The crusade to "take our country back" is clearly a full-time endeavor that requires the participation of all real Americans, including our public officials. This is a brief rundown of some actual stuff that has actually been passed or proposed in recent days and weeks by actual lawmakers who were elected by actual voters. Here are my favorite four. They'll leave you dewey-eyed and bursting with patriotic pride:
1. On Tuesday, Georgia lawmakers sent to the governor a bill that will allow people to carry their guns into Georgia airports. The governor reportedly plans to sign it. What a relief. Until now, people have been denied the inherent freedom to tote their weapons at critical airport moments - for instance, while watching friends print out their boarding passes. Freedom will also be restored to the guys who feel the need to pack a piece while peeing in the restroom. Under the law's provisions, people will be able to carry their guns right up until they reach the federal security checkpoints - which is a great thing, when you think about it, because until now Georgians have been forced to patronize those gift shops, and buy overpriced bottled water and munchies, while completely unarmed. I wouldn't want to live in that kind of country.
2. California congressman Duncan Hunter (son of former California congressman Duncan Hunter, whose '08 Republican presidential bid may have escaped your notice) thinks that the American-born children of illegal aliens should be kicked out of the country. He argued the other day that true citizenship hinges on "what's in our souls," which is why he has sponsored at least five different bills requiring the forced removal of these offspring. There's only one little problem. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled ever since 1898 that the children of foreigners automatically become citizens if they're born on U.S. soil. Indeed, the high court has based several such rulings on the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, which in turn takes its inspiration from English common law, although perhaps, in the spirit of American innovation, we could always amend the amendment and require that people's souls be vetted for patriotism.
3. I don't mean to pick on Georgia - nice people, great climate, love the food - but I do need to recount an exchange that took place the other day at a Georgia legislative hearing. This concerned a crisis issue that you undoubtedly have been pondering daily: the ever-present possibility that the federal government, without your consent, will place a microchip inside your body. Anyway, Georgia Republicans are sponsoring a bill to outlaw such a practice (really, truly), and they just heard testimony from a woman who said she has been "tortured by co-workers" who activated her microchip "by using their cell phones and other electronic devices." The woman explained that the microchip had been planted in her "vaginal-rectum area." The Republican chairman of the committee demanded to know, "Who implanted this in you?" She replied, "Researchers with the federal government...The Department of Defense." He said, "Thank you, ma'am." I wish to thank her as well for alerting us to this menace, although, in the interests of fairness and state's rights, I do hope the bill broadly protects Georgians who are harassed via the filings in their teeth, not merely those who receive socialistic messages in their nether zones.
4. Arizona's "birther bill," requiring a presidential candidate to produce a birth certificate before being listed on the state ballot, has not yet passed the state Senate, which seems perfectly willing to adjourn for awhile and leave this crucial issue hanging. When it returns, I do hope that it will address the tricky issue concerning the Honolulu Advertiser announcement of Aug. 4, 1961, which listed Barack Obama's birth. A certified real American will need to testify in hearings that Obama's grandparents clearly planted that phony listing in 1961, knowing that their Kenya-born grandson would run for president 47 years later. Failing that, it may be necessary to pass an amendment declaring that the Honolulu Advertiser simply didn't exist in 1961. And if the Arizonia Republicans do ultimately pass this bill, new issues could arise. There's always the chance that foreign agents from Obama's homeland will send harassing messages to their rectum areas, so new legislation on that front may also be required.