The good news: Marriage had a good night, with California, Florida and Arizona all approving ballot measures defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. (Maggie Gallagher has perspective.)
The bad news: Washington approved physician-assisted suicide.
Also, pro-life measures in South Dakota, Colorado, Michigan, and California were defeated — but does it matter? Even if they had passed, they would probably have gotten wiped out along with all the rest of the local pro-life measures that Obama will eliminate with the stroke of a pen when he signs the Freedom of Choice Act.
Good thing his economic policies will reduce abortions anyway, right?
Obama has pledged to sign the FOCA … but it hasn’t been passed yet, right?
Has it been established already that it is extremely likely to pass?
I have felt for a long time that we are like Russia in 1910.
I’ve not heard one way or another whether it’s likely to pass, but with a Democrat controlled House and Senate, the idea isn’t far-fetched.
Has it been established already that it is extremely likely to pass?
In a democratic congress and a democratic senate with a president who has their hearts and minds and a chance to pay back the republicans for 8+ years….almost inevitable.
Sour puss Martin says that the pro-life movement is in for it big time. The Republicans aren’t going to turn their backs on the big money people so they are going to blame us for this loss. The free ride is over. In four years, running against an incumbent Obama will be an “abortion is bad but needs to be legal” Republican candidate.
I have felt for a long time that we are like Russia in 1910.
Not for a long time for me but, as of last night, yes. Or perhaps, Kristalnacht.
FOCA sounds like a good first issue to filibuster, if need be. It appears that the GOP will have retained 44 senators. Furthermore, there are two senators – Ben Nelson of NE & Bob Casey of PA – who ran as pro-life democrats. If their feet can be held to the fire to maintain the filibuster, it should be insurmountable – UNLESS the dems change senate rules weakening or eliminating the filibuster. I wouldn’t put it past them, but it’d be a way to lose a lot of support very quickly. If Obama has any sense (and one would think he does), he should forget about FOCA and not let the liberals push for it. It may not make it past a filibuster and he just doesn’t need the fight. Besides, what are the NARAL & Planned Parenthood types going to do anyway? He should knife them in the back. He doesn’t need them anymore.
People in Nebraska & Pennsylvania should start writing preemptive letters to Nelson & Casey, expressing their expectation that they “walk the walk” on life. That means FOCA and it means supreme court nominations. Casey & Nelson need to know what’s expected of them – to side with GOP in filibustering FOCA or ultralib justices.
I’ve stayed away form posting, here, because I knew if I posted in the last few days the whole absurdity of the election would make me angry. I can barely speak without choking at how badly informed and formed our electorate is and realizing that things are only going to get worse, looking at population demographics and the agendas among those whose jobs it should be to properly educate the public. There are so many historical ironies in this election, that I could write a whole article on them.
SDG, a small correction on your first sentence: Marrying had a good night, marriage had an awful night. It is good to mandate that only a man and a woman may do something in the public forum that constitutes a marriage, but what makes a marriage – lifelong commitment, suffering together, supporting your spouse in holiness of life, having children (even when inconvenient and accidental) – these things make a marriage and definitely took a hit.
I hope that abortion does not become the norm in this country, but you have to realize the path that science is on: within thirty years, we will have perfected genetic testing and designer babies will become a reality, to an extent. We will, not yet, have learned how to manipulate the human genome by then, but the falling population numbers among the upper class will tempt them in that direction. Many more babies will die in mass harvesting for obtaining the perfect embryo, if stringent safeguards are not put in place, now. Unfortunately, we have an administration-elect, which will be moving in the opposite direction.
Marriage will, now, include (at least in Washington state) the option to put away your spouse, by killing her, if she becomes a burden. By defining marriage as between a man and a woman, they have only labeled the ties that bind, not made them stronger. That would require that people getting married have real backbone – something in less and less supply.
I wish I could discuss all of the historical undercurrents I see, but this is not the right forum.
Don’t get me wrong – I am happy to see that states are willing to define what marriage is (and let’s hope that we get enough states to force a US constitutional amendment, soon) – I just wish they weren’t so willing to undercut themselves and marriage by then voting for the pro-death agenda.
I have to go – infected knee – must see doctor.
The sad, but not unjoyful (“This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”), limping Chicken
I am from Nebraska and Ben Nelson has deceived Pro Life Nebraskans. He, being a democrat, put his support behind Obama, the most liberal senator in the US Senate, for the presidency. He could have remained NEUTRAL but he didn’t.
And Bob Casey took the seat of a GREAT Pro Life Senator, Rick Santorum. He’s NOT his father, Bob Casey, Sr, who passed away some years ago.
Putting aside Obama’s policies for a moment.
The international stereotype of America and Americans has been deeply challenged, probably forever.
America’s friends and foes are in awe of her progress.
Americans of all backgrounds will find it easier to believe that any kid has the potential to become President, regardless of race, poverty, or being conceived out of wedlock.
The election of someone of Obama’s appearance would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. Now some of the core values of the Constitution seem manifest. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …
As the abolitionists called on America to live up to the values of her Constitution, those who are pro-life now call on America to do the same. … that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life …
Sorry, that should have gone in “Congratulations …”
Martin,
In four years, running against an incumbent Obama will be an “abortion is bad but needs to be legal” Republican candidate.
Ready to hop on the Constitutionalist bandwagon with us?
Chicken,
I’d love to hear your thoughts. If this isn’t the right forum, is there somewhere else we can read them? Hope your knee feels better!
SDG: Maybe his economic policies WILL reduce abortions, to some extent.
As for the FOCA, I think there is still good hope that it won’t be able to pass. It is so radical that I doubt that even all of the pro-choice senators will vote for it. They may want to keep parental notificiation laws or they may want to prevent public funds from being used for abortions. Hopefully Obama’s promise to sign the bill will just be one more unfulfilled compaign promise.
A friend turned me onto this site while making an argument that some elected Dems are pro-life. Many of the Democrats that account to be pro-life can be found at http://www.democratsforlife.org. The site also features pro-life (in various degrees of full compliance) legislation proposed by these Democrats.
I encourage people to find these Democratic representatives in these states and encourage them to stay true to their convictions and vote against FOCA.
Dear Leo,
You wrote:
Americans of all backgrounds will find it easier to believe that any kid has the potential to become President, regardless of race, poverty, or being conceived out of wedlock.
Correct me, if I’m wrong, but Obama was born to fairly affluent parents, wasn’t he and he was raised in Hawaii (not too many pockets of poverty, there)? How does that give anyone but the rich hope? Heck, President Andrew Jackson was a backwoodsman and much poorer. You show me a black kid, born in the ghettos who rises to go to Harvard, and I might be impressed. This isn’t Obama. Such a thing happens once in a lifetime (the amazing mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, comes to mind, who rose from true poverty conditions in India to become a Fellow at Trinity College). There are many successful black CEOs and doctors and people conceived out of wedlocks go on to obtain Ph.Ds.
What would truly impress me is if an orthodox Catholic or Jew ever got elected president. Then, I might think this is a land of equal opportunity.
Sleeping Beastly,
If you knew the myriad play of historical trends and events that went into this election, it might wind up being frightening. I am not a conspiracy advocate, by any means. It is just that there have been so many threads of history that have woven themselves together that it makes Obama’s election almost inevitable, but that does not make it any less sad.
This will be a very controversial statement, so ignore it if it is out of line, but the Civil War in this country has not yet been successfully concluded. It has merely shifted populations. The Civil War was not fought to end slavery, but rather to define the nature of men who should have rights. Men are still in slavery at the hands of men, even today, although it seems more benign and more diffused through the culture, but defining the nature of men who should have rights is still as much a battle today (although it is mostly one-sided) as it was in 1861, with lives being lost (orders of magnitudes more), every day. Until babies in the womb are accorded their fundamental dignity, the Civil War still has not yet been successfully completed.
I find it infinitely sad that a man who should understand what the Civil War really was all about and should, therefore, be the strongest advocate for babies in the womb, might wind up signing the document for their execution. How ironic.
No, Obama is not the first truly black president, he is merely a black man who happens to be president. If voters only understood the difference. It might have made a difference.
The Chicken
I think Obama will surprise everybody by being a one-term president…
I think the special interest groups that have made up the Democratic Party will be unable to maintain the ties they had as the “have nots”…
Thanks for the Andrew Jackson reference — it reminded me of how a minority President can still be a persecutor of another minority. Jackson wasn’t an American by birth, either — officially, the place at sea where his mother gave birth to him was still in Ireland. But he was elected anyway.
A few weeks before the election, I had a discussion/argument with the priest giving the “Teen Life” Mass (for context I usually go to the “Extraordinary” Traditional Latin Mass or Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy) after Mass–where he said that:
1. Abortions went down under Clinton because of social policy to help mothers
2. Abortions went up under Bush
3. That there are justifications why Obama voted against Infants Born Alive in Illinois insofar that there were already laws on the books protecting babies who could be saved but the Infants born alive dealt with babies who were going to die anyway.
4. Some rationale as to the no vote on partial birth abortion (that many Dems voted with)
5. Abortion was not the only issue
6. Abortion would not be banned anyway under McCain
7. McCain was for stem cell research
8. Obama was better on the war and other issues
9 Obama would save more lives by ending the way and providing social services to make abortion unncessary or services for babies to make birth more possible.
I had a similiar argument with an Eastern Orthodox (Antiochene) friend of mine.
The Infants Born Alive rationale is absurd as who decides who lives or dies some nurse or abortion doctor?
No excuse for the ban on partial birth abortion.
No excuse not to recognize that life begins at conception BUT what about
1. Nobody is going to ban abortion
and
2. Did abortions decrease under Clinton?
and if so what was the cause
as any lives saved are important
I am a McCain voter by the way. However, I was curious for the logic moving forward.
What will Obama do on:
1. Parental notice?
2. State restrictions on abortion?
3. will he implement FOCA immediately?
can he?
4. Protests outside abortion “clinics”
5. Stem cell?
6. Cloning etc
Also, as former military–what about gays in the military beyond don’t ask don’t tell–what about gay marriage?
Some blogs like
Conservative Blog for Peace
and others
implicitly with the Reditus Blog
on critiques of Republicans
had a rationale to vote for Obama
I do not agree but do want to discuss
Chicken,
The Civil War ended when the head of the CSA surrendered to the Union army. I know it wasn’t only about slavery, but slavery was the main social issue that sparked the war.
Let me go out on a limb now: The struggle to defend the weak from the predations of the strong is perennial. It has existed in one form or another in every society since the Fall. It’s a battle we are called to fight, but not one we will ever win until the second coming. It was an issue before slaves were ever brought over to the Americas, and it will be an issue even if we somehow win legal protections for the unborn in America. This is an unjust world, but we are not wrong to thirst for justice.
Michaelis,
Abortions have been going down for a decade, under Bush as well as under Clinton. The causes are complex. It is not true that abortions went up under Bush.
The morality of voting for McCain vs. Obama has been discussed on this blog at considerable length in a six-post series beginning here.
What do you think of a priest trying to convince me it is OK to vote for Obama?
Was he just giving me the Kmiec talking points?
Father Frank Pavone would have told that priest what he said on “The World Over” last Friday: If you are wrong on life, you are wrong on every other issue, too; all other issues are irrelevant if you are not alive.
It sounds like the priest was engaging in rationalization. I can just see him at the Pearly Gates, saying: “But I tried my best to be a good liberal.” Then being told: “Liberal or conservative is irrelevant; I expected you to try to be a good Catholic.”
“Has it been established already that it is extremely likely to pass?”
No. Father Frank Pavone said it would be unlikely to pass, though he may have meant under a McCain administration. The Democrats for Life also think it has no chance.
Minus Obama, it has 18 co-sponsors in the Senate. Do you think at least 32 other Democrats, many from moderate states, are going to put their necks on the line to back up an opportunistic Obama promise made during the primaries?
It’d be easy for FOCA to get lost. “I’ve got to save the Economy first!” Obama could say, and his enthusiastic supporters would believe him.
“”I’ve got to save the Economy first!” Obama could say, and his enthusiastic supporters would believe him.”
Kevin J. Jones,
LOL, that strikes me as something Rob Long would write. 🙂
Good thing his economic policies will reduce abortions anyway, right?
And if anyone believes that, I have a bridge to nowhere to sell them…
JoAnna,
Ohhh…a bridge to the land of Nowhere. What a great hiding place! How much? I would love to meet the men who live there, but I’ve been told that No man is an island, so there must be No water surrounding Nowhere. I could write a guide book and call it, “Nowhere, in particular.” 🙂
The Chicken
Good thing his economic policies will reduce abortions anyway, right?
Well, under the circumstances, it’s worth a try. Right?
Correct me, if I’m wrong, but Obama was born to fairly affluent parents, wasn’t he and he was raised in Hawaii (not too many pockets of poverty, there)?
You are wrong. One of my friends lives in Honolulu and went to Obama’s high school (although she was not overly impressed with him and was planning to vote for McCain). Among the native Hawaiians, there are numerous areas that are dirt-poor, and Obama grew up in one of those areas. While lots of rich people go to Hawaii, the people who live these depend on those people spending money there, and when that doesn’t happen, things tend to be really bad. I don’t know what that says about his “spread the wealth” promises, but your assessment of his background is not accurate.
I am from Nebraska and Ben Nelson has deceived Pro Life Nebraskans. He, being a democrat, put his support behind Obama, the most liberal senator in the US Senate, for the presidency. He could have remained NEUTRAL but he didn’t.
And Bob Casey took the seat of a GREAT Pro Life Senator, Rick Santorum. He’s NOT his father, Bob Casey, Sr, who passed away some years ago.
Casey might well be beyond hope, as his Catholicism seems to have drifted as his party aspirations grew. But both indicated their opposition to Obama on abortion despite their endorsements, so let’s not give up on either yet. I was infuriated with the endorsements, but let’s at least given them a chance to show that their support of Obama really was despite his support of FOCA. If we could craft a bipartisan group on just pro-life issues, things might not be as bad as I fear.
I didn’t know that. My impression was that Obama grew up with money. If you’re right about this, Jonathan, and I have no reason to think you aren’t, Obama may deserve more credit than he gets in some quarters.
Obama did grow up in affluence and opportunity. He was NOT from the wrong part of town in Hawaii. He was not fabulously wealth and he did not know his African father. He was world travelled before pre-adolescence. He went to private Muslim and Catholic schools in Indonesia (Public and private have different interpretations there) His High School in Hawaii was elite (he could of been on scholarship) and he went to High School with the families of Dole pineapple and other big money people. He had a good education, good opportunity, was in a “people of color” state so being bi-racial was not the same, he was not discriminate against, he lived a comfortable life with his grandparents.
When he went to Occidental college he found enough money to use multiple drugs and travelled to Pakistan and India.
He did not live in a bad neighborhood.
And, he never thought about race in contradiction to his book, his other half Japanese half Black friend said that he and Barry never felt exclude, never felt Black, and never talked about race (his friend had convictions etc subsequently)
My impression was that Obama grew up with money.
I think people are thinking about after he was taken in by his grandparents (may his grandmother rest in peace). As a younger kid, he had it pretty rough.
I think we over estimate the influence of one man in leading our country. America is a country ‘for,by,and of’ the people. It is the people that will cause the final victory over abortion not the politician. Morality can never be legislated!!
So let us stop whining about the elections and get on with life!!!
While I agree with much of what enos wrote, I beg to differ on “Morality can never be legislated.”
Examples of morality that has been legislated:
Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness
As for “Morality can never be legislated”, would that apply to civil rights legislation? Slavery? For the record, such an assertion is just silly.
Slavery was only repealed after it had come out of favor predominantly via non-legislation.
Also America is a Republic not a Theocracy thus invalidating the arguments from Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Finally America is not a Democracy, so I argue voting for any candidate that promotes such ideology is to vote for a traitor.
Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 when his mom was 18. His parents separated when he was 2 and divorced in 1964, his father going back to Kenya and he remaining with his mom in Hawaii. She married a college student, Lolo Soetoro, a citizen of Indonesia, and they moved to Indonesia in 1967, when he was 6 years old. Obama lived in Indonesia until 1971. That year, age 10, he moved back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, his mom remaining in Indonesia. He was enrolled in a college prep school, Punahou, where he seems to have had a fairly normal experience and posted somewhat above-average grades.
Apart from the very real poverty of not being raised by his own father, I don’t know what level of economic poverty he may have experienced prior to his return to Hawaii at age 10. I imagine it wasn’t easy for his mom to have to raise him after his dad took off (and I’ve encountered claims that his dad never legally divorced his first wife, which if true means his parents were never legally married). He’d gotten her pregnant when she was 18 and they married a couple months after that. Obviously not a stable union, Obama’s mother had the difficult experience of being the single mother of a mixed-race child. Then I also have to wonder what kind of life they had in Indonesia – I can’t imagine it was terribly affluent. Most likely it was from age 10 on that Obama’s life was more stable and pleasant, even though by that time he was separated from both his mother and his father – again a very real kind of poverty, even if he was being raised by some reasonably well-off grandparents and going to a nice prep school. But his mom separated from Lolo Soetoro after a year and was reunited with her son in Hawaii in 1972.
All in all, his childhood was not a cake walk. Pretty chaotic and painful at times, it seems to me. No silver spoon, that’s for sure.
And enos made so much sense in his first post.
Obama came out for FOCA in June/July of 2007. Since then, in June/July 2008, he has come out against 3rd trimester abortions where a women’s health could not be substantiated as in danger (i.e. not just “the blues”). Ergo, Obama changed his position with regard to the extreme consequences of FOCA: he would not sign the bill he originally endorsed. Therefore, FOCA will likely not ever be proposed in its original form. Obama’s caveat puts his thinking more in line with the still inadequate Roe-with-restrictions paradigm. – NM
The “Obama is the lesser evil, so I’m voting for him” no longer applies. It is now time to oppose those evils together. I am looking forward to coming together and assisting Catholics who voted for Obama to discharge their grave obligation to oppose his policies to expand abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage and all other policies contrary to the Faith.
Try this analogy (its wrong, but its a discussion starter): the difference in trying to elect a Black president and trying to elect an orthodox Catholic president is the like the difference between trying to write a PDF paper in 2008 using Word 3.0 (hard, but doable) vs. trying to write the PDF paper with sand in a wind tunnel.
The Chicken
should be, “it’s wrong, but it’s a discussion starter…” Shame on me.
The Chicken
On the marriage issue — not quite a clean sweep.
In Connecticut, we had a proposal for a constitutional convention. This would have let us try to put in a referundum, which would have let us try to imitiate California.
It failed.
Obama’s recently deceased grandmother was a bank vice president or president. Not among the poorest of the poor. Like many red-diaper babies, he grew up in an affluent home.
America is founded upon Christian political thinking, enos, and its law was based upon God’s Law and the Bible-modified English Common Law. Jesus is the King in America, which is why the merely human government only has few and specific powers. We acknowledge that our rights are unalienable and come from God, which is -why- they are unalienable by any human government. Your civics are somehow very confused.
BHO was born in Kenya, if his grandmother and aunt can be believed. They aren’t allowed to talk to the press any longer for some reason. . . His mother was impregnated at 17. When he went to Indonesia, he became an Indonesian citizen, and his name was legally changed to Barry Soetoro when Lulu Soetoro adopted him. There is no record of change of nationality or name after his return to America. He was raised by his affluent white grandparents, and attended upper class Ivy League schools, though his records remain unavailable to journalists or the public.
It is hard to believe that BHO is actually opposed to third trimester abortions when he remains in favor of “fourth trimester” infanticide.
Rejection of a constitutional convention doesn’t necessarily mean that the citizenry were against keeping marriage. A Constitutional convention can allow for just about *anything* to happen, and most people would rather keep with the process of amendation.
President-elect Obama has the power of Executive Order to enact FOCA if he feels a) there isn’t support to have it pass; and b) he feels it is in his best interests to pay back his pro-abortion supporters quickly. So my question is, would FOCA fall under the Executive Order umbrella?
As I’ve read elsewhere on the ‘net at other sites (and quite possibly At JAO, too – reading a lot the past few weeks!), it is incumbent upon the pro-life Catholic who convinced other Catholics that voting for Obama is ok because his policies would reduce abortions (Kmiec, for example), to remind Obama of those campaign promises. Whether or not they live up to their word remains to be seen…
labrialumn,
Obama’s birth certificate says he was born in Honolulu. Obama (unlike McCain) appears to have been born in one of the fifty states, but if you can link to testimony to the contrary, I’d be interested to read it.
Interesting… Obama’s birth in 1961 came less than two years after Hawai’i was admitted to the Union. If he’d been born there two years earlier, would he have been eligible for the presidency? Looking at the wiki article, it appears that if any candidate was ineligible for the office, it was McCain…
McCain was born on a US Military base in the Panama Canal Zone which was integrally part of the US at that time.
The Certificate of Live Birth that was shown for Obama has white-out on it, shows evidence of photoshopping in the hexidecimal code, has no official embossed stamp, and refers to his father as “African”, but in 1961, if it were authentic, it would read “Negro”. It also lacks folds, and all real certificates of live birth are folded.
A Certificate of Live Birth is not the same document as a birth certificate, nor does it have the same implications on location.
A quick search via google or yahoo should show you a lot of information, including videos on YouTube examining the documents alleged to be genuine.
You would also have to answer why his grandmother and aunt in Kenya testify to having been in the delivery room when he was born – in Mombassa, Kenya, and how his mother then flew him to Hawaii right afterwards. Why would they lie? That is quite an accusation to make for them. There is no benefit to them.
labrialumn,
Very interesting. I’ll have to look into it a bit more. What are the implications of a governing body that disobeys its own internal rules and foundational document?
The truth about Obama’s birth certificate updated November 1, 2008 from FactCheck.org.
Labrialumn said: BHO was born in Kenya, if his grandmother and aunt can be believed. They aren’t allowed to talk to the press any longer for some reason. . .
They probably are not to be believed. Families sometimes get their histories garbled. For years and years my family believed my aunt’s legal name was Victoria, but that she didn’t like that name and insisted everybody call her Virginia. Then after she died we got to see her birth certificate from the 1930s, and we found that her legal name was Virginia all along. We’re not sure where the “Victoria” story came from – apparently not from my aunt. In the case of Barack Obama, his father’s family did not and do not know him very well. However, a false “tradition” of where he was born could have somehow gotten started among his Kenyan relations. Who knows, it could be a recent invention motivated by family pride – we’ve all seen how absurdly proud the Kenyans are of Obama’s election. In any case there is no known documentary evidence of Obama being born in Kenya, whereas there is plenty of documentation of his birth in Hawaii, including a newspaper birth notice. In those days such notices were submitted automatically to newspapers by the hospitals where the baby was born. That’s why genealogists often find goofy information in those old newspaper announcements: the hospital’s records might have some error in it, such as identifying the parents as “Mr. and Mrs.” even when the parents weren’t married. The hospitals could only supply the information that was given to them, but sometimes the hospitals made assumptions or made clerical errors which then made it into the papers. Anyway the newspaper notice confirms Obama’s birth in Hawaii, in agreement with the authenticated Certificate of Live Birth that was released by Obama’s campaign in June.
His mother was impregnated at 17.
Perhaps. Obama was born 4 Aug. 1961. His mother was born 29 Nov. 1942. If you count back nine months from 4 Aug. 1961, you get 4 Dec. 1960, at which time his mother would have just turned 18. First pregnancies often go past the due date, so he may have been conceived just before his mother turned 18. But her age when she got pregnant is not relevant to whether or not Obama is legally qualified to be president.
When he went to Indonesia, he became an Indonesian citizen, and his name was legally changed to Barry Soetoro when Lulu Soetoro adopted him. There is no record of change of nationality or name after his return to America.
No, I’m afraid that doesn’t invalidate Obama’s citizenship. See http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html
”U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.”
A 6-year-old boy obviously could not have voluntarily applied for Indonesian citizenship with the intention of giving up U.S. citizenship. The status of U.S. citizenship law at the time Obama was taken to Indonesia has since been clarified by court cases that establish the above-quoted requirements described by the federal government website. There’s just nothing regarding Obama’s probable past Indonesian citizenship that would stand up in a legal attempt to establish that he is not a U.S. citizen. That’s one of the reasons Philip Berg’s lawsuit to that effect was dismissed by the federal judge.
Sleeping Beastly said: Obama’s birth in 1961 came less than two years after Hawai’i was admitted to the Union. If he’d been born there two years earlier, would he have been eligible for the presidency?
Yes. To be a natural born citizen, you have to be born on U.S. soil, which included territories, not just states.
Labrialumn said: The Certificate of Live Birth that was shown for Obama has white-out on it, shows evidence of photoshopping in the hexidecimal code, has no official embossed stamp,
No, none of those allegations is true. The actual COLB matches the scanned images perfectly, nor did any evidence of photoshopping turn up in the scanned images, which would explain why the scanned images show the same thing that the actual COLB shows. The official embossed stamp is on the back, just as on would expect in an authentic Hawaiian COLB.
and refers to his father as “African”, but in 1961, if it were authentic, it would read “Negro”.
The COLB was obtained by Obama in June 2007, and the State of Hawaii no longer uses “Negro” as a racial or ethnic designation on its COLBs. It is the original 1961 long-form birth certificate in Hawaii that would say “Negro,” not a certified and notarised COLB drawn up in June 2007 by the State of Hawaii. Apparently Obama acquired a new short-form version of his birth certificate last year to fulfill the requirements of the law, which says presidents have to show that they are natural born citizens.
It also lacks folds, and all real certificates of live birth are folded.
Of course all scanned digital images lack folds, but the COLB itself does have folds. Just because they are not apparent in the scanned images doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Besides the website that Maurice provided, Snopes has a decent summary too:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
Aren’t birth certificates a matter of public record? I realize that one might get a COLB for such things as applying for a passport, but in something as serious as proving citizenship for the purposes of being elected as president, especially when the place of origin is in question, one would think the original document would be preferred if all doubt wanted to be settled (except among the die-hard conspiracy theorists).
The Chicken
testing my computer which isn’t showing the rest of the previous thread.
Mary Kay,
Your computer works, it is typepad that is broken 🙁 How hard is it to fork a program into two option boxes for blog owners: continuous post or limited post (with a box to specify the number of posts on each page)? I could write the code in about twenty minutes. Oh, wait, typepad must be written in C. 🙂
The Chicken
SDG,
To be a natural born citizen, you have to be born on U.S. soil, which included territories, not just states.
Has the term been defined that way? It looked to me like there was some disagreement as to what the term meant, and that it might even include children born to American parents in foreign countries.
You know how it is during the Easter Triduum – that nervous anticipation for the coming of Easter that comes into your soul? Well, I think I am having the opposite reaction to the interregnum (if I may use the term – oh, look it up…) after this election. I have a type of listlessness such that I can’t even think of anything to say or write anymore, especially about the state of the Country.
I really wish we had access to a time machine so that we could bring one of the writers from 1789 to 2008 and ask them if they recognized the constitution, anymore. Surely, it would be a Woody Allen moment – think, Annie Hall and the science fiction theater scene where Billy Mummy (who played, Will Robinson, on the tv series, Lost in Space, in the mid-1960’s) stepped out of the shadows and told an overbearing fan – “You don’t know me. You know nothing of my work.”
Heck, I’ll bet someone from 1950 wouldn’t even recognize the cultural degeneration of today. Where would either of them they tell us we went wrong? I think that is an interesting question, because we must pick up the culture where it has fallen.
I think we can safely ignore any leadership from the top in recapturing a culture where modesty or the protection of innocent life means anything. If this world is truly to be something of our own making in cooperation with God, where do we begin? Prayer and fasting, obviously, but how can we convince other Catholics, who themselves are praying and fasting, that they have mis-prioritized their efforts?
Can we get a little game plan, here. I could use some cheering up and recovery from this week in a major way.
The Chicken