Laws passed by men are funny: No matter how precisely they’re worded, they don’t enforce themselves.  They need someone to do the job of enforcing them.  And the scope and magnitude of the laws in question don’t alter this existential reality; even the Constitution requires someone to execute its provisions.

Some may recall from civics class that our federal government has an entire branch devoted to the execution of the laws of the United States.  Heck, you’d have to be living under a rock not to have noticed that the role of chief executive has been much ballyhooed for many months, to the point of exhausting our patience.  The job of faithfully executing the Constitution of the United States is a coveted one, it turns out!  Furthermore, folks think it’s an important job—so important that an enormous amount of time has been spent haggling over one garishly flamboyant candidate’s temperament.  Does the candidate’s “usual attitude, mood or behavior” disqualify him from the job?

Admittedly, there is such a thing as a presidential temperament.  Indeed, with much at stake in our national contest, one strains to see the relevance of words such as Rosie and O’Donnell on the presidential debate stage.  But then again, we might ask, what is a candidate’s attitude, mood, or behavior toward the laws themselves?  Doesn’t that disposition give us some clue about that candidate’s willingness to execute them?

Celebrated “Constitution scholar” Barack Obama has shown utter contempt for the Constitution and for the statutory laws of the United States.  He has incited violence by denigrating local law enforcement.  He has shamed citizens for zealously defending their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, suggesting their zeal is responsible for acts of Islamic terror and thug murder.  And he has lionized illegal aliens, recasting them as quintessential Americans and violating the Constitution he swore to protect and defend in order to protect and defend lawbreakers from the law itself.

The United States has legal borders and easy to understand laws governing citizenship and interstate commerce.  These laws are to be executed by the president.  Obama flouts them.  In so flouting, he makes excuses.  It is bigoted and nativist to demand that I enforce these laws, he and his would-be successor say.  We have a nice country, and lots of people have wanted to come here and enjoy the benefits of living here.  If you say that you don’t think they should be allowed to live here, that they are in violation of the law, you have revealed a moral defect—in yourself.

Specifically, desiring to see that the Constitution and the statutory laws of the United States are executed makes you a racist.  The very act of affirming that borders ought to be enforced and that citizenship means citizens possess certain rights and privileges is a declaration of genetic superiority and biological bigotry.

That, of course, is absurd.  But is that not the “argument” the left, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton repeatedly make?  And is this not the subtext of every mainstream-media report on “undocumented immigrants”—an attitude or mood suggesting we ought to feel a little dirty even for mentioning the topic?  And hasn’t that very ethos permeated the American imagination, so that challenging it—in favor of law and order—appears rebellious, if not revolutionary?

A vast number of browbeaten Americans cannot bring themselves to see as a violation of the law the act of sneaking over the U.S. border, of radically altering the economy and the jobs market, or of stealing billions of taxpayer dollars by demanding government services.  In fact, these cowed Americans find it abhorrent even to use precise language that distinguishes between citizens and others (Lat. alienus) who are not citizens.

For their champion, they have Hillary R. Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is a candidate remarkable for her violations of the law—most recently, her private email server, whose illegality she denied until she was caught, only to dismiss the charges, now confirmed, as another vast right-wing conspiracy.  But set those indiscretions aside: Hillary Clinton is actually campaigning on the promise to violate the law—a pledge to continue Barack Obama’s open rebellion against the chief executive’s duty to enforce the border, deport illegal aliens, and affirm the rights of citizens.  It is a postmodern job interview, during which the candidate openly mocks the employer—in this case, the citizens of the United States—and promises to do the exact opposite of the job description.

It is the temperament of a spoiled teenager.