Israel - Middle East
Monday, August 02, 2010

Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor

He has many nicknames. He's been called "The Lightbringer." He's been called "The Messiah". He has been called, "The Anointed One." He has been called simply, "The One."

He has said of himself, "We are the Ones we have been waiting for." (video 16 secs)

I found a website that offers what it calls "The Pretty Darn Exhaustive List" of Obama nicknames collected "while surfing the conservative side of the internet."

Among his other nicknames are some less complimentary but more descriptive ones, like "The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers"; "The Petulant POTUS"; "Dear Leader" and "President Hopenchange."

(But I like "King of the Unicorns.")

One glaring omission from the nickname list was that of "The Lawless One" a nickname whose appropriateness was reconfirmed by Obama himself yesterday during his speech on what is euphemistically called, "immigration reform."

"Immigration reform" is kind of a hard concept to get one's head around. As nearly as I can understand it, "immigration reform" is an effort by the administration to coerce the Congress into passing legislation opposed by the people by refusing to enforce existing laws it doesn't like.

That the administration's preferred tactic is, in and of itself a federal crime, appears to be of no consequence to either the administration or to the Congress.

America's foundational principle is that is a nation of laws, embodied by the Constitution, to ensure that all citizens enjoy equal protection under the law. The Constitution was constructed to ensure that the law applied equally to all citizens, including the Chief Executive.

The President has no more authority to break the law than does any other citizen under the Constitution. The Office of the President of the United States is required -- by law -- to ensure the enforcement of laws passed by Congress.

It is a federal crime for any official to interfere with the enforcement of federal law, whether that official agrees with the law or not.

The Constititution and the United States Code require federal officials to enforce violations of federal law -- until existing federal law is changed by Congress in accordance with the principles of a representative democratic republic.

In his speech, Obama dismissed all that legal Constitutional stuff about federal law and his obligation to enforce it as written as "political posturing." He blamed the Arizona state law for having "divided the nation" over illegal immigration.

(Nationwide polls show that, far from dividing the nation, the nation overwhelmingly (73%) supports Arizona's decision to enforce immigration law. I'd suggest adding "Liar in Chief" but it is already on the list. So is Demagogue-in-Chief).

Being the expert he is on the subject, Obama managed to make illegal immigration about race suggesting that anyone who opposed his "immigration reform" efforts was a racist.

Sort of reminds you of the old schoolyard taunt, "It takes one to know one!" Which brings to mind yet another; "out of the mouths of babes comes truth."

Those Americans who aren't either Republicans or racists (which Obama made clear he felt was a distinction without a difference) were succumbing to the 'politics of fear'.

It was demagoguery at its finest.

Assessment:

Obama appealed to public emotion reminding us that the motive of illegal immigrants was no more sinister than "wanting a better life for themselves and their families." Who could be opposed to that?

That is the same motive behind the millions of legal would-be immigrants that went through the legal immigration process instead of jumping the borders. To enter America illegally to work, the first law one has to break is the one barring illegal entry.

Every act that follows breaks another law. Every day that they go to work brings with it a fresh crop of serial violations of existing laws that bind all citizens and legal immigrants.

Income tax evasion. Social Security fraud. Forgery. (Or identity theft). Making false representations to every government official with whom they come into contact. Obtaining government benefits (from health care to education) by fraud.

Violation of wage labor laws, which floods the lowest paying job market with illegal immigrants willing to work for sub-standard wages, squeezing out legal applicants for those jobs?

If they drive, they either broke the law to get a driver's license or they don't get one. And without a license, they can't get insurance. This isn't because they are bad people.

It is because they can't obey all the laws that the rest of us are bound by because they broke the law designed to ensure immigrants obey the law in order to get here.

During Election 2000 Democrats were shocked when George Bush captured the Latino vote, costing Al Gore the White House. They took "immigration reform" as 'their' cause hoping to use 'immigration reform' as a pathway to turning as many as 20 million illegal aliens into new (and grateful) voters.

If it were aimed at immigrants, rather than at Latino illegal aliens, then it would be a lot harder to make the case that requiring immigrants to obey existing immigration laws is 'racist'.

Nobody is calling American immigration laws restricting Canadian immigration 'racist' because race has nothing to do with it.

Demagoguery: "a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public, typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes."

The same Wikepedia entry provided a few historical examples of famous demagogues from history; the virulently anti-Semitic 1930's priest and radio personality, Father Charles Coughlin; Adolf Hitler and Joseph McCarthy.

For cross reference purposes, Wikipedia offers a link to "The Big Lie" which it identified in its lead paragraph thusly:

The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, for a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

"The southern border is more secure today than at any time in 20 years," President Obama said in his speech, before accusing the Republicans of misrepresenting the facts.