Below is an editorial from the L.A. Times. Please note that if you think the U.S. Constitution should be followed you are considered a "wacko". Also note the logic to change the Constitution based on "In a rapidly globalizing society, we can expect more candidates like Obama". Also note the attempt to put on an equal footing John McCain (who was born out of country because of a military father) and Obama who has a Kenyan father and has never proved he is a natural born citizen. How is it so simple to me... follow the Constitution... and difficult for the non-wackos to understand. Richard
Editorial
Who can be president
Challenges to Obama's victory are stuck in the past. The Constitution's requirements should be updated.
December 16, 2008
If the Supreme Court could weigh in on Al Gore in 2000, maybe it could prevent Barack Obama from taking office as well. That seems to be the motivation behind one of the wackier political movements of 2008, an Internet-fueled attempt to prevent Obama from assuming the presidency based on the discredited notion that he isn't a natural-born American citizen, as the Constitution requires.
It's not hard to dismiss the factual or legal basis for this claim -- as the Supreme Court did Monday when it declined to hear a case from a Connecticut man named Cort Wrotnowski. A similar case was rejected last week, and there are at least two other appeals pending before the court, though they almost certainly will meet the same fate. That's because there is abundant evidence that Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961.
But what if he weren't? For that matter, what if Republican candidate John McCain had been disqualified from the presidency, as some equally spurious lawsuits attempted, because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone? Should the fact that a candidate wasn't born in the United States and may have had parents who weren't U.S. citizens prevent him or her from running for this nation's highest office? Even a person who has lived in this country for nearly his or her entire life, such as a foreign-born child adopted by American parents, is barred.
The framers of the Constitution required presidents and vice presidents to be natural-born citizens because they feared that foreign monarchs would otherwise be free to intrude in U.S. affairs. There's not much reason to fear such shenanigans anymore, yet the anachronistic article remains and can only be removed through a constitutional amendment.
Speculation about California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans for higher office spurred a movement for such an amendment a few years back, but it didn't go far. That's a shame, and not simply because it squelches the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger's political ambitions. Thousands of foreign-born Americans have served this country brilliantly as governors, statesmen, senators and soldiers, but we bar them from our top job, and worse yet, we prevent Americans from deciding for themselves whether they deserve to be elected because of a provision that no longer serves any practical purpose.
In a rapidly globalizing society, we can expect more candidates like Obama and McCain -- admirable leaders who may not have had a conventional American upbringing -- and the challenges to their qualifications might not be so easy for courts to dismiss. All the more reason to bring the Constitution into the 21st century, and make our democracy more democratic, by letting Americans vote for whomever they choose.
5 comments:
EASY WAY TO MAKE SURE OBAMA NEVER GETS INAUGURATED (READ CAREFULLY):–
Since the Supreme Court has now prevented itself from acknowledging the question of whether Barack H. Obama is or is not an Article II “natural born citizen” based on the Kenyan/British citizenship of Barack Obama’s father at the time of his birth (irrespective of whether Barack Obama is deemed a “citizen” born in Hawaii or otherwise) as a prerequisite to qualifying to serve as President of the United States under the Constitution — the Court having done so three times and counting, first before the Nov 4 general election and twice before the Dec 15 vote of the College of Electors — it would seem appropriate, if not necessary, for all Executive Branch departments and agencies to secure advance formal advice from the United States Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel as to how to respond to expected inquiries from federal employees who are pledged to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as to whether they are governed by laws, regulations, orders and directives issued under Mr. Obama during such periods that said employees, by the weight of existing legal authority and prior to a decision by the Supreme Court, believe in good faith that Mr. Obama is not an Article II “natural born citizen”.
As I've posted earlier Obama has provided a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii and that birth certificate has been certified by the state of Hawaii. That state of Hawaii is one of the United States of America. A human being who is born in one of the United States of America is a natural born citizen of the United States of America and as such is eligible to hold the position of President or Vice-President of the United States of America.
Obama has provided the proof. Why do you continue to ignore the truth, Richard? Why do you continue to feed into this bizarre, whacko conspiracy? Forget what the LA Times says. Why are you doing this?
Wow! Richard Randall now supports the fact that any Constitution has to be a living, breathing document.
Wonderfull, Richard. So glad to hear you aren't really as whacko and off the wall as your first blush certainly indicated.
Life Long, but Fed Up Republican
Well if the constituion and the court is to deal with technology and issues that are beyond what existed at the the time it was created.. it but be living. That said, it doesn't mean the courts get to create things out of whole cloth, or ignore what is written. If people want to amend the constitution there are ways to do that. What bothers me about the Obama issue is the gift that suited me well as a trial attorney. Knowing when something didn't make sense. There are too many questions about Obama that could be easily answered but are aren't. I have to wonder why. What i see yet again is people (in this case democrats) who are willing to ignore the law (the constitution) when it suits them or their candidate. I don't care how much i might like a candidate... if they didn't pass the constitutional requirements... no dice.
Richard,
There you go again.
Obama's birth certificate has been presented and has been certified.
If a state certified birth certificate is NOT evidence of citizenship by birth, what is?
John
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