Time for a change -- to the Constitution

[Lavoro]

The drumbeat of discontent from the so-called "birthers" has started again. Nearly six months after President Barack Obama was inaugurated, fringe members of the conservative party are finding public platforms to argue that Obama has no right to the presidency because he does not have a valid U.S. birth certificate.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/time_for_a_change_to_the_const.html

[LibertyEagle]

What change are you advocating?

[Lavoro]

It's not me, it's an article advocating changing the natural born clause in the constitution.

[LibertyEagle]

Time for a change -- to the Constitution
by Melanie Springer Mock, guest opinion
Monday July 27, 2009, 8:30 AM

The drumbeat of discontent from the so-called "birthers" has started again. Nearly six months after President Barack Obama was inaugurated, fringe members of the conservative party are finding public platforms to argue that Obama has no right to the presidency because he does not have a valid U.S. birth certificate.

Never mind the bigoted undertones of these claims, the unspoken assertion that because Obama does not look like "us," he is not American.

Such rumors take on an even more sinister hue when birthers rant that Obama is trying to cheat "us" -- that he really was born in Kenya, and that his mother doctored the birth certificate or, more egregiously, secreted Obama to Hawaii from Kenya only days after his birth, then secured a U.S. birth certificate for her foreign-born son.

Although these claims are, at best, ludicrous, they should also compel us to consider why the Constitution bans foreign-born U.S. citizens from presidential office -- and to amend the Constitution so that questions about birth certificates and origins of birth no longer matter. In doing so, U.S. citizens, like my two sons, might be eligible for the country's highest office.

My sons seem fit for a political life. Both are gregarious and charismatic, diplomatic, eager to shake hands with strangers and to kiss babies. OK, so they are only 7, but they have the temperaments of budding politicians. But they cannot become president without a constitutional amendment opening the office to foreign-born U.S. citizens.

Benjamin, my oldest son, was born in Vietnam, and became a U.S. citizen at 7 months old. My Indian-born son, Samuel, became a U.S. citizen at age 3. Both my sons are being educated here and are culturally American, right down to their love for greasy food and baseball. Still, the infamous Joe the Plumber has an easier chance of ascending to the country's highest office than they do.

Once in a while, processes begin to amend the Constitution. In the past five years, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah introduced an amendment to the Constitution to allow foreign-born U.S. citizens the opportunity to run for president if they have lived as citizens for 20 years. But the amendment lost traction and seemingly disappeared, replaced this past election year with shrill arguments about the significance of a president-elect's U.S. birthplace.

Those obsessing about Obama's birth certificate now are stuck in a kind of nativism and xenophobia that fails to see how shifts in our country's demographics might demand a changed Constitution. Instead, the birthers generally believe that people born overseas do not fully understand the United States. Some suggest that only those born here should lead here because all others are susceptible to having foreign loyalties.

But such arguments, for those raised their entire lives in the United States and for those who claim long-standing U.S. citizenship, have no factual basis. One's birth country does not imply lasting fidelity (remember Timothy McVeigh?), nor does a birth overseas demand one's allegiance be placed elsewhere (60,000 immigrants now serve in the U.S. military, for example). And, really, my 7-year-old foreign-born sons know more about U.S. history and politics than most of their peers, given what they hear at home from their politically obsessed parents and given the historical places to which they have already traveled.

The current rants from the fringe may suggest otherwise, but our recently elected president does indeed have a U.S. birth certificate and is constitutionally eligible for his office. Nonetheless, his birthplace should matter little in his fitness to serve -- as, I imagine, is the case for many other of our country's immigrants, who may well have the talent, temperament and ability to lead our country well. The U.S. constitution should be amended to make such leadership possible.

Melanie Springer Mock is an associate professor in the department of writing and literature at George Fox University in Newberg.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/time_for_a_change_to_the_const.html

[Time for Change]

Melanie Springer Mock is obviously a true idiot.

That article is self-serving on a colossal level. Her ulterior motives and delusion that anyone other than a hand picked predetermined person can be potus supersede rational thought and negate any credibility from her supposedly insightful article.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Kind of sounds like what a pain it is to become a Swiss citizen.

-t

[mediahasyou]

Why change a paper that no one uses?