I was referring to the framers of the 1952 law.
I apologize for my bias opinion, but will stand firmly on my position. Obama not being born in America is substantive in that he quite possibly has no intention of helping our country. Would you agree that I have the right to travel overseas and pick a country I wish to create laws for as well as amend the ones they have already? What is even more substantive is the fact he LIED ABOUT IT. That has a very great effect on everyone. Not only did he agree to enter into a world economy, but he held conferences overseas saying that we were not cooperating (???). So now everyone effects each other even more so than ever before. He thinks of himself as a sovereign power and not a socialist problem.
I was asked to estimate my doctors bills on my tax return and the amount I entered was the exact amount Mr. Obama deducted from my check. Explain to me how my paying over a thousand dollars in medical expenses reserves him the right to double such expense. And where does this money go? I mean we still have a high debt ceiling.
TomnDebb instead of telling me where I need to post and what it is I should post remember I live somewhere allowing freedom of speech. And another thing… I don’t see any posts from you making a point. Whats your stance? You just here regulating people with passionate opinions or do you actually know something and care to share?
What does one have to do with the other? Being born in a particular place doesn’t magically confer some particular political ideology: native-born Americans have turned out to be traitors and immigrants have shown themselves patriots.
Under the U.S. Constitution, people can pick the United States, move here, and get themselves elected to the Congress or state legislatures, thus creating new laws as well as amending the ones we have already. Do you have a problem with this?
Um, the decision to enter into a world economy was made several centuries before Obama was born. In the modern world, what happens over there affects what happens here, and vice versa. The U.S. could not exist in an isolationist and unconnected economy even if we wanted to.
Sorry, I misunderstood.
However, even under current law it is quite possible to possess U.S. citizenship and not transmit it to your children born abroad. For example, under current law for children born since 1986 to married parents, if one parent is a citizen and the other is not, the citizen parent must have resided in the U.S. or its territories for least five years before the birth, including at least two years after his or her 14th birthday. Certainly many/most fifteen-year-olds are capable of having a child, so we’ve got the same situation, just with different numbers in the requirements. I don’t think any reasonable argument can be made that the people now in Congress are unaware of this, given how much publicity has been drawn to Obama’s case, but there’s been no movement to amend the law. It has long been American policy that we don’t want generations of citizens with no real connections to the country, so we require at least a minimum threshold of time spent state-side. That threshold has varied through the years, but it still exists.
Why do I have the sinking feeling that you’re not speaking hypothetically?
If we’re not talking hypotheticals, I admit, I did that to Belgium last week. Belgians, you know that new law of yours about how you’re not allowed to pick your nose in an elevator? YOU’RE WELCOME!
I am not trying to derail the thread, but rather fight ignorance.
First, the word you are intending to use is “loses”. Second, your factual assertion is untrue; President Obama has not lost his law license for malpractice, or for any other reason.
Yes. It’s even legal! Congresspeople are not required to be native born U.S. citizens.
The Bill of Rights applies to government action. You do not have a constitutional right to post on the Straight Dope.
You may stand on your head, if you wish. However, this thread asks a specific question regarding the results of the discovery that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Using this thread to launch a different discussion regarding his effectiveness as president is a hijack. If you wish to discuss his qualifications or policies, you are welcome to do so in a separate thread. You are not welcome to do so in a thread devoted to a totally different discussion.
I am telling you where to post because that is my role on this message board: I moderate discussions with the intent to minimize disruptions due to hijacks, insults, etc.
I live in the same nation as you with the same freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech means that you have the option to open your own message board and post whatever you wish. It does not give you license to disrupt other message boards by ignoring their policies.
As to this thread, I have a mild interest in someone providing the particulars regarding whether the rules regarding Mrs. Obama’s age have any bearing on the topic. (Had she been over the age of 21, the discussion would be closed: as a U.S. citizen, her child would have had the option to choose to be a U.S. citizen. (George Romney, for example, was never challenged on his citizenship because his mother was a U.S. citizen, even though he was born in Mexico.))
I have no interest in participating in the debate, but as Moderator, I have an interest in preventing other posters from disrupting it with off-topic hijacks.
[ /Moderating ]
EVERYONE, the discussion of this thread is in regard to the possibility that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
All other hijacks will end, immediately.
[ /Moderating ]
If evidence came to light, I agree with other posters who said that it would be fodder for impeachment hearings, but there is no absolute guarantee that it would result in conviction (either because he was not knowingly born in Kenya, or because there is too much political gridlock to garner the sufficient 2/3 vote to convict).
I can’t imagine a scenario where it would invalidate his actions as President (although I do believe that this is what the birther movement would hope to accomplish). There are so many things a President does, or authorizes, either by signing bills, issuing executive orders, appointing people, or allocating resources, that to unwind even just a 4 year term is basically impossible (especially when you stop to think of all of the decisions that are made by people acting on the President’s behalf, or with his delegated authority - we have quite the Administrative bureaucracy!)
Sadly, I think it would engender an oft-repeated whisper campaign anytime someone even remotely “ethnic” sought to be considered for President. It would also tar the Democratic party with accusations of incompetence or corruption that would plague them for years (come to think of it, this is probably a better reason for the birther enthusiasm). And it would be the kind of political scandal that would engulf the media nonstop for probably about a year, costing Americans tens of millions of dollars in spent resources (special prosecutors and committee hearings up the wazoo). In the end, there would be enormous pressure for Obama to resign, much of it coming from his own party.
In short, a political disaster. Which is why no Presidential candidate could conceivably try to actually get elected without being constitutionally eligible. I suspect that this is why the Senate passed a resolution about McCain’s citizenship (which was sponsored by both Senators Obama and Clinton) - the risk of an ineligible President would be a huge mess for the entire nation.
On what grounds? Treason? Clearly not bribery. High crimes and misdemeanors? Which law specifically would he have broken?
If fraud, okay, sure. But what if he were at least plausibly mistaken, having no personal memory of his birth?
Well, the assumption would be that he lied about his birthplace in this hypothetical. I suppose it’s possible that his parents could have concealed it from him, but why bother? That seems just as unlikely and pointless as posting a fake birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser (as the Birthers allege they did).
Presumably, the evidence would take one of two forms. Either it was evidence of corruption, in that Obama had doctored proof of his U.S. birth, or it would be evidence of mistake, in that Obama’s mother (or other relatives) planted evidence that he was born in the U.S. which he believed but which was wrong.
If the latter, there would be a clear case of impeachment owing to fraud.
If the former, I agree that it is not so clear cut, although the simplest answer would be that he was being impeached for violating the part of the constitution that defines a president’s eligibility.
We would then descend into nasty partisan debates about whether that constituted a “high crime or misdemeanor”, with people on one side loudly claiming that a constitutional violation is neither and the other side loudly claiming that a direct violation of the constitution is plainly included, because if the constitution can be violated with impunity then what’s the point of including requirements at all.
At common law, “high crimes and misdemeanors” meant almost any foul-up, no matter how minor; it is essentially an idiom for “offenses both large and small.” There’s one English case where a minister was impeached for appointing someone incompetent to head a parliamentary committee. So it’s quite possible that just not being eligible would suffice.
In my previous post, I got my “formers” and my “latters” mixed up (and I’m past the editing time).
Mea culpa.
This is nonsensical. You cannot have a “POTUS” that doesn’t meet the qualifications CLEARLY set out in the U.S. Constitution. It’s like having a round square. The concept of “deservingly” doesn’t come into it. It’s not subjective, it’s objective. If someone knowingly doesn’t meet those basic qualifications, there is no way they can be POTUS. It would CLEARLY be an unconstitutional presidency.
To refresh your memory of the constitution:
[QUOTE=USConstitution]
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
[/QUOTE]
Do you also think someone who is known to be 28 years old can hold the office of POTUS?
If there was someone sitting in the oval office playing president, and we knew him to NOT be the president, maybe he’s a green martian, is job would it be to remove him? If the President was unreachable, who would have the authority to protect the office of the presidency? I don’t know the answer to this, but it seems that some faction of the military, or SS swears an oath to the office, no?
Who can remove the person sitting in the oval office, aside from Congress?
If you’re going to give the military or Secret Service the power to remove the president, you’ve just given them control of the presidency. (“You, Mr. President, will do what we say or we will decide you are unqualified and remove you. By the way, don’t try to remove us, because we refuse to obey an illegitimate president.”) Who watches the watchers? For that matter, who decides who meets these objective requirements? You want some faceless bureaucrat somewhere in the depths of the Pentagon deciding whether a birth certificate is fake?
The president is not unreachable; Congress counts the Electoral College votes, and Congress has the power of impeachment. (And Congress, unlike the military or SS, is directly answerable to the voters, every two years. If Congress can’t muster sufficient votes to impeach and convict, then there’s a more fundamental problem in the country.)
You can’t have a President unilaterally negate the terms of a treaty which the Senate has ratified. It’s the Law of the Land, as CLEARLY set out in the U.S. Constitution.
But Ronald Reagan did it more than once.
American politics produces round squares all the time. (W.H. Taft was a very round square.)
Yeah, I’m not sure that it can be a high crime or misdemeanor, according to judicial principle, if it isn’t defined clearly in the criminal code. In looking into examples of impeachment, I’m pretty sure I ran across something saying that a “high crime or misdemeanor” must, at the very least, include a crime.
Furthermore, if someone is mistaken about something, except under rare circumstances (e.g., statutory rape laws), their lack of intent is a very strong defense against criminal guilt. If the president genuinely didn’t realize he was born in Canada or wherever, I don’t see where he could be held criminally liable.
Andrew Johnson was, among other things, impeached for smack talking Congress.
The House cited no law that prohibited smack talking but just “the high duties of his high office and the dignity and proprieties thereof, and of the harmony and courtesies which ought to exist and be maintained between the executive and legislative branches of the Government of the United States…”
The fact of the matter is that the House may impeach and the Senate may convict for any reason they see fit. And there is no one to stop or overrule them. The Supreme Court has said it will not get involved (Nixon v. United States 506 U.S. 224 (1993))