# Birther Mania **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 11, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051 "2010-05-11T14:58:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/181 "2010-05-14T03:47:48Z")
That’s what Dio’s daughters said . . . ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/182 "2010-05-14T03:55:21Z")
And the troll gives rock solid proof of his trollishness. Well done puppy rapist. Well done. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/183 "2010-05-14T04:09:17Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Dio, you have issues, buddy (I mean, besides the hang-up about your daughters ever having sex ever). I’ve already said in this thread that (i) birthers are idiots and (ii) I will believe anyone’s claim about where they are born unless I have evidence to the contrary, and I don’t have any evidence to the contrary w/r/t Obama. Fair enough. I guess I missed where you called birthers idiots. That’s what I was looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/184 "2010-05-14T04:29:12Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > There’s never been a case interpreting “natural born citizen.” Minor v Happensatt (whether or not a Missouri law only allowing men to vote is constituional) > [@](#): > > The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. Also, see US v Wong Kim Ark (whether someone born in the US to non citizen parents was a citizen of the US): > [@](#): > > It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. > > The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established. > > In the early case of The Charming Betsy (1804) it appears to have been assumed by this court that all persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall saying: ‘Whether a person born within the United States, or becoming a citizen according to the established laws of the country, can devest himself absolutely of that character, otherwise than in such manner as may be prescribed by law, is a question which it is not necessary at present to decide.’ , , , > > In U. S. v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the circuit court, said: 'All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural- born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/185 "2010-05-14T04:31:33Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > That’s what Dio’s daughters said . . . Class. Nothing like it. And some people got it pouring out of their ass. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/186 "2010-05-14T04:41:40Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I guess I missed where you called birthers idiots. That’s what I was looking for. You missed it because **Rand** never said it in this thread. When he says that he already said that birthers are idiots, he’s lying; what else did you expect from a troll? He called **Frank** an idiot back in post #78, and in post #153 he said “you guys and the Birthers are like tax protesters”, and when he finally got backed into a corner in post #172 he made a reference to “Birther bullshit”. But for the most part, his posts in this thread have been devoted to fapping on the classic Birther meme that we can’t be sure about Obama’s Presidential legitimacy because we don’t have a clear definition of “natural born citizen”. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/187 "2010-05-14T04:53:24Z")
If there’s no way to know who is and isn’t a NBC, why is immigration an issue I wonder? Maybe the Mexicans are really NBCs and we’re all supposed to be down there and nobody has told us. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/188 "2010-05-14T05:42:42Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Class. Nothing like it. And some people got it pouring out of their ass. When bluster fails, go to repetition. When that fails, try obfuscation. After that comes basic insults. **RR** has been having a little too much schnapps again I fear… ETA: Nice find there **Captain Amazing**. You’d think that a “lawyer” would have know about those, but… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/189 "2010-05-14T05:55:01Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > UH WHAT? I asked for a cite that Beck and Rush were repeating Birther bullshit. Your link to ratings doesn’t say anything about that. Why should **gonzo** be obligated to provide a cite for that? It wasn’t an assertion he made. He said “if” [they said it]. ETA: And he _did_ make an assertion about them having high ratings. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/190 "2010-05-14T06:10:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I have a simple question which I’m sure has been asked and answered hundreds of times, but I must have missed it… > > My children were born outside the U.S.A. but _I’ve been assured by every U.S. Consular official that I’ve asked that they are “natural born citizens” and qualify for the Presidency!_ > > Their mother is not a citizen; I had to register their births with U.S. Consulate for their citizenship. Had they been born (as Obama was) to American mother _ **they would have been automatically Presidency-eligible “natural-born” citizens** regardless of birthplace or father’s nationality_. > > Is this in dispute? Was the law changed between Obama’s birth and my daughter’s birth in 1990’s? I believe the assertion is that at the time Obama was born, the law said that you had to have lived in the U.S. X years for your child to qualify as a citizen, and that since Stanley Durham was too young at the time of her son’s birth to meet this qualification, he wouldn’t be a citizen. Can someone fill in the gaps in my memory? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/191 "2010-05-14T06:17:26Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Can someone fill in the gaps in my memory? [Snopes can](http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/citizen.asp). ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/192 "2010-05-14T06:29:06Z")
Thanks! It was bothering me I couldn’t remember. Now that I read it, the argument was even more idiotic than I thought. There must have been hundreds of kids born to teenage mothers whose fathers weren’t U.S. citizens, given the size of the country and the amount of time that’s passed. Under that interpretation of the law in question, wouldn’t that mean that ALL those people aren’t REALLY citizens? ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/193 "2010-05-14T08:45:51Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > I don’t know whether I am a NBC (and I was born in the US to a US mother and father, at least AFAIK). Hey, stupidass: YOU’RE A NATIVE-BORN AMERICAN CITIZEN! You know how I know? Because if “native born citizen” doesn’t mean, in at least one definition, “person born in a US state to US citizen parents” then what the fuck could it possibly mean? Being born in America makes you a native born citizen, being born to US citizen parents in America inarguably does. If not that then what? Should the term “native born citizen” be limited to those who were born on the 4th of July and can trace direct ancestry to a founding father and who had John Hancock personally stamp his name on their ass? You’re a fucking natural born citizen. If you say that you’re unsure if you are or not then you’re either doing so to prove some kind of stupid point or you’re just a complete and total idiot. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/194 "2010-05-14T12:55:20Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Thanks! It was bothering me I couldn’t remember. > > Now that I read it, the argument was even more idiotic than I thought. There must have been hundreds of kids born to teenage mothers whose fathers weren’t U.S. citizens, given the size of the country and the amount of time that’s passed. Under that interpretation of the law in question, wouldn’t that mean that ALL those people aren’t REALLY citizens? Only the ones that were born overseas. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/195 "2010-05-14T13:07:01Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Minor v Happensatt (whether or not a Missouri law only allowing men to vote is constituional) > > Also, see US v Wong Kim Ark (whether someone born in the US to non citizen parents was a citizen of the US): Those are not cases interpreting the term “natural born citizen.” They are cases that discuss the definition of “natural born citizen” in dictum. Dictum is just stuff judges say in an opinion as an FYI basically–it has no value as precedent in any other case. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > ETA: Nice find there **Captain Amazing**. You’d think that a “lawyer” would have know about those, but… And you show your idiocy once again (you ever get tired of that?). ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/196 "2010-05-14T13:28:05Z")
When my daughter was born (to two US citizen parents but _outside_ the US), amongst the various bits of paper we got from the US Embassy was a notice that indicated that her eligibility to become President as a “natural-born citizen”, while presumed, had not been tested in a court of law. So the State Department is of the view that the matter is not conclusively settled. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/197 "2010-05-14T13:34:16Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > When my daughter was born (to two US citizen parents but _outside_ the US), amongst the various bits of paper we got from the US Embassy was a notice that indicated that her eligibility to become President as a “natural-born citizen”, while presumed, had not been tested in a court of law. So the State Department is of the view that the matter is not conclusively settled. Interesting, but irrelevant to Obama’s situation, since he was born in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/198 "2010-05-14T13:41:52Z")
But relevant to the discussion of what constitutes a “natural-born citizen”. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/199 "2010-05-14T13:52:25Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > But relevant to the discussion of what constitutes a “natural-born citizen”. True, but Rand Rover (and the Birthers) are just using that discussion to muddy the waters. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051/200 "2010-05-14T13:52:36Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > But relevant to the discussion of what constitutes a “natural-born citizen”. Hence my earlier question about past presidents and vice-presidents. Has it ever been a question _before_? If so, how was it resolved, and if not, why now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birther-mania/539051.md?page=11)