"Your Family Came from Someplace Else"

Mr. Obama made one of the most hopelessly inane statements that I've ever encountered, stating
 "If You're not Native American, your family came from someplace else." 
Obviously he did this in an attempt to trash "anti-immigrant" sentiment (I prefer "anti-illegal", since I'm very much for legal immigrants).

This is highly amusing, given that even the "Native Americans" aren't really native to this continent, unless you allow for people born here to be "native". If you're going to exclude people whose ancestors came from somewhere else, you'll find that there's really only one place in the world where anyone really counts as "native" - Africa, the birthplace of humanity.

"Native Americans", for the most part, came over the Bering land bridge to America from Asia. There were multiple groups of such migrants until the Bering land bridge became the Bering Strait - and even then, it wouldn't surprise me if a few people still got across by boat.

If you must include the "Native Americans" (more properly referred to as "American Aboriginals" using definition one) then you've got to include everyone else born here, unless you want to place an arbitrary date, past which no one counts as "native".
Mr. President, unless you are a native African (and since Africa's a pretty big place, sometimes not even then) your family came from somewhere else.


As for illegal immigration, it is a definite problem. Our porous border allows far more than just Jose who just wants a few bucks in. It allows the cartels, La Eme, and other criminal organizations in. It's only a matter of time before terrorists join the flow. And the illegal immigrants are problem enough. It costs significantly less to hire an illegal than to hire a citizen or legal visiting worker. Illegals don't give a shit about minimum wage - 4 bucks an hour is enough for them to live on and still be able to send enough money home for Grandma to live well, and without all the mandatory insurance, social security, taxes, etc. that add to the cost of an American citizen. Then you account for all the social services that they use - welfare, Medicare, food stamps, etc.- and you'll find that illegals are a significant burden upon society
.
The solution is easy, but not particularly nice. Require legal residency for any benefits (personally welfare should be completely defunded, but I'll settle for this). Deport illegals, lower the federal minimum wage, increase patrols on the southern border, bring the hammer down on large corporations that hire illegals, and make legal immigration somewhat easier.

Constitution Outdated? I don't think so!

From CBS:

Professor: Take our country back, from the Constitution

  Original article tabbed and bolded:

I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution.

 And what makes you think that this is a good idea?

I know, it sounds radical, but it's really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie.
For example, most of our greatest Presidents -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts -- had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.

Thank you for pointing that out. You're right that many presidents often disobeyed the Constitution, and that many of them had doubts about it. Let's go over your examples, shall we?
Jefferson: An Anti-Federalist, the party originally in opposition to the Constitution - and which only agreed to the Constitution on the condition that the Bill of Rights be added.
Lincoln: A Republican, engaged in Constitutionally questionable activities to keep the United Stated, United. Article One, Section Ten of the Constitution has a list of things that the States are not allowed to do. It is the only part of the Constitution that places limits upon the powers of the individual states. Secession is not on the list of powers prohibited to the states. Its important to remember that the South seceded because of state's rights and slavery (Confederate Constitution), and Lincoln contested the issue because he didn't want the Union to break apart (which is why the Emancipation Proclamation is kind of a joke - It only applied to the seceding states, which Lincoln had absolutely no control over at the time it was written).
Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, instituted the draft to fight WWI, and afterwards fought with the Senate to join the League of Nations, the the even less effective precursor to the absolutely corrupt and ineffective UN.
FDR takes the cake, so I'll summarize: Social Security, Medicare, the rest of the New Deal, the draft during WWII. There is a reason why, after he died, the 22nd amendment was easily passed and ratified. He stacked the Supreme Court so that they would rule in his favor. He was elected for an unprecedented four terms and gained so much power that when he died, everyone else took immediate action to ensure no one could gain that much power ever again.
In conclusion, one of the examples took care of his objections to the constitution by amending it, one of them abused his power to hold the Union together, and two of them violated the Constitution for personal power. The Constitution didn't cover everything, but it's nice to know that when abuse of power happens, it is a violation of the Constitution.

To be clear, I don't think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago.

 Just propose amendments, like everyone else.

Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn't a natural-born citizen. So what?

There is a reason for that one. If Obama isn't a natural-born citizen, he will no doubt have sympathies for his place of birth, which, if his place of birth is hostile to the US, could very well lead to the US getting walloped because of the Chief Executive's sympathies.

Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control.
I understand, though, that's not everyone's view, and I'm eager to talk with people who disagree.

That's good.

But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do. So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago.

What they thought about it two centuries ago was that it is a necessary right for us to remain a free people, and therefore required protection (at least, the Anti-Federalists thought it needed protection - Turns out, they were right) .

Worse yet, talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion. Instead of a question on policy, about which reasonable people can disagree, it becomes a test of one's commitment to our foundational document and, so, to America itself.

It provides an extra layer of protection to an absolutely necessary right. I'll take a guarantee of a right over rationality in a discussion.

This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.

They might not know anything of our country as it currently exists, but they don't rule our country so it doesn't matter. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but in the end, its all about limiting the power of those who rule, not ruling our nation.

If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.

 An ancient and outdated document that protects your rights and limits the powers of government so that it can't take them away.

Lawsuit against Obama

There is another lawsuit against President Obama.
This one has already gone to the Supreme Court and is scheduled to be considered on the 15th of February.

President Obama and whether or not he was born in the U.S.

If the allegations that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, as some people believe or suspect, the consequences could be disastrous for both the country and the constitution.

If President Obama is not a natural born citizen, then what happens?

According to the U.S. constitution, he never could have been president, under Article II, Section 1. As such, what would happen to the laws that were signed, vetoed, or not vetoed or signed within 10 days (Article I, Section 7)? I suspect that every bill passed by congress since 2008 would become law, since President Obama could not have been president during that time period. It would have been Vice-President Biden, who never signed or vetoed a single bill during his Vice-Presidency. The constitution does not specifically state that there has to be a sitting president when a bill is signed; it just gives the president 10 days to sign.

On the other hand , President Obama could not have run for the presidency in the first place, potentially putting the Republican party or other third parties into the presidency. We would still have the bills passed by congress during that time put into law, since they would not have been returned or signed by the president. The constitution did not foresee the potential for someone not naturally born in the U.S. or its territories becoming president. However, there are already amendments to the constitution which specify whom becomes president if the president should become unable to discharge his duties, which means that Vice-President Joe Biden would take over--regardless of whether or not he wanted to or anyone else wanted him to.

So, we have to ask ourselves, how would the Supreme Court rule a lawsuit against President Obama in all likelihood, again if it could be conclusively proven that he was not a natural born citizen?

It is my belief that the Supreme Court will have a ruling on party lines, with a 5-4 ruling saying that President Obama could not have been president if sufficient evidence is gathered. What happens to the bills and positions that President Obama passed or created while in office, and what happens to the bills that he vetoed is uncertain.

If it is decided that all bills that were vetoed while President Obama was president are de-facto law due to the 10 day clause, then all bills that were passed by congress during that time period are also law.

Post your comments on what you think would happen if President Obama was not a natural born citizen.