Birther baloney continues with Chuck Norris

I knew there was talk around the time of the election that Barack Obama may not be a "proper" American. That was all based on him being born in Hawaii and when that state entered the union. But it appears now that there are loads of people who are convincing themselves that the President is not a natural born American at all. As if they are? Anybody who can be convinced of such nonsense is far too loopy to be a natural born anything.

Chuck Norris has entered the fray. He now wants to see the presidential birth certificate. What for I cannot know. Perhaps we can see Chuck's and wonder if his is real or fake. This trouble and strife all stems from the "natural born" reference. It has come to be implied to those born in the United States. However, it was originally put into the constitution to clarify the position of those born in the Colonies as British subjects who became American citizens as a direct result of the status of independence. Ten presidents were affected by this clarification.

In the sense of 18th Century English, "natural born" meant just being born in the United States of American parents. Birth meant citizenship, automatically. However, because a territorial description was not added conclusively a natural born person could possibly be born elsewhere to American parents. Because it is a quandary the US Government no longer refers to such in current laws regarding citizenship.

The inhabitants of the US Virgin Islands are citizens, probably natural born ones, but they cannot vote in presidential elections let alone be president. They can, though, vote in the primaries. A crumb of electoral comfort there then. So with this confusion comes the conspiracy theorists. Some may think anyone born in Hawaii isn't a proper American. Some may think that if your father is foreign you are no American. But then all this started with making the former Colonists into natural born Americans. They were born on the continent, but not in the USA, they started out as British and ended up as American, all the while being "natural born"!

Chuck Norris should just reckon that all this birther baloney is not natural. It is very unnatural. Instead of begging to see a certificate, he should be getting the Congress to write a definitive law on the matter. I bet Norris wouldn't have batted an eyelid if Bob Hope had ever wanted to be president. But Bob was born British, as was Jerry Springer and loads of other Americans who just missed being born naturally. In Jerry Springer's case he definitely was born unnaturally. In a tube station in London. His mother got him an audience that night!