History Lesson for Ignorant Conspiracist “Patriots”

Our favorite nutjobs at Freedommarch.org have updated their website with a new round of ignorant prattle. I probably shouldn’t waste my time thinking about their sad little world of conspiracies, but I just can’t let this one pass without offering a history lesson. These self-proclaimed “patriots” seem to lack familiarity with the Constitution–and I’m not just referring to the 1st Amendment this time.

Barack Obama’s dark skin and funny name has sparked a troubling xenophobia in the radical fringe of our political discourse–something I can only properly term anti-American because our national identity as a nation of immigrants demands an embrace of ethnic and cultural diversity.

Freedommarch.org apparently believes there to be “several questions” regarding Obama’s eligibility for the Presidency “that have never even been addressed–much less resolved by the BHO camp.”

The issues they raise can all be resolved by actually reading the Constitution, rather than shitting on it, so I take it upon myself as a freedom-loving patriot of the first order to give them the tools they need to overcome their current state of ignorance and join me in a state of grace.

Freedommarch.org outlines three main areas of intrigue surrounding their understanding of Obama’s eligibility for the presidency:

Obama is well-known for having lived abroad in Indonesia, as a child, where he apparently also held Indonesian citizenship.   There are potential conflicts created in dual-citizenship instances for holding the office of POTUS.

Obama’s birth country: Questions remain over where was Obama truly born. Foreign-born individuals are precluded from holding the office of POTUS.

Another suit challenges whether BHO qualifies as “natural born” since his father was foreign. The exact legal meaning and defintion of the term “Natural Born” is at issue. Legal issues can be quite complex.

Yes, indeed, these legal issues can be quite complex for those so determinedly uninformed about them. Before I proceed to the Constitution, let’s start with a history lesson.

Is it unusual for a President to have a foreign-born President? While it hasn’t actually happened since Herbert Hoover, the first POTUS born of foreign parentage was none other than Thomas Jefferson. His mother was English, as was Woodrow Wilson’s. Chester Arthur and James Buchanan both had Irish fathers, back in a day when those hailing from the Emerald Isle were considered only slightly superior to those from the Dark Continent. Andrew Jackson nearly lost his fight for the presidency, in part because his political opponents stirred up intrigue about his loyalties based on the fact both his parents immigrated from Ireland.

Regarding the location of Obama’s birth and the time he spent in Indonesia as a child, it would be pertinent to examine the requirements outlined in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

It has been well over fourteen years since Obama lived in Indonesia, but what if he was born there? (Or wherever else the nutjobs think he might have been born.) Let’s put aside for one moment the recent legal challenge to Barack Obama’s birth certificate, in which the presiding judge ruled the plaintiff bringing the suit had no evidence, but rather based his case on “hearsay, conclusory allegations or pure speculation” he’d found on the Internet. Just for fun, let’s pretend Obama wasn’t born on US soil. Would that preclude him from the presidency?

Actually, no.

According to Freedommarch.org, the exact meaning of “natural born” is at issue because of Obama’s foreign father, which the historical record makes clear is not accurate, though the definition would indeed come into play if it turned out he was actually born abroad.

Title 8 of the U.S. Code provides the legal basis for defining people who are “citizens of the United States at birth” and thus eligible for the Presidency. Section 1401 contains the specifics, which even surprised me in their broad-based definition of “natural born” citizen of the US.

Before doing this research, I believed the single accuracy of Freedommarch.org was in asserting foreign born citizens were ineligible to be President, but I stand corrected–they’re even wrong about that.  Title 8, Section 1401 dictates American citizens by birth can include:

• Anyone born inside the United States
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person’s status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

So even if Obama was born somewhere abroad, which he wasn’t, he would still be legally considered a “natural born” citizen of the United States because of his matrilineal parentage.

If the Indonesian government granted Obama citizenship rights while he was a child living there with his mother and stepfather, that has no bearing on his American citizenship or his status as a “natural born” citizen of the United States. That would be considered an administrative affair of Indonesia, which the American government would not legally recognize unless Obama had filed a petition for dual citizenship after he turned 18.

While I’m not entirely optimistic that actual facts will impinge on the conspiracy mongering of these rightwing nutjobs, I can only combat ignorance with information.