With Barack Obama's birthday earlier this week, let's take a moment to revisit the claims of the "Birther" Movement afoot in the Republican Party today. It revolves around a conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama's birth certificate from Hawaii is a forgery and that he is not in fact a U.S. citizen, but a citizen of Kenya.
To begin with, it's extremely irritating that the Palin wing of the Republican Party has become so enamored by this Birther movement after it gave the Ron Paul campaign so much abuse for being a hive of conspiracy theorists and 9-11 "Truthers."
It's especially irritating when you note that Ron Paul himself adamantly and unequivocally denied any belief in such theories, calling them "preposterous" and "bizarre" (like here at 35:45 - this is near the end of a Glenn Beck interview. You should watch the whole thing whenever you get a chance).
If you want the truth about 9-11 or Barack Obama's birth, I've got it for you: 9-11 was planned, organized, and executed by Al-Queda at the direction of Osama bin Laden on the premise of a Holy War against America for its strategic alliance with Israel and troop occupation in lands that Muslims consider holy and use for their pilgrimage to Mecca.
Oh yeah, and Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, making him a U.S. citizen. Sorry- that's just the truth. You can even ask my friend, Occam. He'll tell you. These explanations fit the facts best and are the least problematic. Al-Queda orchestrated the World Trade Center attacks and Obama was born in Hawaii. Period.
To see the Republican Party fall prey to the alluring political trump card of Obama's non-citizenship on the premise of so many different, false, and often contradictory claims about his life and birth, is frankly embarrassing when it's not outright irritating because of the Party's disdain for 9-11 "Truthers" and erroneous association of them with Ron Paul.
But there's a deeper issue here, and it's related to the Republican Party's failure to fight the battle in the ideological arena, which is the reason why it is rapidly losing its own soul and identity (in addition to elections everywhere). That issue is the GOP's entire approach to President Barack Obama.
Why shouldn't he be President according to the Palin Republicans? "Because he's not a citizen of this country!" they say, which isn't even true. But if we delve into the world of ideas and challenge Obama's very ideological premises, then we can produce an even better reason why he shouldn't be President (and it helps that this one's true): Barack Obama is not a citizen of reality.
That's right. He shouldn't be President because he's not a citizen of this universe. He doesn't live in a world of cause and effect, where you can't just go spending trillions of dollars that you don't have and expect an economy to recover. Obama doesn't live in reality, where you have to produce something before you can consume it.
He's a citizen of the Big Rock Candy Mountains or something, where "handouts grow on bushes" and "where they hung the jerk that invented work." He lives in a socialist Twilight Zone where bizarre and inexplicable things happen, where you can really have your cake and eat it too. Unfortunately the rest of America lives in the real world and has to suffer for Obama's attempt to live out his contradictions and force us to live them out with him.
My problem with President Obama isn't that he isn't a citizen of the United States. It's that he isn't a citizen of planet Earth.
And now, your moment of Zen: