Schmitt's The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy was first published in 1923.* In this work, Schmitt described the dysfunctional workings of the Weimar parliamentary system. He regarded this dysfunction as symptomatic of the inadequacies of the classical liberal theory of government. According to this theory as Schmitt interpreted it, the affairs of states are to be conducted on the basis of open discussion between proponents of competing ideas as a kind of empirical process. Schmitt contrasted this idealized view of parliamentarianism with the realities of its actual practice, such as cynical appeals by politicians to narrow self-interests on the part of constituents, bickering among narrow partisan forces, the use of propaganda and symbolism rather than rational discourse as a means of influencing public opinion, the binding of parliamentarians by party discipline, decisions made by means of backroom deals, rule by committee and so forth.[1]As an example of our failure – one among countless others, as you well know – consider how in the last election the candidate of a major political party failed to raise the issues of Obama's constitutional eligibility for the office of president and the obvious forgery of Obama's birth certificate. These are important issues and susceptible of discussion in a straightforward manner using concepts that are easily understood.
For example, are "citizen" and "natural born Citizen" synonymous? What did "natural born citizen" mean to the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution? Do we wish to be bound by a government of laws or of men who can change the meaning of terms in the Constitution when it is convenient for them to do so, when whim calls for change, or when narrow, selfish interest calls for change? Would the concept of "natural born citizen" have prevented what we have now – a usurper with a parent who was a polygamist, a communist, a Muslim, and someone who can't be bothered to salute when the national anthem is being played?
Similarly, it's a simple question to ask if (1) there are what are called "layers" in the document purporting to be a truthful record of Obama’s birth and connection to Hawaii that was posted on the internet by Obama and (2) there are lines drawn in that document that could only have been done in a computer graphics program that happens not to have been in existence at the time of Obama’s year of birth?
So we see that fundamental questions vital to the health of this country -- that likes to think of itself as blessed by American "exceptionalism" and as the epitome of classical liberal government – were ignored. Completely.
Who decides what we are worthy to hear during our elections? And what is left of the magnificent experiment started in Philadelphia? I know. If anything has gone wrong, it must have been perverted by fundamentalist Christians, gun nuts, racists, greedy corporations, drooling haters, and rich people.
Now that we know this, can't we please get back to the serious business of politicians pissing away the wealth of the people and stealing their liberties?
Notes
[1] "Carl Schmitt (Part II). The Concept of the Political." By Keith Preston, Alternative Right, 8/31/10 (emphasis added).
8 comments:
Obama really was born in Hawaii, as shown by the birth certificate (short form and long form) and the confirmation of the officials of BOTH parties in Hawaii, and the Index Data file and the birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers.
And every child born in the USA is a Natural Born Citizen. That is what the US Supreme Court ruled in the Wong Kim Ark case, which BTW was AFTER Minor v. Happersett.
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President ..."---- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]
http://www.fredthompsonsamerica.com/2012/07/31/is-rubio-eligible/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/02/birtherism-2012
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and kindly forgive my lengthy delay in responding. I travel a lot and the last two weeks especially have found me dealing with some back pain. Intergalactic pain as you might imagine. Trust me on that one.
There are considerable subtleties in the questions of the Obama birth-related documents. The evidence of the forgery of the certificate posted on the WH website shows that an unrelated but closely antecedent document was incorporated into the supposed "valid" certificate. I think it was the Hawaii governor himself who claimed he was going to get this all sorted out, this archival confusion, and then quietly backtracked on that bit of theater. Reliance on that document trove is not helpful. When you bear in mind that Mr. Obama has the SSAN of a dead man who lived in Connecticut one's confidence factor in what Mr. O. lays down goes down. Mine anyway.
I recommend Jack Cashill's work on this and any other aspect of the eligibility question, although I suspect you are well read in this.
The place of Obama's birth is moot if the correct definition of NBC is used. I'm in enough discomfort to not to want to go into detail on the worth of my secondary opinions. Leo Donofrio submitted an Amicus Brief that is probably reliable and possibly of interest to you. His reasons for finding that NBC clause does not mean just anyone born here in the U.S. I find persuasive. See here.
I am surprised that Atty. Gen. Meese came down as you indicated on NBC. Big double take on this end.
I'll reserve judgment on Wong Kim. Determining the ratio decidendi of a case is a precise and exacting exercise and I thus will not casually accede to your interpretation of the case.
The whole area is a very interesting one and only a few people strike me as having invested the time to say anything authoritative on the issue. I haven't, of course, and do not mean to insinuate any inadequacy in your approach.
Re: "The evidence of the forgery of the certificate posted on the WH website..."
Answer. It is not forged.
It makes no little sense for Obama’s BC to be forged if (1) Obama was really born in Hawaii (and they idea that he was born anywhere else is pretty nutty given the high expense and risk of such a trip late in pregnancy at the time); and (2) the facts on Obama’s published BC are exactly the same, repeat EXACTLY the same, which is what the officials in Hawaii have repeatedly said, as the facts on the BC in their files, and those facts include “African” and Kapiolani Hospital.
One proof that Obama’s birth certificate is not forged is Obama’s short-form birth certificate.
Short-form birth certificates are created by a clerk reading the information from the document in the file, and filling out the computer form that generates the printed short-form birth certificate. The officials in Hawaii have confirmed that they sent a short-form to Obama. So, unless they are lying—and they were Republican officials–---the only way that Obama’s birth certificate could have been forged was that it was forged in 2007 and slipped into the file just before the clerk looked at the file. That is not very likely, is it? And it is especially unlikely since at the time Obama was not even the candidate of the Democrats. He was still in the primaries at the time, and he was only a junior senator from Illinois.
And birther sites have not shown you these real experts:
Dr. Neil Krawetz, an imaging software analysis author and experienced examiner of questioned images, said: “The PDF released by the White House shows no sign of digital manipulation or alterations. I see nothing that appears to be suspicious.”
Nathan Goulding with The National Review: “We have received several e-mails today calling into question the validity of the PDF that the White House released, namely that there are embedded layers in the document. There are now several other people on the case. We looked into it and dismissed it. … I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home.”
John Woodman, independent computer professional, said repeatedly in his book and in various articles on his Web site that the claims that Obama’s birth certificate was forged were unfounded.
Ivan Zatkovich, who has testified in court as a technology expert, and consultant to WorldNetDaily: “All of the modifications to the PDF document that can be identified are consistent with someone enhancing the legibility of the document.” And, by the way, when WND received Zatkovich’s article that said that he found nothing wrong with Obama’s birth certificate, WordNDaily simply did not publish it.
Jean-Claude Tremblay, a leading software trainer and Adobe-certified expert, who has years of experience working with and teaching Adobe Illustrator, said the layers cited by doubters are evidence of the use of common, off-the-shelf scanning software — not evidence of a forgery. “I have seen a lot of illustrator documents that come from photos and contain those kind of clippings—and it looks exactly like this,” he said.
Birthers’ claim that Obama’s birth certificate is false is well understood to be caused by their own motives—they hate Obama and would like to harm him.
Re: " I think it was the Hawaii governor himself who claimed he was going to get this all sorted out...'
Yes, he was attempting to find some document that he could release IN ADDITION TO THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and he could not find one. But the BC is sufficient, and it does in fact exist, as the officials of BOTH parties in Hawaii have repeatedly confirmed, and they have also said that they send both the short form BC (which is the official BC) and the long form BC to Obama, and that the facts on the BCs that Obama has published are EXACTLY the same, that they MATCH, the facts on the document in their files.
Some things that show that Obama was born in Hawaii:
1. Obama's two official birth certificates, with the state seals on them. (The official physical copy of the long-form birth certificate was handed around in the White House press room, and one reporter said that she had felt the seal and took a photo of the document. http://turningthescale.net/?p=541)
2. The confirmation of the facts on the two birth certificates (short form and long form)----that Obama was born in Hawaii---by THREE Republican officials in Hawaii (including the former Republican governor, who is a friend of Sarah Palin’s) and several Democrats, and by the public Index Data file. The acceptance of the written confirmation of the facts on Obama’s birth certificate by the conservative secretary of state of Arizona.
3. The notices of Obama's birth in the Hawaii newspapers in 1961 that were sent to the papers “Health Bureau Statistics” section by the DOH of Hawaii----and only the DOH could send those notices. (Also, the claim that the DOH could have been influenced by lying relatives turns out to be false because whenever there was a claim of a birth outside of a hospital, Hawaii insisted on a witness statement.)
4. The absence of a US travel document for Obama in 1961. Nor has there been an application for such a travel document found. (A child born in a foreign country would, of course, require either to be on his mother’s US passport or to receive a US visa on a foreign passport. Either of which would have had to have been done IN a US consulate in that foreign country, and the application for that document would still exist, and would have been found by the Bush Administration during the eight years in which it was in charge of the US State Department, but they didn’t.)
5. The teacher, who recalls being told of Obama's birth in Hawaii in Kapiolani Hospital in 1961 and writing home about it (about the birth to a woman named Stanley to her father, also named Stanley).
6. Obama's Kenyan grandmother said repeatedly in the taped interview that he was BORN IN HAWAII, and she said in another interview (Hartford Courant) that the first that her family in Kenya had heard of Obama's birth was in a letter FROM HAWAII.
7. Hawaii is thousands of miles from any foreign country, and it was rare for women to travel late in pregnancy in those days. WND has proved with a FOI Act request that Obama’s father remained in Hawaii throughout 1961, which would have meant that she would have had to have made that long, expensive and risky trip without him---and that is hardly likely at all. In fact, it is irrational to believe that Obama’s relatives were rich enough (his grandfather was a furniture salesman and his grandmother was a low-level employee in a bank in 1961) or stupid enough to send Obama’s mother on a long, expensive and risky (the incidence of stillbirth was high in those days) trip to a foreign country when she was late in pregnancy------when there were perfectly fine hospitals in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Re: "When you bear in mind that Mr. Obama has the SSAN of a dead man who lived in Connecticut..."
Birther sites have not told you that MILLIONS of Americans have errors in their SS numbers and multiple SS numbers, caused mainly by data entry errors.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38678753/How_Many_Social_Security_Numbers_Do_You_Have
http://www.securityworldnews.com/2010/08/12/20-million-americans-have-multiple-social-security-numbers-associated-with-their-name/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20013733-501465.html
Re: "Leo Donofrio submitted an Amicus Brief that is probably reliable and possibly of interest to you. His reasons for finding that NBC clause does not mean just anyone born here in the U.S. I find persuasive."
You are entitled to your opinion. However, you should recognize that neither your opinion nor Leo's is the law. Leo is speculating about the law---but he is wrong. Meese is right, as are senators Hatch and Graham and former senator Fred Thompson, and all four of them say that the meaning of Natural Born Citizen refers to the place of birth. And, that is indeed what the Wong Kim Ark ruling said, and in fact NINE state and one federal court have all ruled that the key ruling on the matter was the Wong Kim Ark case, and that it ruled that the meaning of Natural Born Citizen comes from the common law and refers to the place of birth.
Here are some of them:
Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana (Indiana 2008 – Appellate Court) ruling: “ Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural born Citizens” for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”
Tisdale v. Obama (Virginia federal court 2012) ruling: “It is well settled that those born in the United States are considered natural born citizens.”
Purpura v. Obama (New Jersey 2012) ruling: “No court, federal, state or administrative, has accepted the challengers’ position that Mr. Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” due to the acknowledged fact that his father was born in Kenya and was a British citizen by virtue of the then applicable British Nationality Act. Nor has the fact that Obama had, or may have had, dual citizenship at the time of his birth and thereafter been held to deny him the status of natural born. It is unnecessary to reinvent the wheel here. … The petitioners’ legal position on this issue, however well intentioned, has no merit in law. Thus, accepting for the point of this issue that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a ‘natural born Citizen’ regardless of the status of his father.”
Voeltz v. Obama (Florida 2012) ruling: “However, the United States Supreme Court has concluded that ‘[e]very person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States. ‘Other courts that have considered the issue in the context of challenges to the qualifications of candidates for the office of President of the United States have come to the same conclusion."
Continuing:
Allen v. Obama (Arizona 2012) ruling: “Most importantly, Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent in construing the United States Constitution, Arizona v. Jay J. Garfield Bldg. Co. , 39 Ariz. 45, 54, 3 P.2d 983, 986(1931), and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President. … Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), does not hold otherwise."
Allen v. Obama (Arizona 2012) ruling: “Most importantly, Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent in construing the United States Constitution, Arizona v. Jay J. Garfield Bldg. Co. , 39 Ariz. 45, 54, 3 P.2d 983, 986(1931), and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President. … Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), does not hold otherwise”
Farrar (et al.) v. Obama (Georgia 2012) ruling: “In 2009, the Indiana Court of Appeals (“Indiana Court”) addressed facts and issues similar to those before this court. [Ankeny] v. Governor, 916 N.E.2d (Ind. Ct. App. 2009). … The Indiana Court rejected the argument that Mr. Obama was ineligible, stating that children born within the United States are natural born citizens, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. … This Court finds the decision and analysis of [Ankeny] persuasive.”
Hollander v. McCain (New Hampshire 2008) ruling: “Those born “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” U.S. Const., amend. XIV, have been considered American citizens under American law in effect since the time of the founding, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 674-75 (1898), and thus eligible for the presidency..."
For those who would like to do some research on the subject, here are some links:
http://www.fredthompsonsamerica.com/2012/07/31/is-rubio-eligible/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/02/birtherism-2012
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/scotus-natural-born-citizen-a-compendium.html
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/the-natural-born-citizenship-clause-updated.html
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/bookmarks/fact-checking-and-debunking/the-debunkers-guide-to-obama-conspiracy-theories/#nbc
http://www.obamabirthbook.com/http:/www.obamabirthbook.com/2012/02/an-open-letter-to-mario-apuzzo/
http://ohforgoodnesssake.com/?p=21346
www.obamabirthbook.com/http:/www.obamabirthbook.com/2012/04/vattel-and-natural-born-citizen/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322281597739634.html?KEYWORDS=obama+%22natural+born+citizen%22+minor+happersett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen
http://tucsoncitizen.com/arizona-lincoln-republican/2012/12/10/is-marco-rubio-a-natural-born-citizen/
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/natural_born_citizen
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf
I apologize for quoting Allen v. Obama twice. I did not notice that I had put it down twice.
The Wall Street Journal put it this way:
"Some birthers imagine that there is a difference between being a “citizen by birth” or a “native citizen” on the one hand and a “natural born” citizen on the other. “Eccentric” is too kind a word for this notion, which is either daft or dishonest. All three terms are identical in meaning."
Moreover, you can ask yourself why, if two citizen parents are required to be a Natural Born US Citizen why not one single member of the 538 members of the US Electoral College said anything about it either in 2008 or in 2012. Surely if it were at all likely that the citizenship of a parent had anything to do with the eligibility of the president one or more electors would have switched their votes from Obama to McCain or from Obama to Romney (or simply not voted) out of that belief.
Turns out that not one single elector and not one single member of Congress (since they confirmed Obama's election unanimously twice) and not one single court believes that the citizenship of parents has anything to do with the Natural Bron Citizen status of a US citizen who was born on US soil.
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