Obama’s Birth Certificate: Old News, Timeless Lesson

Tonight, I want to address the controversy and conspiracy theories surrounding Barrack Obama’s birth certificate. I realize this may be old hat for many people. Once again, I am writing about an issue long after it may have already died (or at least after it has been buried temporarily). Seriously, though, I think we conservatives can take a few lessons from this issue.

First of all, one of the biggest problems with modern-day politics in general is that people of all viewpoints accept the logical fallacy that they need to believe every bad rumor or theory about a politician with whom they disagree on policy. They think anything less than doing so equals disloyalty to their respective movement or party. However, to a certain extent, believing that represents a degree of disloyalty to such a party or movement. Let me explain:

Several weeks ago, a woman called Rush Limbaugh’s show to chide him for not putting more pressure on Obama and left-leaning media to release his birth certificate. This was right around the time that more people, led by Donald Trump, were pressuring Obama to release his birth certificate. And, as we all know, the Whitehouse did release a more detailed version of Obama’s birth certificate than the one the Obama than they had before.

Anyway, this woman was irate with Limbaugh (given his influence on the media and national politics) for not demanding that Obama release his birth certificate. Mr. Limbaugh then did this woman a huge favor in how he defended himself. He told her that she was living in a fantasy world to think that simply removing a bad president from office was going to solve the country’s problems.

I will be honest here. I can relate to this woman’s frustration. During the 90’s, when we conservatives mistakenly thought we’d seen the worst U.S. president ever (in the form of William Jefferson Clinton), I remember thinking how convenient it would be if he just magically disappeared. But now that I’ve stepped back and looked at everything, I realize that such a wish is just that: a wish. It’s not reality.

The sitting president of the United States may have a lot of power but at the end of the day, his election simply reflects the sentiment of the country at the time he was elected. And the sentiment of the country is formed by the thoughts, emotions, and the logical and sometimes not so logical conclusions of its people. The president is just one person. And when it comes to American politics, somebody always steps up to the plate to take advantage of the sentiment of the country. At the end of 2008, America was disillusioned by the War in Iraq, worried about the economy, and the liberal media had convinced them that they needed a president from the opposite party. The mood of the country was such that if Obama had not become president, Hillary Clinton would have. If not her, someone else. If not that someone else, then another someone else, and so on and so forth.

The birthers, to put it bluntly, need to wake up and start talking about the actual issues if they want to save this country from its Constitutional demise. Don’t get me wrong. I would not be the least bit surprised, given the way the liberal media covered Barrack Obama’s campaign in 2008 and the way they’ve tried to protect him and his bad policies since then, if there are a lot of skeletons in Obama’s closet that simply sound like conspiracy theories right now.

However, if these birthers really want to change the long-term future of the country, if they want conservatism to win, they will stop putting all their energy into finding short-term solutions, if you can even call them that. They will stop putting all their eggs into one basket. They will stop banking all their energy and hope on what is simply, excuse the pun, a “Trump” card for saving America.

If the birthers want long-term conservative victory in this country, they need to join ranks with fellow conservatives by arguing about the merits of their policy-oriented ideas. They need to engage in a war of ideas and principles, rather than wasting much needed energy on political strategies that may or may not work and will do little, if not nothing, to help solve this country’s problems.