Birthers: Why Stupid Should Be A Hanging Offense

 

This will be the third time I’ve written about Birthers in the last two weeks.

You’re sick of it, aren’t you?

I know I am.

Normally, when stupidity on this scale amuses me or offends me and I’ll write a snarky lampoon and move on.

But the Birthers are pissing me off. And they continue to piss me off.

And their deluded stupidity should be pissing you off too.

No, it’s not the money, though they are costing you gobs of money.  This irritates me, but it’s the cost of doing business in a free society (wince. Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). Every president gets sued repeatedly by the wackjobs. The Crazy Conservatives do it. The Limpwristed Liberals do it.  The People that ought to be in an institution but are loose on the streets do it.  Hell, the inmates that are in institutions do it.  Frivolous lawsuits against the President can’t be prevented in our society, and they cost us money and assets and our attention – but there’s not much that can be done about it.  The Birthers’ legal shenanigans are no different – but frankly it does say something about you when your lawsuit is on the docket right next to the twitchy little goof who’s suing the President demanding that the government release the alien autopsy tapes from Area 51 and the mental midgets who are suing to stop the Large Hadron Collider before it spawns world destroying black holes. The Birthers’ de facto leader, Orly Taitz, melted down in shrill spectacular fashion on MSNBC yesterday (video here, in yesterday’s post) and it’s fairly obvious that the woman is a couple shots of potato vodka short of a Russian Nuclear Safety Officer.

Look to the company the Birthers are keeping is what I’m saying here.

But, no, it’s not the money.

 

It’s a Civil Rights issue.

 

See, this isn’t any pack of random dittoheads who are costing you a couple of bucks in tax dollars.  The alien hunters you can usually ignore and for the most part they’re harmless. The Anti-LHC folks, less so, but for the most part those idiots have little impact on the average American.

But the Birthers are different and far worse and it’s time for Americans to stand up and put an end to the Birther insanity.

These people are not harmless cranks.

Don’t get me wrong, they are cranks. But they are not harmless.

They call themselves Americans and patriots and concerned citizens, but what they really are is about as far from American as it gets. 

These people are not patriots, they are a skin cancer eating away at the face of liberty. They are a mob, the dupes of liars and rabble-rousers and snake oil salesman like Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck.

In reality, the Birthers are little more than brainless thugs waiting for their own Kristallnacht*.

See, the Birthers are deliberately attempting to deny you your franchise. 

They’re not alone, the anti-healthcare reform fanatics have joined forces with them and adopted the same tactics.

As detailed in a leaked memo, these rightwing nutjobs have outlined their strategy to disrupt town hall style meetings. The strategy urges protesters to be disruptive, to “yell out” and “shout out” and artificially inflate their numbers to make it seem as if they hold the majority opinion – when clearly they are the fringe minority (and they know it). The targets of these attacks are bipartisan in nature, both Democrats and Republicans have been harassed – and if anything, moderate Republicans are fielding the worst of these assaults. For example: Birthers shouted down Representative Mike Castle (R-DE) during a town hall meeting, and dozens of forums have been disrupted by the idiot dupes opposed to healthcare reform.

Now, it’s one thing for the random goof to wander into a town forum.  We’ve all seen it, it’s irritating or amusing and eventually the police escort the crazy Bird Lady or Cat Piss Man out of the meeting so the sane people can get on with business.  It also makes an amusing video when you put the crazy people on YouTube.

It’s another thing entirely when nationally organized groups deliberately seek to disrupt the connection between an elected official and his or her constituents.  By organizing, by adopting tactics with the specific intent of deliberate disruption and denial of access, these people have moved beyond the 1st Amendment right of all US citizens to protest and into the same territory prosecutable under Federal RICO statues as abortion activists. 

These nuts are deliberately and with malice aforethought attempting to keep you from accessing your government.  They are denying you the right to address your Congressman in a public forum.  They are doing this deliberately and on purpose and they are being directed by prominent members of the media and leaders within their movement. Those leaders and those members of the media should be charged for violations under the RICO act, exactly the same as those abortion opponents who attempt to deny woman access to clinics.  They need to be formally charged and tried and, if found guilty, sent to prison.

Understand something here, I’m NOT advocating that we should deny them their right to protest.  They may believe whatever crazy nonsense they like, they may speak of it loudly to those who will listen, they can stand on corners and wave signs and copies of their birth certificates.  They can even attend town hall meetings and speak their minds, as individuals and in turn. But the minute they organize and deliberately seek to disrupt meetings so that I and my neighbors cannot address our elected officials they are infringing on my Constitutional rights as an American citizen. 

This is a violation of federal law**. 

I’ll tell you flat out and in no uncertain terms, I spent twenty years defending the Constitution of this country, I am a Patriot in the original sense of the word, and if these assholes attempt to get between me and my government, I will cut them down without mercy.

It’s about time that our elected officials show some backbone.  We have every right to expect members of Congress to display courage in the face of this nonsense. Those that do not have no business representing the people of the United States.  Any Representative who panders to this hysteria is a coward, and I won’t stand to be represented by cowards.  I risked my life defending this country, and I demand no less from my elected officials. The least they can do, the very least, is risk a few votes. 

We need a roll call, right now, in both the House and the Senate.  We need every single Representative and Senator to state clearly and unequivocally for the record their position with regards to the Birthers’ claims. We need it said on the Official Record and in public.  We the people of the United States have the right to know if members of Congress are catering to the nuts at our expense. We have a right, and duty and obligation, to know if members of our own government are part of this hysteria, and we have a right to know if members of Congress are so Goddamned chickenshit that they’ll pander to the Birthers just to keep their jobs. 

It is time, long past time, for Congress to display solid and clear leadership, to guide this country in the manner that we as Americans rightfully expect, and crush this nonsense once and for all.

The Birthers must be relegated to the ridiculous fringe were they belong.

 

 

 

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* Kristallnacht: Don’t think so? Think I’m engaging in hyperbole?  Listen to the words the Birthers are using. Listen to them talk about Obama’s treason – the same way the SA used to talk about the Jews and Gypsies and outsiders in 1930’s Germany.  Taitz herself is the one who brought up the term Brownshirts, don’t tell me she’s not thinking about it. Listen to the Birthers talk of “taking back America for Americans,” we’ve heard that phrase before, different country, different time, different recession, different war, but the rhetoric is the same. Exactly the same. 

 

** Some additional thoughts: 

As noted yesterday, if Obama were shown to be unfit for office, for whatever reason, the Vice President would be sworn in as President to execute the office until the next election. 

Now, two things:

Category 1) If the Birthers expect a do-over, if they demand a do-over (i.e. a new election, or the installment of McCain/Palin or some other candidate as President) then they either a) obviously don’t understand the Constitution, or b) don’t care.  This makes their participation in the Birther movement hypocrisy of the highest order.  On one hand, they demand compliance with a single passage of the Constitution, but ignore the part the does not directly support their desires (and here we have an exact, repeat exact, mirror of the the Creationist mindset – no wonder both groups seem to be inclusive sets of the other).

Category 2) If the Birthers do understand the Constitutional clause, and they accept Joe Biden as President, then it is obvious and indisputable that their primary motivation is not Constitutional, but rather a personal dislike for Barack Obama the man.  This is also high order hypocrisy, given that the Birther movement seeks to hide their hatred behind false Constitutional issues, and it means that the lawsuits filed by Orly Taitz and her clients are completely bogus and motivated purely by hatred and little else. This makes participation in organized Birther disruptions of town meetings and harassment of civil servants a hate crime.

Statistics bear out that for those who fall into Birther Category 2 above, the majority are likely racist in motivation, i.e the majority of Birthers are white ultra religious conservatives from the Deep South.  Again, making this movement a hate crime in all but name.

Once these people organize, they can be charged under federal RICO and and civil rights laws.

 

Now, I’m done talking about Birthers for a while.