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The Internet's New Alternate Reality
Hugh Pickens writes "Tim Rutten writes in the LA Times that when President Obama released his long form birth certificate last week, one of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room Wednesday was the rapidity and ease with which so many leading birthers rejected the evidence he presented. 'Until very recently, if every professional news organization in the nation examined a charge and found it baseless, it was — for all intents and purposes — dropped,' writes Rutten. 'Today, the growth of the Internet has drained the noun "news" of its former authority. If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs.'"
You are supposed to trust the police, but then one of them treats you like shit. Then you end up not trusting any of them.
It is easy to criticize people for not trusting the media, but who hasn't been intentionally lied to by the media? The blame belongs on a lot of people here. Don't just blame the birthers.
KENYA, Indonesia, Wednesday (WorldNetDaily) — Barack Obama's alleged long-form birth certificate has been declared fraudulent by the noble and patriotic "Birther" movement, who claim firm evidence that the President is insufficiently white.
"I've seen a few Photoshops in my time," said immigrant Birther and world's oldest emo kid Orly Taitz. "I can tell from a few of the pixels. They're nowhere near light enough."
Donald Trump, the next Sarah Palin, takes credit for provoking the release of this initial documentation of the mysterious Obama, and has now asked if Obama's college transcript is all that, and something about basketball as the President's favourite pastime. Betting pools are now forming on when Trump will allude to watermelon and fried chicken.
Birthers are routinely outraged at suggestions that blatant racism is at the heart of their disquiet with Obama's landslide victory in the 2008 presidential election. So it's really worth saying it to them, every time.
The Birther movement was originally started by Party Unity My Ass, a group of disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2008 Democratic primary. They note that Obama has, on his track record so far, been a first-class Republican president.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I call bullshit... I find it hard to believe that people only like to be told what they want to hear.
Who knows, maybe the BC is fake but accurate.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
"If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs."
That's the way it has always been. People choose the newspaper or TV channel that selects / presents / distorts / invents the news in the way most fitting to their own world view. All that has changed is that the number of available publications has increased.
I can't be the only one who sees the irony in the URL being /news/opinion/...
"But everyone should know everything." -markab
Many revelations in later years have show us that the news establishment don't care for the truth at all. Many of the things reveled in the wikileaks cables was known but not reported. The war against Iraq was totally baseless but nobody seemed to care in the media. All they did was distributing what officials told them, without even bothering a simple fact check. All in all i think the problem described comes from the total lack of moral fiber in the media.
When you know almost everybody is lying to you, its only human to be drawn to news you think sounds most plausible.
HTTP/1.1 400
The internet invented conspiracy theorists.
This is simply the course for any conspiracy theory. The more facts you throw at it, the more the believers claim deeper evidence of deception. People wrap themselves tightly in their beliefs. They will never shed that blanket, no matter how hot it gets.
dull-eyed footstool-temporary octopus
There is a real problem of people selectively tuning in to news sources that cater to their bias, but the summary has a tone implying that established news sources are more correct or neutral than new media when this isn't always the case. The scare quotes around 'facts' clearly suggest that new media are wrong and established media is right. Using the term 'birthers' paints the believers as conspiracy theorists, which may be accurate but is unnecessary.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I think the traditional mass media has done plenty to damage their own credibility. Why blame the internet?
Yeah, it's a bit of both... We are being lied to by media / governments and by our self delusion online... Neither is the full story. The problem is distinguishing the lie from the truth is becoming more and more impossible for people...
We must not underestimate the importance of reputation and multiple sources. Modern technology, sleight of hand and a convincing smile mean that any claim can be well supported by physical "evidence" and we need independent tests of the reliability of the evidence.
For example, OBL was killed within the past week. We know this because the US government says so. The US government say they've confirmed it because they performed DNA tests. This means that we must trust the US government and, if the DNA test data is released, that the data is not fabricated. Why should we do that? What about the alternatives: that he is not dead, or - per Benazir - that he has been dead for several years already? We do not have sufficient reliable evidence for any of these claims, so we should not assume that any are true.
Similarly, what does OBL's birth certificate say? It says that a piece of paper was produced resembling a birth certificate. Is this sufficient evidence that he was born in the US? No. Is there credible evidence that he was not born in the US? No. We must either trust him, not care, or explore further. I've always thought the "where you're born" rule about the Presidency is against the principles on which the US was founded, so I'd pick the "not care" option.
Erm, actually, yes, for the first two. It's in the Constitution. You can presumably visit other countries, but you do have to be a natural-born citizen:
Since TFA cites the example of Miller, may I remind everyone that the rapture is happening this month: http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/may21/ and I predict a recalculation on May 22nd.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Over where I come from we have 3 main Tv channels. One is run by an independant group, and two others are run by different political parties.
If you watch the three news programs in series, you'll go from a country which is collapsing due to corruption and bad stuff the PM is doing, a country which is perfect because of what the PM is doing, to something in the middle.
So yeah, this is pretty much the case everything has been in for years.
http://www.amazon.ca/Into-Buzzsaw-Leading-Journalists-Expose/dp/1417671300/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301616051&sr=8-2
"In this uneven yet illuminating anthology, editor Borjesson succinctly explains the journalist's predicament: "The buzzsaw is what can rip through you when you try to investigate or expose anything this country's large institutions be they corporate or government want kept under wraps." Indeed, if members of the general public read this book, or even portions of it, they will be appalled. To the uninitiated reader, the accounts of what goes on behind the scenes at major news organizations are shocking. Executives regularly squelch legitimate stories that will lower their ratings, upset their advertisers or miff their investors. Unfortunately, this dirt is unlikely to reach unknowing news audiences, as this volume's likely readership is already familiar with the current state of journalism. Here, Murrow Award-winning reporter Borjesson edits essays by journalists from the Associated Press to CBS News to the New York Times. Each tells of their difficulties with news higher-ups as they tried to publish or air controversial stories relating to everything from toxic dump sites and civilian casualties to police brutality and dangerous hospitals. Some, like BBC reporter Greg Palast's, are merely rants against "corporate" journalism, but others, like New York Observer columnist Philip Weiss's, will serve as meaningful lessons to nascent and veteran writers alike. Most of the sentiments here are especially relevant given the current reports of the war in Afghanistan and questions of their validity, making this timely and essential reading for students and scholars of journalism. (Mar.)Forecast: With Bernard Goldberg's Bias riding high on bestseller lists, Borjesson's offering on news media manipulation is bound to attract serious attention and sales.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition."
The release of the "long form" birth certificate is a perfect example. In a day in age when someone says "Show me what you have" and then you take 3 years to release the info" when the correct response should have been, "hold on give me a second to scan it." People are justified in being skeptical of your motives and your message over something that should have been "news" for no more than 24 hours.
So they finally scan the damn thing and release it. People take one look at it and realize the thing looks like shit and justifiably immediately say "THAT LOOKS FAKE!"
They are justified because of all the hair pulling and stalling and name calling and the simple fact that which ever idiot flunky scanned the damn thing used a PDF file generator and had the compression settings set way too high. So to the untrained eye the thing looks wrong. (Even to the trained eye it looks fishy.)
Again the media and the politicians could have fixed the problem immediately by rescanning it and releasing it as a high resolution uncompressed TIFF or other file type. Something that would have taken only hours to do. This would have helped most of the general public understand easier and would have taken away most if not all the doubt, .
But that is not what we get. Again what we get is the media and the politicians wagging their fingers at us calling us names and calling everyone paranoid and racists when it was they who failed to communicate the information on both ocassions in a timely and clear manner.
People are fed up with this crap, so why should they trust them any more when they have repeatedly proven themselves to be at best incompetent much less trust worthy?
I don't see why this would just apply to news. Any establishment cannot be trusted.
The internet has a lot more potential to distribute unbiased news than 'the media', and it's not just Wikileaks, the very proliferation of news sources makes it much more likely that accurate news information will be free. We all still have to do what only we can which is to call bullshit when we see it.
Korma: Good
Which government or faction would have to something to gain if people believe that?
Racist bastards?
which is totally what she said
Alternate verb: to switch between states or options in a regular manner.
Alternative noun: something different, another option.
This is not advanced English.
"...If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs.'"
There is a difference between a fact and an opinion, and those who go click-hunting for the "facts" they want to see aren't looking for news. They're simply too stupid or blinded by ignorance to see that.
The internet isn't the only thing that is a mere shadow of it's former self.
People remain convinced that GMO is harmful.
People remain convinced that high fructose corn syrup is more harmful than cane sugar.
I keep seeing the debunked table of 'IQ by state and how they voted' be posted.
Plenty of people think Bush claimed there were WMD in Iraq when he knew there were none.
I was keen to see the birth certificate myself, because why wouldn't I be? If the US constitution said that someone who owned more than 20% of a national TV station could not be president, and Donald Trump was voted in, and there was the least bit of doubt whether he breached the rules, Democrats would launch an inquisition. Sure, deny that, but that's the case. I am now satisfied with what was presented (although surprised it wasn't presented earlier to avoid all of this controversy building up in the first place) but it shouldn't be surprising that many people don't accept it.
And mythology works both ways. There are people who believe in "the spirit of the planet". These would probably vote for any green/left oriented party. Even though the 'spirit of the planet' can be debunked over and over.
That is how the world works. Obama isn't a special case or a groundbreaking new discovery. Mythology works both ways.
"Distrust in U.S. Media Edges Up to Record High"
For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one percentage point.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143267/distrust-media-edges-record-high.aspx
This is yet another story about something we've heard a million times over, but they put "Internet!" in the title and treat it as though it's novel.
"Birtherism" isn't new, nor limited to black presidents. There was a long argument over whether McCain was native born, there were even debates about whether George W Bush was native born, and have been about presidents going way back. Even recently there was a huge amount of discussion over whether Sarah Palin was really Trig's mother. Even after multiple journalists reported that they had seen her pregnant belly, other equally prominent journalists were still Just Asking Questions.
And birtherism is loopy, but nothing compared to trutherism. About one third of Democrats believed that the government intentionally killed its own citizens to start a wars or, at least, that Bush knew about 9/11 and let it happen. Most Democrats also still claim that W was AWOL from his guard duty, and many prominent figures demanded explanations. CBS's Dan Rather, a 40 year veteran reporter, completely destroyed his career trying to pass off some forged documents. To this day, the guy insists that those forgeries were "fake but accurate". And, of course, there are long standing conspiracy theories about the Bush family's involvement with Nazis and such.
This gets play because "ooh, look, the Internet!" but if you look at what various conspiracies have in common, they're all old fashioned fishing expeditions. After Obama presented the long form, Trump *instantly* went to demanding his college records. The weird Palin birthers want all sorts of hospital records. The AWOL Bush people had huge lists of demands.
All these demands seek to scrutinize every possible second of a person's life. What happens when it's put into practice is the unbounded, independent prosecutor. Ken Starr, for instance, started out by investigating serious claims of corruption by the Clintons. When that turned up nothing, it morphed into a fishing expedition that turned up Lewinsky, Jones and Flowers. Incidentally, there are Clinton obsessives who are still Just Asking Questions, I won't link to it, but do a search for the "Clinton Death List" if you're curious to see some real crazy.
I occasionally get a glimpse of US news shows (clips and some cnn), the contrast with bbc or al jazeera is pretty striking:
The most important piece of information is always the name of the host, which is repeated every 5 seconds.
The hosts seem to be picked up straight from plastic surgery, complemented by exaggerated facial expressions.
Its roughly 5 minutes of program then 5 minutes of commercials.
If there are 2 hosts they spend half the time demonstrating their "chemistry" for eachother, its painful to watch.
The graphics remind me of old arcade cabinets, classy like las vegas.
Interviews are rude and annoying, the object seems to be that noone should speak a complete sentence.
I dont think its odd americans dont trust news, theres nothing trustworthy about it.
Yeah, that's the rule -- and it's entirely nuts.
The president is *elected* I see no legitimate reason whatsoever that some person born abroad should not be eligible to be president. Infact, it'd make more sense if one would insist that to be eligible for president, one must hold *ONLY* American citizenship. (the current rules don't have any ban on a two-citizenship person becoming president, aslong as one of the two is American, and he's born with it)
What's the rationale for disqualifying someone who, for example, was adopted by American parents at age 2, while ALLOWING a child born to (for example) an American/Norwegian couple who grew up in Norway, yet moved to America at age 20 with dual citizenship.
I'd argue that the latter has substantially stronger ties to a foreign nation, if that's the concern. (if not, I don't know what the concern is)
The constitution does indeed say what you claim, but seems to me it's a dumb rule.
Perhaps the US Media could boost their credibility by extending the coverage of the British royal wedding by another week of page to page non stop coverage. We clearly were under informed about something so critical to our daily lives and country.
When that was written , America had just come out of an independance war and didn't want to have foreign interference any more.
Kinda like the right to bear arms. Both made sense in that time, but they don't make as much sense nowadays.
but it certainly doesn't look like any other PDF I've seen.
Its the pixels and you having seen quite a few PDFs in your time.
The real problem with this is that US citizens give too much importance to the POTUS. In most cases, he does what his consultants tell him to do, and they can serve a wide variety of interests.
The BC issue is very useful to the PTB, actually. While people focus on the BC, they lose sight of the real issues. For example, there is little fuss made about the REAL ID entered through the back door (i.e. via the driving license).
So I suppose he can be forgiven as a matter of self-interest for omitting Rathergate, CNN's deliberate reporting of Saddam's propaganda in order to retain access, NBC rigging pickups to explode to get an "exposé" and the like. Or maybe not, since they directly implicate the real responsible party for the loss of trust in the news media: the constant lies of commission and omission of the news media themselves.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Oh, boo hoo! Another hack writer whose livelihood is threatened by the rise of alternative media. Here's what I see going on: Alternative media exposes the myth that the big news organizations are "reputable". Anybody remember Dan Rather? Someone gave him an obviously counterfeit letter about George W. Bush, and day after day he defended the letter as truth. Finally it became obvious that good ol' Dan was nothing more than a Democrat political operative, and everything he'd ever said became suspect. His career died, and rightly so. I'm guessing there are a lot of other "reputable" news employees that are scared to death by that. This is just their latest outburst.
it's a low rez scan.
so it looks odd.
electronic document experts would be useless because it's just a scan and if you're going to forge a document you might as well forge with physical paper and then scan it.
I don't think that Tim Rutten has ever read The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer. Sure, it's an "old" book, but its contents are still perfectly relevant. Both Tim and everyone else should get it and read it. At least then you'll comprehend this bizarre behavior even if you can't enjoy or condone it.
Wikipedia
Amazon
erichoffer.net
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/428-After-Birth.html This is an analysis of Obama's long form birth certificate by an image analysis expert. Check his previous posts for details of his experience. He concludes that it is genuine.
that this can work both ways.
A day after President Obama made his joke about Michele Bachman being born in Canada I found someone on Yahoo Answers seriously asking if she was born there. Muhahahaha
When you know almost everybody is lying to you, its only human to be drawn to news you think sounds most plausible.
But the real problem with that is that so many people just have no critical thinking filter and when every official organisation is considered to be lying then the incredible lunacy that people find on the internet and consider plausible is just breathtaking.
It's just like the internet is the new bible.
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
professional news organization
argument from authority.
of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room
rhetorical nonsense.
yes, it appears obama's citizenry is legitimate.. However, the community here being what it is, it should realize how easily documents can be faked, especially in high level government. No, I'm not saying he isn't legit. I'm saying a paper document proves nothing. The fact this nonsense went on for months should be a red flag at the very least. obama handled this very poorly for someone who had an interest in claiming legitimacy.
People rarely attach themselves to political ideologies (and persons) for rational reasons, so it is no surprise that such an obvious point is ignored by most people. Most of them will divert such questioning with ad hominem directed at those asking like "you must be paranoid" etc. Those running the press are no different.. Even if individuals within the press want to tell the complete story, as long as their career-survival depends on them not stepping on 'too-big-to-fail' political and economic organizations, they most often will not do so. There are exceptions like Assange. Typically, the US government has been trying to sully his reputation with allegations of sexual abuse. Whether that's true or not is irrelevant. at least he and those who are involved with wikileaks are attempting some investigative reporting. no they don't have smooth talking prettypeople with flashy graphics and sound on their own cable channel, but at least they get some of the truth out there so people can make up their own minds. The harder the US government tries to lock it down, the more hypocritical they appear to the public. They are cowards.
Follow the money trail. follow the power trails. Track actions taken. this is how you discern real intent..from anyone. The 'professional' news outlets didn't lose their legitimacy because of selection bias on the part of viewers, they lost it because their whole power base is fallacious. They have momentum, slick headlines, nicely dressed prettypeople, and in the written world, good writers with excellent vocabularies. None of this means they're telling the complete truth. If anything, they are the ones guilty of selection bias at the very least, due to outright greed (selling out) or emotional commitments to ideology. (or fear of reprisal from those above). Ask yourself about the intentions and real desires of those who own the major news outlets. What are their priorities? What are they afraid of?
That was a very unique statement.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Article 2 Section 1:
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.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
If Obama has a sense of humour he should admit he wasn't born in the US, but that he actually is a 400 year old dutch soldier and he was a citizen of the united states at the time of the adoption of the constitution.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
in the age of the internet, you are guilty until proven innocent.
That rule was incorporated into the Constitution to prevent the European practice of importing new royal families on a somewhat regular basis. The current British royal family, for instance was brought in from Germany. The idea was to keep American independence.
Of course, this was from an era when few people traveled between nations often (citizens were rarely born overseas) and before international adoption became frequent. Times have changed since then, and the constitutional requirement effectively excludes a large group of citizens from serving.
Fortunately, we've still got a pretty big pool to choose from...
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm sorry for the quip, but really this has been a reality from even before the internet. At first, CNN (read Cable TV) seemed to straighten out the other big three, now that is toast.
As far as the Birth Certificate goes, I believe the undo attention came when a one million dollar retainer was put in place to protect it. I was latter led to believe that it became two million. Now one has to wonder if this was to divert the attention from something else.
I hope Allen West runs and wins the presidential election. It would go far in erasing much FUD that has been spread through the decade.
No, provide a citation for a "natural born citizen" for being limited to someone "born in America".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Why does it not make sense to allow a person to own an item?
I don't care what the item is called. I don't care that it could be used to beat you to a bloody pulp (or do so at range...)
I want to know why it doesn't make sense in a civilized nation to allow someone to carry a tool that can be used to harm someone else if used to do so by the operator. Why do you continue to blame said tool instead of blaming said person? If you had a rash of people running around pushing other people into the busy street with a ten foot pole, how is the sensible solution banning all ten foot poles? What do you do if they started using nine foot poles? What about three foot poles?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The Internet just makes it easier for the criminally stupid to get together into echo chambers and reinforce their own stupid and illogical beliefs.
False balance in the media is partly responsible. As is the rather stupid common mistaken belief that just because the US has free speech, then everyone ought to voice their stupid uninformed opinions as loudly and often as possible.
While "explaining the unexplained" may be a reason for some people to believe in god, in my opinion that is a minority. Most deeply religious people don't care about the "unexplained" and wouldn't even come up with any of the questions that where driving science and modern society for centuries.
Most religious people simply seek a omnipotent protecting father figure that shields them against plain everyday peril and distress. Something where they can take refuge in cases of illness or poverty. And something that gives them the hope, that they may see again those who they have lost in some "paradise" after death.
And the important bit of his analysis:
.
No more needed to be said, but some mad people get excited about layers.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Well before the Internet you could find as much "alternative" information as you could ever possibly read on all kinds of news events, including the Kennedy assassination, the Moon landing, and the Cold War, as examples. Racists (which is what "birthers" are) have always had their own kooky sources of "information." The Internet adds no new dimension to this ages-old human characteristic to believe something in spite of all evidence. As another example, the world's religions had absolutely no problem promulgating their views before the Internet, and for centuries the sun orbited the earth.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
This is the Internet of Borg. You will be come one with insight. Resistance is futile.
Currently Goatse is on the Russian Channel. In chrono order, he used to be on Christmas Island, then France. (Those were the leading copies hosting being directed to).
IANAPolitician, but depending on why those copies were taken down for legal reasons, and the Russian copy is still up, mideast and chinese protesters trying to get a base to anchor news of protests may want to get stuff onto Russian servers.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
We used to play a game a few years back , that was simply, you had to take opposite ends of an argument and find supporting evidence online for the benefits of your position. Its amazing what you can find pro and against online. Anything from which colour is best to seriously unpleasnt stuff.
Try it
Why does it not make sense to allow a person to own an item?
Don't you need to draw a line somewhere? Which of the items below would you ban? Any of them?
1. Three foot poles.
2. Ten foot poles.
3. Unroadworthy cars.
4. Guns.
5. Car bombs.
6. Heavy weapons.
7. Non-weapons grade nuclear material.
8. Biological weapons.
9. Nuclear weapons.
It's a miracle at all that we allow international campaign funding. It's no accident that we give Israel billions of dollars each year in military and economic aid, then give them discounts on US military technology in return for tens of millions of campaign donations each year. Somewhere there's a debate between Al Gore and Bush where one says "I love Israel *smile*smile*" and the other retorts "I love Israel too *smile*smile*" and the crowd laughs. Why wouldn't we give the same assistance to impoverished hot button countries like Lebanon, Yemen and Serbia?
Let's keep as much international influence out of this as possible, mmkay? Let's keep the natural born citizen rule in place (I've got no beef with Obama) and look towards going the other direction and finally ending international campaign donations instead.
moox. for a new generation.
Wait - this is from the LA Times?!?
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!
Article II - The Executive Branch
Section 1 - The President
"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;"
Question: who is "natural born"? I propose all candidates must prove they are natural born.
A caesarean section is obviously not a natural way of being born, therefore all candidates must prove they were born by vaginal birth, otherwise they are not eligible.
It also conveys a sense of meaning and purpose to life and the universe. It is far more comforting to imagine an all-powerful being guiding providence by will alone, who offers eternal afterlife to those believers who are deemed worthy to receive it; than to imagine a cold and uncaring universe, with no design or purpose, operating by mere quantum chance, and an existence that to some seem arbitrarily short and cosmically pointless.
Some people feel this way and religion provides their needed hope that there's a reason for it all.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
United States v. Wong Kim
You could interpret the wording: (I assume you know how to look up the 14th Amendment...)
Natural vs. Naturalization
Natural would mean: existing in or in conformity with nature or the observable world (a natural part of the country... belonging)
Naturalization, in this case, would mean: To make natural
So a natural born citizen would not be a "naturalized" person because they were born natural and not naturalized later in life. Or in other words, you can be "brought in"/naturalized but you will still not be natural to that environment: only accepted.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You have a different definition?
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
The right to bear arms does make sense in the United States. The problem it doesn't work well in City areas.
You need to keep in mind that population density is low in the US. And if there is a problem it could take hours for a legal official to arrive, plenty of time for something bad to happen.
You know the saying if Guns were illegal then only criminals will have guns. Sure you laugh at it as a tautology. But to more of the point criminals in order to be successful needs an edge to make them more powerful. A gun is such an item. And no amount of laws and regulations are going to stop the bad people from getting a gun, or making their own.
Guns should be more common and kids should be taught on how to respect and use the weapon. Otherwise it is seen as a device of power over someone else and used without training, hence a lot of the accidents that happen.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Of course, you could be getting hung up on the use of "Natural" in the human sense as a natural birth (vs being born in a tube or something like that...)
I'm sure that they intended "natural" to mean something that have lived it's entire(or mostly) life in the same locality (in this case, country) So a natural born citizen is someone who has spent their entire existence in the country as part of it.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The problem is distinguishing the lie from the truth is becoming more and more impossible for people...
Abandoning rational thought is pretty much a one way trip. Kind of like drugs. A bad decision eliminates the possibility of future good ones.
But "natural born citizen" does NOT mean "born in America.
It means "born a citizen of the USA". Not quite the same thing.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...one of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room Wednesday was the rapidity and ease with which so many leading birthers rejected the evidence he presented.
All of the evidence, and there was plenty of it, pointed to Obama being born in Hawaii. There was no evidence to the contrary at all (just invented silly rumors). Therefore, the birthers were clinically delusional. Therefore it was completely 100% to be expected that they would reject any new piece of evidence counter to their delusion--that is the hallmark behavior that defines what it means to be delusional to begin with. People who are surprised this are simply naive.
I'm sure Obama understood this, and it's why he never bothered before. I doubt he was attempting to convince birthers. I think he was just goading Donald Trump.
...to having Walter Cronkite feed me the official truth. The loonies were always there and were not convinced by the media consensus: they just had no way to get their message out. Unfortunately, the same applied to some not-so-loonies.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Of course the idea that a god existing makes anything more meaningful is also pretty funny if you think about it.
What would then be the "reason" for that god existing for example?
In the end there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself. Most find it easier to copy their meanings from others - and the larger a group is, the more convincing their meanings appear..
which is totally what she said
Human nature hasn't changed, but the ease of finding like minds (whether it's to exchange rhubarb recipes, terrorist plots, or shared delusions) and likelihood of information bias is unprecedented.
One of the great ironies of living in the information age is that we have so much information that it's a little overwhelming without some filtering. And most people don't have the maturity/intellect/meta-cognitive insight (pick one or more) to see that they're self-selecting only ideas that confirm what they already believe, while actually forgetting the facts that don't fit (or as psychologists put it, falling victim to Confirmation Bias). It's a very easy trap to fall into.
Here's a nice TED talk from the author of "The Filter Bubble," about the danger of personalized search narrowing our worldview. http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
Ask me about my sig!
Of course the idea that a god existing makes anything more meaningful is also pretty funny if you think about it.
What would then be the "reason" for that god existing for example?
In the end there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself. Most find it easier to copy their meanings from others - and the larger a group is, the more convincing their meanings appear..
IOW, religions have always exercised the same sort of alternate-reality support as this story describes as "new" for the Internet Age.
When you immerse yourself in a subculture that believes X, it becomes easy to believe X and hard to be motivated to ask questions that challenge X. It doesn't matter whether your source of authority is FOX News, David Koresh, or the Pope - it works the same in each case, and depends on surrounding yourself with people who suckle at the same tit.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
who are deemed worthy to receive it
Or the ones who who used the words of said omnipotent to justify slavery because this being (supposedly) said that enslaving someone is perfectly acceptable.
And when you say worthy to receive it, you mean a man who was willing to kill one of his sons to prove to this omnipotent being how far he would go to follow such a psychopath.
Or the people who slaughtered non-white people around the world because these savages were un-believers.
Or people who were gleeful, and wrote about it, when said savages were dying of diseases that these believers brought with them but had immunity.
Yeah, those are the kind of people who are worthy of eternal bliss.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
When you know almost everybody is lying to you, its only human to be drawn to news you think sounds most plausible.
There is such a thing as critical thinking. When the Bush administration was ramping up for the war in Iraq, it was easy enough to read The Jordan Times and see that it was obviously false that Sadam Hussein, a secular Sunni Muslim, would provide material support for Al Queda, a radicalized group Shiite Muslims. Jordan are allies of the US, but they won't hesitate to point out mistaken logic or facts when they see them. Let me ask, if interested in the Royal Wedding, does it make sense to look at NBC, or maybe the BBC coverage?
There is a such thing as a search for the real truth, the correct route is typically the closest to the source of the news. If you want news that's the most plausible, find news that's the closest to the source. If I want to know about Muslim's attitudes about events in the Middle East, I'm not going to read Western Media.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
So, if you're an American citizen, and you're not naturalized then you're natural born.
So a child of an American parent born outside the US is a natural born citizen.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Actually, to me, it would make more sense to be rewarded for doing good without fear of retribution. Any omnipotent being would favor people who were generally were good people before picking those that were only good because they were selfishly looking to get into heaven. Ideally these would be people who didn't know of or believe in said being and still did good seeing the world as a cold dark math problem and surmounting that.
Then again, I'm more of a non-believer for lack of evidence.
As far as hope... Hope is synonymous for "It's not going to happen but I'm going to try anyway." (Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
What evidence would the birthers accept as proof that Obama is in fact a US citizen? The actual birth certificate, which as far as I know is legal proof good enough for any court in the country, doesn't seem to be sufficient. So what evidence will satisfy them? I suspect that the answer is "Any evidence presented is fake, because it contradicts my strongly held belief".
Actually, it is illegal for a candidate for federal office to accept donations from foreign nationals.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No, you need to read it more carefully, "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution..." So, that means the only exceptions to the natural born citizen provision all died a long time ago.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I think it's rational to distrust sources that repeatedly lied to you. It's irrational to just believe any source that disagrees with sources you distrust... The problem is that some conspiracies seem fairly rational and have no obvious facts that contradict it. When conspiracies become better and better and regular news outlets become worse and worse there will be a point where you can't distinguish fact from fiction anymore... It's like a news variant of Poe's law!
That case established that if you were born in the US you were a (natural born) US citizen.
It does not limit citizenship, or "natural born" citizenship to people born in the US.
Was Mitt Romeys's dad a "natural born citizen"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
That's not what I said at all.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Exactly. Soulfader (527299) was repeating a common misunderstanding.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
So if you're not naturalized, and you're not natural born, youre what?
Was Mitt Romney's dad, born in Mexico, a natural born citizen?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Actually, hope is synomous with "I don't know if it's going to happen, but I want it to."
Carol vs. Ghost
If you are born in another country, you are not a US natural born citizen. You can become a naturalized citizen but you are ineligible for Presidency unless you are born in the US, are 35 years old and have lived in the country for the last 14 of those years (most of your adult life.) I don't understand why this is complicated to you.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
When that was written , America had just come out of an independance war and didn't want to have foreign interference any more.
Probably they were afraid that King George would send one of his Black Socialist henchmen to come over, get elected, and hand the country back over to the UK.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If his parents were US citizens, yes.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Add: Children born to US citizens outside the US are considered natural born US citizens.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Just because a person is born on American soil does not make that person a citizen. (Take the children of diplomats, for example.)
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." If you aren't here under diplomatic or some other kind of immunity, you're subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; see 83 US 36 and 112 US 94.
Does the fact of one of his parents being a British National confer British citizenship on him? Dual citizenship? Does it depend on the laws in effect at the time of his birth? How does that affect his eligibility?
Maybe; I'm not familiar with British citizenship law, but I imagine that without being born on British soil, application for citizenship under jus sanguinius would be required when he wanted to claim that citizenship. You can have dual citizenship in both the UK and the US. As it turns out, the Constitution only cares that you're a "natural born citizen," which clearly means that you're not a naturalized citizen. Being a citizen by jus soli or jus sanguinius means that you were born into citizenship (by location or by blood), which is about as "natural born" as you can be. Also, 169 US 649 would seem to indicate that he is indeed a citizen by the 14th amendment unless said parent happened to be working for the British government in an official capacity, which isn't the case.
If his mother became an Indonesian citizen, doesn't that mean he, as a minor, was also an Indonesian citizen? Doesn't he have to file a form during his 21st year asserting his birthright to American citizenship? (If he didn't, is he an illegal alien?) Did he attend Occidental College and Columbia as a foreign student? If so, how does that affect his eligibility?
Maybe; I'm not familiar with Indonesian citizenship law. However, in most countries, the mere act of your parents being naturalized doesn't have any effect on your citizenship, in much the same way that a child of a foreign national, born on US soil, doesn't immediately make his or her parents into citizens despite the rabid claims about "terror babies." As we've already established he's a citizen by jus soli, and US law assumes anyone born on US soil is a citizen unless a proper objection can be raised to the contrary (and in this case, that'd be that both of his parents were not subject to US jurisdiction at the time, or that the birth certificate is fake, and both of those objections have been disproven), no forms need to be filled out. I don't know where this "file a form during his 21st year" thing is coming from, since the only relevant form here to assert citizenship in the US is the notification of foreign birth, which is filed by the parents with the State Department after the birth in cases of jus sanguinius where the child is born outside the US.
I am bothered more by the fact that Obama and his groups have spent millions of dollars trying to suppress attempts to find out the facts, than I am by crazy people spreading doubts about where he was born.
Really? Because I think crazy people spreading doubts complicates the political discourse to no advantage and is essentially demeaning an institution and a person with no evidence. In my book, that's rather unethical. Would you be okay with people bringing up doubts here about your sanity, or your recent battles with drug abuse? See how easy it is to "spread doubts" that serve no purpose other than to engage in a cheap shot against someone with whom you disagree?
The Freelance Wizard
I dont think the conspiracie crackpots are getting any better. Its just the release of old CIA and other intelligence records in conjunction with the Wikileaks cables that has shown us all reality being pretty much fscked up beyond most of our imaginations. What many discarded as total tinfoil dilerium back in the 70's was infact true to the letter but still in total opposition with normal media outlets at the time. When reading the wikileaks cables, its even more obvious since they hadnt been filtered and redacted before release.
HTTP/1.1 400
Being born on US soil makes you a full blown natural born citizen with the sole exception of a child of an ambassador or occupying army. This is 400 year old English common law and was affirmed in the Supreme Court decision United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).
Neither of these exceptions applies to the president.
Anything else is birther delusions.
"It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established."
...comes from an expatriate, who moved to Canada and became a psychologist. Along the way, he was accused of dodging the draft, accidentally raised a kid who went in to politics, and discovered an alarming (and measurable) character trait that (among other things) brings along with it a willingness to accept any "logical" conclusion they agree with, no matter how faulty the reasoning, and to assert that the reasoning is valid.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
"The Authoritarians" is available as a free PDF, (~ 250 p), and it's moderatly funny, given that the subject is just what kind of lunacy you can expect when dealing with the hard core neocons and their followers, and where that lunacy comes from. Warning: I lost time reading this, and I normally don't give a rat's ass about psychology. It's that good.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Fine... I'll use your example.
If I have enough land to safely detonate a car bomb without harming anyone... just for fun... why can I not? Why can't I buy a mini-gun and saw down trees on the weekend? (besides the fact that the ammo alone would probably put my bank account deep in the red.)
The problem comes when you do harm someone. Do you think that government can have total control over it's citizens? Is keeping me from detonating bombs on my land going to prevent someone from detonating one in Central Park? Hint: It's not. They'll do it if it's illegal or not.
The only thing you are doing by banning the list of things is making law abiding citizens less free.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Most major media outlets in the USA are owned by 6 companies...
http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main?gclid=CMz5vrT5y6gCFchJ2godnlqPrw
and the boards of directors of these 6 media companies are also the boards of directors on most of the other major companies in the USA...
http://www.progressiveliving.org/mass_media_and_politics.htm
So you're going to get the news that a bunch of wealthy people want you to hear. Period. End of story. You want reality? Stick with the blogs until those too are corrupted.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Openleaks is better than Wikileaks because it does not rely on any centralized authority, or have any single place from which to target. It's a general purpose technology (a lot like linux) which can be adapted to any news organization or any organization in general which needs to receive reports or leaks from anonymous sources.
What's interesting about "authority" in this case, is that government's aren't bothering to insist that Wikileaks is releasing fake documents. There reactions are the best possible proof that the documents *are* real.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So you're claiming Mitt Romneys dad, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, was not only intelligible to be president, he wasn't even a US citizen!.
(He was born in Mexico of US citizen parents. He was never naturalised, so according to you he wasn't a citizen).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
OK, so I guess you'd be in favour of legalising the possession of car bombs? You'd draw the line below 1,2,3,4 and 5 in the list. How about 6, 7, 8 and 9?
"If I have a facility to safely contain my biological weapons without harming anyone... just for fun... why can I not?"
"If I have my own desert, why can't I explode my own nuclear weapons?"
Your fellow citizens don't trust you that far. And even if you mean well, you might make a mistake.
You're remembering a golden era that never existed. Newspapers have always been biased. Back when all but the smallest towns had more than one paper, you'd have a Democratic paper, a Republican paper, a Reformist paper, etc... etc... (Substitute political parties of your own country to get localized results.)
You're a birther, and this is birther propaganda. We call you guys afterbirthers now right?
So now that we see more than one side to reality it's called an alternate reality? No, like in real life, people hold multiple points of view. Different people will reflect on truths differently and have different things to say about it. If they have seemingly opposite views, they could still be both right. For example, nuclear power can be both safe and dangerous, and nobody is comletely right. Or they could simply have a different background and have a different perspective based on different values. Stop trying to paint everything as black and white. There is always a third option. The only way something is not reality is if you're sectioning off reality and trying to say some things are real and some aren't valid. That's when you're nuts.
Twinstiq, game news
Just because a person is born on American soil does not make that person a citizen.
Presumably the courts' opinions have more legal bearing than your opinion.
Don't confuse "the way I think the law of the land ought to be" with "the way the law of the land is". Probably all of us are unhappy about some legality or another, but unless we can take our views to court and win, it's just an opinion about how things ought to be.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If Obama has a sense of humour he should admit he wasn't born in the US, but that he actually is a 400 year old dutch soldier and he was a citizen of the united states at the time of the adoption of the constitution.
If people believe he's an elitist because he asks for orange juice instead of coffee, what will they think of him when he starts referencing a fantasy cop show canceled after 8 episodes?
Fandroids hate facts.
I am bothered more by the fact that Obama and his groups have spent millions of dollars trying to suppress attempts to find out the facts, than I am by crazy people spreading doubts about where he was born.
Do you have evidence?
It's how conspiracy theories have always worked.
If they deny it, you must be on to something.
If they don't deny it, it must be true.
If they prove you wrong, it's a coverup.
Plain, simple (really simple) racists.
It's pretty simple.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Actually, I'd still like to be able to own a heavy weapon... why not? A tank would be fun.
I don't know what I'd do with bio weapons or nuclear material, unless I could operate my own reactor. In which case, I'd be responsible for any fallout and I'd be falling into the realm of the "holy crap this is too expensive to operate" so I'd likely not do it.
"If I have my own desert, why can't I explode my own nuclear weapons?"
Why not? Film it though. I want to see.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
"I don't like ass kissers, flag wavers or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: "Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is, 'Maybe not. But there is an "I" in independence, individuality and integrity.'" Avoid teams at all cost. Keep your circle small. Never join a group that has a name. If they say, "We're the So-and-Sos," take a walk. And if, somehow, you must join, if it's unavoidable, such as a union or a trade association, go ahead and join. But don't participate; it will be your death. And if they tell you you're not a team player, congratulate them on being observant."
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Does the fact of one of his parents being a British National confer British citizenship on him? Dual citizenship? Does it depend on the laws in effect at the time of his birth? How does that affect his eligibility?
If his mother became an Indonesian citizen, doesn't that mean he, as a minor, was also an Indonesian citizen? Doesn't he have to file a form during his 21st year asserting his birthright to American citizenship? (If he didn't, is he an illegal alien?) Did he attend Occidental College and Columbia as a foreign student? If so, how does that affect his eligibility?
At birth Obama was a British citizen and an American citizen, however when Kenya became independent in 1963 he became a Kenyan citizen and his British Citizenship lapsed. Since he was a dual citizen and Kenyan law forbids dual citizenship as an adult Obama's Kenyan citizenship lapsed at age 23 when he did not repudiate his US citizenship.
Obama became an Indonesian citizen when he was adopted in Indonesia. Under Indonesian law if you leave the country for 5 or more years and do not return to some period of time you automatically lose your Indonesian citizenship. So Obama is no longer an Indonesian citizen.
The question as to whether Obama's becoming an Indonesean citizen affects his US status is answered by US law as follows:
Loss of U.S. Nationality will occur when:
1. obtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon the citizen's own application or upon an application filed by a duly authorized agent, after having attained the age of eighteen years; AND
2. taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof after having attained the age of eighteen years.
Since Obama was younger than 18 when this adoption occurred there was no status change.
Futhermore the question of having to file an application to claim US nationality is covered by Expatriation Law:
Closely related to need for voluntary action is the requirement that expatriation cannot be accomplished by a citizen who has not attained a specified age of maturity. This conforms with the common law maxim that an infant lacks legal capacity to undertake contractual obligations. Legal maturity generally considered to be the age of 21, unless a different age is specially stated. Paragraphs (1), (2), (4) of INA Â349(a) specifically fix the age of maturity at 18. In addition, INA Â351(b) fixes the age of maturity at 18 for paragraphs (3) and (5) of INA Â349(a). The text of INA Â351(b) is as follows:
A national who within six months after attaining the age of eighteen years asserts his claim to United States nationality, in such manner as the Secretary of State shall by regulation prescribe, shall not be deemed to have lost United States nationality by the commission, prior to his eighteenth birthday, of any of the acts specified in paragraph (3) and (5) of section 349 of this title.
These special provisions do not apply to acts of expatriation not specifically mentioned, and the age of maturity in relation to such other acts of expatriation generally continues to be the common-law standard of 21 years.
Paragraphs 3 and 5 cover enrolment in the armed forces of a foreign nation and making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state.
Since there is NO evidence that Obama took actions under sections 3 and 5, he has no need to file a claim.
Basically there is a truism here. Any claims by a birther that Obama is not a natural born US citizen in good standing and is a citizen of another natiion are complete bullcrap.
I'm an atheist but I still like that ethos.
It works just as well when phrased as "There might or might not be some entity somewhere that someone might refer to as a 'god', but I'm not It."
Well, maybe not just as well, but still...
Reality is nothing more than the balance of lies you choose to believe in and the truths you choose not to.
~X~
He was born to US citizens, so he was a natural born citizen.
I can't believe I still have to explain this...
If you are born in the US to Mexican parents, you are a natural born citizen.
If you are a US citizen traveling abroad and have a kid, the kid is considered a natural born citizen through your citizenship.
If you are born in any other country, to non-US citizen parents, you have to be naturalized to be a US citizen and are ineligible for Presidency.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You infotainment shill bastards put the nail in your own credibility coffins long ago. Don't blame the bloggers or even simple human nature for wanting an agreeable opinion for the death of "news".
Isn't that the truth!
Where the global economy has become more of a "confidence game" than a true measure of productivity because of fiat money. Where government subsidies, bailouts and entitlement programs create enormous distortions in the true strength of an economy, you have to wonder if anyone really knows what's going on.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
You said:
Then you said:
You appear to be in violent disagreement with yourself. Maybe you should up the medication.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Over where I come from we have 3 main Tv channels. One is run by an independant group, and two others are run by different political parties.
Cable news in the United States is little different. MSNBC is run by the ruling Dems, FNC is run by the opposition GOP, and CNN is run by Porky Pig and the Warner Bros.
Of course, the birther issue is idiotic; it makes no logical sense to presume the Obamas would forge records in 1961 in the hopes that their son would become president. More importantly, Obama's eligibility to serve as president doesn't depend on his birth certificate anymore, it depends on the election commission and the courts. They have looked at the evidence and said he can and that's the end of the story. The only option left to remove him would be impeachment.
But, apart from Obama, news organizations like the NY Times, the LA Times, FOX, and others are not independent, and they do have their own agendas and points of views. The question of how we can check that governments, news organizations, scientists, human rights organizations, etc. are telling us the truth is an important one, and it needs to get addressed better than by "trust the media". In fact, it is the media that are keeping this story alive. If the NYT, LAT, FOX, etc. stopped talking about this bullshit, the issue would go away.
I think a better ethos would be "if I don't try to make the world better for myself, I can't count on anyone else to do it".
"There is a God. I'm not Him." is a good way of keeping people like me just sitting around waiting for life to change without actually putting any effort in. I'm glad that I changed my attitude.
which is totally what she said
electronic document experts would be useless because it's just a scan and if you're going to forge a document you might as well forge with physical paper and then scan it.
Not "might as well" but "must."
Passing off a purely-digital image as a scan of a paper document would be idiotic, it would be like trying to fake a bigfoot video by rendering it in Cryengine instead of making a guy walk through the woods in a good sasquatch suit - you'd be faking far more than you have to, leaving many more things open for scrutiny, and creating way too much work for yourself. If I were to fake a paper document, you bet your ass I would start with a real document (even printing onto original blank form paper if possible) and the final step would be to print it out and scan it back in.
And for the record I have no reason to question Obama's nationality any more than Dubya's or Clinton's. They all submitted their paperwork when running for president, and that was the end of that issue IMO.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
it works the same in each case, and depends on surrounding yourself with people who suckle at the same tit.
Yeah, that doesn't sound right. I demand at least two tits per man.
which is totally what she said
I don't have an opinion about Obama's official nationality, because it doesn't matter at all at this point, but for me it was the Dan Rather fiasco and the Bush National Guard forged memo. I remember thinking then, "Well, they won't make the same mistake twice. The next forged document to make republicans look bad will be perfect."
And here we are.
He's upset that he's losing his authority.
Seastead this.
Just because a person is born on American soil does not make that person a citizen.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." So what you're saying is that Barack Obama II is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. However:
Take the children of diplomats, for example.
A parent's foreign citizenship doesn't necessarily make the parent a diplomat, or employee of the foreign government. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).
Does it depend on the laws in effect at the time of his birth?
Yes, and the law in effect at the time was birthright citizenship for all Hawaiian-born children "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.
If his mother became an Indonesian citizen, doesn't that mean he, as a minor, was also an Indonesian citizen?
If any British or Indonesian citizenship applies to Barack Obama II, it is dual. An act of Congress can't take away one's United States citizenship (Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967)); only a formal, voluntary renunciation of citizenship can do that. And moving with his mother wasn't a voluntary renunciation on little Barack's part.
You'd best talk to India and China about that, they are doing some serious work on putting an end to that.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Oh, that's an easy one. It's turtles all the way down.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
I'm confused how being certain there weren't WMD's in Iraq just boiled down to a "simple fact check" when defectors were screaming that there were due to their own personal agenda and Saddam had an interest in regional powers believing he had them. The whole thing was a giant cluster fuck but I don't think the media could have easily disproved the intelligence communities claims with "simple fact checks".
With any authority bigger is better, so is farther away. If Jesus was around today and stubbed his toe millions of Christians would wake up instantly.
Newspaper articles have NEVER been sufficient to establish evidence. This is not an issue that should be calmly accepted because someone with a vested interest announced it to the news.
There is a difference between evidence and proof. The birthers want absolute proof which is an impossible standard in this context. There was a Dave Chapelle skit years ago in which he was a potenital juror in the R. Kelly trial. He would not believe the prosecution's videotape as acceptable evidence. When asked what would be required, he responded on the videotape (1) the girl would have to present 2 forms of ID, (2) there would have to be a police officer there, (3) Chapelle's posse would have to be present, and (4) R. Kelly's grandmother would have to ID him. Ultimately the prosecution lost because the victim would not cooperate with the prosecution, but this is the kind of standard that the birthers want.
It should be evaluated by an objective third party, and maybe by multiple third parties. Given the discussions just on /., would we doubt it is possible for some Intelligence, Law Enforcement, or slimy political public relations firm to plant or forge evidence?
It has been investigated by PolitiFact and FactCheck. The Election Commission has not raised any questions about it. Of all the people that do not question his birth that could have benefitted the most are (1) his Democratic opponents like Hilary Clinton that could have had him disqualified before he won the nomination and (2) the Republicans like John McCain who could have had him disqualified after he received the nomination and ran unopposed.
Just because a person is born on American soil does not make that person a citizen. (Take the children of diplomats, for example.)
US vs Wong Kim Ark. It specifically excludes children born to diplomats.
Does the fact of one of his parents being a British National confer British citizenship on him? Dual citizenship? Does it depend on the laws in effect at the time of his birth? How does that affect his eligibility?
Obama was considered to have dual British/US citizenship until Kenya became independent then Obama would have had Kenyan/US citizenship. Dual citizenship does not cancel out natural born status. Living abroad does not cancel out citizenship. See Elk v Wilkins.
If his mother became an Indonesian citizen, doesn't that mean he, as a minor, was also an Indonesian citizen?
I am not clear on the details of Indonesian citizenship but if he received it through his mother, then Obama would have had triple citizenship status in the eyes of the US. Again, gaining the citizenship of another country does not change his natural born status.
Doesn't he have to file a form during his 21st year asserting his birthright to American citizenship? (If he didn't, is he an illegal alien?)
Upon the age of 18, Obama would have had to renounce his US citizenship to lose it. See USC 1481. Or take the oath of citizenship of another country. Or serve in the armed forces of another country. Or becoming a diplomat for a foreign country. Or commit an act of treason. There is no evidence that he ever did this.
Did he attend Occidental College and Columbia as a foreign student? If so, how does that affect his eligibility?
Even if he did, the foreign student status of private colleges does not affect citizenship status in the eyes of the Federal government. The question is why would he do this. All that would mean is that Obama would have to pay much more in tuition.
I am bothered more by the fact that Obama and his groups have spent
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Oh, that's an easy one. It's turtles all the way down.
Or, in this case, it's gods all the way up.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Quite frankly, the president brought this upon himself.
Trying to label the internet as a click till you believe is a bunch of crap.
George Bush, Clinton etc did not issue executive orders sealing all of their records.
Why didn't we have a birther issue with Clinton? Why? There wasn't a need, everyone knew his history and more importantly, there was just way too many people who knew Bill Clinton when he was younger and growing up you could verify his records.
This president is very very odd. Nobody knows him in college, nobody can be located that seems to know his origins that can verify who the man is.
The most puzzling aspect to this whole thing, is why would you spend millions, on law suits preventing the release of your birth certificate and other records, then turn around and announce on T.V....oh....here it is.
It is all very very bizarre.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Slashdot, this headline, the comment, and the article are not about the Internet; or some general impact technology has had on society; this is not news for nerds. It is a political piece about the behavior of birthers, with the greater implication that conservatives/right-wingers have a distorted view of reality and are willing to accept misinformation instead of facts. That's what it's about, plain and simple, and obviously so.
Slashdot, I can go elsewhere for my politics. I come here to get news that is NOT political. But seems every other day or so, there is some thinly veiled political article being linked here. Plus, the comments section just explodes when you do that. This is becoming another ridiculous site like Fark. Can we knock it off already?
The issue is more complicated than you paint it. Although there are certainly people in the media out there who are lazy, irresponsible, dishonest, etc., there are also people out there who are honestly trying to do the best job that they can. The trouble is that in this day and age of consolidation and cost-cutting, those who are trying to do good work can't.
Since reporters are stretched too thin with their bosses breathing down their necks to get something out *right now*, there is often very little time to do all of the due diligence on a story that they might like. The result is that whenever a company/government organization puts out a press release, there may be just enough time to do some basic fact-checking, but there is rarely enough time to verify that the press release is a fair and accurate depiction of the situation.
Compound this with the dropping revenues of news outlets, and you're left with a system that rewards sensationalism and that can't afford to provide good news.
My only hope is that more distributed, peer reviewed approach to the news can emerge. There are already sites like wikinews.org or globalvoicesonline.org or publicnewsforum.org which are taking steps towards such a thing, but none of these seems to be really taking off. Right now, though, the good side is that if you are diligent about searching blogs, etc., you can actually find out a lot about what is going on, especially if you know enough to impose a mental filter when reading anything online. The downside is that we are drowning in noise, where only the big money entities have the resources to speak out.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2121372&cid=36010074
You missed one.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
This is about the feeling a lot of people have that socialists aren't really american. They look at the things Obama and the democrats are saying about taking their money and giving it to other people in the name of fairness and social responsibility, and they feel it is un-american. The birth certificate, and the idea that Obama wasn't born here, resonates with the idea that he's not one of "us" and so it is accepted. It doesn't matter whether or not it's factually true, because it is fundamentally true for them on an emotional level.
The "problem" is that the increased availability of information is causing the trust held in media organizations and government to fall away. And it's not the problem, it's the solution.
For the time being people are scared and confused because they're beginning realize that they don't know the whole story and that there's no one they can turn to for the truth. So they're searching out anything that makes sense and promises them truth. Over time, hopefully, people will come to terms with the reality that there's only a little bit you can really know, and stop worrying about the rest. Hopefully they will stop putting their faith in the lies people in power have told them over the years. Then the world will be a better place.
Al Qaeda are not Shiites, but ultra-radical Sunites, based in Saudi Wahabism. Al Qaeda considers Shiites as heretics. There made many bombings against Shiites in Iraq and Iran.
The big question is: why use a bitmask to add black to the image, instead of just rendering the image with black? The answer is: I hate PDF documents.
Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They did it to themselves by turning from being a news delivery system into an entertainment media that has too much influence from it's advertisers. I rarely turn to "Professional US News Organizations" to get any real, objective information about goings on in the world. There is simply too much bias ( http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=121 ) and fluff with very little fact. It's simply not worth the time investment to sort through all the crap to get the kernel of news. Maybe some more flashy intro segments and graphics will help.
US professional news often ignores major incidents completely such as the U.S. backed chemical fumigation in Columbia. Which is basically tantamount to the agent orange spraying during the vietnam war. Google us columbia chemical fumigation and not the distinct lack of "Professional US News" entries. Even Wikipedia shows up but still no major news outlets from the U.S. In addition they drastically misrepresent other major issues. The clearest example of this for me is global warming / climate change. Even now it is represented in U.S. news media as an open, still debated issue which does not at all seem to be the case (at least as far as scientific journals are concerned).
Basically they lost my trust. Having lived overseas for a number of years I can say the media in other countries (pretty much all of them) was considerably better than in the U.S. but don't fret the BBC has been on a slow but steady path toward U.S. news quality so that may not be the case for long. I no longer read German news (my German is too rusty) so only can speak to the quality of BBC news (website).
If you realised you were wrong why didn't you have the decency to admit it rather than wasting our time? (That's the royal we there :-))
Soulfader (527299) said that the constiturion said you had to be "American, born in America" to be president.
I asked for a citation.
You quoted the constitution (which doesn't say that)
I repeated my request for a citation.
You gave a very long winded explanation that someone is either natural born or naturalized
I said "so a child of an American parent born outside the US is a natural born citizen."
You said "That's not what I said at all."
I asked "So if you're not naturalized, and you're not natural born, you're what?"
You replied
Then in another message which the brain dead Slashdot comment system didn't show to me you said: "Add: Children born to US citizens outside the US are considered natural born US citizens."
So you agree with me. What a waste of time
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Pointing out Dan Rather is all too easy when the left gets upset at the Internets for failing to fall in line. A more recent (yesterday) example; we've been hearing for weeks about the 'challenge' to conservatives in Canada. The BBC says the race has tightened and Canadian voters will throw the conservative bums out!
Reality: Canada's Conservatives score massive election win. The media had gotten so carried away that "the scale of victory came as a surprise."
Wisconsin voters hate the new Governor and his anti-union crimes. The media has the polls to prove it! That's why incumbent judge Prosser will get voted out. Except he didn't.
Lets not forget NPR execs schlepping around with purported Muslim Brotherhood types, spouting off stereotypical nonsense right out of the moonbat echo chamber. These are the numpties running the media. Mustn't question their credibility...you stupid knuckle dragger.
The MSM is spin. Mostly statist left wing spin, with some equally heinous counter spin from the right (Fox et al.) That the non-existent credibility of our media doesn't somehow instantly dispel all "birther" conspiracy is a surprise to fools alone.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They like to think that they are a bit smarter than the next guy for knowing something he doesn't. And often these theories are far more intriguing than reality; thus it becomes a perverse entertainment for most.
The thought that there is one world order manipulating things behind the scenes also helps makes sense of an often confusing world where the apparent chaos can make one feel nervous. In that way it is like religion.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Why is it necessary to trust, to believe anything to a metaphysical certainty? We don't even know we're real people or just brains in vats, after all. Generally it seems to me that we need only provisionally, operationally trust things. I got up this morning because I believed the outside world would still be there -- even if I didn't know it for a certainty, I acted as if it were true, and that's all the trust I needed. If I chose to believe otherwise, maybe I'd still be in bed. Or at least,
But here's a situation where, as far as I can tell acting under the belief that "Bin Laden has been killed" yields identical results, on my part, as the belief that "Bin Laden was already dead." So I have no grounds to behave with disbelief. I (provisionally) trust, not because I'm gullible, but because I gain nothing from not trusting. In this instance.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Until very recently, if every professional news organization in the nation examined a charge and found it baseless, it was â" for all intents and purposes â" dropped,
Its only bad when its your guy.. damned hypocrites. I still remember Dan Rather making up news, and only admitting it once he got caught.. At least this is actual news.
On the subject of "making up news" - Dan Rather was a far to credulous victim of a hoax, for which he deserves all the criticism he received.
Asserting that he was the actual forger (which is apparently the claim here) is -- just makin' stuff up yourself.
Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
The retribution aspect makes sense if you consider that the religions in question are devoted to recruiting and controlling people. Some people respond to the carrot well, some people respond to the stick well. Therefore for a religion to be more successful than it's competitors it must have both carrot and stick. Unfortunately, logical and reason tends to much less important than how well a religion recruits people and keeps them entangled. That's because a logical and reasonable religion that isn't sticky dies out, while a illogical and unreasonable religion that is sticky will prosper despite it's other flaws.
I suppose that's a essentially memetic survival of the fitest.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The problem is distinguishing the lie from the truth is becoming more and more impossible for people...
That's not quite it, many of these people are perfectly capable of distinguishing the truth from fiction. It's just that they don't want to, because they don't like the truth for whatever reasons.
This is really funny coming from the same camp that accepted the version that Iraq in 2003 had working WMD and strategically significant delivery vehicles even when the military budget of the country barely afforded uniforms for soldiers and they used shocks instead gloves in parades. If they had spread the rumor that Obama was a lizard from Venus they would have believed it too.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Thanks for the link. He answered my big question, which was why one sees letters seemingly appear and disappear as the zoom level changes. Answer: some letters are part of different mask layers, and masks being monochrome are either all on or all off.
Good to know.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Obama could have nipped all this speculation in the bud, back in 2008, if he had released all the stuff, such as birth certificate and academic records that people who run for president typically release. I don't blame the internet or Fox News. I blame Obama for sitting on this and making it an issue in the first place.
Instead, it's "dance of the seven veils."
Birthers would have been near nonexistent, if he had done that. Of course, he might have had to explain something in his academic record which he's still hiding. Why else play this game?
As I see it, for someone running for president, it is our obligation to assume the worst when they withhold information without good cause.
The same media that told us JFK's murder was a single guy in book depository? Yeah, people are stupid for not believing them!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Mostly the right wing extremists exist in a paranoia whipped froth of nonsense. Actually, their methods against those they hate is little different than the dreamed up excuses and reasons for the final solution that the nazis used. All fantasies to justify what one wants to be fact when all it winds up being is a bunch of nonsense to terrorize people. Duplicity is not a new "art". It has been practiced for a very long time.
I find it amazing, we went to war in Iraq based of deliberately fabricated "intelligence". We're still there. Meanwhile, we have our government at varoius levels crying poverty. Perhaps we should quit flushing money and lives down the toilet in Iraq, eh?
The news is supposed to be the watchdog that prevents this sort of thing by digging for the truth people in power would rather we not hear, but instead they acted as a volunteer PR department.
Strictly speaking, I would say that POSSESSION of any of those things should not be illegal per se. USE of them in increasingly many ways (more ways the further down the list you go) should be illegal.
But someone who would be undeterred by the illegality of their use would be equally undeterred by the illegality of their possession, so the only people caught by anti-possession laws who wouldn't be caught by anti-use laws are the people who possess them but aren't using them for any illegitimate purpose. That is to say: anti-use laws catch everyone misusing such things; and adding anti-possession laws on top of that only catches additional people who were NOT abusing them, i.e. not doing anything wrong with them.
However, on top of all that, as there are increasingly fewer legitimate uses for such things the further down the list you go, possession should increasingly be grounds for SUSPICION of illegal activity. It makes perfect sense to be much more cautious and careful and suspicious about someone walking around with a gun than someone walking around with a three foot pole. Someone with a nuclear bomb better have a really good excuse or he can expect to be under surveillance 24/7. And more than just ordinary police surveillance from public places that can be done on anyone: as suspicion of illegal activity is grounds for special search and surveillance warrants, if possession of something is grounds for suspicion of illegal activity (even if the possession is not ITSELF illegal activity), then possession is grounds for special search and surveillance warrants.
In short, if you want to own a nuke, that's fine, but since it is very unlikely that your are neither ill-intentioned or dangerously incompetent with regards to that nuke, the courts are perfectly justified in allowing trained scientists and nice men with guns to come into your home several times a day to look at your nuke and make sure that you're not going to accidentally blow up the city with it, and for the police to regularly check your papers and communications etc to make sure that you're not planning to intentionally blow the city up with it. If it turns out that you are being dangerously incompetent in the care and maintenance of this nuke that you own for some reason, then you can be found guilty of negligence so gross that "gross negligence and reckless endangerment" doesn't begin to cover it. And of course if the police checking your communications find you are planning on using that nuke in any way that might affect anything you don't personally own (have your own private micro-continent somewhere, with self-contained weather to accommodate fallout? no? then good luck with that), then you are in the deepest of deep criminal shit.
Of course, most people wouldn't want to own a nuke just for no reason; most people who want to own a nuke plan to use it to do bad things, and those bad things would be discovered when their possession of the nuke was discovered and they were investigated. Of the remaining set, most of those who do, for some reason, want to own a nuke and have no intention of using it for any nefarious purposes, are probably nowhere near competent enough to keep and maintain it in a way that does not recklessly endanger millions of people, and so will get busted for that. Of the tiny fraction of people who want a nuke for non-nefarious purposes and are competent enough to handle it safely... well, those people are most likely nuclear scientists, the kind of people we already allow to handle nukes. And even then we keep a real close eye on them.
This same pattern scales down the list of items you gave. By the time you get to guns, there are enough legitimate reasons why someone might own a firearm that mere ownership is not grounds enough for suspicion. I could see an argument being made for a warranted inspection of the weapon's storage for safety against negligent, reckless endangerment. Carrying the weapon on the street could be an additional element of suspicion if you are stopped by the police for any ot
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"... If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations...." Unfortunately this statement assumes that the established news organizations are interested in finding and presenting the objective truth, which, as we know, is not an accurate assumption at all.
I don't think anyone believes he's not actually a US citizen. The point of conflict is that the US President is required to be a natural-born citizen. That means that if you immigrate and become a US citizen, you can become a citizen with all rights and privileges, except for one, becoming President. Like many things, the Constitution stipulates that, but doesn't really define the term in complete detail.
Natural Born is quite clear to me. You must have been born in the US. Naturally. So this would mean John Adams would qualify for President, and Alexander Hamilton would not (for sake of example ignoring the “or a citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution" clause). After that generation passed on, it would be impossible for anyone to immigrate to the US and then become President. I don't understand how this has become a gray area for so many lately.
Infact, it'd make more sense if one would insist that to be eligible for president, one must hold *ONLY* American citizenship. (the current rules don't have any ban on a two-citizenship person becoming president, aslong as one of the two is American, and he's born with it).
That would be a big mistake, at least as formulated, for two (intimately related) reasons.
First, foreign citizenship is determined by foreign laws. Your proposal, as stated, would require the US government to disqualify presidential candidates based on the laws of a foreign country. This means that foreign nations get to say who can be US president.
Because of the previous point, you can be an involuntary foreign citizen. The natural-born US citizen children of the immigrants of several countries have this problem; e.g., there have been several cases where young natural-born Korean-Americans have traveled to South Korea without knowing that the government considers them to be its citizens and demands that they complete their obligatory military service. Similar (and worse) things happen from time to time with dual American-Iranian citizens traveling to Iran. Heck, US law itself actually provides for involuntary citizenship of minors; parents cannot renounce their children's US citizenship on their behalf, citizenship can only be renounced by an adult.
It would be terribly unfair to forbid a natural-born US citizen from being president who doesn't even know that they have a second citizenship in a country they may have never even visited.
To make your proposal get off the ground at all we have to modify it to forbid the presidency from people who have voluntarily and knowingly been sworn as citizens of another nation, or done something equivalent to that (e.g., accept an officer's commission from a foreign military, or become part of the high political leadership of a foreign country). This sort of thing used to be grounds for loss of US citizenship, but the Supreme Court struck it down some decades ago (which might actually be precedent against the modified forms of your proposal).
For the record, this whole thing shoots down a secondary birther canard that Obama can't be a natural born citizen because he is or was a dual citizen of the US and the UK, Kenya and/or Indonesia at some point. The answer is that (a) Obama evidently has been a citizen of at least one other country, (b) he was so involuntarily, (c) he never did anything to affirm any citizenship other than his American citizenship, (d) he lost any other such citizenships long ago, and (e) it's not relevant to US law anyway.
Are you adequate?
he is part of the 'mainstream news media', of course he made things up. They are all scam artists and cant be trusted as far as you can throw them ( which they all should be... thrown into the drink ).
---- Booth was a patriot ----
" If Fox News just lied they would be out of business rather quickly."
Not in the US.
However because they lie, there not allowed in Canada as a news source. Because in Canada the News must be reasonable factual.
Fox has said, in court, they are not a news show, and less then 2 hours a day is actually news; which is why they should be forced to lose the news portion of their title. IN fact, News should be a protected term.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Even if we nuked the whole news establishment there would still be a need to establish societal consensus around facts and truth. The news media used to help us do that, and maybe they've made too many mistakes and bad decisions to do that anymore. But what if that process is breaking down in general? How can a society self-organize to solve hard problems if we cannot even establish and agree on basic facts? Anything remotely tough seems to tie us in endless knots these days as people bring up the same arguments again and again and again.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Not true at all. Depending on the precise conceptualization of God given, you could possibly prove that concept to be logically inconsistent and thus impossible to realize, i.e. nothing could possibly exist matching that concept. You could, in principle, instead show the negation of such a concept to be inconsistent, and thus the concept to be necessary, proving with mathematical certainty the reality of something matching that concept of God. But valid proofs of such an affirmative nature rarely if ever exist for non-trivial concepts; and if you manage to prove only some trivial concept of God (e.g. precisely equivalent to the material universe as even atheists understand it), then be prepared to answer for why that concept really deserves the name of "God".
For example, I believe:
Therefore the only thing which could be God would have to be apart from the universe, which cannot exist; therefore God cannot exist. The closest thing that could exist would be in the limit of some enlarged concept of mundane personhood; as a mundane person (like a human) becomes more knowledgeable and more powerful, and closer to encompassing the whole of the universe within itself in the process, it becomes closer and closer to being God, but can never actually reach that stage, though it can always get arbitrarily closer.
Anyway, if one's concept of God is consistent and thus possible, but not necessary, merely contingent, then we look for empirical evidence. This kind of evidence cannot under any circumstances establish certain proof in the same sense as the logical proofs described above, and this is where things like null hypotheses come into play...
No proposition is inherently a null hypothesis or not. "Null hypothesis" doesn't mean "common sense assumption we should accept unless proven otherwise"; it means "the way things would be if the thing we're testing for were false". Empirical 'proofs' work by showing the evidence to be inconsistent with something: merely showing that the evidence is consistent with a hypothesis does not make that hypothesis any more probable, because there are always infinitely many other, at least subtly different hypotheses which are also consistent with any given evidence. So to show evidence for a hypothesis, you must formulate the negation of it, that being your null hypothesis, and then try to
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Reality is a messy business, especially when you get humans involved! You really have to love the Internet for all its flaws, and to take its accuracy with a grain of salt.
Thinkingman.com New Media
I just think that where you grew up, for example, is a lot more relevant to your allegiance than your born citizenship.
How does it make sense that a kid born (in Norway) to American/Norwegian parents, then growing up in Norway, before moving to USA at age 25 qualifies for president. While a kid adopted to American parents at age 2 and thereafter living in USA for all his life does NOT qualify ?
If you compare these two kids, surely the adopted kid should be *more* qualified, not less ? He's got *2* American parents as opposed to one, and he's actually grown up and spent all the life he can remember in USA, with American parents.
Hell, currently a Norwegian girl could get pregnant by a visiting American, then go back to live with her Norwegian husband, the kid need never even meet his biological father, nor ever visit USA before age 20 -- and he'd *still* qualify (assuming the visitor was correctly listed as the childs father, offcourse)
I'd say the demands for having lived in USA for 15 years, and for being a citizen, are sufficient, and the demand for being BORN american, should be removed.
This was actually a good discussion. Some of the responses were very informative. (And some of them were complete crap, of course.) the presence of FACTS in response to those questions makes it easier to identify frivolous claims and faulty arguments, and I would like to thank those who took the time to compose complete and factual answers.
I knew a woman in Alaska who had to decide, before she turned 22, whether to be a US citizen or Japanese. I thought she had to file a claim asserting her US Citizenship, but it may be that she had to assert a denial of US Citizenship.
A friend of mine, who is an immigration lawyer, says that the phrase, "under the jurisdiction of the United States" is a matter of controversy for the courts. Diplomats are not the only exemption to US Citizenship derived from being born on USA soil, and that the criteria are not as cut-and-dried as a non-lawyer may think.
In some people's minds, this won't be settled without a forensic examination of the birth certificate. Some pople won't be convinced even then, but I lump those people with the folks who think Elvis is still alive.
Also interesting, I noticed that I was modded 'way down (even though I thought the article was a presentation of reasonable questions). I have noticed in the past, that other posters get modded down on the basis of the popularity of their posts, rather than the quality of question or argument. I recently read an article where the psychologist claimed that the Internet was a major source of crowd-influenced, crowd-compliant opinion shaping. Are the sheep leading the discussions these days?
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I am torn on the natural citizen clause. I don't want a president who has sworn allegiance to another country. The U.S. President should not be conflicted by the interests of two countries.
You don't have to swear allegiance to a second country to be a dual citizen. You can be a dual citizen involuntarily and unknowingly simply because the law of a second country says you're it's citizen. As an example, many Iranian-Americans and Korean-Americans have had this sort of problem when traveling back to their parent's countries—e.g., you go visit your grandparents in South Korea and the government forces you to stay and do military service...
OTOH, a baby has no say in when and where it is born - that is determined by its parents and doctors. Obama was in Hawaii by his second birthday (or possibly even born there if you accept the released document), attended elementary school in Indonesia (state-run school required him to pledge allegiance to the government), back in Hawaii for high school, then on the mainland for most of his adult life. Did Obama spend enough time in Indonesia to put its interests above American interests? I personally don't think so.
You're free not to vote for Obama on those insane grounds, but US citizenship law does not recognize the ability of US citizen children to renounce their citizenship, nor that of parents to do it on their behalf. Whatever pledges Indonesian schools required him to make as a child simply don't matter.
Are you adequate?
Check out this thread and this thread from Slashdot user GNUALMAFUERTE, who seems to be your man.
Being a strong agnostic myself, I found his emotional rants a rather interesting contrast to my cold position of indeterminacy --- and to top it off, I can now be proud that I've actually managed to have someone "foe" me on Slashdot!