Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Why I am Not a Birther

There's all kinds of controversy over Obama's birth certificate. He says he has one, but a verifiable paper copy has yet to be produced. Hawaiian officials deny that they have one for him on record. There's significant cause to believe that he was born under the name "Barry Soetero", meaning that a birth certificate naming him "Barack Obama" would be fake. Then of course there's the fact that Obama spent a significant amount of his youth in Kenya and Indonesia.

However, despite all that evidence pointing to the idea that he may not be a natural-born US citizen, I am not a birther.

In fact, I think the birther movement is hurting us, much like the 9/11 Truther movement hurt Van Jones and nearly any other public official with ties to that group. It isn't that I don't think there's a viable possibility that Barack Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, or US soil in general. I'm just saying it doesn't matter.

I have a couple of questions for my birther friends.

1) If it were proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Barack Obama was indeed a natural-born US citizen, would it no longer matter that he is over-spending, doing nothing to secure our borders and socializing the auto and banking industries, and of course, health care? Would you no longer care that he is anti-American?

2) Does it matter to you that were he to be impeached for being found a naturalized citizen, his policies and party would remain?

3) Do you really feel any better about President Joe Biden?

And now a thought question: When there are already a host of reasons to fight against Obama's agenda, do you think making an issue of his birthplace makes you look like we are against his policies, or do you think it makes you look like a bunch of racists? Do you think you look as sad and desperate as the Truthers when you cling to clearly faked "evidence" that supports your claim, such as the now-proven fake "birthplace of Barack Obama" sign in Kenya or the supposed Kenyan birth certificate? Do you feel it opens the door for people to ask if we would care so much about his birth certificate if he wasn't black, or was named something more American-sounding?

When we focus on where he was born, it's very easy to be labeled racist, and in this case I have to agree with the Left (GASP!) and say it does often feel like it's motivated by race. I don't at all think that the Tea Party movement was founded on racist ideals, but that's because the Tea Party was founded to try and stop or at least slow down this entire Administration's socialistic goals. The Tea Party is about halting the expansion of government, the raising of taxes, the increasing of government control of the private sector, etc. The birther movement is about getting rid of Obama, any way they can.

Think about this, too. Let's say Obama does get impeached based on his birthplace. How quickly do you think the Dems would leap upon this and claim the documents were fake and rally around Obama in support? After all, impeachment requires a trial by Congress, and we all know there's enough votes on the Left to overturn his eviction from office. And then he would claim racism, again, to guarantee enough Americans vote him in for a second term.

Impeaching Obama won't send a clear message to the Left that America repudiates the actions of this administration. Heck, they chose not to listen to the last clear message we sent them. An impeachment on ANY grounds, and especially this sort of grounds, will cause them to state that they are the majority and the Right just can't stand a black President, to the point where they'd go against the will of the American people and impeach him on false grounds.

This Administration is a Hydra, not a snake. We try to cut off its head and it won't die; it will just grow a new one, and we'll be right back where we started.

But they'll have a much harder time fighting back against a humiliating defeat in 2012. That's the goal we should be trying to attain; uniting Americans against the socialistic, anti-American policies of this Administration. VOTING them out; the entire Administration. Not trying to knock one man off his pedestal because we don't think he was born here.