The Post & Email by Joseph DeMaio 3/27/2023
IntroductionParaphrasing Third Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels: “If you are going to tell a lie, make it a big one, as no one will believe a small one, and repeat it over and over, because eventually people will come to accept it as the truth.”
For purposes of this offering, however, let us label the careless but “presumptively” non-malicious use of words leading to false or erroneous conclusions and the intentional omission of facts and words to be similar to, but something short of actual “lies.” The current analogous term would be “misinformation.” For now, let us call it the “Goebbels Corollary.”
Turning to the thrust of this post, in the continuing saga of the meaning of the term “natural born Citizen” (“nbC”) in Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 of the Constitution – the presidential “Eligibility Clause” – the battle continues to rage over what, exactly, the Founders meant when they carefully selected that restriction. At bottom, the clause requires that a President (and via the 12th Amendment, a Vice-President) must be a “natural born Citizen” owing sole and exclusive fidelity and allegiance to the United States, subject only to a “Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” time-restricted (and now long-expired) exception.
Without going over in burdensome detail, and for the umpteenth time, the positions of those who believe – with solid justification – that the term was based on § 212 of Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations or those who, on the other hand, contend either that a “citizen at birth” or a “citizen by birth” under the 14th Amendment or that the “common law” of Great Britain – which nation George Washington had decisively “whupped” a few years earlier – control the meaning, one discrete aspect of the issue has come to your humble servant’s attention.
Specifically, your servant, prompted by The P&E’s intrepid Editor acting on a reader’s alert, now addresses how that paragon of principle and Internet search engine protocols – Google – treats the issue of what, purportedly, it “informs” billions of people what it wants them collectively to believe constitutes a “natural born Citizen.” The treatment by others will also be addressed.
Whether or not Google’s efforts constitute true propaganda or, instead, are only an example of the Goebbels Corollary in action will be left for readers to decide. Moreover, the rest of this post is long and may get a bit convoluted – and as to most nbC analyses, what isn’t? – so readers are advised to keep a supply of their favorite caffeinated beverages nearby.
Ready? Let us proceed.
The Google Search EngineTo begin with, when one types into the Google search box the words “natural born citizen,” this is what pops up (at least today):
“The Supreme Court has stated that, properly understood, the definition of ‘natural-born’ covers anybody who was a US citizen at birth, meaning they did not have to go through naturalization at a later time. Apr 12, 2021.”
That answer, of course, fails to disclose, specifically, the USSC decision purportedly articulating that proposition, which constitutes, in effect, misleading by omission. Fear not, faithful readers: the Google claim is accompanied by a link to another website where, presumably, additional information can be gleaned on the issue. That other website, characterized by Google as offering a “featured snippet” of the underlying topic, leads to the “media center” page for …, wait for it…, wait for it: Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA), the Democrat representative of California’s 36th Congressional District.
Parenthetically, Lieu’s Democrat “rabidity index” can be measured from the fact that, with only two years’ “experience” under his belt as a freshman congressman, in 2017, former Speaker of the House Pelosi – pause just a moment while your servant savors the term “former” – appointed him Assistant Whip of the 115th Congress and in 2021, named him as one of the impeachment managers in the Democrats’ second Trump Star Chamber witch hunt. Those facts should telegraph something more than zero about his rabidity “index” rating.
But I digress.
The “media center” page to which inquiries are redirected contains an article posted by a writer for “Vox,” one Jesus A. Rodriguez and dated the same day as the Google search result, April 12, 2021. That article, entitled, “The ‘natural-born citizen’ ceiling,” first launches into a diatribe about the January 6, 2021 events, and eventually begins to address the nbC issue, tangentially related to Congressman Lieu, who is acknowledged to be ineligible to the presidency, as he is not a natural born Citizen.
More:
https://www.thepostemail.com/2023/03/27/the-goebbels-corollary/
