United States Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), President-Elect of the United States of the United States of America ("POTUS"), was born in the State of Hawaii on August 4, 1961, almost 2 years after Hawaii entered the Union. Given his age, place of birth, i.e., the United States ("U.S."), and the number of years he has resided in the U.S., Senator Obama passes all the constitutional requirements to "...be eligible to the Office of President." Given the number of electoral votes secured by the Senator on November 4, 2008, Mr. Obama should be officially elected POTUS when the Electoral College meets on December 15, 2008.
************************************************************************************
I've seen posts over the last 6 months on YouTube and various and sundry blogs and websites claiming, amongst other things, that Barack Obama can not be president because he is not an American citizen. Given all the pre-election drama, common sense should tell anyone that if this were true, someone would have caught Obama's ineligibility during the primary. However, this is part of the charm, and problem, with the lunatic fringe. After all why should common sense get in the way of a good conspiracy?
Now there's nothing I love better than a good tale. But let's look at the facts, let's look and the law, and let's apply the the law to the facts. Perhaps then, we can arrive at reason.
Facts:
1. Hawaii entered the Union in August of 1959. In other words, Hawaii is one of the states of the United Sates of America.
2. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. So Obama was born in the United States. The State of Hawaii has a birth certificate attesting to this fact. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html.
3. At the time of the 2008 national election, Senator Barack Obama was 47 years of age. He will still be 47 when the Electoral College meets on December 15, 2008.
4. As a boy Barack Obama spent a portion of his life in Indonesia. However from 1971 on, he spent his life in the United States.
The Law:
Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
The Law as Applied to the Facts:
1. Barack Obama was a natural born citizen in Hawaii, well after Hawaii became part of the Union.
2. According to the Constitution, a valid candidate for the presidency must be 35. Senator Obama was 47 at the time of the election.
3. The Constitution requires that a viable candidate for president must have lived in the U.S. for 14 years. From 1971 until today, a period of 37 years, Senator Obama has lived in the U.S.
According to ALL the requirements of the Constitution of the United States, Senator Obama is qualified to be sworn in as president on January 20, 2008.
There you are. The facts, the law, and the law applied to the facts. While this is not a legal brief, the facts and the law speak for themselves. Everything else, i.e., allegations of faked/forged birth certificates, Obama's Moslem father, or his father's Kenyan heritage, or his father's British citizenship, allegations of Soviet or Mo sad or AlQaeda brainwashing while Obama lived in Indonesia, etc. is just stuff and nonsense; the fodder for a bad novel. But the stuff of bad novels, i.e., alien abductions, covert brainwashing, international intrigue, a presidential sleeper agent in the White House, is just the ticket for the lunatic fringe!
There are those out there who have taken the "Obama Conspiracy" past the point of the Net. They have filed petitions courts to hear their "Nobama" arguments. Because they seek an answer to a constitutional question, that of whether and individual is eligible to be POTUS, constitutional issue must be decided by the Supreme Court, that is of course, should the Supreme Court choose to hear this question. They won't. Trust me. Why? There is no basis in fact or in law for this argument. Won't matter to the lunatic fringe though. They don't care about facts. They are hard wired to believe what they believe and that's it. The flat out refuse to see facts.(http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/05/birth_certificate/) It's a shame.
I think that the next 25 years will be tough for our country. Can we pull through it? Sure. But it's going to take each and every one of living in reality, working, and thinking. This can't happen if we choose to follow flights of fancy.
On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama will be sworn in as president. Will this usher in a era of sweetness and light. Of course not! As a nation we will have economic issues to confront, a war in Aghanistan, the management of an Iraqi troop draw-down, securing our borders, the posibility of a new cold war, and so on. This will time time and work. There is a need for everyone to be part of the solution. We can only hope that time will correct the vision of those that, well, have a seeing problem.
4 comments:
The choice facing the Supreme Court boils down to civil unrest to protect the Constitution or civil war to proceed to ‘inaugurate’ a non-”natural born citizen”.
Ted, why is Obama a non-"natural born citizen????"
Urbanman, I just want you to know that most conservatives I know think this lawsuit is ridiculous. I am sorry to say I received an email about this a couple months ago and it has become no less of an embarrassment since that time.
Sonja
This is the most thoughtful and coherent comment I have read on this issue. I wish I had written this comment. This writer goes to he heart of the issue and does it in a very unbiased way.
Really? (#129849)
by Hank Rand on December 6, 2008 at 9:44 PM
"What difference does it make to the future of this country whether Obama was born on US soil? Advocates of this destructive campaign will argue that the Constitutional principle regarding the qualifications for President trumps all others. But how viable will our Constitution be if 5 Supreme Court justices should decide to void 64 million ballots?"
A proponent of the reality that there is an outstanding question that exists relating to Barack Obama's natural born citizenship (not that I have an answer, but rather simply that no answer has been given), my personal opinion is that this has less to do with the merit of this particular Constitutional law...and more to do with the character and integrity of a man who may have gone to such great lengths to, knowingly, break it. And in that course of action, our entire country (not just those who didn't vote for him) and our most coveted process of Democracy (our vote), were defrauded.
If he's found to be ineligible per the Constitution, proving he knowingly and willfully defrauded our people and process, it won't be the Justices who will have disenfranchised 64 million voters. It's Barack Obama. How many times are you prepared to claim "you fell down the stairs" for this man? I was an initial supporter. I started seeing very real and very questionable issues raised about the nature of his past associations, and the laughable explanations he would give...and I was sure it would hurt him in the press and among supporters. But what did I see? The press and most supporters to engrossed in their partisanship to care. In fact, the more reasonable questions came up about him...the harder the press and the 64 million that same press brainwashed, drove to the hoop for him. As I stood back watching this, again, as an initial supporter of his, even making phone calls on his behalf...I realized what I was seeing, was nothing short of WEIRD. Just, plain, weird.
And I thought this birth certificate issue (check that, "Certificate of Live Birth" issue...as opposed to "Certification of Live Birth") was cleared up a long time ago. I thought there was no way the DNC would have been capable of such a gross oversight. Then the court cases came up, and nothing was done to quell the question. What finally landed me understanding that something is not right, is when Chiyome Fukino, Director of Health for Hawaii, released the statement about his birth. That statement actually did more harm than good, and it only demonstrated further how moronic far too many public officials and people in the media and governing bodies, think Americans are.
Sure, America has it's slew of idiots. And sure, the aisle that questions Barack Obama's natural born and/or properly maintained citizenship statuses has it's smattering of fringe wingnuts. But just because one contingent of people happen to be on board, doesn't nullify the fact that the question is still outstanding. I hear the same 5 refutations over, and over, and over. "He posted his birth certificate on his website", "Factcheck proved it", "The state of Hawaii released a statement saying he was born there", "There was a birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper", "Judges meritoriously threw it out as 'frivolous'"; and while each of those statements hold an element of truth, they're also easily debunked. And "truth" is objective. There is no debunking it. We should be able to move past this on to more subjective and productive lines of communication...with all the dissent we're accustomed to...forging, like competition, improvement. But here we are. And one man can answer this objective question. And sure, not everyone will get on board if he were to release his college records and actual Certificate of Live Birth (as opposed to the factually less credible, more easily attained and more easily forged "Certification" - which bears no corroborating evidence like the hospital or doctor's name)...but many would get on board. Coming off a platform of transparency, directly in to a promised pursuit for unity...why leave so many of us divided on what is a simple and objectively debunked question? If the Certification is authentic, the it's more credible parent - the Certificate, exists. But rather than produce it, he has fought those requests so fiercely that he's allowed the same requests to land in court rooms...where he continues to fight them. Why? So rather than quell the reasonable, objective and easily answered outstanding question...he opts non disclosure. I wrote somewhere else that the production of Certificate of Live Birth is a very small price t pay for unity. And yet, here we are. And Barack Obama, and Barack Obama only, is responsible for that. I am certain of that beyond any reasonable doubt, because Barack Obama, and Barack Obama only, can quell it...with an actual Certificate of Live Birth, and he has watched requests transition to court cases, and still refuses. So as a first order of business, in a promised pursuit for unity, he leaves us divided, on what should be a very simple, very objective, very basic matter. Who among us can applaud that? "I do, Hank. Because you're all just whackjobs." That's all well and good if that's your opinion. My brother said to me, "Yeah but if we pull him out, we're going to look corrupt to the rest of the world." I replied, "I'd rather look corrupt and not be it, than be corrupt and not look it." So goes my position on being called a whackjob, for maintaining through nothing more than logic and fact, that there is a still outstanding question regarding Barack Obama's natural born and properly maintained citizenship statuses. I'd rather be called a whackjob and stand by truth, than submit to mistruths and be called sound.
I didn't hear any of the 5 standard press talking points in your piece, which leads me to believe the transition I anticipated is occurring. That is, virtually all of supporters (and I don't know if you were one prior to November 4th or not), will go from, "He didn't commit fraud. He is a natural born citizen", to "So what if he committed fraud. So what if he isn't a natural born citizen." I've challenged others, staunch supporters in fact, as to whether or not they'd concede a gross misstep in character and judgement, and support his being held accountable for that, if he did commit this fraud. They've uniformly claimed they would. This article, blog, whatever it is...demonstrates the first piece I've actually seen that goes out of it's way to say, "No. I wouldn't. Barack Obama can lie, cheat and steal all he wants. And if he gets held accountable for it, it's the fault of the Justices...because Barack Obama himself, is simply incapable of wrongdoing."
Running that red light you sit at, day after day, when no one is looking, is pretty harmless too. But you know it's wrong. This man, if not a natural born and properly maintained citizen of the United States, will have knowingly and willfully cheated our entire country, and more critical than that - our absolutely, inherently, unquestionably most coveted process of democracy - in what can only be articulated as a relentless pursuit for unapologetic, integrity-free, and division-inducing pursuit for power.Link.The Intellectual Redneck
Post a Comment