The Birth Certificate Controversy–Should We Care?
January 6th, 2010 | Author: IGC Blogger
Even in this narcissistic, Facebook-driven age, personal privacy is one of our most cherished assets. Millions of everyday, good people have gotten into messy entanglements, done dumb, embarrassing things, gotten too close the flame, whatever–but we learn from our private mistakes, and move forward. Even high-profile celebrities deserve a zone of privacy without the paparazzi (which includes the “political paparazzi “) going through their trash, literally or figuratively.
With the administration now saber-rattling about amnesty for illegal aliens, it is perhaps ironic to some degree that the citizenship status of the incumbent president continues, at least by some, to be called into question. Under the Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, a person must be a natural born citizen to be eligible for the office of the presidency.
Many highly respected right-of-center bloggers and pundits have dismissed the claims of the so-called Birthers. And maybe the claims are wholly unfounded. One thing we can’t get our brain around–is it really possible that someone could be so corrupt, so brazen, so egomaniacal, to mount a campaign for the highest office in the land while knowing full well that he or she was constitutionally ineligible? As a practical matter, it’s really hard to believe that in the digital information age, a scam of this magnitude could pulled off successfully.
And even taking ACORN vote fraud into consideration, as well as fundamentally disagreeing with the administration’s policies, most of us want to believe that the Obama presidency is legitimate under the law, even if totally misguided.
On the other hand, Obama and his handlers have apparently spent millions in legal fees to fend off Birther lawsuits around the country. Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply release the official, long-form birth certificate rather than throw away all that money on expensive ambulance chasers? There may be legitimate family (rather than constitutional) reasons why the actual birth certificate was placed under seal by Hawaii’s GOP governor Linda Lingle at Team Obama’s request, but it is odd, isn’t it?
Unlike most candidates for the presidency who have generally granted full disclosure to their papers, Obama has also sealed many of his other records such as his college transcripts, medical reports, and so on. Again, no one wants outsiders messing with our stuff, but when it comes to the presidency, why all the unusual secrecy?
Which brings us to Pastor James David Manning, perhaps Obama’s number- one foe on the Internet. Pastor Manning, who has his own checkered past, has become convinced that the Obama presidency is constitutionally illegitimate. The pastor, whose church is located in Harlem NYC, is a powerful orator who as far as we can tell speaks without a teleprompter. His videos, which were thrown off of YouTube, are at times depressing, disturbing, compelling, totally off the wall, and (intentionally and/or unintentionally) funny. In addition to his opposition to all things Obama, he has also railed against Fox News for the network’s unwillingness to address the birth certificate issue, and he also claims that the Tea Party movement is missing the boat (no pun intended) by not coalescing around that issue. His latest hobby horse is that Obama never actually attended Columbia University, and that this is evidence of yet another cover-up. His videos can be found here.
For whatever reasons, the Obama-compliant media has given the Birther controversy a fair amount of publicity, but only from the standpoint of portraying the Birthers as conspiracy-obsessed crackpots. Maybe they are crackpots. Or could they be the world’s most eccentric whistleblowers?
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23 Responses to “The Birth Certificate Controversy–Should We Care?”
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I personally think it is just a ploy to make people focus on something that has no merit. The Obama administration will not release something, if they are getting political gain by not. Just continue to let the media make fun of the “conspiracy theorists”.
I do however think, one should have to prove himself eligible before getting on the ballot. I personally think McCain would not be eligible either.
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I may be stupid, but I can’t help but think there is a reason Obama’s lawyers consider this so critical.
Before this is all done, God willing, the nation’s law enforcement system will be exposed as being even less effective and more corrupt than our national security system. The corruption has already been documented, it’s just a matter of finding somebody with the balls to report it.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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“So it’s vital that we all question with boldness, hold to the truth and speak without fear”
And then he slams thjose that do, what an idiot, he must have written his book so he could talk to himself.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Congress has for decades been trying to usurp the original intent of the founding fathers of this great nation, further risking our sovereignty & national security. An agenda that Washington warned about in his farewell address:
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield…
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government…
Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests…
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Obama = Usurper
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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From the Heritage Foundation’s guide to the Constitution:
Until recent decades, American public policy consistantly prohibited dual citizenship. Since 1795, Congress has required that all candidates for naturalization formally renounce allegiance to their native land and any other foreign power. That requirement remains part of national law and is an integral element of the citizenship oath. The rationale for these policies is that citizenship requires undivided loyalty to one country.
Yet today there are millions of American citizens who are also citizens of other countries. Many are naturalized American citizens whose native countries do not recognize the renunciation of loyalty that their native citizens make in the American citizenship oath. Others are the off-spring of one American parent and one foreign parent, deriving citizenship from both sides, or foreign-born children adopted by American parents. Because the courts now prohibit the government from expatriating those who maintain an active citizenship in a foreign nation (some American citizens have even held public office in other countries), dual citizenship has become a fact of American life, despite statutory law. ~ Professor Joseph Bassette
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Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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He was, by his own admission, a British subject at birth due to his father. How can a natural born citizen of the United States be the subject of another country as well?
This defect occurs AT BIRTH and cannot be remedied after the fact.
Do you know why people that were born in other countries cannot serve as President but only Senators and Representatives? It is because the person is born with an allegiance to another country.
When one is nationalized (the Governator), one denounces allegiance to any country other than the US but that original allegiance is never fully ‘forgiven’ because you can’t be President. Only Senator or Rep.
Only someone that has NEVER had an allegiance to any other country other than the US can serve as President.
How is that achieved? By having, at birth, parents that have allegiance to the United States only. Either by being natural born citizens themselves or by being nationalized and relinquishing allegiance to their home country.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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These communists will pay.
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Americans cannot have it both ways, we either have a Constitutional government (legal and lawful) or an un-Constitutional government (illegal and usurped).
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