NPR Opinions

There is a dichotomy in my blogger-self which, every night, prevents me from writing anything at all.

I have things to say about USPSA competition, and I want to write about them.

I also have things to say about the Political climate in the 2009 America, and I write about them too.

While I think I ought to write about USPSA, and other shooting interests, I am so taken by the outre' events we witness today that I convince myself that writing about the things I like may be less 'important' than the things I don't like.

Tonite I'm going to break the deadlock. Here, I'll write "Don't Like". Then I'll edit some videos and write about the things I "Do Like". That should resolve the quandry, and the Top Story will appear first in the column.

What I Don't Like:
I don't like National Public Radio -- NPR.

Why? Because they're a bunch of extreme liberal patsies who tout the most extreme messages, and unthinkingly assume it's Mainstream Thought because Hey, We're Liberal! They think that because they and their friends agree, it's The American Way.

Here is one example, from a July 17, 2009 article on NPR.ORG titled "Foreign Policy: Born in the USA" by Joshua Keating.:

The weirdly persistent belief held by many Americans that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States has been back in the news lately thanks to Major Stefan Cook, the "birther" soldier who was granted conscientious objector status because he refused to fight for a president he believes is illegitimate. There's also a bill gathering some support in the House that would change election law to require candidates to prove their citizenship.

The birther phenomenon is predictable form of paranoia given the president's unusually exotic (for a president, anyway) background. But isn't the larger scandal that the anachronistic natural-born citizenship requirement in Article II of the constitution still even exists?

So, according to this article, people who ask "Where's The Birth Certificate?" are:

"Weirdly Persistant" (sub-normal and fanatic); "birther" -- cultists; exhibiting a "predictable form of paranoia" mental deranged, incapable of original mentation; and "anachronistic" living in the past ... out of pace with 'modern thought'.

Without parsing every loaded phrase, let's look at the concepts presented in the rest of the article.

Let's imagine that Barack Obama had been born in Indonesia or Kenya or anywhere else for that matter, and hadn't become a citizen until moving to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Is there one good reason why that would make him less fit to be president?

Let's imagine that Osama moved to Miami and was naturalized. Would that make him fit to be president?

Put another way, is there one good reason why foreign-born governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm can't legally run for president but Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin can?

Well, it's in the Constitution. But you don't care much about that, do you?

Naturalized citizens like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Madeline Albright have been allowed into the highest positions in the U.S. national security establishment without anyone questioning their loyalty. Why shouldn't voters be allowed to decide whether a foreign-born candidate is American enough to be president? New York voters didn't mind the fact that Hillary Clinton had never lived in the state before running for its senate seat.

We're still wondering how Kissinger, Brzezinski and Albright reached such high public offices. The simple answer is that they were never elected; and the reasons they were not elected is because they knew that they were un-electable. They are a bunch of maroons. Not "morons" ... no question that they were bright. They were just ... un-electable.

As for Hillary, I have no idea why people in New York thought that she would be a good person to represent her in the Senate, except that New Yorkers are sometimes quite emotional and much taken to the glamor of personalities with a well-known name. (For my friends in NY, I apologize if that last statement seems judgemental. Still, you DID allow Hillary to represent you in the Senate. I rest my case.)

Finally, I return to one single sentence:

But isn't the larger scandal that the anachronistic natural-born citizenship requirement in Article II of the constitution still even exists?

Well, yes. And no.

If you don't like the constitution, then change it. There are procedures embedded in the Constitution which allow the American People to change it. It's called "Amendments". We have instituted quite a few of them; some we have attempted to implement (such as the Equal Rights Amendment) have been rejected because the constituent states have refused to ratify it.

Why has nobody attempted to amend this constitutional requirement?

My best guess is, the citizens of this country do not want to change it.

Any questions?