On Obama’s Eligibility to be President, Who Is Protecting the Constitution and the Nation, the “Birthers” or Obama and His Enablers?

First, some of our founding principles:

“A Constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government, and government without a constitution is power without a right.” Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Part the Second, Chapter IV, Of Constitutions (1792).

“If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796.

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." John Adams.

"If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great Security." Samuel Adams

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." Abraham Lincoln.

With these time-honored principles in mind, let us now examine who is protecting the Constitution and the Nation, the “birthers” or Obama and his enablers. Let us review why the "birthers" maintain that Obama is ineligible to be President and by usurping that office is subverting the Constitution and presents a grave and present danger to our Nation. They make a two-part argument.

First, the "birthers" argue that Obama does not meet the original and only doubt-free, definition of an Article II "natural born Citizen" which, apart that it is the only definition that best serves the national security interests of the United States, has been confirmed by religious and secular history, founding era evidence, U.S. Supreme Court cases, Congressional Acts, and many notable international and constitutional law scholars. That definition is that a “natural born Citizen” is one who is born in the country (or its equivalent) to U.S. citizen parents (mother and father). Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, Section 212 (1758 first edition which was written in French; 1759 first edition written in English). They argue that this, and not the English common law definition of a “natural born subject,” is the only definition of a “natural born Citizen” which, like the 35-years of age and 14-years of residency requirements, creates no doubts as to its meaning, and therefore would have been the only definition the Framers would have adopted when establishing the presidential eligibility standards in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. They argue that under the British Nationality Act 1948, when Obama was born in 1961, Obama’s father, who was born in the then-British colony of Kenya, was a British subject/citizen and Obama himself was also born a British subject/citizen by inheriting that allegiance by descent from his father. Hence, because he is missing one of two U.S. citizen parents at birth, through his father, who never became a U.S. citizen or even a U.S. legal permanent resident, and through himself, Obama was born with as much natural allegiance to Great Britain which at age 2 converted to Kenyan as he was born with to the United States (if he was born in Hawaii). Hence, being born without unity of citizenship and allegiance to the United States and rather with conflicting natural allegiance to Great Britain and then to Kenya, there is no way that Obama can be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States and the President and Commander in Chief of its military.

Second, the “birthers” argue that Obama, who unjustifiably refuses to satisfy his burden of proof and present to the public his readily available 1961 contemporaneous birth certificate and his education, work, and travel documents, has yet to conclusively prove that he was born in Hawaii. Hence, presumably not being born in the United States and not being able to resort to any Congressional Act to make him a “citizen of the United States” let alone a “natural born Citizen,” Obama cannot be President.

How do Obama's enablers respond? Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 itself distinguishes between a “citizen of the United States” and a “natural born Citizen,” and commands that today only a “natural born Citizen” is eligible to be President. But Obama’s enablers just forget about all that and argue that the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen” was finally clarified in 1898 (only 120 years after the Constitution was adopted) by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, despite previous Supreme Court cases defining it as Vattel did in 1758 and despite that the Wong Court was only asked the question of whether Wong was a born “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment. They say, although without providing sufficient evidence thereof, that Obama was born in Hawaii and that he is therefore a Wong Fourteenth Amendment "citizen of the United States." Then they take the Obama Fourteenth Amendment born “citizen of the United States” and, with a quantum leap in logic and without any support from anything stated in the Wong majority decision, and despite the Wong majority confirming the same Vattelian original and only definition of a “natural born Citizen” which it recognized to be a different class of citizen from a “citizen of the United States,” equate him to an Article II "natural born Citizen." They justify their twisted reading of the Wong decision and the Fourteenth Amendment by arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment amended Article II's "natural born Citizen" clause which in effect would mean that it amended the Presidential eligibility requirements of the U.S. Constitution to say that anyone who is a born “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment is also an Article II “natural born Citizen.” They do all this by arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause even though the Constitution tells us in Article V how to amend it which does not include amending it by stealth, implication, and without notice to and vote by the People via ratification by 3/4th of the several states. 

On Obama's place of birth, despite that Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 and the Twentieth Amendment provide that a would-be President before qualifying for the Office of President must, among other things, show that he or she is a "natural born Citizen," they argue that it is up to those who question his place of birth to prove he was not born in Hawaii rather than up to Obama to prove that he was in fact born there. They have the face to make this argument even though they enable Obama to refuse to release to the public his 1961 contemporaneous birth certificate and education, work, and travel documents, they let him get away with not being otherwise transparent with the public, and they confuse the American people by telling them Obama has released his original birth certificate when in fact the only thing he did was release an alleged 2007 Certification of Live Birth, aka COLB, (which does not provide the name of the birth hospital, the delivering doctor, and other corroborating information) by posting a questionable image of it on the internet in 2008. Finally, on the question of whether their definition of a “natural born Citizen” provides the same national security for the American people and the Nation as does the birthers’ definition of the clause, Obama’s enablers will hear none of that and simply pooh-pooh the "birthers'" concern for the safety of America.

Now let us be honest. Who is protecting the Constitution and the Nation, the “birthers” or Obama and his enablers?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
May 31, 2010
Updated June 1, 2010
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
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