." He is a 14th Amendment citizen *IF* he was actually born in Hawaii.
The reason would have been there had you held the position on principle, rather than out of your sheathing hatred of the particular winning candidate, whom you call a slithering bastard.
I don't think you are comprehending my response. I Don't fault the Democrats for not challenging his eligibility because had Hillary done so she would have Automatically pissed off her black voters, without which she had no prayer of winning. (Plus Democrats are incredibly stupid.) I THOUGHT John McCain would challenge him on it, but McCain never said a peep. We later find out that McCain wasn't born in the United States, and given the fact that most people stupidly think the requirement is being born over the soil rather than having American Parents, had he brought the issue up, more people would have questioned HIS eligibility than Baracks! It would have been a net loser for McCain, But at the time, none of us realized McCain had such a big political problem with eligibility himself.
After we realized McCain wasn't going to do it, it became obvious that no one else was in any position to try. (Standing) As the courts have their stupid rules that you can only litigate AFTER damage has occurred, no one could bring a case prior to the injury. (The Injury being an ineligible President was elected.) Had McCain won, there would have been no injury to litigate. Everyone was much shocked when the Courts argued that not a single American has a right to sue for injury caused by the election of an illegitimate President. So here we are, reviling the circumstance of the most illegitimate and foreign person to have ever occupied the White House, and how the legal system let the slithering bastard get away with it. Your quibble about "the principle involved" is just silly. People can only respond to circumstances as they present themselves. There were several events that we had to wait for, which had they transpired differently would have rendered the point moot. Rather than beating a dead horse, you are asking us why we didn't beat a horse before it was born.
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