Publisher’s Note: Kaiser has penned an elegant and abbreviated jeremiad on why the production of Obama’s BC is not only irrelevant but in the end more distraction from the real problem. Whether Obama or whatever his name is hails from Hawaii, Palookastan or is a Manchurian candidate from the Soviet Union’s last political gasp; it simply does not matter. The real question is how the office retains any legitimacy whatsoever. The President is nothing more than the Tax Collector-in-Chief for his tax jurisdiction. The pomp and circumstance that surround the office and all the tentacled bureaucracies has one objective: maintenance of power through the vampiric expropriation of wealth and means of its subjects coupled with a government media complex to provide psychic cover for mass theft and extortion. Citizenship is not a privilege, it is the means to establish that poor sap’s eligibility to be fleeced, fined, jailed, maimed and killed by his tax jurisdiction. The very locus of the entire controversy, the birth certificate, is nothing more than a government registration of a taxpayer at birth. A brilliant but diabolical system. -BB
Barack Obama has released his long-form birth certificate. You should download it as a historical curiosity, if you are interested in such things.
What you should not do is dissect that birth certificate, looking for errors. What you should not do is to insist that the darkened numeral ‘1’ or the PDF inconsistencies or the color of the background offer proof, or even suspicion, that Mr Obama should not be permitted to hold the office of President of the United States of America.
You should not do these things because they do not matter. Barack Obama’s citizenship or lack thereof is a moot point. In the last decade, there was talk of amending the constitution so that citizens born in other countries could be president; the intention was that Arnold Schwarzenegger would make an ideal Republican candidate.
- Above: Presidential Material
In the last election, John McCain’s legitimacy as a presidential candidate was also in doubt. McCain was born in Panama, which is not a State of the Union. Congress declared him to be an acceptable candidate despite this, with the reasoning that the founders would never have intended to prevent the children of servicemen born abroad from holding office. They made no statement as to the founders’ intentions regarding the presence of servicemen abroad to produce such children.
Every one of these men, and every other born in history, has exactly as much right to rule as you and I do: none. Whether Obama or Schwarzenegger or McCain or Queen Elizabeth happened to be born on this continent, within some arbitrary geographic boundaries, has absolutely no bearing on whether it is right for them to decide whether how you ought to live.
In days of old, there were rules regarding the taking and keeping of slaves. Today, we recognize slavery as an unnecessary wrong, and those rules have no bearing. It’s not that we take slaves and then treat them according to certain rules: it’s that we simply don’t take slaves any more, because slavery is wrong. The prospective slave owner’s legal claims are meaningless, because we recognize that no individual can own another.
The office of President, and the existence of government, are similarly legitimate. The debate over Obama’s birth certificate, or McCain’s, or the amendment for Schwarzenegger, is akin to arguing over when a slave may be bought or sold and how he must be treated. Whether existing laws are changed, or President Obama was born in Honolulu or Kenya or Moscow, whether the founders intended that people like John McCain ought to be allowed to be President, is meaningless, if we agree that the government itself is completely illegitimate.
Another brilliant article and a perfectly penned piece. Well done sir!
Some people do not recognize slaves when they see them. I cried the day my precious son donned his steel collar of servitude, which he will almost certainly wear until the day of his death, and I wince every time I see the one on my dear Charles, who never takes his off.
Do I have such a collar? Of course I do, although mine is made of gold with over two carats of diamonds on it, and I wear it only when it makes what I consider an appropriate statement for the activity in which I am engaged. I have several, actually, including one where the mark of slavery is hidden beneath a golden trap door.
The difference is that I never set or wind mine.
Yes, I speak, of course, of wrist watches, ordinary and otherwise. Occasionally I wear the diamond bezel ones with black silk cords which belonged to my mother and grandmother, who mistook them for fashion statements or useful gadgets, since they, too, almost never had to be anywhere in particular on any given day.
I am NOT a slave to time or an employer, although I am certainly one to my conscience and my writing. I take great pleasure in the fact that I virtually never know what the date is, and I am aware only vaguely of what the day is. I know that only because the hands have to be paid weekly and–in theory–Friday and Saturday are when I catch up on my plethora of e-mails which are unlikely to be worth opening but cannot be deleted unread because that would not be polite. Even dear friends can be dense and fail to grasp that I am serious when I tell them that I don’t have time for “funnies” or cutesy little hearts “try to collect twelve.” My rule–which they know–is that I answer only those which contain personal messages or something I really needed to see for professional reasons. How long does it take to figure out that if you receive no answer to most of the stuff you sent me, it was of no use or interest to me? Over five years, obviously! Forgive my whining, please, but those of you who deal with fifty thousand e-mails a year know what I mean. We LOVE our reader mail but not being sent “lucky” angels or “miracle” saccharine paintings by Thomas what’s it. Kinkaid.
That is not actually a digression, because many are slave to e-mail or–worse–the telephone. I NEVER answer a telephone when I am talking to a human sitting in my library. Chuckle…I don’t answer the thing at all, leaving that to dear Charles, who thinks our only cell is as urgent as a klaxon shrieking “Dive! Dive! Dive!!” The only time I ever give that delightful man a disapproving look is when he hands me the stupid gadget without a) telling me who it is and b) asking me if I want to talk to them. Off hand, I can think of only 5 people in the world who qualify, one of them being the fabulous Mr. Buppert. My friends know to e-mail me unless it is urgent–and yes, Bill counts. It is fairly easy to find my e-mail address, and those who cannot manage can leave me comments at several sites, but we don’t even have a landline any more to protect our privacy.
Perhaps you do not have that luxury, and I realized long, long ago that one of the great benefits the truly wealthy have is that they are not obliged to answer doors or telephones. If you stop and think about it…neither are you. Answering the telephone is a courtesy, not an obligation. Why should you be a slave to anyone willing to punch between 7 and 11 numbers? The little time which is your own is very precious. Ayn Rand commented on that in the Fifties, when I first read Atlas Shrugged for the first of many times, and the answer is still the same: no, you cannot reclaim the time you threw away on television, telephones, video games, or movies to spend on loved ones, reading, or thinking. If you add up work hours, lunch hours, commute time, dressing, and wardrobe upkeep, many of you do not have more than three hours a day you can call your own–sharing with your spouse, children, and dog.
Slavery is the most expensive, least effective way to put together a work force, which I find far more repugnant than issues of morality. There have always been slaves, there are still slaves today (primarily in MENA/the rest of Africa), and there will always be slaves. The question is how to stop being one, and the simplest answer is to reduce your expenses until you can provide the most priceless gift a man can bestowe upon his family: a stay at home, full-time mother. By the time you add up taxes, expenses, and “I was tired so I picked up pizza,” quite a few people are working for only a few dollars an hour. It isn’t worth it in many ways, including the stress on your personal relationships. Cut back, avoid–not evade!–taxes by shopping on Craig’s List and thrift shops, and consider how much lower your cell ‘phone bill would be if your children were being educated at home instead of indoctrinated in dangerous state institutions.
On a light day I am only chained to my lap top eleven hours. Frequently it is fourteen. The difference is that it is MY choice, and while I hope my readers benefit, assorted taxing agencies do not. The dearest man in the universe sits across from me, helps with my research or reads, listens to my articles and makes good suggestions, and we take time off to enjoy our ranch and the animals. Today he called me to come out and look at our palomino stallion, who has shed his silvery winter coat and is in full golden beauty. Yesterday we had company and all went out and fed carrots to goats and the miniature donkey, talking about their wedding next month…when guests are requested to wear pirate costumes! If I were tied to an office, yes, we’d have more money, but we prefer being happy. I wish all of you the best of luck in finding ways to cast off your shackles, whether that is through reducing your expenses, starting your own businesses, or becoming more self-sufficient. Chuckle…stomp on your watches for me if you manage.
Cordially,
Linda Brady Traynham
wow, I thought I was the only one!
But right you are, I was not born to serve others, and I don’t expect them to serve me.
Helping out, OK, but subservience no way!