CAIR Counsel on American Islamic Relationships, as well as Rachel Maddow demand "President Trump withdraw the nomination of Steven Menashi to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit."
On her Show, The Rachel Maddow Show on NBC, she went on a lengthy tirade about Menashi because of a paper entitled, " ETHNONATIONALISM AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY." Claiming that the statement, "Self-government requires a political partnership in which individuals are willing and able to regard one another as equal members of the policies community. . .democratic self-government depends on national fellow-feeling: the capacity of citizens to identify with each other. . .Ethnic ties provide the groundwork for social trust and political solidarity," is a racist in nature.
While Maddow is a highly educated media pundit, one could generalize if she had read the entire document. As National Review points out, "Rachel Maddow grossly distorts Menashi's argument and tries to twist it into a high-brow argument for racial purity."
According to Menashi's argument, What matters for national identity is,"that a people are “united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others, which make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, [and] desire to be under the same government.”
How Maddow can translate that into ethno-superiority is a mystery. It is laying claim that people unite themselves around a common cause, and is not race related but nationalism that unites them.
It is worth noting that Menashi is a strong supporter of Israel, and is Jewish himself. If it is his Jewish nationality, that CAIR and Maddow are referring to as a reason to disqualify him from sitting on the bench, Article VI of the Constitution strictly forbids religion as a qualifier. Article VI states, "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
CAIR has been named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation. Despite its claims that it is a civil rights group, there has been evidence to support their involvement with Hamas and the Muslim brotherbood.
If Maddow is referring to Menashi's argument for Nationalism, then how long will it take before anyone can not hold office for their support of the Constitution, or the American Flag? These are all questions worth considering given the political climate of today.
Whats your opinion?