I haven’t written anything on the blog in a while, so it’s probably time. This comes from Facebook comments (what doesn’t these days). Social networking is fun! I’ve paraphrased and added emphasis below because, hey, this is my blog, after all. So, let’s visit that Obama birth certificate issue One More Time…
The Argument:
As far as the “birthers” go, common sense says if there wasn’t anything to hide, then nobody would be hiding anything, right?
My Answer:
There is a fundamental principle of inquiry – that is assuming one cares about the truth – that assertions should be based on evidence. The absence of evidence does not constitute evidence. So far as the courts and I can tell, nobody is hiding anything. To accept assertions on insufficient evidence risks making oneself a tool for evil hands.
By the way: The argument presented is a common fallacy. The argument in the general form goes something like: If you haven’t done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide. I assume everyone reading this can understand why this argument is not valid. It always bugs me when I hear people say it, especially in this country where we have an enshrined right to privacy arising from the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Counterpunch:
But isn’t it a duty to show the evidence if a person is running for President?
My Answer:
Yes, it is. And this was done to the satisfaction of the U.S. courts more than once.
The Non-Sequitur:
And that is enough to satify a you? Big difference between this and McCain, and you know it.
My Answer:
Yes, there is a big difference.
McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, a tenuous and temporary extension of the US and not a state of the union. If elected, McCain would have been the first US President to have been born outside the states. This was a serious legal matter that ultimately ended in a (nonbinding) Senate resolution and required real legal investigation by a bipartisan legal review. This is because “natural born” is not defined in the Constitution. While McCain would be very, very likely to prevail in a legal challenge, it is not assured. In short, the courts have not ruled on this matter.
Obama was born in Hawaii, our 50th state, and a state of the union. He has provided documentation of his birth adequate for all legal purposes. In addition, his original birth certificate has been examined by the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health who attested to its authenticity under oath. The Republican governor of the state, Linda Lingle, has also attested to Obama’s status. The US courts have ruled on this matter.
So, yes, there is a big difference. Obama’s status as a naturalized citizen is well established. McCain’s is not.
1. Anything to hide…I agree with this point.
2. Satisfaction of courts…Actually the courts have not ruled on Obama haven proven he is a citizen, they have only ruled that a common citizen does not have “standing” or the right to bring about a law suit.
3. Provided documentation..he provided a “certification of birth” which is not a birth certificate, even to play high school sports you have to provide a birth certificate.
The actual point is that it does not matter where he is born as both parents were not US citizens, US case law seems to interpret this as having both parents that are US citizens, because the early law makers where concerned to a recent immigrant or their children should not hold this office…the reason for “natural born” clause.
I wrote off some time ago as these people are crazy and just want to take down Obama. However, I guess what bothers me the most is how can anyone justify spends LOTS of MONEY and lawyer time keeping all his documents under wraps. There obviously is somehing that needs to be hiden.
And what pisses me off the most is that the press will not fully investigate this. We should be able to talk about this publicly with logic and not be called names or labeled as something.
I appreciate your posting your thoughts and letting me vent mine.
Happy thanksgiving.
I hope Stacy doesn’t mind if I post the followig. It’s fron the same discussion thread as he took the blog post from just later on.
– snip! –
It doesn’t matter what difference you were talking about; the big difference in eligibility in this case is the one stated above, not the matter of who the parents were. Read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_american
For the record Obama’s mother was an American citizen and his father was a British citizen.
I do not believe any evidence will satisfy the people leading the birther movement. If they were concerned about the truth of the matter would they have presented a forged Kenya birth certificate as evidence (that is, lied)? I see no reason that Obama needs to do anything more than he had done: Hawaiian officials have provided official documentation of his birth and attested to it under oath. What, specifically, do you want done?
Why would Obama or anyone on his staff want to “calm the crazies,” even if they could? This helped him during the election, and it is helping him far more than it helps his rivals.
Doug: That’s fine by me, and thanks for posting it.
Dennis: You’re flatly wrong about the document. He provided a state record suitable for obtaining a United States passport, driver’s license, or – if necessary – to play high school sports. And putting “certification of birth” in quotation marks doesn’t make it *not* a birth certificate. That’s the form Hawaii provides in all cases (they don’t have a “long form” and “short form” like some states do). Most *original* birth certificates read “certification of birth” or “certification of live birth.” The term “birth certificate” is just our colloquial lingo for the documents.
As for the courts, Alan Keyes *did* have standing since he was a candidate. Court rulings include orders of dismissal, and orders of dismissal arise from motions to dismiss and may include legal opinions of the courts, which can be used in further arguments. That is, it is a ruling of the court.
One side has a valid legal document attested to under penalty of perjury by the duly sworn representatives of the State of Hawaii. The other side has some (occasionally inconsistent) hearsay. How do you expect the courts to rule on this matter? The side with the evidence brings a motion to dismiss for lack of either standing or evidence. The court decides the motion and orders the case dismissed.
How do you overcome this? Produce some evidence.
Dennis: Hmm. I’m not sure if I understand your point about one parent not being a United States citizen. In Dred Scott v. Sanford, the dissenting opinion by Justice Curtis argued that it is left to the states to determine who is a citizen of that state, and therefore a citizen of the United States. In a curious twist, as I read it Obama passes this test, but McCain (who was not born in a state or even on soil governed by the United States) does not. This opinion was essentially overturned by ratification of the 14th Amendment.
In 1862, Attorney General Edward Bates wrote an opinion that the United States Constitution “recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle, common to all nations, and as old as political society, that the people born in a country do constitute the nation, and, as individuals, are natural members of the body politic.” Obama fits that test, but McCain is again excluded since he was born in a hospital under Panamanian jurisdiction.
In modern times, we have the following.
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86755.pdf
Please see section 7.c.1 in that document, and then 7.d. Of course, neither was born on a military base; I just find that particular clause interesting.
In any case, if Hawaii says he is a naturalized citizen of the state, then he is a de facto naturalized citizen of the United States, as best I can tell. Hawaii says he is.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32180625/ns/politics-white_house
I am not an American citizen or even a resident of the US. I am neither for Obama or against him.
My reading of the whole situation:
About McCain:
From the Wikipedia “John McCain was born on August 29, 1936 at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, to naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912). At that time, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control.”
Military stations including Naval stations established by the US (and other countries) even outside their own national borders function similar to embassies across the world – that is, the territory is considered to be sovereign property of the nation holding that property even if that property is on lease.
As McCain was born in a US Naval Station to parents who were American citizens at the time of his birth, he is automatically considered a natural born citizen.
Under English law, it has long been settled that children born of ambassadors and other agents of a sovereign government born while abroad are citizens of their parents’ country, not of the country where their parents happened to be serving at the time.
To further cement this citizenship which would have already been attributed to McCain, a bill 8 U.S.C. § 1403 was passed which gave citizenship to anyone born to US citizens (even if just one of the parents was a American citzen) who was born in this zone on or after February 26, 1904.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1403.html
This is what Judge Alsup cited in his ruling in 2008 when McCain’s eligibility for presidential candidacy came up for hearing. So McCain’s eligibility seems pretty solid.
About Obama:
In the case of Obama, there are multiple problems – one being that his mother was below 18 when he was born and the other being that his father was a British National. Apart from this there is some confusion as to where exactly he was born – whether in Hawai or Kenya.
The arguments put forward by the birther movement about the Certificate of Live Birth vs the Birth Certificate aren’t without its merits. These appear to be two separate certificates while one required far less documentation to obtain and not much proof:
I quote from WikiAnswers:
“A Hawaii Certification of Live Birth could be legally obtained at the time of Obama’s birth by a parent’s registering the child’s birth by affidavit. It could be obtained, regardless of the child’s place of birth and without the signature of the doctor or attending nurse during the child’s birth. A parent is an interested party and an affidavit by an interested party does not carry the same weight in court. A doctor is presumably an disinterested party and a Birth Certificate carries great weight in court.”
So it is entirely possible that Obama was born elsewhere but his parents got him his Certificate of Live Birth in Hawai. What makes this even more complicated are:
a) The recorded statements from Obama’s grandmother that he was born in Kenya.
b) Fact that he is recorded as an Indonesian in his school in Indonesia.
c) Obama’s unwillingness to release the original Birth Certificate which can be obtained for a very nominal fee.
So even if Obama was indeed a natural born citizen (difficult to prove given the circumstances listed above), there is reason to believe that he was temporarily an Indonesian citizen.
Would like to hear your thoughts on this.
@Philip:
John McCain was *not* born on base; check your facts. He was born at a hospital off the base, and outside the states (plural). He was born on foreign soil, and this fact is not contested. You’ll have to show me your definition of “natural born citizen” in U.S. law. The bill you mention states citizen, but that is not necessarily sufficient. For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a citizen, but not eligible to run for President.
The age of the parents is not taken into account in US law with respect to citizenship, so that’s a red herring. Saying there is “some confusion as to where exactly he was born” is incredibly disingenuous. His birth in Hawaii is sufficiently established beyond any reasonable doubt. Show me evidence otherwise. There is corroborating physical evidence that he was born in Hawaii (newspaper announcements), and public officials have testified that he was.
Certification of live birth vs. birth certificate? I quote the following.
“They’re just words,” said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “That (what was posted on the Internet) is considered a birth certificate from the State of Hawaii.”
“There’s only one form of birth certificate,” she said, and it’s been the same since the 1980s. Birth certificates evolve over the decades, she said, and there are no doubt differences between the way birth certificates looked when Obama was born and now.
“When you request a birth certificate, the one you get looks exactly like the one posted on his site,” she said. “That’s the birth certificate.”
As for the theory that Obama’s original birth certificate might show he was foreign born, Okubo said the “Certification of Live Birth” would say so. Obama’s does not. Again, it says he was born in Honolulu.
As for whether he was ever an Indonesian citizen, that’s just another red herring; it has no bearing on the matter.
Oh, and IAAL.