We’ve been tracking legislation in 14 states that in some way limits access to the ballot for President and Vice President to persons who prove they are eligible for the office. These are popularly called “birther bills” because some of them include language designed to exclude Barack Obama’s published Certification of Live Birth1 as proof of where he was born. Many demand a certified photocopy of the original certificate filed by the hospital with the State of Hawaii (the so-called “long form”), rather than the standard computer-generated form the State now issues. The birth certificate Obama released shows that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961, but it doesn’t include the name of the hospital or the doctor who delivered him.2
The chairman of the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee, David Bates, says that their bill will be amended so that it does not go into effect until 2013, proving that the bill is not about Obama. House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt issued a statement opposing the bill in any form.
Extensive coverage of the New Hampshire is being provided by the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper.
Update: The House Election Law Committee voted 18-0 to recommend that the bill be rejected by the full House. The bill is being put on an expedited list for a full vote with no debate.
See also:
- Obama Conspiracy Theories list of “Birther Bills”
- Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate Doesn’t Really Say He Was Born in Hawaii
- Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate is a forgery – Part 1
1Hawaii’s Certification of Live Birth form has come under such derisive attack from Obama eligibility deniers, that the State has since renamed it a “Certificate of Live Birth”, the term used by most other states. Misinformation about this document is widespread, and we have given it extensive coverage on this web site over the past 2 years.
2Birthers contend that Barack Obama’s parents fraudulently registered him as being born at home, while really being born in Kenya. The “long form” would distinguish between a hospital birth and a home birth. So far President Obama has not given permission for the release of this long form birth certificate, and so it remains protected from disclosure by Hawaiian law.
AAAAAAND it’s dead
The Union Leader
For your list: Arkansas H.B. 2020.
I had written this up, but it didn’t get saved. Will do again.
Being a NH native, it is refeshing that my former home state still has some sanity left. Even the comments were fairly reasonable (with the exception of the odd birther nut). And considering the Union (mis)Leader is fairly right wing, going back to the 1960s with Editor In Cheif and owner, William Loeb (who was a Bircher), and his wife Nacky, who would publish their “editorials” on the front page, it says a lot.
As a NH native, how do you feel the proposed new limitations on out-of-state college students will be received?
“””In New Hampshire, Republicans are pushing to end rules that allow same-day voter registration in the state, which has often provided key swing votes for candidates from all parties in the state. State GOP lawmakers are also proposing new limits on students, including a bill that would allow them to vote in college towns only if they or their parents had established permanent residency in the state.”””
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110308/ts_yblog_theticket/ahead-of-the-2012-campaign-states-debate-voting-rights
funny thing obama family pal, the governor of HI, is still looking for his original birth certificate
fact remains he hasn’t found it yet
he fired the DOH chief that he nominated for not finding it
and
obama has spent nearly $3 million defending over 100 lawsuits against showing
ANY of his records
something stinks here
and people of America deserve to know if Obama is eligible
because he is just plain ruining this nation with unabated spending
socialism and marxist policies
furthermore in NONE of obama’s cases he never , ever said he was
a natural born citizen
his defense is always : no standing, no jurisdiction, no reason to reply,
etc
I personally find it rather sad and pathetic. Most colleges are rather small, and won’t impact local elections very much, and UNH is in Durham, which is pretty much the University and nothing more, so the half dozen or so townies shouldn’t complain. As for impacting state-wide elections, even UNH is only 15k students. Of these 15K, over 60% of which are actually NH in-state. The smaller schools have even larger precentages of in -state students. I recognize that NH has always had a “welcome to NH…check out the folliage, stop by our liquor stores conveniently located on the highway, enjoy our tax free shopping….now go the heck back home!!!” attitude, but this is just an attempt to use that “NH charm” to simply disenfranchise young, and generally liberal student voters. And the people that it is impacting most, are actually NH residents, which makes it even more a cheap ploy….but why am I suprised. The NH Republican party is not the NH Republican party I joined when I turned 18 (and have long since departed from). This is the Republican party, where the party chair goes to prison for hatching an illegal scheme to jam the telephones of the Democratic Party HQ on election night.
Wow…what a great collection of birther wet dreams!! I don’t think there is a single correct statement in that whole post (and we’re up to $3 mil now? I’m still waiting for proof of him spending $3).
The President doesn’t decide who has standing or jurisdiction, that is the responsibility of the judges.
Too bad, so sad that birthers can’t even overcome the basic requirements for having a valid case. The burden of proof is on the accusers, not on President Obama. The President isn’t getting special treatment. That’s the law in this country. If you were accused of something you didn’t do, your attorney would advise you to force your accusers to prove your wrongdoing.
So the mythical legal bill has gone up another $1M? Where do you people get these numbers? Come on. Use your noodle. It would take thousands of billable hours by Perkins Coie’s top partners to run up a $3M bill.
As far as no reason to reply, it bugs the cr@p out of you birthers that the President is ignoring you doesn’t it? Coz a black man is supposed to show you his papers when you ask, isn’t he. ” Listen to what I’m telling you, boy”, isn’t that right? You can’t stand that there’s a black man in the White House.
Well, the only portion of your post that is correct is the “nut job” being part of your name. Everything else is a bunch of crazy talk by an obviously mentally disturbed fool.
Pure infantile dribble like yours is so easy to refute, so here ya go:
1. FAIL #1: Abercrombie gave up his search many weeks ago. Get with the program.
2. FAIL #2: No connection between jobs over at the DOH and Obama’s BC, except in your diseased fantasy mind.
3. FAIL #3: Oh so its $3 Mill now, eh? So that’s the latest hyper-inflated made up number you birthers want to pull out of your butt… LOL! What a joke. Sorry, still NO evidence that more that the most minimal pittance is being spent defending these frivolous birther cases. Any money being wasted would be more on the birther side than a defense that barely has to do anything but file a basic motion to dismiss at best. Obama is not even the defendent in most of them…so FAIL twice there. Speaking of failing…how’s the birther record in court. ZERO. Yah. Sucks to be you.
Hate to tell ya, but standing, injury and jurisdiction ARE key criteria for merit to a case. Not meeting ANY of those criteria is why these birther cases are as frivolous as they get and require hardly any cost at all to defend. They practically throw themselves out in the trash they are so ill founded (and often poorly worded).
You birthers are a joke, the birther “lawyers” are pathetic losers with an unbroken record of FAIL and your little foot stomping just displays your utter ignorance of how American law works.
The only thing that stinks here is the smell of desperate and pathetic birther. That’s you. Keep crying while Obama continues to serve as POTUS for the next 2-6 years.
Funny thing, nothing you have said is true. He never claimed he couldn’t find it. He never claimed he was every going to release an “original long form”. The Director was fired because he is under investigation by the state. $3 million? Are you sure it’s not $2? The number changes everytime a birther opens his mouth. Do you have any proof he spent $3 million? Can you point to actual expenditures and to whom? Socialism and Marxism don’t go hand in hand. Tell us the tenets of Marxism and how they apply to Obama. Obama hasn’t personally been defending any of those cases so why would he actually say anything during the cases?
So why has the stock market almost doubled sionce he took office? Please let me have just a bit more ruination and I will be set for life.
[Comments added, in boldface to John’s comment. Doc.]
There is no long-form birth certificate. [Yes there is.] Abercrombie has stated that. [No, he didn’t] Hawaii has run interference to protect Abercrombie by citing privacy laws. [The law is the same for everybody.] Dr. Corsi has investigated the firing of the new DOH director and believes there is a connection between it and Obama. [Corsi believes all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories. His beliefs are not evidence.] Unfortunately, Abercrombie is hush on the whole thing. [No, he doesn’t.]
NH has demonstrated to [sic] insuring the eligibility of presidential candidates is viewed as direct attack on Obama and should not be done. [They were correct.]
In fact the states know Obama ineligible [no, they don’t] and that such laws would be a problem for Obama. [No, they wouldn’t.] They do not [want to] legitimize the birthers by creating a law which [sic] will keep Obama off the ballot because simply can’t produce the papers. [They don’t want to appear as fools by passing laws to keep Obama off the ballot, only to be snookered by the documents they are asking for.]
Ain’t THAT the truth! Here are the facts:
January 20, 2009: Obama is Inaugurated
January 20, 2009: 8,279.63 Open
January 20, 2009: 7,920.66 Close
—
Today, March 9, 2011, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average closed at:
12,213.09.
Time for you to run away and hide now farleftliberalnutjob.
As far as this being all about Obama, I think what’s most telling is that I haven’t yet seen one of these bills show any concern about the Constitutional qualifications for Senators and Representatives. Some of them don’t even mention the Vice President.
Just how many lies can one birther cram into a rant? Whatever that number is, I think you may be close to setting a record.
That was quick. I wonder if ‘not about Obama’ means ‘we’ll accept a COLB’ and is the death knell for birther bills – once someone says that, the birthers are against it and the rest don’t care…
There really is no point in feeding the trools, is there?
Really, it couldn’t matter less what color Barry is, and it dosen’t matter about his birth certificate. What matters is ELIGIBILITY, TREASON, and the CONSTITUTION.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=272105
What matters is the internet rumor that barnyard animals become skittish when Joseph Farah is near. I’m not accusing Joseph Farah of taking liberties with sheep or other ruminants, but why hasn’t Joseph Farah denied this?
Nope, sorry, it’s MONEY that matters in the USA
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/randy-newman/its-money-that-matters.html
And the answer to those questions would be:
Obama is and always has been eligible.
The birthers are full of treason and fail and have no understanding of how the Constitution works.
Like the birthers, WND is nothing but a trash rag full of sore losers and liars that constantly whine all the time. Sucks to be you and sucks to be them.
I don’t know if you’ll be back, but if you are, please understand that citing WorldNetDaily is not considered an argument here, but an admission of a mental defect.
Barry Goldwater was guilty of treason? I had no idea.
Goldwater was born when Arizona was a territory, not a state. Uh, oh.
I have a comment related to the WND article that msbetz helpfully linked to. That WND article itself is an unremarkable rehash of previous WND birther stories, but the author is a Monte Kuligowski, and at the bottom of the article is says his claim to fame is he once published an article in the “Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy.” It gives a link to an on-line copy of the article, here. I don’t know anything about this journal, and I am not a lawyer, but this article is clearly a pile of crap.
It begins by reviewing the Supreme Court’s rulings on how to determine if a law is unconstitutional on the basis of the 1st amendment’s religion clause, then uses those tests on the Declaration of Independence(!) and concludes that the Supreme Court would say the Declaration was unconstitutional and “offensive.” He apparently didn’t notice that the Declaration is not a law, so the Courts rules about unconstitutional laws have nothing to do with it. But having made this error, he then in some giant leap of illogic proceeds to propose rethinking the Court’s decisions about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with religion.
=================================================================
Perhaps a link to Donfrio’s blog will cheer you up:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/the-house-of-representatives-definition-of-natural-born-citizen-born-of-citizen-parents-in-the-us/
“…Representative Bingham (of Ohio), stated on the floor:
“As to the question of citizenship I am willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States. That Dr. Houard is a natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt. He was born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day, he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth.” …”
There you have it: according to John Bingham, Obama is not eligible for US presidency.
> according to John Bingham, Obama is not eligible for US presidency
And again you fail basic set logic.
“Born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States” is a sufficient condition, but Bingham didn’t say it was a necessary one.
If I say “I have a long ancestry of German citizens and was born in Germany, undoubtedly I am a German citizen”, I did not state that you absolutely need a “long ancestry of German citizens” to be a German citizen.
Funny thing is, had he said “He was born within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day, he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth”, you would have claimed he does not know what “natural born citizen” means, the Pest-and-eFail would have sent him letters “educating” him on Constitution 101 etc.
====================================================================
He said what he said. I understand that you would rather divert the debate.
There are several quotes from Bingham in the article, try this one:
Then in 1866, Bingham also stated on the House floor:
“Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
If parental citizenship/allegiance was not important why mention it at all?
> $3 million? Are you sure it’s not $2? The number changes everytime a birther opens his mouth.
As with any good rumour, the number simply increases over time. Next year, they’ll say “$5 billion”. In 2015, way into Obama’s second term, they will probably claim that 95% of government spending goes into “Obama hiding his records”. After all, someone will have to outdo the “$200 million/day trip” crap, and birthers are so inventive when it comes to outcrapping themselves.
> furthermore in NONE of obama’s cases he never , ever said he was
a natural born citizen
> his defense is always : no standing, no jurisdiction, no reason to reply
I have sued you three times in German courts because you allegedly had sex with a donkey. They were all dismissed, of course, because of my lack of standing. However you never, ever said you did not have sex with a donkey. What can I infer from that?
Eligibility is not determined by dead Senators, dead Swiss philosophers, dead English judges or dead American Revolutionaries. It is not even determiined by living American judges. Eligibility is SOLELY and ENTIRELY determined by living American voters. They determined that Barack Obama is eligible and that is the final word.
No elected President can EVER be ineliigiible.
That he is waiting for the movie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6kxswnHn3c&feature=related
While it is true that none of the court cases got that far, Obama has, in fact, sworn under oath that he is eligible for the Presidency. Affidavits to that effect are required in many states to be on the primary ballot. Here is a candidate handbook from Arkansas which states as follows on page 17, “Must file a signed affidavit with the secretary of the state committee of the political party stating that the candidate is eligible to serve in the office he or she seeks” http://www.state.ar.us/sbec/pdfs/2010_candidate_handbook.pdf
I haven’t exhaustively researched how many states have such a requirement, but since he was on the ballot in all 50 states in 2008, it is safe to say that he has sworn to his eligibility multiple times.
By the way Arkansas defines Presidential eligibility as follows (page 8):
* Must be born a U.S.citizen
* Must be a U.S. resident for fourteen (14) years
* Must be a minimum of thirty-five (35) years of age
Donofrio is an erstwhile lawyer, and fifth rate poker player.
Leo: if you read this, please sue me. I need the publicity.
Your particular argument is a fallacy, since Bingham did not state the naturalization of the parents as a requirement. You might have done better to quote Bingham when he said that citizens were those born in the United States to:
Note that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 debated here ended up with the language “not subject to any foreign power.”
The naive reader might consider this a slam dunk argument that Barack Obama wouldn’t have been born a citizen in 1866 (before the 14th Amendment) but that might not be correct. The arguments of the Civil Rights Act, and the 14th Amendment acknowledged that these only affirmed the Constitution, corrected Dred Scott, and made the freed slaves citizens. If that is so then “not subject to any foreign power” must be consistent with the state of things pre-Dred Scott and it is clear that the understanding of citizenship, not defined in the Constitution, comes from Lord Coke’s report of Calvin’s Case, where it is stated that the children of aliens are natural born subjects. It is reasonable to interpret Bingham’s formula as referring solely to the same excluded classes recognized in Calvin’s case, namely the children of foreign ambassadors and invading armies, those not subject to local allegiance. This works because the Untied States does not recognize a person’s allegiance to a foreign country except in those two cases. If we just added “under US Law” to the end of Bingham’s comment (and any act being argued in Congress is under US Law) then it agrees with my contention.
First of all, there is no diversion of debate here. Sadly, both you and D’Onofrio are so desperate to find anything that supports your interpretation of things, that you desperately import context that does not exist to them.
What you both repeatedly FAIL to grasp is how simple conditionals work in our language.
Just because this congressman pointed out that someone was born BOTH on US soil AND happened to have parents who were BOTH US citizens does NOT mean that ALL of those conditions must be satisfied.
You’ve obviously never seen a Venn Diagram. In simplest terms of US NBC, there are two key conditions which can grant NBC status:
1. Born on US soil = NBC
2. Born to a US citizen = NBC
Where those two circles overlap, you just have the same result. EITHER one fully satisfies the condition. If you have both, well then, *duh* of COURSE you’ve satisifed the conditiion.
Same issue with a US citizen parent or BOTH US citizen parents. One is suffient. Both obviously works too.
So, just because this particular citizen happened to hit all of those marks – EACH one which speaks to that citizen’s qualifications to be NBC on its own (and therefore, each worthy of mention), does NOT in any way imply that ALL of those conditions are required for NBC. They merely state that individual’s circumstances, nothing more.
So FAIL again.
And further, FAIL for replying to a comment pointing out how quoting WND will not earn one any credibility here by quoting the wacky and deluded losing lawyer Leo Donofrio.
You are hopelessly misled because you chose to gullibly fall for the nonsense prattlings of such fools.
Not even Nixon.
There is a persistent internet rumor that barnyard animals become skittish when Joseph Farah is near. He has never denied it. I wonder why.
Bingham said:
“EVERY human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…”
He was not describing one particular individual. It looks to me that he provided a definition of what the natural born citizen is.
Your theory that born to a US citizen = NBC is false. We know that by examining the histrory of naturalization laws. A child born to a foreign father was not a US citizen.
Again like most birthers you misunderstand the meaning of words. That Every human is talking about everyone born to parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is an NBC. He does not say that this is the only requirement and no others can be NBC. You’re putting words in his mouth that don’t apply.
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! The naturalization laws applied only to those born OUTSIDE the US. Those born in the US were and are automatic citizens and are not covered by the naturalization laws. Do you think anyone born in the US ever went through a naturalization ceremony or swore an oath of naturalization? Show me someone who did. I dare you! Go ahead, punk, make my day!!
FAIL!
You really need to quit while you’re behind, NC1.
Of course EVERY one who meets those conditions will be NBC.
But that statement NEVER EVER says NOR implies that every NBC must meet all of those conditions.
Two completely DIFFERENT things.
Try this:
1. EVERY red Chevy 2008 Cobolt is a CAR.
2. EVERY car is a red Chevy 2008 Cobolt.
Obviously the FIRST statement is TRUE and the second one is FALSE. That is because the FIRST does NOT in any way IMPLY the SECOND.
Oh yeah? Seriously??
Show me this evidence you have in the “history of naturalization laws” where a child BORN on US SOIL to a foreign father was NOT a US Citizen. (other than known exceptions for diplomats and such).
You can’t because you are wrong and just full of BS again. Keep failing away there NC1.
Please apply yor red Cobalt theory to the following sentence written by Bingham:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
According to you this is not a complete definition of US citizenship.
Well, now you’ve moved the goalposts to general citizenship and changed the sentence reference completely.
Notice that sentence contains an OR???
That is what is called the conditional that we’ve told you about repeatedly.
So, by this sentence:
1. Person BORN in the US = US Citizen
2. Person NATURALIZED in the US = US Citizen
If EITHER of these two conditions happens, the result is US CITIZEN.
This is a completely different example than what you gave before, because it is an EITHER/OR situation leading to the same result.
Either you are BORN here (NBC) or you BECOME a citizen through NATURALIZATION. Either way, the end result is US CITIZENSHIP.
So, you’ve completely changed the previous car analogy by changing the sentence. To put that analogy into this new sentence, it would read something like saying:
“All Chevy Cobolts or Ford Escalades are cars”.
(A Chevy Cobolt is a car, a Ford Escalade is also car, but a Chevy Cobolt is NOT a Ford Escalade)
ALSO, for your previous stupid arguments of not understanding how the plural form is used properly in the English language, note how your own quote example is phrased:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
This is how US English works. The plural is refering to the general ONE OR MORE in addressing the encompassing term of ALL. It does NOT require MORE THAN ONE to apply.
A single person BORN or NATURALIZED in the US = US CITIZEN.
By your previous silly arguments on the 2-parent nonsense (which you always get wrong) – your incorrect understanding of how the plural is used in English would equate to this statement meaning that somehow multiple people must be born or naturaralized here in order for US citizenship. Can you now see how nonsensical that type of interpretation of the use of plural form is?
There is no evidence in the history of naturalization law that a person born in the US to a foreign father was not a citizen (unless his father was a diplomat). NONE.
Uhhh, what about Wong Kim Ark? Wong was born to a foreign father, and was declared by the US Supreme Court to be a US citizen.
Indeed it isn’t a complete definition of US citizenship.
Consider, for example, a person born to US citizens overseas. Such a person is a citizen, but they are not born in the United States nor naturalized in the United States. And if you think that’s hooey, look at the Supreme Court case of Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971) where the Court declared that some citizens are not covered by the 14th Amendment.
NC One, Bingham’s statement is somewhat ambiguous, owing to the uncertainty of what
“of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty” means. Does it dovetail with English common law, meaning that the parents do not owe allegiance to a foreign power while they’re residing in the U.S. unless they’re part of an invading army or are foreign diplomats — or does it mean that they still owe allegiance to a foreign power if they are yet citizens of a foreign nation while residing in the U.S.?
So lay your bet on how the Supreme Court would rule. The four most liberal members are not likely to see it your way, and Justice Scalia isn’t overly fond of “legislative intent,” which is what you seem to be implying here. His view, if I recall correctly from a a debate he had with Justice Breyer, is that the legislative debate leading to the adoption of a law — or in this case, a constitutional amendment — is less than persuasive because the most voluble members of the legislative body would then get their views enshrined in the legislation, while others who have a different take on the meaning of the language but don’t speak up so much, would get short shrift. Legislation is often a compromise, so the two opposing sides that come together in a compromise usually leave with a different take on the real significance of the measure.
This is part of Scalia’s textual method of interpreting the Constitution and laws; applying what he understands to be the commonly understood meaning of the terms in the statute or amendment, at the time of enactment.
Bottom line: I don’t think he would feel bound by Bingham’s words, and certainly not by your interpretation thereof.
“the use of legislative history is illegitimate and ill advised in the interpretation of any statute” Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489 (2006) (Scalia, J., concurring)
He is more direct in his book, “A Matter of Interpretation, Federal Courts and the Law”, (1997).
“I will consult the writings of some men who happened to be delegates to the Constitutional Convention – Hamilton’s and Madison’s writings in the Federalist, for example, I do so, however, not because they were Framers and therefore their intent is authoritative and must be law; but rather because their writings, like other intelligent and informed people of the times, display how the text of the Constitution was originally understood. Thus I give equal weight to Jay’s pieces in the Federalist, and Jefferson’s writings, even though neither of them was a Framer. 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.“
Others here have demonstrated pretty clearly that you just aren’t getting conditional reasoning. (“All X are Y” is not the same as saying “Only X are Y.” Did you know that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares?) But, Bingham said other things about citizenship. Here’s something he said the decade before the 14th Amendment was written:
Note that he didn’t say that “all free persons born here of citizen parents…”
If you were really interested in exploring the history of naturalization laws, you’d read “Defining American” by James Ho:
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2007,0212-ho.pdf
And “The Citizenship Clause: A legislative History” by Garrett Epps:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1627665
And The Development of American Citizenship by James Kettner.
For the contrary view, you could read Citizenship without Consent by Schuck and Smith. (Even here, though, you’ll find an argument that the children of illegal aliens shouldn’t be, you won’t find an argument that the children of aliens (legal or illegal) weren’t citizens.)
If you look at any real lawyer or legal historian, you’ll find nothing to support your fantasy.
Some day, perhaps in our lifetimes, a child born to an illegal immigrant will become president: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html
Better get used to it. It’s going to happen. And it’s constitutional.
NC1 and friends have a problem. They want the 14th Amentment to say “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the EXCLUSIVE (or SOLE) jurisdiction thereof…” However, the text does not contain the word EXCLUSIVE nor the word SOLE. Perhaps one or another of the writers of the amendmment meant to include one of those words. We will never know for sure. But what we do know is that whatever they intended, those words are not in the final text.
Similarly, with the natural born citizen clause. It could have been written “Natural born citizen EXCLUSVELY (or SOLELY) of the United States”. It wasn’t. If you want to exclude dual citizens you need to do so clearly and explicitly. By the way, the Lithuanian constitution specifically bars dual citizens from the Presidency. Former President Valdas Adamkus lived most of his life in the US and was a naturalized US citizen (yet retained his Lithuanian citizenship). He had to renounce his US citizenship in order to run for office in Lithuania.
I thought I would give the birhters here a little clinic in logic…
If the statement ‘IF (A) THEN (B)’ is true, then we can say the following:
1) The contrapositive (‘IF (not B) THEN (not A)’) is also true.
2) The contradiction (‘(A) and (not B)’) is false.
We can not infer anything about the truth value of:
3) The inversion (‘IF (not A) THEN (not B)’).
4) The conversion (‘IF (B) THEN (A)’)
except that they are the same (i.e. they are either both true or both false). Now let’s take a look at:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Logically, this has the form: (5) IF ((A or B) and C) THEN (E and F)
where
A = a person is born in the US
B = a person is naturalized in the US
C = a person is subject to the jurisdiction of the US (in context, this should be qualified by ‘at birth’ since people do not lose citizenship by leaving the jurisdiction of the US… I believe that Perkins v. Elg is the appropriate precedent)
D = a person is a citizen of the US
E = a person is a citizen of the state in which they reside
If (5) is true, then we also know that
(6) ((A or B) and C) and (not (E and F)) is false
and
(7) IF (not (E and F)) THEN (not ((A or B) and C)) is true
or, alternatively,
(8) not ((A and C and not E) or (A and C and not F) or (B and C and not E) or (B and C and not F))
and
(9) IF (not E or not F) THEN (not A or not C) or (not B or not C)
(8) gives us a list of counter-examples to the statement (if you can find someone born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction who is not a citizen of the state where they reside then you have falsified the original statement (5).
(9) tells us that if you are not a citizen of the US (or the state where you reside) then you were either not born in the US or not subject to the jurisdiction of the US at your birth (or that you were not naturalized in the US*)
*While logically this should be ‘not naturalized in the US or not subject to the jurisdiction of the US’, from a practical point of view ‘jurisdiction’ seems to pertain only to birth on the soil, not naturalization…
I hope this will prevent any more birther misunderstanding about logic…
Note to birthers: (1) If you don’t understand this, then your opinions on the law are equivalent to the opinion of a child who’s having trouble learning addition on how to solve a calculus problem; and (2) Now, the next time an Obot tells you ‘you’ve assumed the conversion’ you have the option of saying, ‘I’m sorry – it wont happen again’ or looking like an idiot…
I don’t think even that would make any difference. From the point of US law (and this is a point of view the birthers have a hard time getting their arms around), the jurisdiction of the US within its borders is absolute. US law does not recognize the allegiance of an alien to their home country unless it make a law or treaty to that effect (e.g. in the case of ambassadors).
Well done and a very comprehensive and scholarly effort, SB!
I recommend that any time one of those logic-impared birthers rears their heads with such fallacious arguments that we just repost your response here to them each time.
Good luck.
Using logic (boolean or otherwise) won’t work.
These people work by “association.”
ie: Obama’s friend was Ayers, Ayers was a terrorist, therefore Obama is a terrorist.
It’s as hard for us to understand their reasoning as it is for them to understand ours.
And quite frankly, they don’t *want* to know the truth.
So whether it’s a fact or a truth table, it won’t change their attitude.
ALL they want is the scary black man to disappear.
No fact or argument will ever change this.
Black people have been lynched for decades without any more info other than they were black.
That’s all the info they want or need to know.
Take a look at Lamecherry’s blog and tell me logic will ever counter hatred like that.
(also thanks to Doc regarding the typo corrections and deletions. Sorry if my methods were a bit tactless, but I have no email right now.)
NC One, your assertion that the child born in the US of a non-citizen parent can be tested. Logically, such a person would have to be naturalized to become a US citizen. I understand that naturalization records exist far back in our country’s history. All you jhave to do, then, is find naturalization records for people with US birthplaces. Go ahead.
Make my day.
Unfortunately no birther will ever do that, because they will never do honest research that might result in them being wrong.
I think a very important clarification needs to be made here.
These people work by any “loose association” that they can use to justify their ginned up hate, fear and resentment and will willfully turn a blind eye to ignore any associations that don’t fit and support their preconceived meme.
The real evidence at hand does not support that Ayers was an actual “friend” of Obama’s. An associate at best and one who generally supported democratic candidates. Making it out to be more than it was just plays into the false memes these hateful fools push.
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Context, NC1, context! (You too, Leo!) Bingham wasn’t arguing a definition of NBC and wasn’t arguing for some imaginary exclusion for NBC. Bingham was arguing for U.S. intervention on behalf of John Emile (Juan Emilio) Houard, an American expatriate.
Bingham was simply citing Houard’s background. Houard, though an American citizen of Spanish Cuban ancestry, had relocated some thirty years before to the land of his parents. (Do I dare go Michelle Obama, and call it his “homeland”?) Subsequently, he became involved in Cuban revolutionary activity and was arrested by the Spanish Cuban government.
The interventionist argument hinged on Houard’s being an American citizen. The anti-interventionists argued that American citizen or not, Houard had long ago expatriated himself and was living under the jurisdiction and allegiance of Spain, and the matter was no concern of the U.S. (It’d be a worthwhile project to see if Spain considered him to be a Spanish subject by ancestry, irrespective of his U.S. citizenship.)
> He had to renounce his US citizenship in order to run for office in Lithuania.
And it is obvious that Lithuania, as common sense dictates, only cares about whether their president is *currently* a dual citizen, not if he was one at birth or ever in his life.
Birthers somehow believe that allegiance is encoded in DNA and transfered by sperm (making it a difference whether someone’s parents naturalized one day before or one day after birth) and that a baby’s “allegiance at birth” is somehow more important than his allegiance today. (In that regard, “natural born” is an anachronism anyway since almost every country allows naturalized citizens to take any office, though with time limitations in some cases. I don’t see how a person’s allegiance is determined by whether he was born 1 mile inside or 1 mile outside the border.)
Oh, I know one. But he’s not going to like it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya
The same thing in Australia. Normally, naturalized citizens of Australia have to renounce the other nationality to sit as a national MP. It does not seem to apply to Nicole Kidman, as she was born an Australian NBC in Hawaii. So she could according to one interpretation of the law, run for the Australian Parliament and the US presidency simultaneously. And there does not seem to be anything in Australian law stopping her from being Governor General of Australia AND US President. Showing that sometimes at least, you need to rely on the good sense of the voters.
It is known that not all Australian MPs have renounced dual citizenship, of course, and the law has basically been ignored for some time, because, well, some countries do not allow you to renounce your citizenship. Pauline Hanson, Australia’s prime tea bagger material, once accused several Australian MPs (including the present-day Prime Minister) of never having renounced their dual nationality. Then in February 2010, she announced she would retire from Australian politics and … go BACK to Blightey. Turned out that she did not need a visa, because she had a British passport – probably on account of her grandfather having been British, nevertheless a passport that must have been difficult to obtain and renew all those years, while she was in Parliament. In July 2010, she returned from England, having found it is even fuller (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZD.html) of w.gs, n…ers and other obnoxious folks than Australia. She is now standing as a candidate at the next regional elections. I wonder what MichaelN thinks about her and her politics.
Both Eisenhower and Obama had lost dual citizenship automatically when they were 25 and 23 respectively.
Interestingly, in the last year of his presidency, Vladimir Putin proposed a change to Russia’s citizenship laws that would give the right to appeal for Russian citizenship to all people of “Ancient Russian” descent – including Belarusians, Ukrainians, Rusyns AND the indigenous people of present or former Russian possessions (Siberia, Alaska, and perhaps even part of Oregon). Having read Wikipedia’s article on Palin’s husband, I understand that would make him and their children and grandchildren potential Russian citizenship. The proposal is in the doldrums now that Putin is Prime Minister, but it could surely be revived before 2012. Perhaps with an amendment granting the same right to their spouses, and automatic mailing of the passport if they have ever publicly claimed a link (bridge or window) to Russia?
So, the argument that disqualifying dual citizens would put candidates at the mercy of foreign governments (and Canadian hospitals) is not really so virtual after all.
Actually, if one embraces globalization (which I do), it is inevitable anyway that one day someone of Australian descent would “rule over the US” (or vice versa).
After all, no-one complains that a US president coming from Hawaii is ruling over people from Massachusetts. In the end, it’s all just lines drawn on a map, and “allegiance” is a principle of the character, not of blood or law.
The German chancellor must only have voting rights for the federal parliament, i.e. be at least 18 years of age and a German citizen (dual citizenship not excluded).
So, theoretically speaking, we can naturalize an 18-year-old Muslim Afghan (or Schwarzenegger, for that matter) while allowing him to keep Afghan citienship and the parliament can elect him chancellor the next day.
Of course I could imagine that, should such a thing ever happen, some fringe groups will start doubting if that is “lawful” as well…
MagicM/Paul: While I can see potential issues with someone who leads one country while holding current (as opposed to past) citizenship in another, it shouldn’t be a legal matter. It’s a political issue which an opponent is free to raise and which voters should be free to judge. Certaiinly, US law takes no notice of whether a candidate holds or might be entitled to other citizenships, nor should it. It’s up to the voters to weigh that along with everything else when they go into the votiing booth.
It seems to be a common practice from those on both sides of the discussion here to consider the words ‘jurisdiction’ and ‘allegiance’ as equivalent. I don’t believe they are, yet every discussion seem to bend them together, just as Doc has done here.
Jurisdiction (from the Latin ius, iuris meaning “oath” and dicere meaning “to speak”) is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility. The term is also used to denote the geographical area or subject-matter to which such authority applies.
(Definition from Wikipedia)
Therefore: a French tourist in New York is under the jurisdiction of the laws in effect in his locale. He has to obey the parking rules. Diplomats (and members of an invading army) are excluded from the jurisdiction of the local laws (thus all the unpaid parking tickets owed by United Nations personnel).
An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed by a subject or a citizen to his/her state or sovereign. (again Definition from Wikipedia)
Therefore: a French tourist in New York is still a Frenchman, and his allegiance is still to France. Diplomats (and members of an invading army) are not excluded from the allegiance they owe to France (thus they can speak for their government in their role as diplomat).
Can someone enlighten me on the justification for this continued usage, please? Is there some subtlety in usage that I am missing?
Unfortunately, your challenge falls under the category of equating absence of evidence with evidence of absence.
I disagree. JD Reed is challenging NC1 to come up with a counterexample (which would be compelling evidence in NC1’s favor). Since the burden of proof is on NC1, requiring him to find such a counter-example (or other credible evidence) before seriously considering his clams is reasonable, in my opinion.
Or to put it analogously using the car model from earlier:
If we make the following substitutions:
(1) ‘He was born’ = ‘The’
(2) ‘He was born of naturalized parents’ = ‘red’
(3) ‘within the jurisdiction of the United States’ = ‘Mustang,’
(4) ‘and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day,’ = ‘since it was built by the Ford Motor Company,’
(5) ‘he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth.” …”’ it is a Ford
We get the following result:
The red Mustang, since it was built by the Ford Motor Company, is a Ford.
We can change substitution number 2 to any color we want, and still get a true, sense making statement, as long as we leave all other substitutions intact. In fact, we can even set the color to null. It simply has no effect on the sentence at all except to add additional, superfluous, pointless, detail.
On the other hand, you get a completely different result, a false result, if you change substitution (4) to the following:.
(4a) ‘and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day,’ = ‘since it was built by the Honda Motor Company,’
If you leave (4) out altogether, you still get a result for which you cannot determine the truth value absent external knowledge.
Sorry, typo in substitution (2) above should be:
(2) of naturalized parents’ = red’
> It’s up to the voters to weigh that along with everything else when they go into the votiing booth.
Well, the birthers’ argument seems to be “what if someone deceived the voters in that regard”, that’s why they’re asking for possible legal remedies.
Of course, the remedy in a democracy is “the next elections”, as always.
My other argument against that is that nationality/citizenship is only a weak outside indicator anyway. Someone can be a “true blue US citizen” born on the steps of the White House to Babe Ruth and Joan Crawford and still secretly root for Cuba or the Taliban. Someone else can be a dual US-Russian citizen and still be willing to die for the US, should Russia ever wage war on them.
The problems begin when you start trying to tie someone’s feelings and ethical values to legal boundaries. As if that ever prevented politicians from being crooks, lazy, traitors or simply incompetent.
And the Founders were wise; they did not talk about dual citizenship, religion or any other external means by which to potentially judge the “moral and ethical fitness” for office.
I agree with Slart. Scientific proof is usually a matter of invalidating the null hypothesis at a defined level of confidence, which can never be 100%. In a drug study, for example, the null hypothesis is that there is no difference between those treated with drug vs placebo. If we show that the null hypothesis has less than a 5% chance of being true, then we consider the drug effective and allow it on the market. In the case of naturalizing people born in the United States, the 2000 census recorded 250,000,000 native-born citizens. Of those, 0 have been naturalized. In this case the null hypothesis (that people born in the US require naturalization) would have to be consiidered decisvely disproven.
Of course Obama did not deceive the voters about his father’s citizenship. In fact, he wrote a book in which it featured prominently.
QUANTIFY Scientist!
(meant to be an exclamation of agreement, like ‘testify!’ in a Southern Baptist church… ;-))
The other question about dual citizenship, which Vattelists have never been able to answer, is this – what happens to a natural-born citizen who later in life takes on dual citizenship? Is that person no longer a natural-born citizen?
It seems to me that the only way a natural-born citizen can lose that status is by renouncing his or her U.S. citizenship – i.e., no longer be a U.S. citizen at all.
I was born in New York to two U.S. citizen parents, so even the Vattelists would have to agree that I am a natural born citizen. However, my maternal grandmother was born in Ireland, which makes me eligible to apply for Irish citizenship. It would be up to the voters, not the birthers, to decide if my dual citizenship should keep me out of the White House.
Funny how the birthers use that to assert that his father was furrin and then forget that it proves it was common knowledge…
Most of the Vattelists I know say it doesn’t matter as an adult. It’s funny how they try to narrow it down to every possible way when you mention other cases of Dual Citizens or Fathers not naturalized. I had one bring up during Chester Arthur was that the father eventually naturalized so its not the same situation. They say because Obama had a father who wasn’t a citizen of the US any point in his life and Obama had dual citizenship at birth not through his own will that he’s disqualified.
Exactly. “Absence of evidence = evidence of absence” is a different reasoning than “until I have a counterexample to X, X must be true” (call that P1).
It is more like “because there is no proof for X, X must be false” (call that P2).
Let’s get to real-world examples.
P1. A claims that there is a prime number that is the sum of six cubes. Until A has proven that, I can still confidently contend that there is no such number.
P2. There is no proof that there are infinitely many prime twins (numbers where p and p+2 are prime). That however does not prove there are only finitely many.
In the first case, I do not say “it has been proven there is no such number”, I simply doubt there is such a number.
Birthers, for example, say “no-one remembers Obama from Occidental, that is proof he did not attend it”. That falls into P2 (assuming arguendo that this were true). If they said “until some witness turns up, I do not believe it”, that is P1.
Another example:
P1: “You claim that there are blue cows. This is outlandish since there is no record of any. So prove your claim by showing me one.”
Because the alternative would be impossible; I cannot prove that something does not exist, except mathematically.
P2: “There are no black sheep since I’ve never seen one.”
That is drawing a conclusion from incomplete knowledge.
So, in JD Reed’s case, he is saying “I don’t believe that there exists a naturalized citizen who was born on US soil, prove me wrong”, not “the fact that there I don’t know of any naturalized citizen who was born on US soil proves there is none”. Big difference, if you look deep enough. 🙂
So someone who knowingly, as an adult, takes on another ciitizenship is fine, but someone who has dual citizenship at birth through no action of their own and allows the other ciitizenship to lapse when they reach majority is a grave threat to national security? I wish Monty Python were still around to tackle that one!
Agreed. An important distinction. Well said.
This is why birthers can’t risk a robust understanding of logic…
Keith, I consider the challenge like what Einstein said: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Birthers consider the evidence they cannot get and presume they are stuck. Well, the Supreme Court hasn’t answered this directly, so I’ll just keep whining. But, if the world is like they imagine it would have effects and they could look for those effects. What would the world look like if the children of aliens were considered aliens? We’d see those children applying for naturalization. We’d see them hauled into court by disgruntled disinherited heirs looking to oust them from land – since aliens couldn’t own real estate in the early US. We’d see voters purged from voter rolls as non-citizens. We’d see debates about whether ethnic subgroups, like Germans in Pennslyvania, had sufficiently naturalized sonthat we could assume that all their children were really citizens.
The challenge above is simply one way if falsifying our claim – the children of aliens have always been considered citizens.
This is why birthers can’t risk a robust understanding of science… (it goes without saying that birthers can’t risk a robust understanding of law or the US Constitution ;-)).
Reminds me of when we talked about confirmation in my Philosophy of Science class in college, only we used the example: “all crows are black.”
A couple of years ago I came across a line of black birds perched on a power line, all black except one white one on the end. Needless to say that by the time I got my camera, they were gone.
Greg –
The problem is I’ve seen very few birthers claim that the child of an alien born on US soil isn’t a citizen. Some claim a child born of an illegal immigrant isn’t, but let’s leave that for now.
What they claim is that, despite there never being such a distinction in law, a “born citizen” or as they like to say “14th amendment citizen” is not a “natural born citizen”, and the latter category is the one that requires all these extra things (like citizen parents). Show them Wong Kim Ark and they say that the Court didn’t specifically call him natural born (they ignore that the lower court, whose ruling was affirmed, did specifically do so). They can move the goalposts indefinitely because they claim it’s never happened before, as they don’t see “citizen at birth” and “natural born citizen” as being the same.
I agree, however, this particular challenge was directed at nc1 who stated:
I agree, that is the reasonable, logical, scientific method to answer the question (but then consider who is being challenged).
However, the challenge doesn’t ask for mathematical proof. It implies a case by case examination of every individual who has ever lived in the USA to detect that one needle in a haystack.
100% Correct, again I agree completely.
However, since this it is impossible to examine every individual case, the fact that an example has not been found (yet) does not mean that one does not exist.
And anyway, isn’t that what the birthers are looking for in the immigration records from when Obama returned from Indonesia? Didn’t they want some document that showed he had naturalized and renamed himself after being adopted and taking on Indonesian citizenship or something stupid like that?
Hey, I’m still looking for proof of one fraudulent birth registration in Hawaii since it became state. [Not saying there are none, but I have looked and not found any.]