Is Obama Constitutionally Qualified to Become President?

There is an effort to question whether Obama meets the Constitutional requirement of birth in the United States of America to become President. I do not know whether he does or not, but if we take our Constitution seriously, we should insist that it be clear that he does, if he is to be sworn in as President. National Review Online and Robert Tracinski think it is simply a failure to accept the outcome of the election to think this is a matter of consequence. I, however, do not think of elections and majority rule as the primary principle of good government. The primary principle of good government is that it protects the rights of the individual, as our Constitution was designed to do. If we do not take its requirement for birth in the United States as a matter of critical importance, then we would be fully consistent in ignoring its concept of limited government also. We would be consistent in interpreting the power to regulate interstate commerce as meaning that the federal government can restrict the individual's right to trade with others. We would be consistent with the interpretation that government needs only claim it is passing a law or regulation for the benefit of the general welfare and this allows it to do anything it pleases.

Of course, we are in the nasty situation that federal government power is virtually without limits due to a highly corrupt interpretation of what the general welfare means in the context of the Constitution and due to a failure to understand the intent of the regulation of interstate commerce clause. So, in this context of ignoring the principles of good government which the Constitution was attempting to put in place, it is hardly surprising that few people care whether Obama meets the Constitutional requirements to become President or not. We already know that because he believes in "positive rights" and thinks the Constitution is faulty in not recognizing such rights, that he will not uphold his oath of office "to preserve, protect, and defend the Consitution." In addition, we may never know whether he was born in the United States, as required by the Constitution.

We have degenerated into a nation ruled not by the principles of good government as the protector of individual rights, but one ruled by ignorant mob rule. A mob rules that chooses and wishes to be ignorant.

Arnold Schwarzenegger needs only to run for President and win a plurity of votes and he also can become President. Clearly, it does not matter that he was born in Austria. Of course, if he did win the election on the Republican ticket, the Democrats would be most vociferous in bringing court actions to claim he was Constitutionally unqualified for office.