As I often do I am going to take a contrarian position on this whole story, which is being discussed here, on Steve Sailer’s blog, among other places.
Does it all end with a whimper, after, what, 8 years of controversy? And all because one man steps before a microphone, saying it isn’t true?
I am sure that ‘resolution’ makes certain people in high places very happy; now the issue can be declared dead and laid to rest. And even more to the point, the whole issue of the ‘natural-born’ requirement for presidential candidates is now declared irrelevant, according to those who were always opposed to the so-called ‘birthers.’
The consensus on the ”right” seems to be that the whole controversy originated with Hillary Clinton, or her campaign in the person of the sleazy Sid Blumenthal. Therefore, goes this line of ‘reasoning’: Hillary started it, and therefore it was bogus and it was a lie, hence it’s delegitimized by being associated with her or her lackeys.
Now what’s the name of that logical fallacy again? Whatever it’s called, it is dishonest and just not valid to say that because person X makes a statement or raises a question that the claim is automatically discredited, or obviously a lie. The fact is, too, that nobody offers proof of the statement that Hillary (or Blumenthal) started the controversy, or that they were the first to ask the obvious questions about the birth of a presidential candidate.
Those who’ve read this blog know that while I didn’t write much on the ‘birther’ issue I expressed my disgust with the very vociferous ‘anti-birthers’ who acted as ”concern trolls” whenever people posted blog pieces or forum topics on the birth controversy. If those antis had had their way, nobody would have been allowed to discuss it, lest ”we look ridiculous to the left”. “You’ll make us a laughingstock; we’ll lose the election if you don’t shut up!” Such was the tenor of their ‘arguments.’ Sad. More than sad.
Does the Truth matter to more than a handful of people on this planet anymore?
I do remember that during the 2008 election the birth issue was raised by a number of bloggers, one being a blogger known as Dr. Kate. There were a number of others. A lot of scholarship and investigation went into the question on the part of some people, whose efforts are now being repudiated.
The only reason, as far as I can see, that the GOP establishment did not take up the hue and cry is political correctness. Then, as now, they were running scared from the ‘r-word’, just as I knew they would. They refused to touch the issue, while Hillary felt more free to exploit the obvious doubts, being more protected by the media and her constituency. That does not mean she invented ‘birtherism.’
It is by no means self-evident to me that Hillary started it all with a big lie as most are happy to accept. I need to have that proven to me, but then again there will be few people who will touch the subject now. Nobody likes being smeared as a ‘conspiracy kook’, a ‘birther’ (why should that be a slur, anyway) or a ‘Sperg.’ I really hate that last childish insult. It’s a low kind of ad hominem aimed, I guess, at people who are deemed too ‘nitpicky’, what the Freudian idelogues call ‘anal.’ So you see, standards and rules are important only to people with Aspergers, or autistic people, or ‘anal’ people. Thank you, social “sciences”, for creating new labels to discredit differing opinions and the personalities of those who hold unpopular opinions.
I know that the younger ‘rightists’ say that the Constitution has become an idol and that we need to get over our obsession with the Constitution — but that’s much like what C.S. Lewis warned about when he said that each age paradoxically argues against the very things that are all but defeated and extinct. For example, a libertine and licentious age rails against ‘puritanism’ and ‘prudery’, as is happening now, things which most know full well are on life support. The antis just want to make sure that the old standards are good and dead, and in no danger of resurrection. They are determined to put a stake in the heart of anything traditional lest it recover and spoil their party.
So to most ”rightists’ of whatever stripe, the Constitution is something best forgotten, including the requirement that our presidents be natural-born. They say they do not care. And during the primaries the Cruz supporters declared that the ‘birthers’ who objected to a Canadian-born, half Cuban immigrant candidate were crazy or out of bounds to even raise the question.
Anti-birthers, you won, and now the field is officially wide open for anyone from anywhere to be elected presidents. Thanks to the anti-birther concern trolls, who’ve won the day by shouting down the people with legitimate unanswered questions.
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