As opposed to being born a U.S. citizen?

A friend of mine in college was born while his parents, both U.S. citizens, were abroad. My understanding is that this makes him a native U.S. citizen. (Is "native" the right word?)

However if the requirement is that the president be a native citizen AND born in the borders of the U.S. that is a much more restrictive requirement.

Is this birth certificate good enough?


Even John McCain (I guess) was born somewhere near Panama Canal in a military base hospital, but that was US territory at that time. Strangely, it is these conservative extremists who raise useless issues. The same group that did the following:
1. Called Obama a terrorist for happening to be in the same room as that left-wing extremeist.
2. Called Obama a Muslim because his middle name is "Hussein".
3. Called Colin Powell a racist for supporting Obama.
4. Called Sotomayor a Latina racist once Obama nominated her.

Wondering what more are they likely to come up with given their level of conservative fundamentalism and given that Obama has another 3.5 years to be in office for sure.

Or in a US Possession. McCain, for example, was born in the Panama Canal Zone.

I think it's an ad ignorantium, because we have the birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii in 1961. No problem there. The question is was the birth certificate faked? As near as I can tell, the argument that it has been faked is that nobody has proven for sure that it wasn't.

At least I've never heard any reason whatsoever put forward to lead one to think it actually was faked. I've heard people talk about how much he would want to do it, but that's a motivation, not evidence. And the motivation is based on a petitio (or circular argument) fallacy. IF Obama were ineligible, then he would be motivated to fake his birth certificate. Of course that assumes that he is ineligible, which is supposed to be our conclusion, not our starting point, which makes it a circular argument.

So, I'll defer to your superior knowledge of formal logic, but as far as I can tell, the conclusion that Obama is ineligible is based on a petitio, and the conclusion that he faked his birth certificate to hide his ineligibility is based on an ad ignorantium. If there's anything more than that, I've never seen it. I wouldn't disagree with the bull**** label, I'm just trying to be more precise. Any willful use of fallacious reasoning is bull****, Spock just wanted to know which particular brand of bull**** was being employed here. I remember in a logic textbook (that I still have somewhere) a story about a lawyer getting his briefing book for a case he was going to argue that day. Thinking it felt awfully thin, he looked inside and all that was there was a note saying "We have no case. Abuse the other guy's attorney."

Not for the nutters. With no evidence other than their own say-so they have declared it a fake and want proof of its authenticity.

spock, I am not sure if that certificate is a legitimate one. But, on the net, that is what search engines get us to. My point is, is it very hard to verify in a country like USA someone's birth? Even if Obama or his campaign don't possess a certificate on hand, can the media independently not verify this from Hawaii (say health department or something)? They go to court, shout on air (on Limbaugh and Levin) when a simple check would solve the issue.

I'm not sure that anybody's is legitimate, including mine. I don't remember where I was born, I was pretty young at the time. There are 500+ people in Congress, none of whom have proven to me that they're Americans. But as long as they have valid birth certificates, I have to accept it, unless I have some specific reason to doubt it. I'm not sure what that evidence would be, but I suppose, either eyewitness testimony saying that they were born somewhere else, or some written records showing that the certificate was fudged. Even that might not be sufficient proof, but at least it would be enough to start an investigation. In Obama's case, we seem to have nothing at all.

All right, well let's start naming names. Who are these nutters? Has Limbaugh tried to ride with this? Or Levin?

I know that Michael Savage (who I'd already tabbed as a bull****ter after he tried to claim that Obama had violated the Constitution by signing a treaty with Russia) has mentioned this. He gave no specific evidence (which doesn't prove much, as he rarely says anything specific about anything; his show mostly consists of stating a conclusion and then spending a half hour getting angry about it). I didn't hear him state definitely that Obama was ineligible, it was mostly the "dark whispers" stuff, about how he's going to have to deal with this, it keeps coming back to bite him, yada, yada, yada. In other words, a smear campaign.

I'd be surprised though if Limbaugh had said much about it at all. I haven't heard him in a long time but when I did, he was usually pretty good about sticking to facts and specifics. You could disagree with his interpretations, but most of his actual facts came straight out of mainstream news stories. I'd be surprised if he had much to say about something as wispy and nebulous as this, unless maybe as a joke.

I just had the most awful thought! What if I wasn't really born in the US at all?? What if some secret society faked my birth certificate to make me look eligible?? But I didn't go into politics, so I let The Order down! They'll be after me! I'll have to go into hiding! I'll have to change my name! I'll have to get all new credit cards! Oh, this is horrible!!!

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, and maybe that extends to judging a column by its title.

But sometimes it's hard not to. I just read the title of this column and suddenly I'm unable to take it seriously. No point even reading it. You remember I'd mentioned the other day that Obama had tried to play peacemaker by inviting Gates and Crowley to join him for a beer? This columnist is disdainful of the idea. Get this:

Political Stunt no solution to racial profiling - If Obama were serious, he'd call a Town Hall Meeting

A Town Hall meeting! That's the ticket. That's how we get things done in this country! Think how many problems have been solved by Town Hall meetings.

And while you're doing that, I'll go get a beer, because this could take a while.

Still thinking about this. The Doofus Defense is too generic and The Gates Defense is a bit too pointedly aimed at one guy. I'm thinking of calling it The Herbert Gates Defense, after Henry Gates on the one hand, and "Herbert" from Star Trek's awful Way to Eden episode ("Herbert" supposedly being a minor government official notorious for his inflexible thinking). You've got to admit, it might have been annoying, but that stupid "Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!" chant was pretty memorable.