What’s Wrong with the World

Hysterical. Most of us know he's not the Messiah. However, I've yet to read any confirmation that he's a legitimate citizen of the United States. Would anyone happen to know? I don't think this a terribly inappropriate inquiry.

He refuses to prove it which makes me suspicious.

Isn't it amazing that someone who's never really done anything worthwhile for anybody, nor achieved anything other than elected office in a corrupt county and state is hailed in such terms?

Can't the canonization wait until he's passed his first major overhaul of our system which leads us to financial ruin?

Enjoy the hoopla now. Anyone remember that scene in The Killing Fields when the Khmer Rouge enters Phnom Penh under a banner of peace and rejoicing? In the world of René Girard's mimetic theory, this phenomenon is "internal mediation" with Big-O as internal mediator. The human cultural set is hard-wired to search for and find internal mediators when the "external mediator" of true transcendence is rejected, forgotten, ignored, etc.

It's going to get ugly.

No doubt Obama-cake is like the space-cake offered in Amsterdam "coffee shops."

Good point, Mark, about his never having done anything for anybody. But you know what race symbolism is--a whole religion in itself, needing no other content. And we've already had one commentator here who responded with some offense to my asking someone else to spare us the race schmaltz: "I can't get enough of it, myself." What really gets me is the puzzling view of conservatives who campaigned hard against him, know his evil views, but seem to think we can divorce his race from all that as some abstract entity: "He may be a moral monster, but shouldn't we all, especially blacks, think it such a proud thing that we elected him President"? Um, no.

The interesting thing about Obama's election is that despite his blackness, and the tremendous number of white people that got him elected, we'll still be called a racist country by those intent on exploiting American guilt for power purposes. Derbyshire points this out. He thinks that although we, as a nation, have come along way vis-a-vis the problem of racism, we've backtracked when it comes to honesty about race.

No need for a new national holiday to celebrate Barack Obama. President's Day can serve just fine.

However, I've yet to read any confirmation that he's a legitimate citizen of the United States. Would anyone happen to know?

I heard on the radio a day or two before the election that state officials in Hawaii had pulled his birth certificate and sworn to its authenticity. It is a bit strange that he won't just make a copy of it public. Obama is a cool customer, though, and it wouldn't surprise me if he refuses to release a copy deliberately in order to stoke Obama Derangement Syndrome in certain parts of the political Right. It is just the kind of thing I might do: heck, I might even fly the black helicopters myself, just for fun.

...by those intent on exploiting American guilt for power purposes.

Byron,
The current issue of Chronicles has an excellent essay by Claude Polin on the secularized concept of guilt that haunts the modern West. I cannot do his insights justice, but will note a recurring dynamic that he discusses. Post-Christian man knows deep down his materialistic way of life is sinful, but he is too heavily invested in its pleasures and perks to seriously consider changing it. Instead, he will throw sops to his conscience by generously donating to victims of far-off disasters, or entering treaties and trade agreements that redistribute portions of the wealth and resources of which he has a disproportionate share. He will busy himself with grand sentiments and public policy prescriptions - anything as long as his own personal appetites and avarice can be pursued and sated.

We are witnessing in Obamania an aspect of this phenomenon. The discomfort a white liberal feels over his narrow, self-interested socio-economic circle is made more tolerable to his own self-image when he votes for the black candidate. "Telescopic philanthropy" is nothing new and Obama's cold, detached relationships with his less fortunate family members are just more sad examples of the disorder. Suffering from it a variant of the spiritual pathology himself, Obama is especially capable of exploiting it in others. He should have a field day doing so for the next 4 years, or so.

FYI: There has already been a national holiday declared and celebrated in Obama's honor in Kenya. A friend from Kenya told me about it. He was puzzled about it given that Obama is an American.

Many thanks, Zippy. Then Obama's authentic US citizenship is, in my opinion, only a technicality. In truth, he is no more American than a European.

Zippy, you're saying that Hussein Obama's refusal to prove his natural born citizenship status is legitimate and/or lawful?

Thanks Kevin, I'll look that essay up.

and/or lawful

I suppose it's _lawful_ for _anyone_ to refuse to prove something. Unless, I suppose, there is a court order requiring him to prove it.

Legitimate? Heck, I don't know, but the question is so far down the list of things horribly wrong with the man's positions that I have a hard time getting worked up about it specifically.

Legitimate? Heck, I don't know, but the question is so far down the list of things horribly wrong with the man's positions that I have a hard time getting worked up about it specifically.

I agree with you on his positions, but the constitution explicitly states that a president must be a natural born citizen. And that must mean, among other things, that he/she was born on American soil.

There are provisions in the U.S. Constitution that are a bit ambiguous, or that seem to imply this or that depending on the way a given person interprets them. I mean, the constitution declares itself "and all laws made in pursuance thereof,..." to be the supreme law of the land. Different folk have different conceptions of which laws are "made in pursuance thereof". But something as explicitly stated as the qualifications of the president are something altogether different. I don't see how one can have a hard time getting worked up about that.

Kevin, I suppose that Claude Polin piece isn't online. I might have to order a back issue, since you've really got me interested in Polin now.

I heard on the radio a day or two before the election that state officials in Hawaii had pulled his birth certificate and sworn to its authenticity. It is a bit strange that he won't just make a copy of it public.

Anyone who wants to look at photographs of Obama's birth certificate from every angle can do so here. Obama can't help it if some people are strangely reluctant to accept that he was born in Hawaii (though like Zippy I wonder if he might not secretly relish such paranoia among his opposition).

And that must mean, among other things, that he/she was born on American soil.

Actually, not necessarily. Plenty of children of servicemen, diplomats, and American missionaries are natural-born citizens and not born on U.S. soil. If you've looked into this, Terry, you probably know that the whole thing is much more complicated than that and ends up turning on things like the age of Obama's mother, how long she had lived in the U.S. before going to Kenya, whether she was legally married, and so on and so forth, at the time of his birth *even if* he was born while she was visiting Kenya. That's part of the reason people don't get worked up about it. It all seems too complicated.

As far as "far-right" people who deny his having been born in Hawaii, actually, the person making all the fuss about this is a Democrat lawyer. Can't remember the guy's name.

I certainly agree that there are much worse things about Obama to worry about. I suppose the only thing I would say on the citizenship issue is that I find it...unpleasant...to reflect that there was no mechanism for actually bringing about the physical production of the birth certificate, etc., and that there was no will to press the issue in the media, either, in part because of Obama's race and the "historical" nature of his election and also because he was the Democrat candidate. I really think it's pretty clear that if this were a conservative or a Republican he would have been forced by the court of public opinion, if by nothing else, to make sure the whole thing was set to rest in a more decisive fashion.

Bryon,
It is in the November issue, but way too long for me to scan and post here. If anyone has any ideas how to get it to you, I'll deliver it.

As far as "far-right" people who deny his having been born in Hawaii, actually, the person making all the fuss about this is a Democrat lawyer. Can't remember the guy's name.

Philip Berg. A 9/11 Truther, for what it's worth.

Kevin,

My guess is that my university library has it, so I'll Iook into that. Thanks much.

A bad sign, Blackadder. Thanks for the info.

Blackadder,

Over at the place where Atlas Shrugs, there was a much more novel theory that was very convoluted but went something like this: Malcolm X had a love child with a University of Hawaii student who moved to Seattle and he then made go over the border to Canada to have a child whose parentage and name he then conspired to give to a Kenyan national still in Hawaii and then manufactured a fake birth certificate to hide the fact that the kid was born in Canada, despite the fact that he would have been born to two American parents and therefore an American citizen anyway.

Sort of takes your breath away.

Lydia,

Yes, and the alleged adoption of Barack by Lolo Soetoro, the family's move to Indonesia, Barack's attendance at school there, and all the citizenship implications with all of that. Yes, I've checked into it. And yes, it is very complicated. The judge's ruling in the case in Pennsylvania is as well complicated and hard to follow.

Terry,

I have also looked into the matter. Berg's claims are without merit. This may not be readily apparent to someone not trained in the law, but as an attorney myself I can assure you, the man is a crank.

Byron,
Hope you track it down, if not let me know. Our culture's unique and expansive capacity for self-loathing is an issue we have to explore. Polin believes modernity is built on a series of lies that are just too burdensome to bear without requiring debilitating self-deceptions and producing fatal side-effects. You will find his thoughts more interesting and important than speculation over Obama's patrimony, birth certificate and the likely lethal nature of his last visit to grandma.

If ever there was an election that should cause one to pick up Eric Voegelin's books, this is the O(o)ne.

Blackadder, thanks. I defer to your superior understanding of the law. But if it were as simple as all that, none of it would have captured my attention to begin with.

My interest in Berg's complaint really goes deeper than what's apparent on the surface. I've long had an interest in what I consider the illegitimacy of birthright citizenship. It seems to me that in Obama's case birthright citizenship and natural born citizenship are being touted as essentially one and the same thing, at least in some quarters. Indeed, there is the school of thought out there that actually argues in Obama's defense that were both his mother and his father illegal immigrants in Hawaii at the time of his birth, the simple fact of his birth on American soil makes Obama, via birthright citizenship, a natural born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency.

Now, I'm not a trained lawyer, obviously, but the implications of such a view, if actually enforced by law, is downright scary to my way of thinking. It doesn't take much of an imagination to put together a scenario from such a view precisely like that of which is spoken in the federalist papers concerning "the raising of a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union", associated with foreign influence in American elections, which is an ever-present danger and should be closely monitored to my mind.

So, while Mr. Berg may well be a crank, as you say, simply to write anything and everything off that he's involved with on that basis (not necessarily what you're doing, admittedly, but it seems like that's essentially what you and others are doing) doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. There may actually be something worthwhile and useful to be gleaned from his lawsuit, the lack of merit in his charges and the lack of standing as a private citizen to sue, notwithstanding.

But again, I acknowledge your superior understanding of the law.

Kevin,

My library carries Chronicles. I'm on it.

the raising of a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union", associated with foreign influence in American elections, which is an ever-present danger and should be closely monitored to my mind.

But we already have that with 4th, 5th and longer generation Americans. It seems it is the upbringing, not the location of birth, that is the danger. And that upbringing can be screwed up by pure-bloods as well as muggle born.

The Truth stated clearly;

His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic," and said he campaigned on an "extremist anti-life platform," Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture "Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul."

"Because man is a sacred element of secular life," Stafford remarked, "man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person's life cannot ultimately be controlled by government."

"For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden," Stafford said, comparing America's future with Obama as president to Jesus' agony in the garden. "On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake."

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the "hot, angry tears of betrayal" by beginning a new sentiment where one is "with Jesus, sick because of love."

The lecture, hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, pertained to Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and celebrating its 40 anniversary this year.

Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.

"If 1968 was the year of America's 'suicide attempt,' 2008 is the year of America's exhaustion," said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. "In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins."

This destruction and America's decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court's decisions in the life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.

"Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic," said Stafford.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2008/11/vatican-cardinal-obama-is-aggr.html