Citizenship – what America forgot

October 16, 8:57 AMPortland Civil Rights ExaminerDianna Cotter

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Supreme Court Oct. 5, 2009 (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In the last two days this column has looked into the factual details of American Citizenship. The different types of citizenship and how they are described from government agencies to Supreme Court Justices have been discussed. In Barack Obama and State of Hawaii on the ropes, and Obama's Achilles heel - Natural Born Citizenship we have defined historically what American Citizenship is and what types exist.

How is it possible that America has forgotten the basic meanings of these distinctions? How is it that we have let so basic a distinction as “Parents who are citizens of the nation and the child born on its soil” simply fall by the wayside?

The answer is both simple and terrible: A lack of education.

Historically, children in school were taught lessons from History. Most all of us can remember reading stories or seeing films that stressed how children were once taught the works of the major philosophers as a major part of their education. They were taught the major works that made up the histories of their Nation, be it France, Great Britain, China… children were once taught the fundamental foundational ideas that sculpted the world they were currently living in. It was called a classical education. Culturally, socially, politically they were given the history of how their world arrived to be what it was. They were given the context of their time, as well as other subjects that we consider now to be the more traditional subjects; reading, writing, arithmetic, and science. In America we have shifted our focus so far from our historical and philosophical heritage, we are now barely teaching it at all.

A child was once taught to read so that he or she could read the works of masters such as Voltaire, or Plato, and make use of that knowledge. Today, not so much. While we might recognize those names, few people reading this now, would be able to off the top of their heads quote a line from either of those authors and thinkers with out Googling it. We are a product of our educations. It is a tool, that knowledge. That is why things are taught to us, so that we can use them in our lives, and you cannot use what you do not have. You also cannot give something you do not have. We have not been given our context in history, we have not been taught it in the detail needed to understand it and pass it on to future generations.

If we as Americans had been taught the context of our time, the detailed history of how we arrived to be a Nation and how we find ourselves living today on October 16th 2009, we would not be asking what a Natural Born Citizen was. Study of history is far more than memorizing a time-line, it is the study of the writings of the times that influenced our laws, our Government, and our very society, and a vast majority of that is no longer taught to our children. It wasn’t taught to us who consider ourselves adults either.

The information as to what a Natural Born Citizen is exists in our history, and there are far more references to it than most can imagine. Written and spoken by the very topmost members of society, the best thinkers, the best historians, and the best researchers of their time, going across continents and oceans.

The United States did not just happen, it was deliberately created. It was deliberately designed, and that is one of the most singularly historical events in all of humanity, and was the first of its kind in all of civilized history to occur on the scale that it has.

It is our Constitution that made it possible.

It still stands today as the longest in use Constitution in human history. An amazing achievement and it was designed specifically to succeed. It has succeeded because it was designed to, it was no accident that it was written as it was, that it gave us the protections that it does. The simple fact of its longevity and the wild success of the people which it protects is a brilliant example of just how good a document it is. The founders knew exactly what they were doing and why. They wanted it to succeed so they deliberately designed it to.

All of us stand upon the shoulders of giants. We have cars because Ford invented one and created the assembly line over a hundred years ago. His contribution to society is not irrelevant. We have x-rays, because Madame Curie in 1895 recognized the work of William Roentgen and Henri Becquerel who discovered the sources of radiation she used. All of us use technology and live the way we do because of the people who came before us.

Our constitution is just as much a contribution in technology, one in philosophical and governmental terms. It cannot function and succeed as it has without all of its parts any more than a car can run without its crankshaft. The designation Natural Born Citizen was used in our constitution to do a specific job, one it had been proved to be capable of doing. To prevent a person with divided loyalties, a person with allegiances to nations other than the one they sought to lead, from usurping power. The iron clad and specifically described definition of Natural Born does exactly that, and it is as vital to the leadership of nations as a crankshaft is to a car. It will not run as intended without it.

Barack Obama’s father was a British-Kenyan citizen. Barack Jr. openly admits in his books and has discussed the fact he allowed his Kenyan citizenship to expire. British Citizenship does not expire. Even if it did, Barack Jr. could never be considered a Natural Born Citizen, he had divided loyalties at the time of his birth, because of his parentage.

Many who have been following the debate regarding Obama’s eligibility point out that there have been Presidents in the past who were not Natural Born Citizens. This is in fact true. However, no one knew about their status during the term of their service. Chester Arthur is the most provable example of this, his father was Canadian, but he successfully deliberately covered up this fact. Why cover up a fact that is irrelevant if Natural Born means something other than having parents who were citizens? There would be no reason to other than Arthur knew he was not legitimately qualified. Obama is the first President which the American people have become aware of his ineligibility during his term of office.

That bears repeating.

Obama is the first President with which the American people have become aware of during his term to be a Constitutionally ineligible President of the United States.

Because of this, we now have to ask ourselves if it is acceptable to tolerate the commitment of a crime while that crime is occurring.

At what point do we get off the fence and decide that the rule of law is far more important than any one man, any one president, and one administration? At what point do we rise up and defend the details of the Constitution that are necessary factors to its fundamental success?

Do we stand for law? Or do we stand for crime? Crime is ill gotten gains, and there are a lot of people who are taking things from this government that they did not earn, in exchange for keeping that government in power. That is naked bribery.

We stand upon the shoulders of giants, are we going to kick them in the head by allowing a Usurper to remain in the White House? He is not constrained or limited by the constitution; he has broken it already with his fundamental nature, something out of even his control. But it has freed him from the limitations and obligations the constitution demands none the less. His oath to it is meaningless, because he does not meet the basic demands of it.

We do not have a constitutional government. We know it, and the knowing of it makes it intolerable. It is up to the American people to demand that we be made whole again under the law. A crime has been and is currently being committed against us.

It is time to demand redress from what is left of our government, the Judiciary, the third branch of government which was designed in part to serve us when the other two fail. 

The importance of these issues cannot be understated. What we do in the near future will determine if our constitution will be able to fully protect us in the future.

Barack Obama has one honorable choice left to him if he is going to uphold any part of the oath of office he took on Jan. 20th, 2009. Resign immediately. The only other option left to the people and the constitution is to treat him as the criminal he is, in the middle of committing his crime.

It is time to demand, with all the power of the American people and her full history, that Barack Hussein Obama Jr. resign the Office of the Presidency immediately.