Obama called to Georgia court to defend primary eligiblity

[Hermit]

Look, it's a good law. If we didn't have it, Henry Kissinger and The Arnold might have been President.

Or Thomas Jefferson. His mother was born in the UK.

[Seth]

Look, it's a good law. If we didn't have it, Henry Kissinger and The Arnold might have been President.

Or Thomas Jefferson. His mother was born in the UK.

Thomas Jefferson and all the Founders, and indeed everyone in the United States at the time of ratification of the Constitution who met the standard were eligible to run for President, as explicitly stated in the clause.

"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."

The "at the time of Adoption" language was an obvious necessity to allow someone to be President of a newly-minted nation. That clause became obsolete when the last person alive at Ratification died. The rest is still operative.

[Seth]

Birthers and truthers appear to be cut from the same dysfunctional cloth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]

Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others" (p. 1127).[2] The effect is about paradoxical defects in cognitive ability, both in oneself and as one compares oneself to others.

Or, they are correct and Obama is not qualified to hold the office of President. Obama could show us which is the truth very easily by submitting the documents and subjecting himself to a court determination of his eligibility with full disclosure and cooperation. The fact that he refuses to do so and is spending millions of dollars to prevent anyone from seeing his original birth certificate and is attempting to quash any inquiry into his eligibility makes people suspicious. That's hardly a "cognitive bias," it's a perfectly rational suspicion.

[Seth]

Of course when it comes to murdering creatures, it's all public property eh, Seth?

The purpose of the ESA is to get animals off the list, so it is succeeding when an animal is delisted. If the states mismanage the animals when they are granted control the animals will go back on the list. So killing them wantonly is a good way to keep the Feds involved in the issue. Dumbass hunters don't understand this.

Carefully controlled and permitted hunting is not "wanton," it's a valid and important wildlife control method that's been recognized by every state in the Union for more than two hundred years.

[apophenia]

Birthers and truthers appear to be cut from the same dysfunctional cloth.

I'm not sure this is accurate. Not to mention that citing the Dunning-Kruger effect in this way tends to paint you as a part of its target population. I haven't done any real studies of the two movements, though I would note that both appear to have a large draw from the college age crowd — though younger people tend to be more politically active, and, if the stereotype holds, more involved in extreme and radical political groups than their older peers. I don't know about the demographics of the birthers with respect to political affiliation, but there was a secret survey distributed among prominent truthers a number of years back and one result from it which surprised me is that the results seemed to indicate that the bulk of truthers affiliated with liberal and progressive organizations and positions. I suppose this makes sense, if one supposes liberals to be more predisposed to anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian politics; I can't help but wonder what the political profile of those who doubted the official story of JFK's assassination was or is. My take on birthers is that this isn't the case, and that it is a largely conservative movement, capitalizing on both anti-liberal and racist elements. But I don't have any solid demographics to point toward. Does anybody?

[Seth]

Birthers and truthers appear to be cut from the same dysfunctional cloth.

I'm not sure this is accurate. Not to mention that citing the Dunning-Kruger effect in this way tends to paint you as a part of its target population. I haven't done any real studies of the two movements, though I would note that both appear to have a large draw from the college age crowd — though younger people tend to be more politically active, and, if the stereotype holds, more involved in extreme and radical political groups than their older peers.

I'd say young people are more politically credulous and substantially less politically astute or skeptical. That's why they are "useful idiots" for radical political agendas of various stripes. Right now Marxism and Socialism are the dominant ideological indoctrination model in our institutions of higher education, so it's hardly surprising that college-age kids are seen as more "politically active." Problem is they aren't really politically active so much as they are well-indoctrinated and propagandized fools.

Older people tend to be far more skeptical about the wild claims of any sort of radical political agenda because they've seen the broken promises and lies so many times before.

I don't know about the demographics of the birthers with respect to political affiliation, but there was a secret survey distributed among prominent truthers a number of years back and one result from it which surprised me is that the results seemed to indicate that the bulk of truthers affiliated with liberal and progressive organizations and positions. I suppose this makes sense, if one supposes liberals to be more predisposed to anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian politics; I can't help but wonder what the political profile of those who doubted the official story of JFK's assassination was or is. My take on birthers is that this isn't the case, and that it is a largely conservative movement, capitalizing on both anti-liberal and racist elements. But I don't have any solid demographics to point toward. Does anybody?

It's very easy and facile to try to link skepticism about Obama's legitimacy as President, dislike of his Progressive agenda and Marxist backstory, and opposition to his policies to his race, but that's not what this is about at all. Sure, there are racists who don't like the fact that he's black, but that's the tiniest fraction of the fringe element out there that the left chooses to focus on and then hold up as a false image of the majority of "birthers," whose objections to Obama's presidency are founded in both fact and Obama's own highly suspicious actions.

There was a legitimate question about his place of birth that has never been clearly and authoritatively refuted by Obama, who could have avoided the entire thing by releasing his hospital birth record. And there remains a legitimate legal dispute about his eligibility under the Constitution that needs to be resolved in the courts, but which rather than embracing as a way to bring unity to the nation by removing all doubt by cooperating with a court inquiry into the meaning of "natural born citizen," Obama has instead obstructed such inquiries at every turn, spending vast amounts of taxpayer money and the power of the federal government not to find truth, but to avoid scrutiny.

This justifiably makes people suspicious of his motives and his qualifications.

Full candor and cooperation in the interests of national unity would serve the office of the President better, and Obama demeans the office with his pettifoggery and obstructionism, and he makes people not trust him, so he has no one to blame but himself for the conundrum he finds himself in regarding the Georgia election. By the way, there are other cases in other states alleging the same lack of legal qualification that will be coming to a hearing soon.

[amused]

Birthers and truthers are convinced that they alone can see The Truth through all the evidence that contradicts their pet theories. This despite the fact that said theories have been repeatedly debunked by real professionals with real credentials. Lawyers and judges (for the birthers) and architects and engineers (for the truthers) have repeatedly demolished them. Yet birther/truthers continue to throw up walls of text on internet forums/blogs, and post countless YouTubes that lay out their brilliance. It's the rest of the world that just can't understand them because they are so intelligent you see...

Birther/trutherism is Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids.

[apophenia]

Wow. This is bad even by your standards, Seth. The brief starts by alluding to Minor v. Happersett and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (which citation actually does more harm than good, as in that case, SCOTUS affirmed citizenship of an individual born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents). Then after a lengthy and irrelevant detour through British common law, they return to Minor v. Happersett, where they proceed to attempt to intuit what the court had in mind when it wrote the majority opinion, whether the majority opinion actually says so or not.

For what it's worth, here's the relevant portion of Minor v. Happersett. I will confess to not having gone further in my research, for how far I went into the brief, the credibility of the claims was already stretched more than I could bear. For those interested, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on U.S. v Wong Kim Ark and ask yourself why these people are citing this case at all. (Having read the relevant portion of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the actual court opinion adds nothing to Minor v. Happersett, and only cites Minor rather obliquely; I can only assume they were desperate for cites.)

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. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.

The opinion never addresses the case where only one parent is a citizen.


And since I noticed your reply to my earlier post as I was composing this, I'll address that. Your opinion on the composition of the birther movement is all well and good, but it's just an opinion. Do you have any actual demographic data to substantiate your opinion?

[Warren Dew]

I don't know about the demographics of the birthers with respect to political affiliation, but there was a secret survey distributed among prominent truthers a number of years back and one result from it which surprised me is that the results seemed to indicate that the bulk of truthers affiliated with liberal and progressive organizations and positions.

Why would that surprise you? Progressive liberals are among those most likely to put their prejudices ahead of actual facts when deciding what to believe. They'd believe anything that made the Bush administration look bad.

[apophenia]

I don't know about the demographics of the birthers with respect to political affiliation, but there was a secret survey distributed among prominent truthers a number of years back and one result from it which surprised me is that the results seemed to indicate that the bulk of truthers affiliated with liberal and progressive organizations and positions.

Why would that surprise you? Progressive liberals are among those most likely to put their prejudices ahead of actual facts when deciding what to believe. They'd believe anything that made the Bush administration look bad.

And you would know this how?

[Ian]

I don't know about the demographics of the birthers with respect to political affiliation, but there was a secret survey distributed among prominent truthers a number of years back and one result from it which surprised me is that the results seemed to indicate that the bulk of truthers affiliated with liberal and progressive organizations and positions.

Why would that surprise you? Progressive liberals are among those most likely to put their prejudices ahead of actual facts when deciding what to believe. They'd believe anything that made the Bush administration look bad.

And you would know this how?

Because it's what he wants to believe. Completely reverses his own point, but it makes him more comfortable. IMO, this is more than typical of the conservative mind-set: believe the worst about the other side, as if the truthers weren't a pathetic fringe. I have no problem believing birthers are nothing more than a pathetic fringe of conservatives whose beliefs don't sit well with ordinary conservatives.

And Warren, one need not be a truther or other fringe element to see the Bush administration in a bad light. One need only look at what the bastards actually did.


Seth... still no answer to my friendly wager?

[Seth]

Wow. This is bad even by your standards, Seth. The brief starts by alluding to Minor v. Happersett and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (which citation actually does more harm than good, as in that case, SCOTUS affirmed citizenship of an individual born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents). Then after a lengthy and irrelevant detour through British common law, they return to Minor v. Happersett, where they proceed to attempt to intuit what the court had in mind when it wrote the majority opinion, whether the majority opinion actually says so or not.

For what it's worth, here's the relevant portion of Minor v. Happersett. I will confess to not having gone further in my research, for how far I went into the brief, the credibility of the claims was already stretched more than I could bear. For those interested, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on U.S. v Wong Kim Ark and ask yourself why these people are citing this case at all. (Having read the relevant portion of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the actual court opinion adds nothing to Minor v. Happersett, and only cites Minor rather obliquely; I can only assume they were desperate for cites.)

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. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.

The opinion never addresses the case where only one parent is a citizen.

Correct, and thus the exegesis into English common law. Minor is not an on-point case, but it's one of only two cases in which the term "natural born citizen" is even mentioned, and thus it is important precedent, if not determinative. The Court said, "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,"

The court was not determining eligibility for president, so it did not rule on the meaning of that phrase, but this dicta expression is still important because it's an early recognition of the fact that throughout English history and also American history, a child born of two citizen parents is a "natural born citizen." Thus the court recognized both a class of citizens and the conditions precedent to be a member of that class, and it said that there is no doubt as to the class or conditions of "natural born citizens."

Then, in dicta as well, it acknowledges that there is a question regarding the citizenship of a child born within the country to alien parents, which indicates that there is at least one other potential class of citizenship.

The Minor court ruled, and made it law, that any child born of two citizen parents is a "natural born citizen."

The question then becomes what distinguishes the other two classes of citizenship, "naturalized citizen" and "citizen" from "natural born citizen."

We know what distinguishes a "naturalized citizen" from either a "citizen" or a "natural born citizen," so now we have but one consideration; what criteria determine whether a person is a "citizen."

Minor makes it clear that parentage ("jus sanguinus") is an important consideration, and if you actually read the amicus brief, you'll see why this is so. Absent a constituitonal definition, the Court has to go back into English law to see how such things were handled as a guide to what the intent of the Framers might have been. Understanding the contemporary usages and understandings of the Framers is very important to proper interpretation of ambiguities in the Constitution.

So that's what the amicus brief is doing. The question that remains is whether the legal reasoning in the complaints and briefs are persuasive to the courts. If they are, eventually a court will rule and if the arguments are persuasive enough, and they appear to be well-founded and persuasive to me, a court may rule on the meaning of "natural born citizen" in a way that excludes Obama from eligibility to be President, and that will start the ball rolling towards the Supreme Court, where the issue will be finally resolved. Hopefully it will happen quickly, because this is, like it or not, a serious constitutional issue for the country, and it needs to be resolved on an expedited basis.

It's quite simply a matter of law, not an issue of fact. The Supreme Court could take the case because of the substantial constitutional implications and order briefs submitted and hear it within a few weeks, since it's pretty obvious that the briefs are ready. The Court needs to hear only minimal evidence of fact, and Obama's team can simply stipulate to the facts to move things along, if Obama was interested in the truth and candor with the People, rather than being interested in potentially illegitimately seizing power by delaying legal proceedings till he's (perhaps) won the election.

If he's correct in his desired interpretation of the phrase, he will be vindicated. But if he's not, his legacy will be that of a usurper and a fraud and his reputation will be even more besmirched than it already is. But what he cares about most is holding power during a lame-duck term, where he can wield the mace of state with abandon to implement his desired Marxist Progressive agenda administratively, by bypassing Congress and making it irrelevant based on the already too-broad authority granted to administrative agencies to make law without the consent of Congress.

Many of us are determined not to allow him to destroy the balance of power and safeguards against Progressive tyranny that are built in to the Constitution and wish to avoid Progressive despotism by administrative fiat.

And since I noticed your reply to my earlier post as I was composing this, I'll address that. Your opinion on the composition of the birther movement is all well and good, but it's just an opinion. Do you have any actual demographic data to substantiate your opinion?

No more than you or anyone else here does to the contrary.

[Tero]

It's quite simply a matter of law, not an issue of fact. The Supreme Court could take the case because of the substantial constitutional implications and order briefs submitted and hear it within a few weeks, since it's pretty obvious that the briefs are ready. The Court needs to hear only minimal evidence of fact, and Obama's team can simply stipulate to the facts to move things along, if Obama was interested in the truth and candor with the People, rather than being interested in potentially illegitimately seizing power by delaying legal proceedings till he's (perhaps) won the election.

The Obama team is doing nothing. There is no reason to act. You must put all your influence behind this, Seth, to get it to the SC.

[Seth]

It's quite simply a matter of law, not an issue of fact. The Supreme Court could take the case because of the substantial constitutional implications and order briefs submitted and hear it within a few weeks, since it's pretty obvious that the briefs are ready. The Court needs to hear only minimal evidence of fact, and Obama's team can simply stipulate to the facts to move things along, if Obama was interested in the truth and candor with the People, rather than being interested in potentially illegitimately seizing power by delaying legal proceedings till he's (perhaps) won the election.

The Obama team is doing nothing. There is no reason to act.

Isn't there? I think Obama is giving up on Georgia because it's not like he's likely to win it this time around anyway. But let such a challenge be mounted in New York, or California, where his electoral votes lie and he'll do something about it. I think he's just stonewalling for time, hoping that the shit won't hit the fan before the election, and that if he gets reelected, it'll be a fait accompli.

I think this may be a short-sighted tactic that might lose him the election and might get him booted from office even if he wins. But time will tell.

You must put all your influence behind this, Seth, to get it to the SC.

I will, because it's a valid constitutional question that needs to be resolved.

[Robert_S]

Let the movement get going at full speed before suddenly taking the wind from its sails!