What is your purpose for being here discuss Obama eligibility anyway?
Are you an agent for social justice ensuring that an unprecedented president isn’t challenged on constitutional grounds in a court of law?
72 separate cases have been shunted out of the legal system by what most logical people would describe as legalistic chicanery to prevent anyone from reaching the threshold of discovery and yet we are told that a document that has only appear of the internet meets the legal standards of proof for Obama’s eligibility, a document that did not even exist when he was deciding if he should run for the office and one that has never been viewed in a court of law as legal evidence.
Isn’t the man that lost his job because of Obama’s systematic destruction of our economy entitled to know that the man he elected is constitutionally eligible ton hold the office?
Isn’t the family that will lose their business due to the oppressive regulations Obama’s administration of this country has shackled them with entitled to see for themselves what is on his original birth certificate that Obama must hide from the legal system?
Isn’t the senior citizen that has seen her Medicare benefits stripped away to fund a government health care system that she might never live to see come online entitled to the same sort of legal justice that requires Obama to prove he is eligible as John McCain did in a court of law when he showed his original Panamanian Birth Certificate to the court and to the world?
Aren’t our soldiers that are being sent by him into a war zone under the most restrictive rules of engagement ever hoisted upon the backs of our military entitled to know that the president that is sending them to be slaughtered like sheep is eligible to make that decision with their lives?
Social justice does not apply to one man, it applies to every citizen of this country equally, especially if the actions of a man that should not hold the office of the presidency is destroying this country.
I can think of nothing on his original birth certificate other than that he was not born in this country that would embarrass him to the point where he would not be able to carry out the duties of president and yet that is the excuse most commonly used to stifle any logical debate on the issue. We cannot see it because it would embarrass him!
Even if his original birth certificate said he was a hermaphrodite, that would not be cause enough to embarrass him to the point where he could not show his original birth certificate to the American public after the pummeling this country has gone through after less that two years of his blatantly Un-American execution of the office.
But if I am wrong tell me then what would be so embarrassing about his original birth certificate that he could not present it to the American public that trusted him enough to put him in the office he now holds?
If you can name one thing on his original birth certificate that would be so embarrassing that he could no longer serve in the office other than he was not born in this country and is not eligible, I will take a zot and NEVER POST IN THIS FORUM AGAIN.
“What is your purpose for being here discuss Obama eligibility anyway?”
Because Birtherism is a blight on and an embarassment to American conservatism. Birtherism is to the Right what 9/11 Trutherism is to the Left: an irrational, logical fallacy-ridden, politically-motivated, universally-derided conspiracy theory. When reporters want shorthand for conspiracy-minded nutty conservatives, they cite Birthers. When liberals want to smear Republican candidates as unhinged, they accuse them of being Birthers. Birtherism is to Constitutional Law what Holocaust denial is to 20th century history, what creationism is to science, and what homeopathy is to medicine; denialist claptrap wrapped with a layer of perceived inconsistencies, imagined conspiracies, and outright lies.
Birtherism is an endless fount of fallacy, illogic, and unattainable standards of proof. After a blogger first fabricated the rumor that Obama was born in Kenya and not Hawaii, conspiracy theorists demanded to see a birth certificate. When Obama’s campaign published the COLB online for anyone to see, conspiracy theorists moved the goalpost further, fell back on the testimony of fake, lying “experts” and accused it of being forged, and asked that it be personally inspected. When FactCheck sent a couple of staff members to handle and photograph the document, conspiracy theorists moved the goalpost further and accused FactCheck of being in on the conspiracy, and asked for external evidence of a Hawaiian birth. When contemporary birth announcements were found in the Honolulu newspapers, conspiracy theorists moved the goalpost further and accused the Obama family of having been engaged in conspiratorial efforts to cover up a Kenyan birth for the last 50 years, and asked for the state of Hawaii to confirm his birth. When officials from the state of Hawaii publicly went on record as saying that his vital records confirm his birth in Hawaii, conspiracy theorists moved the goalpost further and claimed that the Hawaiian officials were not credible. It’s a neverending game of creating new standards of proof, new conspiratorial relationships, and new reasons for denying a truth that you refuse to accept. These are the tools of denialists, and conservatism does not need to be riddled with or associated with denialists.
Many people “waste their time” debunking 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Many people “waste their time” debating creationists. Many people “waste their time” responding to the allegations of various pseudoscientists and pseudohistorians, for any number of reasons. In my own past, I’ve “wasted my time” on Confederate apologists ( http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2009/04/24/collinsed_0424.html ) and huckster salesmen ( http://www.lorencollins.net/trudeau/ ). Whether I or anyone else spends our time arguing against these things doesn’t change the fact that these things are nonsense; but nonsense is often contagious, and sometimes there’s the urge to step up and fight back against people being fed lies, logical fallacies, and bad law.
Birthers, on the other hand, enjoy endlessly promoting a conspiracy theory so absurd that pundits like Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter think it’s ridiculous, leaving only guys like Alex Jones and Kevin Trudeau as supporters. A conspiracy theory so fringe that its proponents leap to claim every pundit who makes a joke as a supporter, and pretend that every no-name foreign journalist who makes a factual error is actually speaking the secret truth. A conspiracy theory so utterly *silly* that it’s not even treated by most skeptics as worthy of detailed rebuttal; while the 9/11 Truther analogy is convenient, Birtherism has almost as much in common with David Icke’s ‘The world is secretly ruled by reptilians’ nonsense, in that it’s just shrugged off as not even worth the effort to tackle. The public, press, and politicians don’t ignore Birtherism’s claims because they’re afraid of them; they ignore them because Birtherism’s claims are just really, really STUPID. Birthers advance a sweeping conspiracy starting in 1961, encompassing hundreds if not thousands of actors on both sides of the political spectrum and around the world, and involving everything from secret international trips to fraudulent registrations to elaborate forgeries to media coverups to scrubbed videos to novel legal theories.
And of course, everything from the lack of supporting evidence to the lack of legal support from legitimate legal scholars is all chalked up to being part of the conspiracy too. All rather than to simply accept that, like it or not, Barack Obama is the legal President of the United States.
The longer that such a conspiracy theory, such a stupid, stupid conspiracy theory, remains associated with conservatism, the harder it will be to rehabilitate conservatism in the eyes of the American voter. Worse yet, Birther rhetoric of hanging (and worse yet, hanging from a tree) is disturbing in its violent imagery. Conservatism is about finding answers through caution, logic, and reasoned analysis, rather than in rashness, emotion, and logical fallacies. Birtherism fully subscribes to the latter and is entirely bereft of the former. Birtherism’s approach to evidence is unscientific in the extreme; evidence that disagrees with your predetermined conclusion is deemed fraudulent or perpetually insufficient or is simply ignored, and the lack of evidence supporting your conclusion is always chalked up to the conspiracy.
William F. Buckley, the spirit of 20th century intellectual conservatism, would be aghast at the existence of Birtherism. His approach to the Birchers is the same approach today’s Republican Party should take with the Birthers. And I discuss Obama’s eligibility because I’d much rather stand with Buckley and embrace his legacy than silently tolerate the toxic effect of folks like Orly Taitz and Phil Berg.
I never read what the trolls write any more but some time ago either LC admitted or it was found out by others (I think he did admit it) that he is writing a book about stupid birthers and so he is saving peoples’ comments and so forth.
Why the hell he isn’t banned I have no idea.
I haven't heard anyone, except birthers, make the claim that he shouldn't have to release his long-form birth certificate because it might embarass him.
Rather, he doesn't have to release it because his birth in the USA has already been established beyond reasonable doubt, and to the satisfaction of those responsible for vetting eligibility, by other means. It's not complicated.