Dr. Conspiracy
The literature says that contradictory evidence only fuels conspiracy theories: it proves how deep the conspiracy goes, and how many people are in on it. The Dunning-Kruger effect says that the less proficient one is in their knowledge of a topic, the higher they rate their expertise. Confirmation bias describes how people accept weak evidence that agrees with their views, and reject strong contradictory evidence. Salon.com predicts that the stories about Barack Obama’s birth certificate will never die. I’ve been astounded, seriously astounded by the language I have seen here and elsewhere expressing confident knowledge of utter poppycock (stronger words may be substituted by the reader).
Logical argument and evidence have been largely ineffective. (That shouldn’t be surprising. Anyone who bought in to the birther world view has already demonstrated deficiency in logical argument and the evaluation of evidence.)
Is there anything to be done?
I think the answer lies not in argument or evidence, but in remedial education. The problem is that folks need to improve their critical thinking skills, their knowledge of valid argument forms, their ability to evaluate evidence, their familiarity with common propaganda techniques and, in our limited case, their understanding of how the law works. Teach birthers how to think, not what to think.
If the answer to birther lunacy lies in introducing birthers to critical thinking, then sign his fellow up for the full curriculum:
“Texas State Representative Leo Berman (R) furthered his campaign against President Obama Tuesday, a man that he has before characterized as “God’s punishment on us,” by introducing a bill that would require future presidential and vice-presidential candidates to produce “the original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen” to the Texas secretary of state.
“Berman told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that the bill, House Bill 295, is a compulsory step to take in order to correct an alleged gap in the law that allowed Barack Obama, who he believes could be foreign-born, to run for president.”
The full article can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/18/leo-berman-texas-birther-bill_n_784914.html
I agree with some of what you said, Doc, but I have to take humble issue with the fol;
“Teach birthers how to think, not what to think.”
This presume that Birthers WANT to think, that they want to be reasonable individuals, that they want to actually defend the Constitution and uphold the law.
I suspect their motivation is a lot more base than that.
Have you ever walked past a kindergarten playground at recess time? MOst of the kids are out, playing, socializing, and generally getting on with life. There is, however, usually at least one kid who is otherwise a social outcast, who walks around with chest puffed out, nose in the air, declaring to the world in sopranic stentorian tones….
“I know something you don’t know!!!”
YOu see in every child there is the need to be special, the need to be more “something” than anyone else, to have a special place and staqtus in the social group. For some that manifests itself in finding a niche and being the best you can be. For a few pitiful individuals it manifests in a pretense of “special knowledge”
For these people thier special place comes, not from personal achievement, but from the illusion that they are in possession of some facet of the universe, some special knowledge, some intimate secret, that the rest of us have missed. These people need to imagine themselves as being more wise, more intelligent, more “on the ball” than the rest of us. They see themselves as saviour, prophet, a voice crying in the wilderness. That special knowledge, that intimate secret, makes them feel as if they were special, in a way that nor,al, tangible and measurteable achievments cannot.
We see the same thing in all conspiracy nuts. The reason they don’tsee the ridiculous nature of their whack conspiracy theories is not because they cannot; but because they WILL not. To let go of their delusion of “special knowledge” means much more than just being wrong about something, it means that they are not special.
So whether it’s flat earthers, 911 truthers, moon hoaxers, holocaust deniers, or even our own silly little birthers, whenever you hear them spouting their nonsense, don’t think of trying to help them think. Rather see them as they truly are inside. 5 year old children, walking all alone around in the schoolyard. singing “I know something you don’t know”… and desperately, desperately hoping someone will love them.
We can divide birthers into two classes: those that actually believe the things they say, and those who don’t but think there’s some political advantage in saying them. I would tentatively classify Taitz in the first category, and Farah and “Polarik” in the second. For most birthers I have no idea which category they’re in.
Your comments seem to apply to the first category. The second category is probably even more difficult to cure. Lying for political gain is a practice as old as politics.
True story from your favorite FOX News forum and mine. One of them posted a thread a couple of days ago about Conan O’Brien making a joke about the president’s birth certificate, and they’re all acting like it’s a big deal. They’re all, “Well, if Conan O’Brien is making a joke about it, it must be true.” lol. Reminds me of when that house Democrat made a joke about the Supreme Court “avoiding the issue” to Clarence Thomas; they’re still trying to say that was real too. They just don’t get it. I don’t know whether to laugh at them or vomit.
I’m sure birthers would claim they are thinking critically, that not accepting the words of Factcheck.org (and questioning their agenda and funding) and parsing what the Hawaii DOH officials say instead of taking the statements at face value, they think they’re the ones who are thinking critically and we’re just blindly accepting the words of government officials and the liberal media.
Your first class ( a better term, I think, would be ‘set’), is being told what to believe by the second. That is the crux of the problem.
I see this as the result of a 30 year (at least) campaign to destroy education in America. Bankrupt school districts, strangle Universities, teach religion in science classes instead of science. Paint the President’s message to school children to stay in school and work hard as left wing propaganda.
A poster on another forum, on a thread about common sense and the scientific method concluded thusly when the topic strayed to Intelligent Design being taught in Biology classes:
(source :Poster Kailassa http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread626860/pg3#pid9937590
Who was it said “Give me the child at seven and I’ll give you the man”? The exploiters have been taking control of the children’s education for thirty years and the results speaks for it self. It is destroying democracy in America.
The mindset of the Birthers is very similar to the mindset of the right wingers, The evolution is false, global warming is a hoax, smoking can’t hurt you people, to give you an idea of this, go to conservapedia.com or read Coulter’s book on evolution. Be warned, just don’t hold a coffee cup while checking this out.
Said mindset can easily be summed up with two statements:
1. Everything that “we” know is false, lies, deception.
2. Everything that happens has a human origin. There is no coincidence, no force of Nature.
The first hypothesis is necessary to explain away facts. Since every alternative explanation the looney comes up with sooner or later conflicts with a well-known fact, that fact must also be untrue. “Refutation by contradiction” is something these people cannot grasp. If I start with a hypothesis and end up proving “2+2=5”, I know my initial hypothesis was false (provided I did not make a mistake during deduction). These people “deduce” that logically “2+2=4” must be false since there’s no way their hypothesis can be wrong, of course.
This is the first building block of their mindset since it gives them the impression they (or anyone) has the power to fundamentally alter reality as we know it, simply by exposing the “real truth”.
The second hypothesis builds on that initial block – if man is behind everything that is, in reality, outside our control (tornados, earthquakes, vulcanos or simple coincidence and accident), the looney need not feel helpless. He hates nothing more than being the plaything of forces outside his grasp. “Nature” is something too abstract and uncontrollable, so the “all-powerful conspiracy” must have that power in order for him to believe that the same forces the conspiracy has at its deposal would also be open to him.
Slightly OT: Smoking Muslim Obama Lookalike Is the Tea Party’s Wet Dream
http://gawker.com/5693760/smoking-muslim-obama-lookalike-is-the-tea-partys-wet-dream
More OT: Glenn Beck Accidentally Not Put Down
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/11/glenn-beck-accidentally-not-put-down.html
Oh boy, my Ed. Psych. classes are coming back to haunt me. I am now finding myself considering the birthers in terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Domains.
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/bloom.html
Maybe they spent to much time only learning in the knowledge level with some nods to comprehension. They had way to much True/False (dichotomous choice) and multiple choice tests. Just repeat the “knowledge” and that is all you need.
The second group needs to accept Jesus.
I would propose there is a 3rd category or possibly a 2a and 2b. Category 2b are those who don’t really believe and are in it primarily for money. I would place Phil Berg in that category.
I totally agree. The time to get the average birther to teach critical thinking schools was decades ago.
I hate to be off topic again, but does anyone know if any of the Bither bills got passed?
“State Rep. Leo Berman (R-TX), who ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes wrote about earlier today, said he wanted a more conservative Speaker than Straus to push through anti-immigrant bills, an anti-Obama birther bill, and an effort to privatize public schools.
– “Straus is going down in Jesus’ name,” said one e-mail
– A Morrison e-mail said that Straus’ rabbi sits on a Planned Parenthood board and then pointed out that Straus’ opponents in the Speaker’s race “are Christians…”
– The Tea Party-backed groups are now running anti-Straus robo-calls and e-mails demanding a “true Christian speaker,” reports News 8 Austin.
– The Quorum Report, an online newsletter, reported extensively late Monday on e-mails that mentioned Straus’ Judaism, his rabbi and the Christian faith of his House critics
– Patrick Brendel reported that David Barton, leader of the group WallBuilders, has helped organize much of the anti-Straus campaign. Barton is a frequent contributor to the Glenn Beck program.
– Kaufman County Tea Party Chairman Ray Myers sent an e-mail last week praising a Straus opponent as “a Christian Conservative who decided not to be pushed around by the Joe Straus thugs.”
Complete story: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/17/texas-tea-antisemitic/
Or liberal Judaism: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-eric-cantor.html
No.
I agree with most everything you said, but with some reservation on the last comment:
“Teach birthers how to think, not what to think.”
I fear this is too limited. You need to teach *people* how to think. You need to catch them and educate them in the methods of critical thinking BEFORE they’ve fallen into conspiracism and pseudoscience and whatnot. Prevention is the best medicine, as they say.
If they’ve already descended into denialism, then it’s considerably harder to pull them back out. Because unless you can reset their mental CPU, everything you tell them will be filtered through the lens of viewing you as the enemy.
Hello Mr/s Northland 10
Regarding Bloom’s taxonomy, Mario Apuzzo has recently re-posted an April 2009 article that moves deftly past knowledge and comprehension; indeed, he successfully categorizes and analyzes the issue of Natural Born Citizenship. If you disagree with his application and his synthesis, and balk at his recommendations as he petitions SCOTUS for a final judgment, disagree and balk–but don’t belittle. He’s one “birther” that has moved further down the line than the necessary knowledge-base of multiple choice.
If you’d like to post your own analysis of his rhetoric, I’ll check back.
You need to teach *people* how to think. You need to catch them and educate them in the methods of critical thinking BEFORE they’ve fallen into conspiracism and pseudoscience and whatnot. Prevention is the best medicine, as they say.
For example:Of Trees and Plants and Basic Logic: Trees are plants but not all plants are trees.
Here Kerchner correctly identifies the logical principle, but utterly fails in applying it to the actual law and facts.
This is sarcasm right? We saw his silly article in April. BTW, he is not petitioning for final judgement. The only issue the court might consider is standing. If it standing is granted it will be send back down to the district court. However, just because the case has been scheduled for conferance doesn’t mean the justices will even discuss it. The frivolous ones are weeded out. Remember, the 3rd ciruit said his appeal was frivolous and I would bet there has never been cert granted on an appeal deemed frivolous by the circuit court. Honestly, his standing argument doesn’t make any sense. His big claim is that the 5th amendment protects the right to tranquility. The constitution we use says no such thing.
With respect to his article, he can claim unitity of citizenship and sole allegiance all he wants but he can’t cite any framer, early legal scholar or any court case period saying any such thing. He can say the 14th Amendment and the NBC clause mean different things all he wants but he can’t cite any authority to back it up and such is clearly contrary to what the framers of such amendment said. I can say the constitution says anything I want but unless I can produce some authority to back it up it is just my opinion. In this case, his claims have already been made and rejected by the Supreme Court more than a century ago and it is settled law that both the 14th Amendment and the NBC clause are defined by the common law.
Mario Apuzzo deserves no consideration at all. He steadfastly refuses to admit that he was wrong when he asserted that Americans were not allowed to travel to Pakistan in 1981, in spite of overwhelming evidence that no such ban existed. He was asked dozens of times on this blog to acknowledge his error, but instead he bloviated and obfuscated, and finally he tucked his tail between his legs and ran away.
He is an untruthful windbag. The fact that he and Kreep are the best attorneys the birthers have tells you all you need to know about why they have lost every lawsuit filed to date. The Kerchner case will finally go away when the Supreme Court denies cert after next week’s conference, and Mario can go back to handling DWI cases.
If any birther is pinning his or her hopes on Apuzzo, Kreep, Taitz, Donofrio or Berg in court, then you deserve exactly what you’re going to get.
Mario is a crackpot. His arguments are wholly unsupported by the law, and have no basis in reality. There is a reason why not a single real legal scholar has taken up the birther cause, and the best you have is a DWI attorney, a mail order soon to be ex-attorney, and an attorney that has more experience playing professional poker than practicing law. It might have to do with the fact that not a single real scholar accepted those positions in about a century. It is settled law. Just because Mario makes his fanciful pronouncements with a sense of arrogance doesn’t make them any less wrong.
Oh, and I’m willing to wager what the Supreme Court’s answer will to Mario’s petition….I’m guessing it wlll consist of two words, and no more….”cert. denied”
Mario the Putz has produced nothing but the sort of garbage an obsessed, quasi-racist personal injury would be expected to produce when attempting to parse constitutional law. It is not deft, it analyzes nothing, and it has not been accepted by a single court.
It is, however, proof that Putzman, Esq., is far, far beyond the point where any sort of training in critical thinking could help him.
It is interesting how little the birthers have learned about how SCOTUS operates. I believe it was the Donofrio case (but it might have been Berg) when the birthers were crowing that it had been appealed to SCOTUS and that SCOTUS was going to order Obama to produce his “long-form” birth certificate. Of course, that was never going to happen. SCOTUS could have vacated the dismissal and remanded the case to the lower court, but under no circumstances was it going to order discovery.
Kreep’s buddies include Holocaust deniers. He had their links on his site, but has since removed them.
Glenn, Mario Apuzzo’s analysis is not routed in fact. It’s routed in fiction. He believes that, despite the Supreme Court directly saying time and time again that the terms of the Constitution is routed in the history of English Common Law (Smith v. Alabama, among others) that the Founders secretly took a term that had hundreds of years of history in English Common Law, redefined it to mean the opposite of what the term meant in English Common Law, and then told nobody.
He thinks that the Founders used a definition of a term that was not included in a book from Vattel until it was included in an English Translation of his work a full 10 years after they wrote the Constitution (1797 translation is the first that has the term “Natural Born”. The one that the Founders would have used did not translate the term, and left the term “indinges”). So, my question to you is why would the founders use a term that had hundreds of years of history in English Common Law, that meant exactly the opposite of what they meant, and then tell nobody that they were redefining it?
If this was ever taken by the Supreme Court, it would be a 9-0 decision against Apuzzo’s pet definition of Natural Born. I’d love to see Scalia write the opinion on this, exclusively going back to Blackstone, which he does in every opinion that he writes.
Every U.S. Court case that has taken up the issue has ruled against Mario Apuzzo’s position. The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up the issue, because it’s already decided, and there is no reason that they will need to either clarify a position (aka multiple decisions from lower courts), or to overturn precedent (aka U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark). There is absolutely no reason that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up this issue. The Supreme Court just distributes it to conference so that the filer will not goto every Supreme Court Justice and re-file their appeal.
While Berg is as good as any other birther at getting Ye Olde PayPal button to click, Berg’s primary reason isn’t money. He’s still upset that the “more electable” Hillary Clinton lost to Obama. That’s why he did the open letter in March of 2008 demanding Obama step aside for Clinton. It’s why he signed the petition in May of 2008 demanding the same. It’s why the timing (and original aim) of his first law suit was just before the DNC convention in Denver – because he wanted a court order stopping the DNC from nominating Obama over Clinton.
Ever since then, his entire aim is to try and punish Obama for not only daring to run against Hillary Clinton, but actually having the nerve to defeat her AND go on to win the general election as well! Yes, Berg sees Obama as an “usurper”, but it’s because he sees the Oval Office as belonging by right to Hillary Clinton.
Sadly, I feel that there truly is no way to reach this type of person. They are convinced that they are right, no matter what. Thus, they accept any claim that supports their position, while rejecting or simply ignoring those facts that prove them wrong.
On the other hand, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is better to have them believing such nonsense as Obama is not eligible to be President, 9/11 was a government plot, evolution and climate change are not real, etc, than it would be if they decided they could do things such as firing automatic weapons into crowds or setting fire to schools without hurting anyone. At least now they’re annoying but harmless.
Jesus was a liberal Jew.
You have an… interesting interpretation of the word “correctly”. It usually signifies that his ideas agree with known facts and credentialed experts. Since Apuzzo has consistently failed in every attempt, and his ideas about citizenship contradict known facts and credentialed experts, I suspect you are using entirely the wrong word when you say “correctly”.
That should read: You have an… interesting interpretation of the word “successfully”.
Too late on a friday to be trying to talk sense to birthers.
Doc feel free to alter my original if you wish
The thing that I find funny is how many birthers think that because Berg is a Democrat, it somehow gives his claims credibility.
The same could be said about how they think because Alan Keyes, James David Manning and Allen West are blacks and birthers, the birther movement is not racist.
I have long felt that the birthers have a lot in common with the people who unquestioningly fall for urban legends. I first became aware of the Procter & Gamble/Church of Satan urban legend in 1981 when it was being discussed by a church group. One person who was present had actually convinced herself that she had seen the president of Procter & Gamble on Phil Donahue’s show and that she had heard him say that a portion of the company’s profits was donated to the Church of Satan.
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/procter.asp
The story was nonsense, of course, but the it persisted for decades in spite of the fact that anyone with critical thinking skills would immediately realize that it had to be bogus. There is a willingness amongst certain people to believe unquestioningly anything which seems to conform with their preconceived notions. We see it all the time – the forwarding of urban legends in e-mails, the postings on Facebook, etc. – always without first checking to see if the information is true.
The problem is compounded when the falsehoods are spread by people who on the surface appear to have some authority, such as Mario Apuzzo and Glen Beck. One thing that Apuzzo and Beck have in common is that they never, ever will admit that they are wrong. And when you point out that the falsehoods have been debunked by Snopes or Factcheck or Politifact, the true believers insist that those websites are biased.
For those who haven’t read it, I strongly recommend “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer. It was written more than 50 years ago, but it remains topical today and provides excellent insights into the factors which often lead people into mass movements, conspiracy theories, etc.
I am not a thelogian, and I don’t really mean to drag the discussion into theology, but I tend to disagree with that idea.
Jesus message to his elders was one of restoration of the faith, practice, and dignity of the Jewish faith. In my understanding, everything he is reported to doing with regards specifically to the religion was meant to restore the spiritual focus of the Jewish people and to reject the ‘liberalizing’ influences of the Hellenistic mystery religions brought in with the empire. For example, when he threw the moneylenders out of the temple forecourt, he was not trying to change the practice to something new, he was trying to restore the dignity of the temple.
Even after his death, his followers insisted his message was one of renewal of the faith and remained Jews dedicated to that project. It wasn’t until Paul came along and saw the Jesus movement as a vehicle for his political/religious transformation of the empire that the Christian movement was established, and ironically the embracing of those liberal Hellenistic ideas that Jesus rejected. This is where the reports of Jesus actions become ‘liberal’.
Sorry about the divergence, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I have to agree with the previous posters. Briefly, I am a French lawyer, I knew Vattel long before Mario, and I can tell you with full confidence that Mario has knowingly misinterpreted and misquoted Vattel. What might have been understandable at the onset is no longer excusable, since his errors have been pointed out to him time and again. Mario is like a mob lawyer, except he works for racist organizations. He has zero credibility.
Birthers are only the lunatic fringe of your vast right wing racist movement fueled by oligarchs and demagogues:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/18/103946/birthright-citizenship-will-be.html
I have no idea where it will all end, but I fear your next decade isn’t going to be pretty.
Glad to have stirred the pot. I appreciate the number of responses from new and thinking commentors, and that the tone was of argued disagreement and not putative dismissal. ( Mario is a crackpot, aside. )
I guess we will all look on the 23 of November with interest to the SCOTUS to see if they can manage the same thing ; that is, if as a collective mind/media we can turn away from travel, turkey, food, family, and Chinese submarines blowing missles off our west coast.
( That, by the way, is sarcasm.) 😉
Rich, that is because they are one in the same.
The entire Tea Party is just the repackaging and renaming of The Moral Majority.
And the John Birch Society.
Glenn, I can already tell you the outcome of this. They will not issue a cert. Basically, this is the standard procedure when dealing with Birther cases. This procedure has been done every time.
1. Appealant distributes case to 1 Justice
2. Justice denies to distribute it to conference.
3. Appealant distribute to 2nd Justice
4. Justice realizing that this applicant will distribute this to all 9 justices, distributes this to conference so that they can’t distribute it 7 more times.
5. Supreme Court denies cert.
I agree with a small clarification. The procedure you outlined is the one for a motion for a stay or an emergency application. The Kerchner v Obama case is a normal Writ for Certiorari of an appeal from the 3rd District covered under Rule 12. It will go to the full conference on November 23rd. It would have taken longer but the government waived the right to file a reply brief because they know this application is a pile of steaming poo written by an idiot and doesn’t have a chance in hell of succeeding. They know the issues are identical to the ones in Berg v Obama that was already denied.
In contrast, Orly Taitz filed a motion for stay of her $20,000 sanction by Judge Land to SCOTUS in Taitz v MacDonald this summer. It was denied by Justice Thomas and referred to conference when Taitz petitioned Justice Alito. It was denied in conference. Taitz then filed a normal Writ for Certiorari in the same case that has been referred for consideration after she apparently corrected some initial deficiencies. The government has until November 24 to file a reply. They also very likely will waive the right to file a reply since this case is also completely and utterly without merit. It will then go to conference most likely in December and be denied.
Furthermore, as a parent of three as well, I tend to feel sorry for the kid who at such a young age is a social outcast. How much blame do you want to put on a kid at that age, assuming you were actually serious about your comment?
(from other thread)
For those who wish to follow a perfect example of just how disconnected from reality the Birfoon tendency are, our old friend “Yguy” has tried to come to a fight of wits less than half armed.
Arguing military law in the Lakin casse with JAGS and actual military judges….so sad.
Useful details for the generic refutation of Lakinista’s as well.
Starts around half way down the thread.
http://www.caaflog.com/2010/11/14/ltc-lakins-supporters-sponsor-terry-lakin-action-week/#comments
It’s unlikely that we’ll hear anything from SCOTUS on the 23rd. Typically the SCOTUS conferences are held on Fridays and the orders issued the following Monday. However, next week the conference day is Tuesday because of Thanksgiving. The orders might be issued on Wednesday, but we may not hear anything until Monday the 29th.
That said, it should be pointed out that during the November 12 conference SCOTUS considered 174 petitions for cert and granted only two. That fact alone should give you some idea of why we say that there is no chance that SCOTUS will grant cert in the Kerchner case.
I suppose Jesus is a Rorschach test for people who study him. Nevertheless I find (and perhaps it is my confirmation bias) that Jesus was liberal. Examples include his interference in the case of the woman caught in act of adultery, his declaring all foods clean, his parable describing the generous landowner who paid workers the same no matter how long they had worked, and his saying that the Sabbath was for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Last year the SCOTUS also had a conference on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving but the orders still weren’t issued until the following Monday.
Yes, and what is amazing is that the Lakin case is no longer a Birther case and Birthers like Yguy are still pushing it as such. The Birthers are having a very tough time accepting this. They seem to think that Judge Lind’s ruling smashing the Birther defense will be overturned on appeal and they will get their precious discovery. They haven’t read what Neal Puckett himself has written.
I just finished reading the entire thread. yguy and Schulin have invented their own reality. After all, who is better qualified to expound upon the legality of military orders than two people who have never served a day in the military?
The adulterous woman and the Sabbath healing were Pharisee attempts to entrap Jesus. My approach is that Jesus rejected Pharisaic rules that were corrupting the faith. Thus these are examples of Jesus message of restoring the ‘original’ faith. Today, we would label this a conservative outlook, not a liberal one.
Jesus didn’t interfere, he was asked for his opinion and actually demanded that her accusers submit to Mosaic law, asking for those without sin to go first. Since nobody wanted to be around to be stoned themselves when their own sin was revealed, they left. Since there was no one left to accuse the woman, Jesus sent her on her way. BTW, under Mosaic law the man was equally guilty of adultery and both would have to be stoned.
Jesus did not declare all food clean. That is a Pauline interpretation that does not appear in the original Greek, Jesus is referring to the disciples dirty hands, not the food they were eating. Paul needed a justification for liberalizing the dietary rules in order to win converts from the Gentiles so he put the words in Jesus mouth. He also decided that it would be easier to gain converts if they didn’t need to be circumcised. This page discusses the issue from several other angles: http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_questions/Answers/food/mark_7.html
He was rescuing “faith” from overly rigid legalism. A legalism that valued the letter of the law over the spirit (if you’ll excuse the pun).
In this, liberal Christians find parallels. What is more conservative than hewing to the words of the law rather than figuring out the greater meaning? Valuing the letter of the law over the spirit sends Jean Valjean to prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. It says that the death penalty cannot be cruel and unusual punishment because it existed when the founders created the nation (ditto flogging).
In short, to the Christian liberal, strict constructionism = the Pharisees.
Liberal Christians read Matthew 25:36-41 and see a call to action both for themselves individually, but also collectively as a nation. We read the parable of the camel and the eye of the needle and the beatitudes and we get a sense of what value is placed on the acquisition of wealth.
Liberal Christians see Christ as aligning himself with the poor and downtrodden, the unclean, against the entrenched powers-that-be. The powerless versus the powerful. He upends society, entirely, the first shall be last and the last shall be first!
There are certainly scriptural supports for Jesus as a liberal force. Whole denominations are founded on such beliefs.
As I say, I am not a theologian, nor even particularly religious (though I am interested in it from the point of view of history, mythology, comparative religion and like ‘disciplines’), and this is all way, way, way off topic.
I bow to those of you who have considered this in greater depth and personal relevance than myself.
Could you clarify about English Law and what is the opposite of what?
I’d never heard this before.
There were two strains of determining citizenship – jus soli and jus sanguinis – the former meant those born on the soil of a nation were its citizens, regardless of who the parents were. The latter meant that those born (often anywhere in the world) to those who were already citizens (those with the right “blood”) were, themselves, citizens. Jus soli was the rule in England, and jus sanguinis was the rule in Europe.
The term “natural born subject” was a term that had meaning in English law at least since 1350 – it meant jus soli. That’s when we find the term used – to describe, basically, what everyone had already known for generations before.
So, when the founders were born in the English colonies, they knew they were “natural born subjects” of England. They knew that if they had children in the English colonies, they’d be “natural born subjects” of England – and that if a foreigner came into the colonies and had a child, it would be a “natural born subject” whether or not the parents naturalized.
Against this 400 year history of the term having one meaning, it is kind of hard to believe that, without mentioning it, the founders changed the meaning. Suddenly, the key legal phrase, “natural born,” didn’t mean born on the soil without regard to parental blood, but born to the blood, without regard to soil!
It violates a fundamental principle of legal interpretation – that when a term means something definite in common usage, it means that same thing in a contract, unless it is specifically defined as something else.
Sean,
Just to clarify, since this one pops up in Birfoon threads as well.
When, for example the Supreme Court of other appellate courts state their adherence to English Commom Law, it is English Commom Law basically as of the moment of the Declaration of Independance.
Not as you hear from Birfoon squealing, POST revolution English Common Law.
(some post revolution concepts I’m sure were adopted I’m sure, but for the purposes of Constitutional Law that is the basic rule of thumb.)
Sean just to reinforce what Greg is saying. Mario says that the Framers didn’t have to explain the meaning of the term “natural born Citizen”, because everyone already knew it meant two citizen parents and followed Vattel. But history seems to disagree with him.
Here is the 1732 Chart of Georgia,
“Also we do, for ourselves and successors, declare, by these presents, that all and every the persons which shall happen to be born within the said province, and every of their children and posterity, shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises and immunities of free denizens and natural born subjects, within any of our dominions, to all intents and purposes, as if abiding and born within this our kingdom of Great-Britain, or any other of our dominions”
In fact, one of the grievences that the colonists had against Parliment and the King was that the colonists did not feel that they were being treated like “natural born subjects”. And they expressed that in 1774, ”
“Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 1774
That the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following Rights:
1. That they are entitled to life, liberty, and property, and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.
2. That our ancestors, who first settled these colonies, were at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural born subjects within the realm of England.
3. That by such emigration they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights, but that they were, and their descendants now are entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them, as their local and other circumstances enable them to exercise and enjoy.
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and former President of the United States William Howard Taft explained it best:
“The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.”, from Ex Parte Grossman
Other Justices have expressed similar opinions;
“At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, American statesmen were conversant with the laws of England, and familiar with the prerogatives exercised by the Crown. Hence, when the words to grant pardons were used in the Constitution, they conveyed to the mind the authority as exercised by the English Crown or by its representatives in the colonies. At that time, both Englishmen and Americans attached the same meaning to the word “pardon.” In the convention which framed the Constitution, no effort was made to define or change its meaning, although it was limited in cases of impeachment.
We must then give the word the same meaning as prevailed here and in England at the time it found a place in the Constitution. This is in conformity with the principles laid down by this Court in 30 U. S. 280, and in Flavell’s Case,@ 8 Watts & Sargent 197; Attorney General’s brief.” Justice Wayne in ex parte Wells.
And from Chief Justice Marshall,
“The constitution gives to the president, in general terms, “the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States.”
As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institutions ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing the manner in which it is to be used by the person who would avail himself of it.”, in United States v. Wilson
And finally two statements from Justice Scalia,
“In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” . . . Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation” rom District of Columbia et al v Heller
And
“What I look for in the Constitution is precisely what I look for in a statute: the original meaning of the text, not what the original draftsmen intended” (A Matter of Interpretation, Federal Courts and the Law, 1997)
It really is that simple.
Basically, citizenship is transferred generally on two theories, called jus soli (right of the soil), and jus sanguinus (right of the blood). From their names, you can tell basically what they do.
Jus Soli transfers citizenship by right of the soil. That means that citizenship is based upon the place you were born. English Common Law signifies this right using the term “Natural Born Subject”.
Jus Sanguinus basically transferrs citizenship through blood. This means that if your parents are citizens, then you’re a citizen. However, if your parents are not citizens, then you aren’t a citizen. This has no relation to the place of birth.
What Apuzzo is suggesting is that they take a term (“Natural Born”) that has 400 years of history meaning jus soli in English Common Law, and redefine it to mean jus sanguinus.
It really isn’t very hard. In 1787, a bunch of Englishmen met in Philadelphia to discuss formation of a new government. The most important ones were English lawyers educated on Coke and Blackstone. They knew anyone born on English soil was a “natural born subject” and only “natural born subjects” were eligible to sit in Parliament, be a members of the privy counsel or be prime minister. The delegates to the convention were sent from states that all had adopted the English common law and such states continued to primarily call their members “subjects” and “natural born subjects” although they sometimes used the terms “citizens” and “natural born citizens” in identical contexts as their parallel English terms. The delegates to the Convention departed from English law on some points but expressly adopted English law on many points throughout the Constitution. “Natural born citizen” was added to the Constitution without debate. However, this followed debates on eligibility where it was proposed that only the native born should hold office and, if not, how long the foreign born would need to be citizens before they could hold office. No one mentioned de Vattel or parentage in such debates. After ratification, every early authority of any significance said eligibility and citizenship in general were defined by the English rule. For decades, no one disputed such conclusion. However, starting in the 1830’s, abolitionists argued, and several courts ruled, that free, native-born blacks were citizens since the English common law was adopted in this country and all such required was birth on US soil. Since the Constitution’s privileges and immunity clause prevented certain discriminations against citizens, the south was not too happy about such argument or such court decisions. The result would be Dred Scott and civil war. However, even after the war, there would be people trying to make arguments that Indians and the Chinese could be excluded from citizenship under some definition other than the common law. The Supreme Court would finally address the issue in 1898. The argument was the English common law vs. de Vattel. The common law won 6-2. As everyone knew, the 14th Amendment was simply declaratory of existing law in 1866, as everyone in the 14th Amendment Congress said, the key to the case was understanding the law under the original Constitution that governed the law prior to 1866. In the past century, no court has challenged the conclusion that the English common law defined the rule. Hence, you can go on google books and could find hundreds and hundreds of textbooks, dictionaries, treatises, encyclopedias saying the president must be born on US soil. This law is about as settled as a law can be.
I consulted a number of English Bible translations (RSV, NRSV, RAB, NJB, NEB, NASB, NAB and Moffatt, and found that all translated the Greek text as “declared all foods clean.” The only translation in line with the web page you cited was Gaus’ Unvarnished New Testament. This usual translation is certainly fitting of the context that nothing coming into a man defiles him.
In fairness to poor Vattel, let us remember that he wrote about jus sanguinis because that was the system in force in his part of the world (what would be today Germany and Switzerland). The text makes it perfectly clear that he acknowledges that Britain operates under jus soli, and he seems perfectly comfortable with that. As Paul and I have demonstrated time and again, Vattel is mostly a straw man used by racist to give credibility to their agenda.
Perhaps I am guilty of the birther fallacy of seeing only what I want to see in order to confirm my own biases with respect to the translation.
However, whether or not the translation is in error, I stand by my conclusion that Jesus would not have made that statement and the words were put in his mouth by Paul (or rather the follower of Paul that authored the book) in order to make the movement palatable to Gentile converts and to further the separation of the movement from its Jewish heritage.
Paul records in Galations his trip to Jerusalem to discuss the purity codes with ‘the Pillars’ (including James, reputed to be Jesus’ brother). The Pillars are adamant that the Jewish tradition should be kept. In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, Jesus’ disciples maintain the importance of keeping pure. It is only in Mark, uniformly critical of the the Disiplies position, that we find the idea of the break with tradition.
Those closet to Jesus, his brother and other disciples found the purity codes directly compatible with Jesus teachings. This is backed up by Paul, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Thomas. It is only Paul himself that has a political motivation to overthrow those purity laws in order to gain followers.
My point remains that Jesus motivation was a conservative one: to purge the the Jewish faith of the new fangled Hellenistic influences. It was Paul that was the radical, and exploited and subverted the message of Jesus to his own ends.
That said, I know that it is Paul’s picture of Jesus that the Christian world knows and loves, not the more likely Jewish conservative. My argument is descriptive of what I think the real Jesus would have expressed, not what Paul decided was necessary for him to express.
(My best source on this: “Who Wrote the New Testament?” by Burton L. Mack.)
> and redefine it to mean jus sanguinus
Actually, the birthers redefine it to mean both in the sense of “both must apply”.
Besides, we’ve already seen how many types of “citizen” they are ready to invent to cling to their confirmation bias. “Native born” is not the same as “natural born”. “Citizen at birth” is not the same as “natural born”. And even “natural born” does not always mean “natural born in the constitutional sense”. Probably “natural born in the constitutional sense” currently means “born on the mainland (not Hawaii of course) to two citizen parents, white, Republican, devout Christian, never spent a day of his life outside the US and never so much as talked to a Muslim”.
This does not augur well:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/20/republicans-climate-embarrassing/
Birther Lawyer’s Mental Defect Revealed
Check out Mario O-putz-o’s obvious lack of reading comprehension skills:
http://www.caaflog.com/2010/11/21/this-week-in-military-justice-21-november-2010-edition/#comments
So, THAT’S the problem Mario has with understanding basic constitutional law and U.S. history!
He’s functionally illiterate?
@Keith – it’s “Galatians.”
As for the “clean and unclean foods” debate, it in Acts. Not only was this book not written by Paul, it was written by someone who likely didn’t have access to or know about Paul’s letters, since none of them are referenced, even the influential ones like Romans or 1st Corinthians.
If you’re interested in Christian origins, try Raymond Brown, or Paul Valantasis’ book on the Gospel of Thomas. Burton Mack is by no means the last word.
And I just looked it up…the vision of unclean and clean foods is given to *Peter*, not Paul.
Extending this to its logical conclusion would also mean that the birth would have had to occur in a state that was one of the original 13 & the child must have been a land-owner at birth.
The third category is those who are trying to deliberately overthrow the government or at least make the military ineffectual by destroying the de facto officer doctrine.
Just think about the LTC Lakin case. The original defenders stated (basically) that it was the duty of every officer to disobey any order (except the one that paid them, evidentally) because all orders emanate from the President who is not eligible, by the way.
Now this “logic” has been pushed by authors with suspect names (Farah), bolstered by “proof” from Muslim Africans (like the underwear bomber but in this case Kenyans), and Indonesian sources (Indonesia is has a huge Muslim population.) A pattern seems to be emerging here.
Also, all the groups pushing for the “release” of LTC Lakin have the word “Patriot” in their titles or prominent in their blogs. Another trick, this time borrowed from Soviet propaganda during the cold war: to make stooge groups look like patriotic organizations pushing the scourge of anti-Americanism. (Incidentally, LTC Lakin is not in prison, but you would not know this looking at the various web sites.)
All of this adds up to only one conclusion. Al Queada (probably the one in Yemen as they have native speaking American members) has started this whole business and it has spread to unwitting fellow travelers who will adamantly deny any connection. But the “proof” is there, you don’t even have to look very hard.
AQ wants to overthrow the government of the US. What better way than to deny the authority of the government using snippets of the Constitution as the reason why. Advocating the overthrow of the government via the military by encouraging disobedience and again using part of the Constitution as the reason why (and ignoring the rest of the document in the process.) Clearly a clever nefarious AQ plot typical of their way of operating.
So we have unwitting stooges, official sounding claptrap using some of the Constitution as a base while ignoring the parts that don’t fit (also the modus operandi of certain other fundamentalist groups, like attracts like.) And we have serious impediment of governance if the ideas take hold or at least chaos in the armed forces while the antithesis (you would think) of AQ, so called “patriots”, are blamed for the whole thing.
All in all, a very clever plot. That is what I think and there is no proof that can sway me.
> That is what I think and there is no proof that can sway me.
😉 Not knowing for sure whether your post is serious or ironic, I have had similar ideas floating through my mind, usually when I ponder the crazed conspiracy world the birthers live in.
In fact, I was about to ask them if they have ever considered this entire “where was he born?” or “what does ‘natural born citizen’ really mean?” pseudo-reasoning was crafted by people who try to overthrow the Constitution by promoting anti-constitutional ideas under the guise of “protection of the Constitution”.
I would indeed by typical of radical propaganda (claiming to protect something by means that in reality destroy said thing).
It’s also the promotion of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that is typical for propaganda warfare. “Get the people to question their leaders”, but not in a good way (because you don’t agree with what they do) but in a conspiracist way (because you doubt who they are or what they “really” want).
After all, who is more likely to assassinate a president or overthrow a government – someone who is simply dissatisfied with the policital course or someone who believes he is attacking a space alien in human disguise? Someone who thinks a decision is wrong or someone who believes a decision is intended to destroy the country? It’s obvious.
Keith, Acts was written by Luke, who was a traveller and companion of Paul. Paul mentions Luke in his letters to Philemon, Colossians, and 2nd Timothy. Furthermore, if you want internal evidence, there are several sections in Acts where when it’s talked about Paul, it’s talked with “We”.
Acts was written by a companion of Paul. I’d seriously doubt that a companion of Paul would not have access to the themes of the letters of Paul.
While I agree that Berg initially may have been motivated by some delusion that Obama had stolen the nomination from Hillary Clinton I do not believe that is his primary motivation now. Sure he still hates Obama. I think Berg wants the money and the “prestige” that may accompany being the grand daddy of the Birthers. Look at his court battle with Orly. I am sure every time he reads Orly called Queen of the Birthers his stomach churns.
A more accurate division of the Birthers might be between those really who believe the courts can still act to remove Obama and that all of his presidency will be erased in some massive do over and those who are pushing birther memes for a variety of other reasons both political and monetary. I place Orly in the former category and Berg in the later.
The only qualifier I would place on RC’s note about Mad Ole Orly is that she really seems, apart from a real ardent hate of for Obama, to be in it for the dubious fame she believes she accrues.
For her, the most terrible of all things would be “No, I don’t know the name….Orly who…?”
I am trying to be ironic, but each time i write this stuff, it seems more and more real. Just look at those who are promulgating this issue. Over at CAAFlog there are several who have been asked about the logical end point of their demand for all officers to disobey “illegal orders”, mutiny and anarchy. The Constitution defines treason as (among other things) “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” By those standards, anyone who advocates mutiny is a traitor.
Of course, they won’t answer the question just for that reason and the fact that there is no Vattel, Bible, or misreading of the Constitution that can save them from the accusation. Instead they dissemble and bloviate. (or ignore.)
My suggestion that this is part of a disinformation campaign on the part of America’s enemies is just as probable an explanation as genuine belief in the President’s lack of eligibility, perhaps with more historical precedent. (I agree that the paypal explanation has legs.)
Likely true in the text. Peter was also treated shabbily by Paul and had words put in his mouth by others.
Geeze. I’m starting to sound like a birther here. I am out of this discussion.
Yes, I was referring to the passage in Galations (one of the few letters generally acknowledged to be not forged and relatively uneditted) where Paul himself mentions his trip to Jerusalem to meet ‘the Pillars’, Peter, James, and others to discuss the purity codes.
Peter is said to be living like a Gentile, that is eating unclean foods, but then backing away in the presence of circumcised Jews. In Galatians, Paul famously rebukes Peter for this hypocrisy. I dispute the likelihood of Peter’s behavior in this way. I suppose he may well have eaten non-kosher food when kosher was not available due to circumstance and then returned to kosher when it became available.
My point here is only that Paul and his followers had both motive and opportunity to spin, forge, and rewrite history to advance their cause. In the battle for the minds, clearly Paul’s side won, and winners get to write the history of the victory. Always have, and always will.
As for Jesus message, which was the start of this discussion, see what Matthew has hem say:
He then goes on to rip the Pharisees a new one, saying that they are teaching Mosaic Law, but no longer follow it for themselves.They have been corrupted by new fangled liberal Hellenistic ideas and are more interested in the affairs of the world than the affairs of the spirit. They would rather be honored in this world, wear fine clothes, and make life hell for Gentile converts, than bring honor to God through their lives.
Is it any wonder that the Pharisees had it in for him?
Sorry. I said I was done.
I am still convinced that she is looking for a movie deal. Maybe Meryl Streep to play Orly, ya think?
Uh, that was me, not Keith. 🙂
One thing to keep in mind: almost none of the New Testament books were actually written by the people they were attributed to. That includes Luke/Acts (which really read like one book that was divided into two sections). Luke/Acts may well have been written by someone connected with Paul, but the traditional attribution to a missionary/companion of Paul has been questioned by more than one scholar; Paul himself gives more space to Phoebe, Prisca and Aquila, Junia, and several other friends/associates/fellow apostles in the last chapter of Romans than to anyone who might fit the description of Luke.
I repeat: “Galatians,” not “Galations.” Sorry 🙂
As for the Pharisees…they get something of a bad rap in the New Testament. Yes, they may have been overly pious, but the ones who had the real political power were the Sadducees, who were the priestly caste associated with the Temple and the Herodian court. The Pharisees were the clerks and minor functionaries, and their worship is the direct ancestor of modern rabbinic Judaism.
This may be why they get slammed over and over by the authors of the New Testament; the new religion was in direct competition for converts and influence with the Pharisees, so it was to their advantage to portray them in as a bad a light as possible.
We fell into a huge topic that can’t be handled here. It is interesting to see the problem of determining what “normative scholarship is” and how confirmation bias comes into play (at lease I will admit to it if no one else wants to).
I think that lessons learned from battling the birthers have wider application, perhaps even extending to religion.
It’s hard to think that any of the visible players in the birther movement are knowing tools of foreign terrorists, but they certainly play their part in weakening the United States.
i find it interesting to be able to still discover, even at this late date, some new small gutter in birfer (non-)thinking. for instance, i don’t think i’ve seen any other birfer hump vattel’s corpse quite as hard as the freeper who posted this vanity:
d’oh! silly birfer! everybody knows all our eligibility laws are already taken from “the law of nations”!
aarrgghh, check out the comments….
To: Jim 0216
Anyone who has acted against the Constitution these past two years (I’m being generous) should be exported. If the Constitution is not good for them, then they shouldn’t be in this Country.
5 posted on Friday, November 19, 2010 5:23:20 PM by 1_Rain_Drop
The framers never intended a quote “national citizenship” to be instituted because that would centralize the power & usurp the sovereign states as England did under feudal law. US citizenship was to be defined according to the sovereign citizenship laws of the states. If you were not a citizen of one of the states, you were an alien and therefore not eligible for “national political citizenship”.
And yet at the time of the adoption of the present constitution the sense of nationality had not sufficiently developed to permit the statement of the ultimate and inevitable conclusion, that every citizen of the Union is primarily a citizen of the United States, and not merely of one of the states which compose them. The one particular in which the first confederation rose above the older Teutonic leagues after which it had been patterned was embodied in the new principle of interstate citizenship which it originated. Section one of article four of the articles of confederation provided that, “ The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states.&rdquodquo; The substance of that provision was reproduced in section two of article four of the present constitution which provides that, “ The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.” Beyond that point the framers of the more perfect union were not prepared to go. They did not attempt to do more than establish an interstate citizenship to which they imparted the qualities of uniformity and equality by denying to every state the right to discriminate in favor of its own citizens as against those of any other state.
The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution: The making of the … By Hannis Taylor
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA75&dq=citizenship+defined&ei=LZzmTM25BamBnAeG-MiTDQ&ct=result&id=5Sw0AAAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q=citizenship%20defined&f=false
History of federal government: from the foundation of the Achaian league to … By Edward Augustus Freeman
http://books.google.com/books?id=8fvOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Freeman,+Federal+Government&hl=en&ei=hAfnTM2sC9uLnAfryeXuDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
15 posted on Friday, November 19, 2010 6:52:55 PM by patlin (Ignorance is Bliss for those who choose to wear rose colored glasses)
That’s much less likely in Hawai’i than it is in Arizona. Even with a Republican Governor and a Republican Attorney General, the state of Hawai’i has backed Obama’s eligibility 100% and now Obama’s closest political friend in Hawai’i, Neil Abercrombie is the new Democrat Governor as of December 6th, forget getting any thing useful out of Hawai’i.
16 posted on Friday, November 19, 2010 6:55:05 PM by jamese777
“.a violation of the law of nations,” citing in this respect Vattel. “Upon the same principle” -to qoute from the argument as reported—”that the infringement of a statute is an indictable offence, though the mode of punishment is not pointed out in the act itself, an offence against the law of nations, while they compose a part of the law of the land, must necessarily be indictable.”
Chief Justice McKean, a man of large political and judicial experience and himself a signer of the Declaration of Independence, stated the trial to be a case of “first impression in the United States”; that it was to be determinded “on the principles of the law of nations, which form a part of the municipal law of Pennsylvania.”
The Catholic Conception of International Law, James Brown Scott; page 99
21 posted on Friday, November 19, 2010 8:16:19 PM by bushpilot1
“Why do you think everything that has law of nations’ makes you think it refers to Vattel? What lunacy makes you think anything contrary to Vattel is a crime?”
Tell that to the Supremes (2003) who referred to Vattel 6 times in Sosa v Alvarez, 542 U.S. 692, 729-30. “For two centuries we have affirmed that the domestic law of the United States recognizes the Law of Nations”
Law of Nations Chapter XIX
The natural born citizens are those born from citizens parents. A society cannot perpetuate other wise. A society should desire this.
40 posted on Saturday, November 20, 2010 5:15:42 PM by bushpilot1
To: sometime lurker
The offense clause..(offense against the Law of Nations) was added to Section 8 as a result of the Longchamps trial in 1784.
1779 resolution of Continental Congress the Law of Nations will be strictly observed.
In the District of New York 4 April 1790 Chief Justice John Jay to the grand jury “ we are responsible to others for the observance of the Law of Nations”
46 posted on Saturday, November 20, 2010 5:54:13 PM by bushpilot1
WKA showing up in this rather good editorial:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/22/3202468/by-attacking-birthright-gop-ignores.html
> Tell that to the Supremes (2003) who referred to Vattel 6 times in Sosa v Alvarez
The funny thing is, if you actually read that decision, you’ll find that Vattel is not mentioned once in context with the term “law of nations”, even though “law of nations” is mentioned 78 (or 79, can’t remember) times. 🙂
Even the Pest & eFail is currently not censoring all opinions that reject the “the Constitution means Vattel’s book” claims:
”
Daniel Cutulla says:
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 4:33 AM
> under the Law of Nations (which was adopted in full in the Constitution)
You seem to confuse the “law of nations” (which means just that on its face) with Vattel’s book. The Constitution does not “adopt in full” a book which was not even published in English at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
”
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/11/19/obama-won%E2%80%99t-run%E2%80%A6his-work-is-done/#comments
That’s not actually true. An English edition of the Law of Nations was published in London in 1760. It did not contain the phrase “natural-born citizen” until 1797.
See also: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/05/de-vattel-revisited/
This is the “birther edition”: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dvd.png
The “Vattel-is-in-the-Constitution” meme has to be the stupidest idea in all of birtherdom. Let me demonstrate:
Vattel: “THE LAW OF NATIONS OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS”
Blackstone Book 4, Chapter 5: Of Offenses Against the Law of Nations
Constitution: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations
Not to mention the fact that Vattel’s original title was in French.
Birtherism has to pretend that no one has ever thought about the Constitution before, and that all of the words of the Founders are lost to history, so they can write their own interpretation on them. Sorry, but the Founders debated this clause of the Constitution, and Vattel wasn’t mentioned:
2 M. Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Rev. ed. 1937)
Yeah, sure, those refer to Vattel’s book. And pig’s fly!
M, even more amusing is this comment…
Joe The Blogger says:
Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 5:32 PM
Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio both have standing to apply for a declaration from The Supreme Court of The USA, stating whether or not they are natural born Citizens’, within the meaning of Article II, section 1, clause 5 of The Constitution. They could state that they need to have a definitive answer to this question, before going to all of the expense of campaigning to seek election to the office of President of The USA.
If SCOTUS states that one must be born in The USA to parents, who were both Citizens of The USA at the time of the child’s birth, then they could take that Judgement to the police in Washington DC, together with the evidence of the foreign national status of Barack Obama II’s father, and insist that Obama be physically removed from The White House and put on trial for fraud and/or treason.
There is an opportunity here for Jindal or Rubio to be a national hero.
Or Orly’s strangement interpretation of the law…
Starla says:
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 1:18 PM
If you post this, please use this one & delete the others. Thank you!
From: http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=15716
Dr. Orly Asks:
“Did judges violate the code of ethics by allowing ObamaFraudGate to go on, refusing to grant discovery and attacking me personally and my clients?”
Posted on | November 18, 2010
Dr. Orly’s Answer:
~~ By refusing to rule on the issues of Obama’s criminal behavior in Elections Fraud and SS fraud, JUDGES ARE VIOLATING THE CANONS OF JUDICIAL ETHICS and CAN BE IMPEACHED BY CONGRESS TOGETHER WITH OBAMA, AND WITH PEOPLE – WHO ARE AIDING AND ABETTING OBAMA. ~~
~~ Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.
A Few Excellent Comments:
“Phil said on 11/17/10 at 7:20pm
A judge is not legally required to do anything under the Code of Ethics. It is an ethical matter. An attorney is an officer of the court. If he becomes aware of a felony that has been committed, he is required by his code of ethics to report it to the proper authorities. Shouldn’t a judge be held to the same standard if not a higher one ?
This is not a question of if the judge did anything illegal. It is one of if he acted unethically. As was stated above, by not addressing the issue in his ruling – especially on such a high profile case – he undermines the public confidence in the court. That is a violation of the Code of Ethics. Therefore , he acted unethically.”
# # # #
“NEIL B. TURNER
November 18th, 2010 @ 7:41 am
When the Judiciary fails to perform their ethical and sworn duty to the Constitution, – as per Amendments IX and X, it is the right and the duty of The People, the authors of that contract’ (the Constitution), to retain those powers granted conditionally to the judiciary.
Therefore, the only logical and legal solution is to:
1. Form Citizens Grand Juries – in every County in the nation, deliberate on the charges of Crimes of State committed (including Code of Ethics violations), and issue True Bill’ presentments or indictments (Amendment V);
2. When the Judiciary fails to act on those indictments, as per the 9th and 10th Amendments, it is the duty of The People to call for and seat Citizens Court Trials, to deliberate on those charges, and issue VERDICTS and SENTENCING.
3. When Law Enforcement and the Judiciary again fails to act on those verdicts and sentencing, it is the duty of The People to form Citizens Militias to affect the arrest of those convicted, and to carry out the sentencing.
Then, and only then, will we restore our beloved Constitution to its rightful place in our once-great nation.
I rest my case. Let the work begin.”
And some still think that Lakin is some sort of hero….
Gary Wilmott says:
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 3:57 PM
I too exchanged emails with Joan Swirsky this morning. I told her that I have been saying for over a year now that Obama will not and cannot run because he will have to PROVE that he is constitutionally eligible…and of course he cannot. She agreed that she should have mentioned the states that will demand to see his credentials. Personally I don’t even believe Obama will be in office by the time Nov. 2012 rolls around. I believe he may have fled the country to go into exile.
Also as I posted on my blog (giveusliberty1776.blogspot.com) this morning, if LTC Lakin is imprisoned by this fraudulent regime, he will no doubt be pardoned by a republican president. You can then expect the mother of all lawsuits against Obama and Obama won’t be able to hide under the guise he was the legitimate president. He will be forced to prove that he was eligible or be prosecuted. Check mate!
You can be sure that Obama is going to cook his goose big time if he goes ahead with the Lakin court-martial. The American people will not stand for this any longer! They will not tolerate the imprisonment of a patriotic, courageous military man by a treasonous, anti-American, anti-Christian, fraudulent Marxist thug! The noose is tightening and I believe that Obama is seriously looking at an exit plan.
Hmmm…..self appointed mobs acting as judge, jury, and executioner……didn’t they have those in the south before the 1960s? I seem to recall we called them lynch mobs back then.
The next comment by Morris makes the point even better:
“Mr. Govr. The word define is proper when applied to offences in this case; the law of nations being often too vague and deficient to be a rule.”
Maybe they thought de Vattel’g book was too vague and deficient. Duh. Didn’t Washington commit an egregious offense against de Vattel’s book by not returning to the liabrary.
Funny how these “constitutional scholars” that seem to know so much about a clause Art II Sec 1 that every other Constitutional Scholar who actually went to law school, and is considered an authority, seemed to have missed for the past 100 years, and yet they don’t know the very basic case and controversy clause that would forbid the SCOTUS from make that kind of “advisory judgment.” Perhaps there’s another exception that only these true patriotic students of the Constitution know about, and the rest of us who actually studied the law missed?
It does not matter how many times you tell the Birfers that ONLY Congress can remove a sitting president, they still have these fantasies about Frog Marching Obama out of the White House.
They will never learn.
We had them in South Carolina in the 1760’s; they were called “Regulators.” The Regulators arose in response to widespread outlaw activity and the lack of law enforcement and access to courts in the “back country” of South Carolina. The Regulator movement was effective in combating outlaws, but they turned into tyrants in the end. (Note that the Regulators in North and South Carolina were not the same).
One problem with vigilantism is that it has a hard time distinguishing between a public crime and personal offense. This is characteristic of the birther movement where their view of a “crime” is whatever offends them personally, with no regard for actual law.
Exile? EXILE? Good God, where does this moron think he lives, Upper Slobbovia? Even Nixon, the only American President to resign, didn’t move out of the country!
The stupid, it burns!
Just as an aside, remember when talking to Birfoons make sure to qualify your statements correctly or else they will come back with all sorts of crap.
Whilst the US Supreme Court is prohibited from providing “Advisory Opinions” a selection of STATE SC’s ( Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and South Dakota, Alabama and Delaware) CAN.
Of course each state has a set of hedges and tweaks around this item.
Just an FYI…..
The United States Attorney General also issues advisory opinions, such this one by Edward Bates:
Maybe the birthers should ask for an advisory opinion from AG Eric Holder 😉
How about Threenesia:
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s3i39832
Federal courts can make declaratory judgments. I believe the standard is:
“whether the facts alleged under all the circumstances show that there is a substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interests of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment”
Not sure how one would satisfy such standard. Perhaps if Jindal has declared his candidacy and some state or opponent has stated an intention to sue to keep them off the ballot.
Maybe the Land of the Knee-Walking Turkeys, or the Bay of Milhouse….
The difference lies between the difference between a declaratory judgment, and an advisory judgment. A declaratory judgment still statisfies the case or controversy requirements, advisory does not. So for example, if I am running for president against Bobby Jindal, I can as for declaratory judgment that Bobby Jindal does not qualify, and I would have to make the argument that I have standing (particularized harm, the court can provide a rememdy, etc.). Bobby Jindal could not go to a court and ask them to rule if he is qualified, because there is no case or controversy. He would be basically asking them to provide him a legal opinion, which the Federal courts cannot do. For a declaratory judgment, you still need a plaintiff and defendant, and the court to be able to proclaim a winner.
> Exile? EXILE? Good God, where does this moron think he lives, Upper Slobbovia?
Remember some birthers getting all excited about the idea of Obama staying in India after his alleged “$200 mio./day” trip? They have been awkwardly quiet after their predictions (“Obama taking the government with him to rule from abroad”) did not come true…
> M, even more amusing is this comment…
… and even more astounding that its rebuttal got OK’ed by Sharon Rondeau…
> The “Vattel-is-in-the-Constitution” meme has to be the stupidest idea in all of birtherdom.
Aren’t there plenty of issues in Vattel’s book that could be thrown before the birthers? I mean, issues which clearly contradict other regulations of the Constitution, or principles the birthers hold dear? After all, they would have a hard time getting to grips with what “Vattel is incorporated *in full* in the Constitution” would actually entail… 😉
Well the bestest bestest one is Vattel completely torches the 2nd Amendment.
That usually is good for a 15 minute shut down…….
I believe Doc wrote an article pointing out all the provisions in de Vattel’s work inconsistant with the Constitution such as his view on religious establishment. It is not even a matter of debate that much, if not most, of the Constitution is based upon English law as many terms in the constitution had no meaning outside English law such as habeus corpus, impeachment, grand juries, presentments, prevledges and immunites, cruel and unusual punishment, felonies and on and on. I do not believe de Vattel was discussed in the convention with respect to any particular provision of the Constitution and hence there is no evidence any provision was based upon de Vattel. I believe he was only mentioned briefly in connection with a discussion of the relationship of the states, as soveriegns, to one another, but could be wrong on that.
Nevertheless, such is why Blackstone has been cited so many more times by the supreme court. This cornell site has most supreme court cases on it, though not all. A search for Blackstone brings up 304 opinions. I have read Blackstone has been cited over 350 times. A search for Vattel brings up 15 which is too low but clearly shows the magnitude of the differance.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/index.html
We also have Lutz’ survey of the writings and speeches of the founding period showing de Vattel way down the list of authorities cites.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?Itemid=259&id=438&option=com_content&task=view
Doesn’t matter, the birthers have made de Vattel the father of the Constitution because they have found a few founders citing him and we know they will take such to their graves no matter how much actual evidence to the contrary is presented. Of course, they won’t admit, but we all know they never heard of de Vattel before this.
She probably got her little pinhead stuck in her harp strings again. She’s not very bright.
Yeah, that should help close the trade gap.
The really pathetic and sad thing is that these morons actually think Obama has anything at all to do with the Lakin trial.
Just realized that post looked like Black Lion said it, when in reality Black Lion was quoting a birther.
Sorry BL, didn’t mean to cast aspersions
Ditto. It seems to be what happens when you copy a selected passage from a previous post.
Luckily, most of know of the many good deeds of our Lion-hearted anti-birther friend, BL.
Ballantine,
The thing to remember with our Birfoon friends is that whenever they see the phrase “law of nations” in any context, they automatically capitalize, in the howling wilderness of their mind, to “Law of Nations”.
Since, not suprisingly, a large amount of the operational discussions around the creation of the new state involved relations with other nations, the phrase and NOT the book is lightly littered throughout the writings of the time.
Then there is this from the Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/are-your-cats-old-enough-to-learn-about-jesus,11206/
Yes,
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2010/05/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-emerich-de-vattel/
Yes, the various notes of attendees (Madison included), indicated Mr. Luther Martin referenced or read from Locke, Vattel, Summers, Priestly and maybe Rutherford in support of a position that States are equal to each other as like individuals are equal to each other in a state of nature. Beyond that, we are not sure what he quoted and it may be that those that took notes found there attention lacking. Apparently, Mr. Martin went on for some time, which according to William Pierce was normal for Mr. Martin:
No problem….Trust me, I am no where close to being one of those birther idiots….
Since Meryl is far more convincing than Orly, such a movie might spawn a whole new batch of birthers.
Hell, she could probably convince me *I* am a space lizard and Obama is my mother… 😉
However I rather see this role going to a blonde Cher singing the birther anthems “If I could turn back time” and “Believe”…
“Do you believe he’s natural born?
He has shown no birth certificate
I really don’t think he’s duly sworn, ohhh…”
[to the melody of “Believe”]
The verse could start like this:
“He has no citizen papa
Was he born in Kenya?
Well, I don’t know that
And it’s driving me mad…”
*lol* I should write for these guys for money. 😉
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First, this is spam. Second, as a NYS licensed optician, I can say that the Bates program has been flying around for decades, and it is nonsense. It has been thoroughly discredited.
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