Patriots and Tyrants

As we all know, Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. And an unabashed Muslim. And a Muslim apostate. And a socialist. And a friend of terrorists. And an America-hater. And a Jesus-hater. And an Israel-hater. And a Marxist. And a snob. And a baby-killer. And an adulterer. And a coked-up homo. And a gun-grabber. And a domestic terrorist who lobbed bombs at a South African rugby team in 1981.

Be that as it may, he won the presidential election against two white conservatives honorable patriots. Which means that the results of that election must now be annulled by means of frivolous lawsuits:

A new lawsuit is being prepared by a California attorney who already has four cases pending over the issue of President Obama's eligibility to occupy to Oval Office, and this one will include a demand from state lawmakers who forward state funds to Washington for documentation of his qualifications.

The linked article includes a helpful guide to recent and current lawsuits that are intended to cast Obama from his throne by revealing him a foreign-born pretender. It notes jeeringly that "Obama's campaign team called the cases garbage"; since almost all of the cases cited have been denied or dismissed, the courts seem to agree.

My flippant tone notwithstanding, I don't find any of this particularly funny. Over at Orcinus, Sara Robinson discusses the sentencing of James Adkisson for his murderous attack on a Unitarian Universalist church that he considered to be a hotbed of liberalism. When Adkisson insists that he took his marching orders from the likes of Michael Savage and Bernard Goldberg, she takes him at his word:

A significant part of this country's media infrastructure is thoroughly devoted to inciting people to commit horrific acts of violence against us -- and now, we know for a fact that people are acting on those incitements. It's time to start taking this far more seriously.

With that sound advice in mind, I feel somewhat troubled by all these theatrical, bad-faith attempts to seek a "legal remedy" for the Obama presidency. When that remedy is denied, the people who've been aching for it probably won't say, "Well, I guess Orly Taitz was full of shit." More likely, they'll conclude that the fix is well and truly in. And some of them may decide that a violent response is justified, or even necessary.

As I see it, these lawsuits aren't a test of Obama's eligibility for office; they're a test of the courts, which will be judged in terms of their willingness to conform to a narrative these extremists already know to be true. The logic here is similar to that of the tax-protest movement: once you come up with a plausible-sounding theory that explains why Americans shouldn't have to pay taxes, any court that fails to validate it becomes illegitimate by definition; the only verdict with any legal authority is the one the protesters had their hearts set on from the start.

In the same way, when the highest courts in the land collude to keep a Islamo-Socialist con man in office -- despite incontrovertible evidence that he was born deep in the Kenyan jungle, to a witch doctor and a fugitive member of the Baader-Meinhof gang -- it's clear that the law has effectively suspended itself. Which means that pretty much anything goes.

I'd be happy to be wrong, of course. But I can't help feeling that this entire charade is some bizarre form of wingnut proceduralism; it's not hard to imagine a scene of carnage along the lines of the OKC bombing being justified by some manifesto that explains, in plaintive terms calculated to soften the stoniest heart, how long and patiently these oppressed patriots worked to redress their grievances legally.