Home | Issues | About the Dialogue

Semantics And Race Not Part Of Birthers Plight

Attorney Orly Taitz has filed a motion in District Court to determine the authenticity of the Kenyan birth certificate. The question of its legitimacy is moot until further notice. In the interim the debate rages on unabated.

The nature of the controversy is what needs more clarification because of the terms used to describe the growing body of citizens who are asking the all important question.

The question of Obama's true place of birth and the legal proceedings citizens have taken have been hindered, hounded and harassed by every left wing liberal politician, news source and left leaning blogger in the nation. It is the terminology used to describe or simply label those citizens that needs to be scrutinized.

The term used most often for those raising the question about Obama's eligibility to hold office is birthers.' Here is the term used to coin and categorize a group of citizens much in the same way school children use the term geek, nerd, or jock to label and pigeonhole fellow students.

Use of the term birthers' only furthers the evidence of the double standard liberals are so famous for. In the new liberal world of tolerance and PC diversity any labeling of citizens in this way is heavily frowned upon with this single exception.

The desired effect is obviously to label, isolate and dismiss a segment of society with one single familiar catch word. It smacks of being childish at best and un-American at worst. But don't even try to speak of tolerance and birthers' in the same sentence unless you are PC touting liberal. It's off limits for the rest of us.

The second blatant misuse of terms to describe birth certificate questioners is the phrase conspiracy theorists.' Let's come in for a landing here. Not even those who failed English 101 should have trouble with this obvious mistake. The most common definition of a conspiracy is "a secret plan or agreement between two or more people to commit an illegal or subversive act." (Encarta Dictionary)

No one in the quest to uncover Barack Obama's actual place of birth has ever said that he conspired with anyone to cover the truth, rather they are saying that he decided to cover the truth all quite on his own. Big difference, but no one is saying it is a conspiracy. If I missed the one or two that actually may think it is, they will have to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

Thirdly, the term now being used to label those questioning the birth place is racist.' This term loses its meaning on two levels. First is the fact that many of those who want proof of Obama's eligibility are black. In fact one of the top leaders in the eligibility quest is African American Ambassador Alan Keyes.

The wild use of the term racist loses its punch when it becomes trendy. Anyone who visits or contributes to blogs across the web has by now realized one thing. When liberals and lefties are confronted with truths and facts that they can't deal with they always resort to the last ditch use of calling other bloggers racists. Discourse usually dies in its tracks and the shift away from facts to character assassination ensues. It is a device whose impotence is now noted.

The last issue that begs for clarity is the business of saying that the so called birthers' are entirely responsible for raising the question in the first place. Who gave birth to the birthers' movement? To be fair not one single person can claim that spot in history. The originator of the movement is none other than the Constitution of the United States. It is a requirement of the most fundamental law of our land.

The search for the truth and the quest to fulfill the demands of the constitution can never be honestly dealt with by the use of derogatory terms, semantics or even worse by denial.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid exclaimed that "not one minute" would be wasted on the Senate floor to deal with the "phony" issue of Obama's birth certificate. We have all heard the phrase haven't got time for the pain' but with Sen. Reid's help we may now be able to also coin "haven't got time for the truth." The more honest and appropriate phrase may be "haven't got time for the constitution."