Birthers - Who's Responsible?
Barack Hussein Obama was confirmed as president-elect of the United States by Congress on January 8, 2009,and sworn in as President on January 20, 2009.
I don't know exactly when the conspiracy theories began but it was around the same time approximately.
The United States has laws regarding who can and cannot become president. One of these laws states that a president in this country can only be president if he's a natural born citizen. They go on to define what constitutes being "natural born". This definition has changed over the years.
This definition begins with the stipulation that a person must be born inside the borders of any of the 50 states or any of the possessions of the United States such as Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. An exception to this stipulation is that any person born to a parent who is a U.S. citizen where the child was born outside the United States or possession of the United States. Currently, both parents need to be U.S. citizens for the child to be a U.S. citizen if the child is born outside of U.S. jurisdiction if the child was born to married parents. Only one parent needs to be a U.S. citizen if the mother is not married. That law has changed in different variations over the years and what I've listed is too simplistic. There are conditions that have to be met depending on what year the child is born.
The laws continue with the definitions of natural born citizens born to parents who are foreign born. Currently any child born within our borders has automatic citizenship. However, being considered a natural born citizen does not apply to the children of foreign born diplomats, due to them being here for the purpose of being in the service of their home country. Again, these laws change from time to time and the laws one must live under depends on what date they were born. As I write, there are congress members trying to change the laws again, in order to exclude children of illegal immigrants from having natural born citizen status. But that is a topic for another post.
All the hoo-hah started when a black man with a foreign sounding name was voted into office. And not just any foreign sounding name. A name that rings strongly familiar as being middle-eastern. Not only does it sound middle-eastern, but his last name sounds way too close to Osama, a hated and feared name in America. For good reason! Anyone who lived in the United States during the events of 9/11/2001 and is old enough to remember these events understands this.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that having a black man as the U.S. president is a bad thing. I'm also not saying that because a man has a foreign sounding name automatically makes that man a danger to the people he governs. What I'm saying is that the furor over his presidency has nothing to do with whether or not his birth certificate is true or false, or whether or not he's holding back on his vital statical information rightly or wrongly.
For those who may not know, "birthers" is a term used to define people who believe that President Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen. They insist on personally viewing the original birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered Barack Obama at the moment of his birth. They want to see a document that contains the original raised seal of the State of Hawaii, since that is the state claimed to be Barack Obama's state of birth.
Immediately after President Obama's inauguration, rumors began to swirl that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, but some claim he was born in Kenya, since his father was a Kenyan national and President Obama's mother lived in Kenya for a while. Later, after Barack Obama's birth, and after his parents' divorce, his mother remarried, to a man from Indonesia and lived there with him and her two children, starting yet another rumor that President Obama was actually born in Indonesia.
Then somebody got the bright idea (insert sarcasm here) that since Obama's middle name is Hussein, a name commonly used in many third world counties including Arabian countries, non-Arabian middle-eastern countries, and India, among others, he must therefore be Muslim, a religion viewed with an intense hatred that can only be described as solar. Add to that his last name sounds very close to Osama, and that hatred took on a life of it's own.
Birthers, as they call themselves, are not satisfied with Hawaii producing a printed laser copy of the birth certificate and certifying that it's certified to be a genuine copy. They are also not satisfied with reports from fact-finding researchers who have personally viewed an authenticated copy of the birth certificate and verifying its authenticity. The fact is that nothing will ever be enough, no amount of verification will ever suffice, no matter who verifies or authenticates. They come up with excuses that they want to see the "long form" birth certificate. Such a thing has never been required, or provided before. Nothing will ever be enough for them unless President Obama is ousted from office.
Additionally, there have been some individuals who insist that being born in Hawaii does not qualify as being a natural born citizen, since they do not recognize the statehood of Hawaii even though the federal government has officially granted statehood.
The point of my post though is not whether or not President Obama is eligible for the presidency. It is also not about what form the birth certificate should be on. My point is more to: who is responsible for making sure the laws are followed.
When any of the past-time white presidents were voted into the presidency, few from the public ever asked. Most people never considered it their place, their responsibility to question the authority of the other congress members and their fact-finding researchers to make sure that the incoming president was eligible for the presidency. When former presidents were elected, people weren't crying out that they needed to see a "long form birth certificate" to make sure. Whatever was provided by the individual state was enough. Why not now? At what point did it become the domain of individual private citizens to make demands on congress or the director of vital statistics in an individual state to comply? Private individuals have never had that right, and do not now. That responsibility falls to the members of congress designated to ascertain that information. And if the birth certificate is legal for any other purpose, such as getting a job, finding housing, applying for public benefits, opening a bank account, etc., it's legal for the presidency.
I also want to make another point. Since when does a president have less rights than an ordinary citizen to protect his identity from theft? The U.S. is experiencing an explosion of fraud. People go out and steal information about other people, make fraudulent papers, make fraudulent I.D.s, and steal anything from lines of credit to receiving medical services to receiving government benefits under another person's name. Everyone has the right to protect personal information from being stolen. The president has that same right. And why not? Is he somehow less of a person because he's the president?
I would never say there are no conspiracies, but I do not believe there is one here. And even if there is one, it's not the job of individual private citizens to ferret out the conspiracies, especially in government.
If you want to read more, a very in-depth listing of all the arguments for and against the birthers' claims and a long list of filed and dismissed lawsuits can be found in Wikipedia if you look up the word "birthers". It's a comprehensive look at the issue and in some places very amusing.
Wikipedia quotes President Barack Obama as saying "I can't very well walk around with my birth certificate pasted to my forehead!"
January 22, 2011
7:24 p.m. CST
