Yeah, right. I suspect nothing of the sort will happen since the man was born in America!
This was lost when the other posts vanished, so I’ll point out again that Berg is a nutcase. He has been a perennial pest in Pennsylvania. Before the Internet existed he and his pathetic group of followers and family flitted from causes like Jerry Brown’s campaign to Senate campaigns against Specter, where he’d pester to get into Democratic debates and primaries and then get about 1% of the Democratic vote.
These days he is (surprise) a Truther, and so he has to go after Obama.
I heard Mr Berg on Coast to Coast AM a couple of weeks ago. He was rather unimpressive to say the least. I was surprised to hear a lawyer and former deputy attorney general for a state make such a fool of himself.
One of his “proofs” that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii was because the English and Italian versions of Wikipedia give a different hospital where he was born.
He talked about a Kenyan birth certificate. Then he admitted that he hadn’t seen it or a copy but just heard that it exists.
Just for the sheer entertainment value of it, it might be worth it for this issue to be heard by a judge. I’d love to hear the judge ask Berg, “Where does the Constitution prohibit a dual national from holding office?”
Question-even if you were born when your parents were on vacation in say, Europe, wouldn’t you still be a US citizen as long as they were?
Duh. You’re using logic. The people who take the “Not a citizen” or “Muslim plant” tacks aren’t using logic. There is no logic whatsoever in those positions. So trying to debunk them to the people who are using them via logic is a hopeless case.
Frankly, I’d love to hear the judge ask Berg, “Do you have ANY evidence whatsoever that Barack Obama is actually ineligible to be president?”
The man actually cited “an internet rumor” in his filing!
What you never heard of Ramsay Clark. He was AG for the US as I recall. :o
Yes, but there is a further requirement for the presidency beyond mere citizenship. Your citizenship must have been acquired through either:[ol][li]Native birth in the US or [*]Being a citizen in 1789[/ol][/li]The problem is with item 1 on the list. The actual text of the constitution says “natural born Citizen.” There is some dispute over the intent of the framers here. (i.e. Does “natural” mean “native”? Or is any kind of citizenship at birth sufficient?) So if you were born while your parents were on vacation in Europe, you would be a US citizen, yes, but you might be ineligible for the presidency.
As far as I know, it has never actually been tested, and Obama’s situation should not constitute a test.
If both of your parents are US citizens, then you are a US citizen no matter where you are born as long as one of them has ever lived in the country. There is no minimum period for residence, and it doesn’t matter if your other parent has never set foot in the US.
If one of your parents is a US citizen and the other is not, and you are born outside the US, things get a little trickier, but not a whole lot. Your US citizen parent must have lived in the US for at least five years - not necessarily sequentially - and two of those must have been after his or her fourteenth birthday. The residency period used to be longer, so someone born before 1986 is subject to different rules.
If your parents aren’t married there will be extra paperwork to prove who your father is, but otherwise the rules are the same.
The young flodboys are dual citizens even though they were born here in Troll Country; they got American citizenship through me, and Norwegian citizenship through their father.
[quote=“Randy_Seltzer, post:49, topic:461641”]
Yes, but there is a further requirement for the presidency beyond mere citizenship. Your citizenship must have been acquired through either:[ol][li]Native birth in the US or Being a citizen in 1789[/ol][/li][/QUOTE]
You’re stating as true in point # 1 exactly what is in issue. As you comment, the Constitution itself uses the phrase “natural born citizen.” You are interpreting that as being born in the US, but that’s simply your interpretation of the phrase.
Exactly why I’m curious about McCain’s status, in regards to having been born a year before the law being passed defining Canal Zone as counting as naturally born.
I don’t think a lawsuit on that note has even a teeny chance of success, but I’m curious on a technical level.
Nonsense. I specifically said that this was the disputed term.
The point is that there is no need to argue whether the candidate is a citizen. I don’t think that point is disputed by the nutcases. What they (nutcases on both sides) are arguing is that the opposing candidate fails the same prong of the eligibility test as Arnold Schwarzzenegger: he was not born within the boundaries of the U.S., and therefore not a “natural born Citizen.”
No Supreme Court case has interpreted this requirement yet, and barring some crazy as-yet-undisclosed information coming out, Obama would not make a good test case.
That’s completely irrelevant to McCain’s birth. Both of his parents were citizens of the United States at the time of his birth.
Monty, if he was born in Paris, outside the Embassy, to two US parents, he’d be an American citizen, but not native-born.
In the Canal Zone, he wouldn’t have been native-born, except for a law passed defining all those born to be native-born.
I can dig how it would work for people born after the law, but does it really work that way for people born before it?
(And, honestly, I suspect a judge would just declare it means ‘not naturalized’.)
I’m not sure how you can interpret “natural-born citizen” as something other than someone who was a US citizen when they were born. Both McCain and Obama were citizens when they were born.
It does say natural-born. For some reason, I thought it said native-born.
Native-born is opposed by foreign-born, but both are natural-born citizens.
Actually, even that isn’t sufficient. The US government has to agree to accept your renunciation of your citizenship. And it often does not.
For example, Lee Harvey Oswald tried to renounce his American citizenship when he had married a Russian woman and was living & working in the Soviet Union. The US government (via our ambassador in Moscow) declined to accept that.
Nitpick: if both of your parents are US citizens, you are entitled to US citizenship. It isn’t automatic, though - they have to register you as such.