Here we go again.

Yesterday, April 27th, 2011, was a day when a particularly violent storm swept through the United States, tossed around a lot of garbage, and left a lot of people thoroughly unsatisfied. Unfortunately, I wish I were talking about the tornadoes that swept through Alabama.

After years of badgering, President Obama finally released his long form birth certificate to finally squelch all rumors that he is not a natural born citizen. Or, at least, that was the plan. None other than Donald Trump takes credit for forcing the President to concede to this as the fact that they had previously provided a certificate of live birth, birth announcements had been found in the archives of two separate Hawaiian newspapers, and multiple public officials from the state of Hawaii have gone forward to state that his birth has been confirmed there. I doubt this much scrutiny has been placed into seeing if Donald Trump is actually a US citizen. According to Wikipedia, he claims he was born in Queens, New York but it also lists his mother was from Scotland. How do we know he's not really Scottish?

Even after the release of the long form birth certificate, a certificate that birthers claimed could not possibly exist, Donald Trump has stated he wants to examine the certificate himself for authenticity. Well, I had heard rumors that there was a billionaire out there who dressed like a bat and was an amazing detective, but who knew that it was Trump we were talking about all this time? Well, with all due respect to the world renowned detective skills of The Trumpman, I think I should take a moment to put some things into perspective here.

1) Barring the invention of a time machine, proving anyone who is an adult today was born anywhere is more or less impossible. Because GPS is a relatively recent invention and children are typically not born carrying one, you have to rely on some sort of outside context for verification. Video footage could be in a sound stage. Documents can be faked. Eye witness testimony can be lies. But, we generally accept that the degree and complexity of fraud it would take to pull of that sort of deceit is not really worth the effort.

2) Citizenship, natural born or otherwise, is not always cut and dry. John McCain , Obama's opponent in the last election, was born in Panama. His parents were US citizens and Panama was under US control at that time. So, do we question his citizenship? Well, let's see what a former President, Mr. James Madison, has to say about it.

"It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States"

Oh, sounds bad for McCain.

Oddly enough, though, Obama isn't the first President to have questions of where he was born come up. Chester Arthur was accused of being Canadian. Whew, lucky we didn't all end up being a former British Colony after that debacle.

3) There is a petition going for Arnold Schwarzeneggar for President in 2012. There is really no doubt he wasn't born in the US, but people seem to be willing to discuss an Admendment to the Constitution for him.

4) Strangely enough, birth place doesn't really mean much about a person's loyalties. The first President of the United States who was legally born a US Citizen (the first few were originally British, after all) was Martin van Buren. His first language was Dutch and that was the language he spoke at home as he was from a Dutch family. Othe other hand, a prominent banker and Senator who was alleged to be part of a plot to overthrow the government and install a fascist regime had two direct descendents serve as President (Prescott Bush is father to George H.W. Bush and grandfather to George W. Bush). Last I checked, people haven't really been looking into if Lee Harvey Oswald was really born in Louisiana even though he desperately wanted to be a citizen of the USSR.

So, please. If you dislike Obama, try to attack his effictiveness as a President and not his legitimacy for even being there. All I have to prove that I am a US citizen is the fact I have a birth certificate, a Social Security Card, tax records, personal testimonies, and the fact that I have never ventured outside of the borders in my entire life. I'd hate for all that to be thrown into doubt and find myself being deported.