B After The Fact

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Tom Tancredo won't let me run for President

I saw Tom Tancredo on Chris Matthews the other night. I'm glad I was on an empty stomach. I don't know if Tancredo put the "more" in "moron" or if he is the Devil come to human form. Since he gets to be on TV and be a member of Congress, and I don't, I would assume he is not a moron.

Tom Tancredo said he wanted Obama to produce an original birth certificate with the ink signature of the doctor on it.

I am holding my original birth certificate, in the original envelope that was mailed to my mother.

According to what Tom Tancredo said on The Chris Matthews Show, my birth certificate is unacceptable to him, and by implication, I am not an American.

The "original" birth certificate I have is actually the negative of the original birth certificate, which is the only birth certificate the birth mother got in New York City when I was born.

(Does everyone actually have a copy of their original birth certificate lying around?)

When I needed to produce my birth certificate for the Department of Homeland Security and the Government of China, I had to go to the Brooklyn County Clerk and obtain a certified copy of the certificate. The County Clerk --who was probably not the same person who was County Clerk in 1958 -- issued another copy of the negative, and attached the Certificate of the County Clerk with his signature attached.

Still no ink signature of the doctor.

When Barack Obama produced a similar birth certificate, Tom Tancredo said it was insufficient. So I guess that Barack Obama doesn't get to run for President in Arizona. I guess I don't either.

And if my birth certificate is insufficient to run for President under Arizona law, I am sure that it is insufficient to use for the Arizona "Papers Please" law. So now I can't travel to Arizona. I don't know why I have to pay taxes to support places I can't travel to.

I know, I know. I'm white, and unlikely to be stopped on an immigration inquiry by an Arizona police officer. Unless someone who doesn't like me happens to know an Arizona police officer.

My daughter does not have a birth certificate, of course. She was found in a brick yard in Southern China. So she can't go to Arizona either. She does have a certificate of citizenship issued by the Department of Homeland Security. And I don't mean no mamby-pamby Obama Department of Homeland Security. I mean the rootin'-tootin' George W. Bush Department of Homeland Security.

Alas! There are no ink signatures on it either. Just your facsimile stamped signature and the raised seal of the Department of Homeland Security. It most certainly does not have the ink signature of the doctor who delivered my daughter (on the off-chance it was a doctor). So, it seems plenty clear that Tom Tancredo doesn't think my daughter is a citizen.

It is less clear whether a document issued by the Department of Homeland Security would be acceptable under the new Arizona law. I would hate to have my 3-year old sent back to China while the Arizona courts try to figure it out.

I would tell the Courts that since the Arizona law is curtailing my right, and the right of my daughter, to travel to Arizona, it is unconstitutional. But I can't get the people I know to listen to me most of the time. What chance do I have in Arizona?

And what if my daughter lost her certificate of citizenship by the time we get to Phoenix?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

In Honor of Confederate History Month

Thanks to Professor Balkin for posting these excerpts (i) from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens explaining the reasons for secession, (ii) from the State of Mississippi proclamation of secession, (iii) from the State of South Carolina proclamation of secession and (iv) from the State of Texas proclamation of secession. (link in title above)

It is important to understand what they're really talking about when we're talking about things like "states rights" and the "tenth amendment" and "freedom and deficits for me but not for thee."

There are a great many excellent pull quotes here -- includng Stephens explanation about the errors of Jefferson and the generation that thought that slavery was a necessary evil, as opposed to the Confederate generation that understood the slavery was a manifestation of God's will.

But I think I'll go with the Texas quote:

"In all the non-slave-holding States ... the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party ... based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

. . . .

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

"That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator."