Theodore B. Olson
Last Sunday (March 20, 2010) an opinion piece appeared in the online edition of the Iowa State Daily. It was about birthers. Besides opinion, the article also included some misinformation. It said:
Theodore Olson, former solicitor general, points out that a natural-born citizen is born to two American parents on American soil.
Let’s not forget the rumors in 2008 that John McCain was ineligible for the office given his Aug. 29, 1936, birth on a naval base in the Panama Canal Zone, which was at the time controlled by the United States.
So, by Olson’s definition, McCain is a natural-born citizen, and our current president is not.
What Olson actually wrote (along with Laurence Tribe) in March 19, 2008, was:
…”natural born” includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation’s territory and allegiance. Thus, regardless of the sovereign status of the Panama Canal Zone at the time of Senator McCain’s birth, he is a “natural born” citizen because he was born to parents who were U.S. citizens.
The op-ed author also wrote, “Questioning the official story is never a bad idea.”
As mindless obedience to authority is bad, so is mindless skepticism.
One birther meme is the concept is that it is always justifiable to question the government. But when the “questions” have no legal or factual basis, such “questions” are an unproductive waste of time.
By all means: question the government, but only when reality is on your side.
“Sen. McCain has the support of Ted Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general. “The plain meaning of ‘natural born citizen’ includes persons who become citizens of this nation ‘naturally,’ that is, by virtue of their birth to parents who are citizens, particularly when the birth takes place on territory occupied and controlled by the United States, in Senator McCain’s case, a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone,” Olson says in a statement. But that is by no means a universally held view.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23415028/ns/nightly_news/
The source for the op-ed writer’s information, as it was published in the Iowa State Daily, was provided by a hyperlink to that source. (Something Dr. Conspiracy conveniently left out)
MSNBC quoted Olson.
You might think that, eventually, the birthers would notice that none of their claims stand up to scrutiny. Rational people would take this as an indication that they need to reexamine their position. Not the birthers, though.
I think NdH is banned, but I let this one through.
I didn’t see the hyperlink. I just searched for the Olson document and cited from it. Nevertheless, the text above specifically uses the word “includes” which does not limit natural born citizens to what he describes. So yes, natural born citizen includes those born to citizen parents. It also includes (as evidenced by my citation from Olson) those born in the United States within its territory and allegiance. You have to read the cases Olson cites to understand what he means by allegiance (not what birthers mean).
The category of hunting dogs INCLUDES pointers, setters, retrievers, etc. All pointers are hunting dogs, but not all hunting dogs are pointers. In Mr Olsen’s opinion, all those born to citizen parents are natural born citizens. That does NOT mean that all natural born citizens are born to citiizen parents.
Mr Olseo has never questioned the eligibility of Barack Obama. In fact he has publically agreed with him on a whole range of issues, including, the Muslim Center in Lower Manhattan, not defending DOMA, and his judicial appointments. It is offensive to attempt to twist Mr Olson into a birther, when he is quite the opposite.
Rectangles include squares. But, not all rectangles are squares.
I love how the author writes, “No, I didn’t just come out as a birther.”
Maybe he isn’t a birther.
But anyone who can twist the words of Ted Olson into birther mishmash should get an honorary birther plaque at the very least.
All birthers are fools. But, not all fools are birthers. Yep, that works.
“”natural born” includes…birth within a nation’s territory and allegiance.”
Not in Britain it doesn’t. Children of non-resident aliens born in Britain are not even given citizenship. Most countries have gotten rid of birthright citizenship and certainly don’t consider the children of aliens to be “natural born citizens”.
The US does. That is all that is pertinent to the topic of this forum.
Source?
And that is their loss.
Quadrilateral = citizen
Paralelogram = naturalized citizen
Rectangle = citizen at birth
Square = natural born Citizen (born in US, both parents US citizens)
NC1, while Greg was simply pointing out a flaw in your logic (necessary and sufficient conditions are not the same), your geometric analogy fails as there is no basis in law to distinguish between “citizen at birth” and “natural born citizen”.
What you’re doing is actually more like (within the realm of natural numbers):
numbers = citizens
even numbers = naturalized citizens
odd numbers = natural born citizens
numbers of the form 2n+1 = citizens at birth
(which is correct) and then claiming that the last two describe two disjoint sets of numbers (which is incorrect).
Could the British-born child of a Kenyan student and a British citizen grow up to be Prime Minister? The answer is YES.
Could the French-born child of a Hungarian citizen and a French woman of Greek-Jewish heritage grow up to be President of France? The answer is YES. In fact, in the latter case, that has already happened.
Perhaps the British law is the reason they are having so much difficulty integrating minorities into their culture and as a result have to deal with a wave of disaffected young people. Think about it. You are born in Britain and have no right to citizenship. You cannot vote or particpate in civil society. How much allegiance do you have? Yes, we have had home grown Islamic extemists but we also have home grown Aryan Nation extremists and I would be willing to bet there are more of the later than the former.
Mary,
The issue you mention is for children of NON RESIDENT ALIENS and as such they will return to their parents country of origin, with their parental citizenship.
The “disaffected youth” you allude to ARE citizens of the UK but come predominately from communities that have a very strong and deliberate tendency to insulate themselves from society as a whole in the UK.
These are I’m afraid tend to be heavily weighted to recent entrant, Moslem cultured groups (Venn diagram….Ones that exclude themselves are predominately Moslem but Moslem does not mean you exclude yourself).
The UK has a long tradition of immigrants coming in dirt poor (frequently in the old East End of London or the industrial North East and North West), integrating without dropping cultural identity and bettering themselves and their families and moving up and out.
The last migrations where this really occurred was post WW2 with Carribean families coming into the UK and post Uganda with ethnically Indian and Pakistani families. More doctors, accountants, paharmacists and small business owners than you can shake a stick at.
Since then, communities that have migrated to the UK have tended (emphasis on the word, tended) to be inward, insular and non integrational.
This leads to a vicious feedback circle of “Not integrating and being insular > Prejudice because they don’t do so > Become more non integrating and insular”
I might add, probably the biggest bugbear for the majority in the UK (with regard to these isolated sets) is that religion is regarded as solely and wholly a personal matter, not relevant to an individual, not to be flaunted or imposed on others and wholly irrelevant to politics.
Religion, the avowedly religious and the impostion of rules on anyone based on religious dogma is therefore regarded as rather suspicious and certainly not British. Tolerance is expected to be a two way street and where this is seen to be not working, this also leads to the feedback loop that can lead to prejudice both overt and covert.
This is of course a broad brush stroke and isn’t intended to answer all the issues about poverty, race and social mobility in the UK.
YMMV
I agree that the UK’s departure from jus soli in 1983 was a mistake. However, it is worth noting that the UK is more likely than you think to give those born in the UK the ability to become British citizens.
For example, someone born in the UK who lives in the UK for the first ten years of his life is eligible under s. 1(4) British Nationality Act 1981 to be registered as a British citizen, provided that he or she spent more than 90 days outside the UK during those ten years.
Furthermore, someone born in the UK to parents who are not British will automatically be British from birth if either parent has settled status (lawful permanent residence) at the time of birth. Where either parent gains settled status after the birth of the child, the child can be registered as a British citizen under s. 1(3).
It should also be noted that those who lack British citizenship do not necessarily lack the ability to vote in the UK. Any Irish or Commonwealth citizen who is lawfully resident in the UK has the right to vote and stand for office in the UK. Any citizen of an EU member state who lives in the UK may vote or stand for office in UK elections for local government, regional government, and the European Parliament.
The US and Canada are unique in keeping strict laws on jus soli to the present day. However, in the context of the US, jus soli is such a strong tradition and constitutional requirement that I regard it as an inherent part of American exceptionalism. While there are other aspects of American exceptionalism that I do not enjoy, I do like the fact that the child of an African immigrant can be identified as unquestionably American from birth and become President in his adult life.
I still find it shocking that birthers can cling to the fantasy. Not a shred of case law supports them. No one has every argued it in the past 100 years. But still, they still hold on to it, as if it was a pillar of religion.
But then again, nc1 has shown himself to be very adept at operating in a reality optional world.
If you think that’s an appropriate parallel to what Olson said, then you have proven my point, that birthers are terrible at conditional reasoning.
In fact, most countries which used ius sanguinis, have moved towards ius solis. Belgium and Germany. Children of aliens who would not inherit any citizenship from their parents (because the other country uses strict ius soli, or the parents are from two different countries and happen to have the wrong sex) are natural born citizens. And children of Germans born after 31 December 1999 will no longer automatically be German citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law
I wonder what you mean by “birthright citizenship” by the way. The right to a nationality at birth is a human right guaranteed by the United Nations.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a15
equating “naturalized citizen” with “paralelogram” (sp) blows this analogy, since squares and rectangles qualify as parallelograms, making both a “citizen at birth” and a “natural born Citizen” qualify as a “naturalized citizen”.
d’oh!
G,
Mr. Olson was making a blanket statement. A general statement he was applying to the whole world. I disproved said statement. In addition no SCOTUS case has ever dealt solely with the definition of what an NBC is. Anything anyone says about that is purely opinion and nothing more.
Scientist,
Your argument is irrelevant since we are dealing with the US Constitution when examining Mr. Obama’s eligibility to be POTUS. The laws of other countries are no concern of mine.
Paul Pieniezny,
I don’t follow your logic at all. The link you provide says in the first sentence that German citizenship is based on jus sanguinis, “German citizenship is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis”. Your other points are wrong too. In addition I don’t even see the words “natural born” anywhere, it only says citizen. As for “birthright citizenship” it is commonly used to refer to jus soli citizenship.
It’s called Google learn to use it or you’ll look like a fool.
http://www.voiceforvoters.com/?p=47
So let me see one second you say you don’t care what other countries use then the next say you do. The fact is the US offers birthright citizenship based on where one is born. That’s all that matters.
The equal sign blows the analogy. It implies a tautological, not conditional relationship. It’s bidirectional unlike the IF/THEN relationship which is unidirectional.
“IF square THEN rectangle” is NOT the same as “square = rectangle.”
That seems to be what the birthers don’t get.
You don’t have to be a defensive a$$ unless you just can’t help it.
Were you born that way?
Also, if you make a claim then just back it up.
Demanding that others do it for you is lazy and cowardly.
Citing an obscure blog is really laughable especially since two of her citation links are 404 NOT FOUND or ACCESS DENIED. Pretty useless stuff but amusing nonetheless.
Are you new to the web?
i don’t expect most birfers to be familiar with the typographic conventions of math and logic, but it’s rarely necessary to get so technical in order to debunk their nonsense. when the content is worthless, criticizing the form becomes overkill.
Overkill? Perhaps.
When I get done here, I’m going to go re-spec my rogue in Dragon Age 2 to give her 80% chance to crit and north of 200% crit damage.
I’m all about the overkill!
That is a pointless argument. The fact is that the District Court in the Wong Kim Ark case ruled that he was natural born citizen, and the government conceded in its appeal brief that if the District Court decision were upheld, it meant that Wong Kim Ark was eligible to be President.
The District Court decision was upheld by SCOTUS without exception, so Wong Kim Ark was eligible to be President. There also are multiple cases in which SCOTUS has interchangeably used the terms “natural born citizen” and “native citizen. See, for example, Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9 (1913):
“Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects, save that of eligibility to the Presidency.”
Get it? Native born = eligible to be President.
You did not bother to read the second line. You did not bother to read the chapter about birth in Germany as a factor for German nationality. You did not bother to read the chapter about descent as a factor for German nationality. Here is what the 2000 law says about nationality through descent:
“A child born in a foreign country will no longer receive German citizenship automatically by birth, if his/her German parent was born after 31 December 1999 in a foreign country and has his/her primary residence there. Exceptions are:
1. The child would be stateless.
2. The German parent registers the child’s birth within one year of birth to the responsible German agency abroad.
In case both parents are German citizens, German citizenship will not be passed on automatically, if both parents were born abroad after 31 December 1999 and have their primary residence outside of Germany. Exceptions are same as the above.”
Read that passage carefully. It means that although today, German citizenship is by descent, this right to German citizenship on the basis of descent will gradually fade away.
I was of course using the phrase “natural born citizen”, which does not exist in the German legal language as an equivalent of “citizen at birth, automatically entitled to that citizenship”. Funny to think that that applied to Dwight Eisenhower, right?
You are correct in saying that the article in Wikipedia does not mention the granting of German nationality to foundlings and children of certain Roma and other people who cannot pass on their nationality. It only refers to that rule when mentioning birth abroad. Here, German law (and the law of most EU countries) had to acknowledge a European law.
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/166.htm
The European courts recently asserted the right of stateless children to the nationality of their country of birth in a ruling that an Austrian who had obtained German citizenship by deceit, could be made stateless by Germany, because in such a case, Germany is not acting “arbitrarily”, but in accordance with its own criminal law. Being born is not a crime.
Oh, and Belgium, which until very recently based citizenship on the citizenship of the father, now grants Belgian nationality to anyone aged 18 who was born in the country (yes, even of two foreign parents) if the person has kept a tie to the country, like living or studying there. But if your parents got a divorce immediately after your birth and the parent you afterwards lived with, cohabited in New York or Bangkok with a Belgian – that counts a s a tie too – you will have to “return” to the country however, to claim it.
None of this really concerns Onama. In fact, as the second sentence of the first line in the Wikipedia article (did you read that one) clearly states, German law until 2000 did not misinterpret Vattel. One parent suffices.
In case you are wondering about the info on Ireland being correct or not:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2004/en/act/pub/0038/sec0004.html
which needs to be read together with the part of the 2001 law they did not change. Still gives citizenship to statelesschildren,to children of alien parents with permanent residence permits and of aliens who have lived there for thrre years of the past four years (even illegally?) . Aimed mainly against temporary illegals, it seems. But, surprise, also excludes students.
Interesting, it would quite definitely exclude Jindal.
Why is it always the Obots who have to help the birfers with their sources.
> I was of course using the phrase “natural born citizen”, which does not exist in the German legal language as an equivalent of “citizen at birth, automatically entitled to that citizenship”.
It doesn’t even exist in everyday common language in Germany – I wouldn’t know how to translate it properly as that concept does not exist over here.
“Natürlich geboren” (the literal translation) would be understood as “born in a natural way as opposed to by C-section”.
Most dictionaries translate it as “durch Geburt”, i.e. “by birth”, or “von Geburt (an)”, i.e. “at birth” (literally “from birth on”).
However these German terms are hardly ever used.
So why did you make an entire post about current British laws?
It looks like this isn’t the first time IceTrey has been spanked on a forum. He posted these same comments a year ago
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/3187-hawaii-denies-requests-for-obamas-birth-certificate
And he will post them again a year from now. He doesn”t learn from experience. He keeps doing the same thing over and over again with the same results. In short, he’s a birther.
Are you guys high, retarded or just trying to obfuscate? Olson made the statement about who is a natural born citizen of “a nation”. That means any nation, anywhere on the planet. I just used Britain because you idiots always go on about “English common law”. There are 122 other countries I could have used that don’t give any citizenship to the children of non-resident aliens born there. Therefore your argument that all children born in any countries ” territory and allegiance” are natural born citizens of that country is patently, irretrievably and irrevocably WRONG! You can’t be a natural born citizen of the country of your birth if you aren’t a citizen of that country at all.
Nice projection at least we now know what you do in your spare time as a hobby. Trey you’ve been trying to peddle the same bad information for two years only to get beat down on multiple forums. I find it funny that in one moment you claim we shouldn’t be looking to foreign law while in the next saying we should. The fact is the US gives birthright citizenship. Contrary to your ramblings, if you are born in the US you are natural born.
Show me a court decision that says you can’t. As you birthers say, natural born citiizen and citizen are different. You can be one and not the other. I’ve heard that countless times.
Anyway, can you find a single country that requires BOTH parents to be citizens for the child to be a citizen? There are none. Zero. So the child of a citizen parent is ALWAYS a citizen and a natural born citizen regardless of the status of the other parent. 100% of the time.
Even if the US Supreme Court said that in some future lawsuit, it wouldn’t make any difference to the birthers. They would say the court was wrong, biased, or afraid.
Birthers take note:
“Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, the cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence.” – John Adams.
(h/t to Patrick – http://badfiction.typepad.com/)
Looking at the list of citations from US courts that precede his conclusion, he must have been talking about the United States. Context IceTrey, context.
IceTrey, if i interpret your statements correctly, your position is that natural born citizens are those who would be citizens in whatever nation they were born in. Let’s follow that logic:
1. All countries grant citizenship to the child of a citizen parent born on theiir soil, regardless of the status of the other parent. I know of no exceptions to this rule.
2. Barack Obama was born on US soil to a US citizen parent.
3. Therefore, Barack Obama is, by your own standards, a natural born citizen.
Now i realize many here will not necessarily agree, because it leaves the status of a child of 2 non-citizens uncertain. However, let’s keep in mind that the subject of this blog is specifically Barack Obama’s eligibility. When the chilld of 2 non-citizens gets elected President, we can revisit the question.
Stop changing the fricken subject. My post was about nothing but Olson’s statements. His quoted statement is a definition of natural born citizen. That’s all my first post was about. It wasn’t about who can be head of some foreign government or about the Constitution, it wasn’t even about Obama. Do you see the word “Obama” in my first post? No? Do you see the word “President”? No? Do you see the word “US”? No? The only thing I was talking about is the definition of natural born citizen.
Dr. Conspiracy, Judge Mental,
It’s right there in black and white that he says “a nation”. Not “the nation” or “our nation”. Therefore his definition of natural born citizen is intended to be universal. You can disagree but for the sake of the argument is has to be taken that way.
Scientist,
Are you really that stupid? Logically, how can a person be a “natural born” CITIZEN of country X if they ARE NOT even a CITIZEN of country X? Your argument makes no sense at all. If you would read my posts I don’t say anything about citizen parents. I specifically say “non-resident aliens”. Also for your information I was using Britain as an EXAMPLE. My bad I thought it would be self evident that is was an EXAMPLE. Do you know what and EXAMPLE is? Maybe you can google it. Not only that but you completely misinterpret my statements. “your position is that natural born citizens are those who would be citizens in whatever nation they were born in.” No, my position is that if some children, born in some countries, under some circumstances are not recognized by those countries to be a citizen of that country, then Olson’s (universal) definition of natural born citizen given in the article is false.
According to the birthers, being a natural born citizen is something llike a genetic endowment. Therefore, like your DNA, it can never be lost. So if you are born a natural born citizen and later renounce citiizenship, you will no longer be a ciitizen, but remain a natural born citizen. It’s the difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian evolution. Google that.
As has been pointed out to you, in most countries the very term natural born citiizen has no real meaning since all citizens can run for all ooffices (very wiise in my opinion). You can attempt to twist what Olson said, but he absolutely has not the slightest doubt that Obama is the legitimate President (If you don’t bellieve that go ahead and EMail him) . So whatever definiition Mr Olson uses, includes someone born iin the US to one citizen parent.
By the way, consider this-if natural born citizen engenders such ridiculous nit-picking, the best and simplest solution is simply to get rid of it. It serves no purpose. It is defunct. It has gone to meet its maker. It is deceased. It is pushing up the daisies. It is an ex-clause (as it were).
It has kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!
Correction. You of course assumed “born in the country”. Actually, I believe that today the number of countries where you are NOT a citizen if born there of a citizen mother and an alien father, must be very, very small now, but since Belgium until recently was such a country, there may still be some of those. But definitely not in the European Union today, where in every member state the minimal status is that you are an automatic citizen at birth if born in the country of one citizen parent.
Which is why even Hungary grants citizenship to those born there of only one citizen parent. While Hungary may possibly claim to be the most Vatellite country in the world on citizenship – and has been criticized by the EU about it on several occasions. In the near future, some European court will probably rule against a few of the recent more exorbitant changes to Hungary’s citizenship law.
> According to the birthers, being a natural born citizen is something llike a genetic endowment.
Actually, it is both. It is “allegiance transfered by both parents”, i.e. “a feeling of solidarity and a legal obligation, passed on by DNA”. Boy, these birthers would make some biologists! They’ll get the Nobel Prize for finding the allegiance gene!
> Therefore, like your DNA, it can never be lost. So if you are born a natural born citizen and later renounce citiizenship, you will no longer be a ciitizen, but remain a natural born citizen.
Not in the bigger birther picture. Because they need an exit strategy in case it should happen that Obama was indeed born to two US citizen parents (remember many of them believe he has another father, sometimes also mother). Then they will pull the “lost his citizenship when adopted” card and argue that Obama lost his natural born status.
So the legal, mental and biological state created by the parent’s DNA can be eliminated by a legal process – probably subconsciously removing the allegiance gene (see above) from the person’s body. More biology miracles!
If you want people here, and elsewhere, to take what you say seriously, I recommend you do not use this tone. After I see this, I start skipping over your comments.
Naw….. it’s just restin’. It’s pinin’ for the fjords