You just gotta love how this author pulls the race card out of no where
PLUS ... It's an amazing set of circumstances that keeps such stuff revolving and recurring, while also vilifying those who feel there is a need to validate future qualifications.
Taking umbrage at the attention that the Doonesbury comic strip has drawn to a "Birther Bill" sitting in a House committee, Texas congressman Louie Gohmert (Republican) recently told Washington Post blogger Mary Ann Akers that the bill, H.R. 1503, has nothing to do with needling President Obama. If it ever was voted up and signed, Gohmert says, the bill would not take effect until the next presidential election in 2012. It would mandate that the campaign committees of the various contenders for president submit birth certificates and "other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility..."
Gohmert served as the Chief Justice of the Texas 12th District Court of Appeals before his election to Congress in 2004. He voted for the Central America Free Trade Agreement, supported drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness, and he opposed same sex marriage. Gohmert also and joined the House Immigration Reform Caucus--the hard core nativist group of 93 representatives opposing any legislative measure that smells even faintly of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. From that platform, he also co-sponsored H.R. 1868, the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009, which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to preclude automatic citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants that are born on American soil. This bill, which currently has 41 co-sponsors, is unlikely to get out of committee, and if enacted in the future it would run smack dab into the birthright citizenship provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
With credentials like these Gohmert fits right in with the other so-called birthers in Congress. Initially sponsored by Republican Representative Bill Posey of Florida, five of the ten co-sponsors of H.R. 1503, are from Texas.
A state where the governor has given vent to secessionist sentiments. Of the total number supporting the Birther Bill, ten of the eleven are currently members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. (The eleventh was once a member.) Even more significantly, ten of these cosponsors also support the Birthright Citizenship Act--the anti-14th amendment bill.
With these facts in mind, the Birther Bill looks more like a forward marker for anti-immigrant congressman than like a last ditch effort by conspiracy theorists hoping to avoid the reality of the Obama presidency.
The controversy over Barack Obama's birth certificate may have originally been cooked up by Republican Party operatives such as Jerome Corsi as an election year ploy, like the Swift Boat attacks used to sink Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid. (In 2006, Corsi co-authored a book with Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders.) By the beginning of 2009, however, the birthers -- as they came to be called -- had become a phenomenon with a mind of their own. They developed as many conspiracy theories about Obama's birth as there are stars in the blue field of the American flag. Commentators tended to emphasize these conspiratorial attitudes as a way of characterizing who the birthers were. And these analyses were not far off the mark.
Nevertheless, there is another element of this worldview that needs to be understood. Consider, in this regard, the woman who stood up in a Delaware town hall last month and claimed that Obama was a citizen of Kenya. "I want my country back," she told the crowd. Her anger is aimed at restoring a country that no longer exists. In fact, that country never did exist.
If a person believes, like Pat Buchanan has argued, that white people built this country alone, and as whites, it is not a long next step to think that President Barack Obama is not a genuine bona-fide natural born American. Nor is it very far to reach the conclusion that brown-skinned, Spanish speaking immigrants are an enemy force that needs repelling. The psychological, social and political space between conspiracy minded whizbangs outside the beltway, and the anti-immigrant congressmen supporting the Birther Bill then shrinks to invisibility. They are distinct without a difference that matters. The nuttiness of the conspiracy mongers becomes less salient then their search for a brighter, whiter tomorrow.
Ok, HOW is this bill anti-14th Amendment? That part I don't get. The Fourteenth Amendment deals with citizenship, YES, but it doesn't deal with "natural born citizenship", which is the presidential requirement.
But, whatever.
__________________ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." [Gen. 4:6-7]
Ok, HOW is this bill anti-14th Amendment? That part I don't get. The Fourteenth Amendment deals with citizenship, YES, but it doesn't deal with "natural born citizenship", which is the presidential requirement.
But, whatever.
You did say it was related to the economy ... And IMO the economy is not looking that good regardless of what your dear leader propagates
Got anything else to contribute to the thread ??
How do you feel about the ties to racism, and the verification of future qualifications ??
You did say it was related to the economy ... And IMO the economy is not looking that good regardless of what your dear leader propagates
Got anything else to contribute to the thread ??
How do you feel about the ties to racism ??
Well, it *is* looking better than it was. Not perfect (by a long shot) but at least it's improving.
The ties to racism... are interesting. It's getting more nuanced of a claim the longer this goes on.
At the beginning, it was more of a knee-jerk "they don't like Obama, so it must be because they're white and he's black" type of thing. That's pretty old hat.
This new rationale is fascinating. See, an interesting thing happens in economic downturns, and that is an instinctive drive to return to what is familiar, and eschew outside things/people/ideas. (Hence the rise in conservatism during recessions.) It's a very clannish, tribal drive, of circling the wagons and riding out the storm.
So that this new rationale essentially says is that the birther movement isn't *really* constitutional eligibility... it's about Obama not being "one of us". One of the team, one of the pack. The timing is perfect for this, since we've got Obama coming in as a liberal president after 8 years of a conservative one, thus there's already a sense of him being "new and different" and not familiar... i.e. not one of the clan. The birther movement just picks that up and pushes it to the next level.
I wouldn't actually call it racism, per se, but it's more akin to ethnocentrism. The view is that he's an outsider coming in to change us, right when the country needs to hunker down to survive. So it's not about his race at all, it's about his status as someone who is *different*, both politically, ideologically, and, yes, racially. I'm sure his skintone doesn't help with the birther crowd as it just makes him more foreign.
Anyway, that's what I got out of the article.
How 'bout you?
__________________ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." [Gen. 4:6-7]
Oh, and on the qualifications section... I seriously oppose anything that asks for an open-ended obligation, such as the currently proposed "other documentation as may be necessary" to prove eligibility. Which essentially leaves completely up in the air the concept of *when* the candidate has satisfied everyone of their eligibility.
If someone doesn't like a state's record-keeping procedures (or, for example, Hawai'i's birth certificate laws circa 1960), then they can keep demanding additional, perhaps unavailable, documentation, and we get nowhere.
So set a firm requirement, of X Y and Z, and avoid future doubt. Otherwise you haven't moved the ball at all. If not all states provide X Y and Z, well, you have to figure it out. (Shhhh, don't mention National ID though... scary scary...)
__________________ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." [Gen. 4:6-7]
Well, it *is* looking better than it was. Not perfect (by a long shot) but at least it's improving.
The ties to racism... are interesting. It's getting more nuanced of a claim the longer this goes on.
At the beginning, it was more of a knee-jerk "they don't like Obama, so it must be because they're white and he's black" type of thing. That's pretty old hat.
This new rationale is fascinating. See, an interesting thing happens in economic downturns, and that is an instinctive drive to return to what is familiar, and eschew outside things/people/ideas. (Hence the rise in conservatism during recessions.) It's a very clannish, tribal drive, of circling the wagons and riding out the storm.
So that this new rationale essentially says is that the birther movement isn't *really* constitutional eligibility... it's about Obama not being "one of us". One of the team, one of the pack. The timing is perfect for this, since we've got Obama coming in as a liberal president after 8 years of a conservative one, thus there's already a sense of him being "new and different" and not familiar... i.e. not one of the clan. The birther movement just picks that up and pushes it to the next level.
I wouldn't actually call it racism, per se, but it's more akin to ethnocentrism. The view is that he's an outsider coming in to change us, right when the country needs to hunker down to survive. So it's not about his race at all, it's about his status as someone who is *different*, both politically, ideologically, and, yes, racially. I'm sure his skintone doesn't help with the birther crowd as it just makes him more foreign.
Anyway, that's what I got out of the article.
How 'bout you?
Oh, I just see it as some people will drink anything placed in front of them.
Oh, and on the qualifications section... I seriously oppose anything that asks for an open-ended obligation, such as the currently proposed "other documentation as may be necessary" to prove eligibility. Which essentially leaves completely up in the air the concept of *when* the candidate has satisfied everyone of their eligibility.
If someone doesn't like a state's record-keeping procedures (or, for example, Hawai'i's birth certificate laws circa 1960), then they can keep demanding additional, perhaps unavailable, documentation, and we get nowhere.
So set a firm requirement, of X Y and Z, and avoid future doubt. Otherwise you haven't moved the ball at all. If not all states provide X Y and Z, well, you have to figure it out. (Shhhh, don't mention National ID though... scary scary...)
As expected, you have already stated that the Constitution doesn't mean a damn thing to you, so why change and start following the thing now.
Oh, I just see it as some people will drink anything placed in front of them.
Do you agree with what he is proposing ??
Do you? If we're going to have a discussion, then I'm interested in your thoughts on the article.
__________________ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." [Gen. 4:6-7]
As expected, you have already stated that the Constitution doesn't mean a damn thing to you, so why change and start following the thing now.
How's the rewrite going, BTW ??
Seriously?
Not sure why you're trying to start a fight here. If you want to discuss this, then read what I wrote---which included nothing about ignoring the constitution---and get back to me.
__________________ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." [Gen. 4:6-7]
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