Obama Birth Country Still Raising Questions

It is a fairly simple statement for you to understand, Obama knows what Natural Born means, he has help to define it as it related to his opponent, and Obama know that in order to be president he must be A Natural Born citizen.

What's difficult for me to understand is where your three classes of citizenship are defined, either in the Constitution or in law. What you would have us believe is that Obama announced to the world that he was Constitutionally ineligible to be president, knew he was, and ran anyway.

He refers to himself as Native Born or as your wit suggests “rainbow born” (another term not found in the constitution).

My wit does tend to get the best of me at times. So in all seriousness, tell me where the difference between native born and natural born is defined - in the Constitution or in federal law?

The Constitution is replete with undefined words, and if you don’t know that you ought to, so tossing the canard to me “Where in the Constitution is it” is done in bad faith, without question. I might as well ask you where in the Constitution is the definition of “attainder,” “impost,” or a host of other terms that were well understood by the framers.

And those who find meanings to those words not found or implied in the Constitution are the ones who look upon it as a living document. Attainder is defined by law. Impost is defined by law. If not in the Constitution itself, please tell me where law defines the three-plus classes of citizenship?

There is enough support in the form of contemporary documentation regarding the phrase “natural-born” so that what the Framers meant by that usage, which appears only with respect to the qualifications of the President, can’t really be in dispute.

But again I will direct you back to the Constitution itself which identifies only two classes of citizenship. But if you insist on 'contemporary documentation' then which do you use? Do you use English Common Law which defines natural born citizen one way? Or do you go with Vattel, who defined it in a different way? That's the problem, you have multiple definitions so you have to go back to the Constitution itself, or federal law in effect at the time. According to federal law, he's natural born.

That you seem to want to dispute it means either that you are not educated on the subject, or that you want to read into a Constitution a meaning that the Framers did not intend.

What you actually mean by that statement is that I'm not slavishly devoted to your position and that I don't unquestionably accept your interpretation then I'm guilty and in that I make no apologies. I would instead suggest that it is you who isn't very well versed in the law, in the Supreme Court decisions which have ruled on the issue, and in the Constitution itself.

If that is the case, then you believe you are in a position superior to the Constitution.

You say that yet you cannot point to what clause of the Constitution supports your claim. Very disappointing.

From what I have read Native born appears to be a concept that is contemporary to the writing of the constitution, or rather found in those documents that were the basis for the constitution.

The constitution as great as it is does not cover every eventuality of law, as the frame work of our nation it provides a base from which all other things can be built upon with certain exceptions, those things that the constitution says must be applied, the requirement of a Natural Born citizen rather than any other type of citizen as president is one of those exception.

The Constitution states The president must be a natural born citizen, and it doesn’t state how many other types of citizens there may be.

Some here have even dared to suggest that a son of the Iranian President born in the air space above Hawaii on an Iranian aircraft that never lands on US soil would be considered a Natural born citizen of the United States and equally eligible to be president even if he never set foot in the United States.

What we are talking about here is a question not just about citizenship but of a greater issue and the reason for the Natural born clause: fidelity and loyalty to the United States and it’s laws, customs and in the end to its very existance, and that’s why our founding fathers put it into the Constitution. It is the clause that is meant to protect this country from someone that will go to any lengths to destroy it.

And right now I have to say that Obama is well on his way to destroying this country.

The Constitution states The president must be a natural born citizen, and it doesn’t state how many other types of citizens there may be.

But it only identifies two - natural born and naturalized. If there are more than two then federal law would be expected to identify that, and it doesn't.

Some here have even dared to suggest that a son of the Iranian President born in the air space above Hawaii on an Iranian aircraft that never lands on US soil would be considered a Natural born citizen of the United States and equally eligible to be president even if he never set foot in the United States.

That would be incorrect, as the Supreme Court ruled in the Ark case.

And right now I have to say that Obama is well on his way to destroying this country.

You should have more faith in the ability of our country to survive and thrive. We've survived worse than Obama, we'll survive him.

Quick name a worse president than Obama, or rather name another president that added almost 4 trillion dollars to the national debt or has so radicalised the government in their first 100 days?

Sooner or later this country is going to meltdown, and everyone knows it. Obama’s friends, associates, mentors and dare I say it even his preacher have schooled him on the same design, The destruction of the United States. I would even go so far as to say that the very existence of this debate is artificially controlled by Obama to force a confrontation of epic proportions.

Which is one of the reasons I believe that certain right wing talk show host don’t want to discuss it.

Realist that I am I see that such a meltdown is unavoidable since Obama himself is the source of this debate. When the time is ripe he will push this country into madness and violence as we have never seen before.

Quick name a worse president than Obama, or rather name another president that added almost 4 trillion dollars to the national debt or has so radicalised the government in their first 100 days?

I can't. But that is no reason to twist the Constitution out of shape just because you can't stand the current president.

It’s you that try to contort the constitution by saying there are three different types of citizens. I recognise that Natural born is the one held above all others as the standard for the presidency, and it is you that would apply that standard to almost anyone born in this country.

Which kind of, sort of, defeats the whole notion of a separate standards for who should be president doesn’t it?

It’s you that try to contort the constitution by saying there are three different types of citizens. I recognise that Natural born is the one held above all others as the standard for the presidency, and it is you that would apply that standard to almost anyone born in this country.

I'm sorry but it's you that are making up three different classes of citizenship. I have said, over and over, that the Constitution allows for two types and two only - natural born and naturalized. If you are not one, then you are the other. If Obama was born in Hawaii then he certainly isn't naturalized, which leaved natural born and makes him Constitutionally eligible. The only alternative is a definition which makes every person not born in U.S. soil to U.S. citizen parents a naturalized citizen, and that is just ridiculous.

Which kind of, sort of, defeats the whole notion of a separate standards for who should be president doesn’t it?

Not at all. The founders wrote into the Constitution that the leader of this country should have a connection with it from the moment of birth. I have no disagreement with that. And according to the 14th Amendment any person born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen from the moment of birth, a natural born citizen. The Supreme Court has clarified the issue by stating that it is the place of birth that is the deciding factor, and not the citizenship of either parent. So in light of all that I can't see the justification for saying that there are degrees of natural-born citizenship, and somehow concluding that the super status, the one eligible for the presidency, requires conditions not defined anywhere.

How is it that you and I can go at this subject hammer and tong, neither giving any ground to the other, without once resorting to name calling or disparaging the other's intelligence, and many of your fellow adherents and virtually none of the Southron contingent can do the same?

No I didn't make up three distinct classes of citizenship, there is Natural Born and all other citizens, including one would suppose your rainbow citizens and Obama's Native born citizens along with naturalised citizens.

The government in it's duty to define things makes laws, and under those laws as written by the First Congress in 1790 is the definition of Natural born citizen, which I am sure you are aware of given your ability to locate certain obscure documents that make your case.

My point is that you know what the definition of Natural born is by law as it was written in our first congress by the very people that wrote the constitution, why then are you so willing to give Obama the legitimacy he cannot earn and does not deserve?

There it is the law as passed by the first Congress and the actual framers of the constitution, and undoubtedly signed into law by our first president. Historian that you are, how can you take anything else from those words but what they mean...

... and Obama's Native born citizens along with naturalised citizens.

Why? Naturalized citizen is one who became a citizen by law after birth. Native born is one who became a citizen at birth. A far stronger case can be made that native born and natural born are synonymous than saying native born and natural born are.

The government in it's duty to define things makes laws, and under those laws as written by the First Congress in 1790 is the definition of Natural born citizen, which I am sure you are aware of given your ability to locate certain obscure documents that make your case.

I'll take that as a complement and yes, I've read the 1790 naturalization act. And no, it is not a definition of natural born citizen. The act itself dealt with naturalized citizens only and did not cover natural born at all. The entire text is here. So if Obama was born in Hawaii then nothing in the 1790 act would apply.

I thought the language was very clear on the issue, it defines who can become a citizen at the time of the first congress, it defines how their children would become citizens and finally it defines what it takes to be a Natural born citizen.

Clear and without the sort of legalese we see bantered about by lawyers trying to hide what is in plain view. Remarkably I might even suggest that Obama borrowed from this act it’s very essence when writing the McCain resolution.

I thought the language was very clear on the issue, it defines who can become a citizen at the time of the first congress, it defines how their children would become citizens and finally it defines what it takes to be a Natural born citizen.

With one glaring exception. It makes no reference to the citizenship of children actually born in the U.S. itself. Now I suppose you can try and make the case that the citizenship requirement of the father is implied in cases of children born in the U.S., but then that implied requirement is negated by the 14th Amendment which contains no such restriction. Or so the Supreme Court has found.

Clear and without the sort of legalese we see bantered about by lawyers trying to hide what is in plain view. Remarkably I might even suggest that Obama borrowed from this act it’s very essence when writing the McCain resolution.

Claire McCaskill wrote it, Obama just signed on for the ride. But regardless, a non-binding Senate resolution has no standing in law.

Any children of such persons so naturalized (meaning those that became citizens at the birth of this country) dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization shall be considered citizens of the United States.....

It does define that the children of the first naturalized citizens of the United States are citizens and defines children as those below the age of Majority or twenty-one years old..

It is very clear.

Any children of such persons so naturalized (meaning those that became citizens at the birth of this country) dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization shall be considered citizens of the United States....

No, meaning the children of those adults naturalized under the process just described earlier in that paragraph. It has nothing to do with the offspring of adults who resided in the U.S. when the Constitution was adopted. Their natural born status was grandfathered in by Article II.

It is very clear.

It is, but not in the way you claim.