Of “Birthers,” Racists and Village Idiots

“MOTIVATED BY ALINSKY”

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2019

(Jul. 4, 2019) — The Left, the progressives, the media and the Democrats are perpetually “triggered” by references to the issue of constitutional eligibility to the presidency.  To quote Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men,” they can’t handle the truth, so they roll their eyes (shielded, of course, by intellectual blinders) and manipulate it into something else.

It matters not to them that what passes for “logic” in their rants has little if anything to do with the intent of the Founders when they included the “natural born Citizen” clause in Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 of the Constitution.  All that matters to them is how that intent can be twisted and forged into a weapon against conservatives, old white males and, of course, President Trump.  As discussed below, these folks – let us call them, collectively, “The Village Idiots” – have thus far succeeded in ridiculing and morphing legitimate concerns over the constitutional eligibility of persons aspiring to the presidency into a bogus claim of “racism” against “people of color.”  End of discussion.

The origin of this metamorphosis seems to be traceable to the fact that the second usurpation of the U.S. presidency (the first being President Chester A. Arthur, 1881-1885) was accomplished by a person of mixed ethnicity, one Barack Hussein Obama II (2009-2017).  His mother was a white Caucasian, his father was a black African, leading him to describe how others saw him in his book, Dreams from my Father, as a “tragic mulatto.”  The issue of his ethnicity completely aside, because his father, Barack Hussein Obama I, was never a U.S. citizen, but was a British subject and, after 1964, a citizen of the Republic of Kenya, Barack Hussein Obama II was not, under the principles of Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 of the Constitution, a “natural born Citizen” eligible to the presidency.

Returning to the tactics of the Left, they are lifted and applied straight out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” the “bible” of leftists and their sycophants in the media.  Indeed, Alinsky’s Rule No. 5 and Rule No. 10 lie at the core of the leftists’ arguments that a “birther” is synonymous with a “racist.”  Rule No. 5 states: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”  Rule No. 10 states: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Utilizing these tactics, leftists posit that anyone who questions the eligibility of, say, Barack Hussein Obama II, Kamala Harris or Tulsi Gabbard must, as a matter of empirical truth, be a racist.  No discussion or reasoning allowed: it is “settled.”  Why?  Well, because each of these people is, to one degree or another, the offspring of a mother and father of ethnicities other than Caucasian.  Thus, ipso facto, those who question their respective eligibilities must be racists. But as to persons such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley, their constitutional bona fides are “fair game” because, despite their mixed and varied ethnicities, they are evil Republicans.  This double standard only underscores the Democrats’ hypocrisy regarding resolution of the issue.

The fundamental problem with the Village Idiots’ thesis is that it equates and intentionally confuses, then substitutes a person’s “nationality,” with that person’s “race” or “ethnicity.”  A person’s race is not synonymous with the person’s nationality.  In the case of Monsieur Obama, for example, the fact that he had an Anglo mother and an African father has absolutely nothing to do with the question of his constitutional ineligibility.  Zip.  Zed.  Zilch.  Zero.

On the other hand, the controlling issue under Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 of the Constitution – drawing upon the teachings of § 212 of The Law of Nations,  Emmerich de Vattel’s 1758 tome upon which the Founders constantly relied in their deliberations in Philadelphia in 1787–  is not whether one is black, white, brown, red, albino, striped or plaid.  Instead, the determining factor is whether the person’s parents are, at the time of the person’s birth, already citizens of the nation where the birth occurs.  If they are citizens of the birth nation, their child will be a natural born citizen; if they are not citizens of the birth nation, although the child may be a “national” of the country or a “native born” citizen, he/she will not be a “natural born citizen.”  As noted by de Vattel, if the child is born to a father who is not a citizen of that nation, “it will only be the place of his birth, and not his country.”

It is that simple.

And yet, adhering to Alinsky’s Rules 5 and 10, the leftists lampoon and ridicule anyone who would dare question the false equivalency of “ethnicity” and “nationality.”  Those with the temerity to question the narrative are first labeled as dull-witted, knuckle-dragging “birthers” or “racists,” then targeted as “enemies” whose efforts to communicate a differing (and, parenthetically, rational) view which motivated the Founders must be immobilized and stopped.  Finally, they are demonized and isolated from those who entertain the more “enlightened” view that if one is merely born in this nation, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, one is a natural born citizen eligible to the presidency.  Like this gem.

Memo to the Village Idiots: it isn’t working any more.  With the resurgence of rational thought following the election of President Trump and the reexamination of the issue as questions about the eligibility of Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard take place, more and more people are realizing that they have been bamboozled on the topic for many years.  And they are not pleased.

Those who would equate legitimate concerns over the constitutional eligibility of persons seeking the presidency with “racism” are either fools or leftists.  Or both.  They do not “get it” and they don’t care.  Their only concern is squashing any rational discussion of the issue and moving this nation as far to the left as they can.  Stated otherwise, while the Democrats are motivated by Alinsky, the Founders were motivated by de Vattel.

As your faithful servant has on prior occasions observed: you cannot fix stupid, but you can vote it out of power.  On this 243^rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (and a happy Fourth of July to all devoted P&E readers), please note that the 2020 general election is less than 17 months away.  Something is very rotten in the State of Deep, so vote very carefully on Nov. 3, 2020, because the future of your nation – as you have known it – may very well depend on it.