Posted on 07/29/2009 5:19:16 PM PDT by SirJohnBarleycorn
Republicans and conservatives opposed to a rapid increase in the size and scope of government should be heartened by the American public’s gradual turn away from Obamaism.
But when we need Republican and conservative leadership the most, when we need our leaders and thinkers to clearly differentiate their vision for the country from Barack Obama’s vision, many of our leaders have failed us. Instead of taking the opportunity presented to proclaim the conservative vision to the American people, some Republican leaders have opted to latch on to wild conspiracy theories promoted by the fringes of the Republican Party. Or, at the very least, some of our leaders have allowed such wild theories to fester by not proactively combating and denouncing them.
Just last month, for instance, Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan Administration Defense Department official and conservative intellectual, wrote in The Washington Times that Barack Obama might very well be a secret Muslim. “[T]here is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” Gaffney wrote. Among Gaffney’s “mounting evidence” was the fact that President Obama referred to the Koran as the “holy Koran” during his June speech in Cairo, Egypt.
But of course this was merely pandering on Obama’s part. It no more helps prove that President Obama is a secret Muslim than President Bush speaking in Spanish to a Latino audience proves he is a “secret Hispanic,” or President Obama wearing a yarmulke at a gathering of American Jews (as he has) proves he is “secretly Jewish.”
How much resonance such conspiracy theories have within the Republican Party is unclear, but a YouTube video put up last week of a town hall meeting held by Republican Congressman Mike Castle is worrisome. A lady pressed the Delaware Republican about why Obama has not produced his birth certificate and then loudly declared that Obama was in fact a citizen of Kenya, not the United States. “I want my country back,” she shouted in her rant at the befuddled congressman, who could only respond, responsibly, that President Obama was in fact an American citizen. It’s impossible to tell how many people in the audience agreed with the woman, but there were certainly enough of them to make some noise.
These “birthers,” as they have come to be known, allege that Obama is ineligible to be president because he was not born in the United States. Despite overwhelming proof that Obama is in fact native born – including an official birth certificate from the state of Hawaii – the birthers movement persists in claiming otherwise.
Why stop there? With equal plausibility, one might suggest that 48 years ago, a group of Islamists conspired to take over America by making Barack Obama president. Having the incredible foresight in the 1960s too see that a black man would be the obvious choice for president of the United States in 2008, their strategy would be to hide his foreign and Muslim identity by having his parents name him Barack Hussein Obama. Somehow, they knew this child would be smart and talented enough to get into elite colleges and become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. The men behind this clever movement to take over America wisely encouraged a young Barack to take drugs in his youth and then to later write about his drug-taking days in a memoir because, presciently, they understood that writing about one’s drug-taking past is usually a successful presidential strategy.
That’s not all. Instead of having Obama be born in America, his mother’s native country, as most people trying to conduct a successful take over plot of America would do, they had Obama be born in Kenya. But in order to deceive the American people that Obama was an actual American citizen 47 years later, the men behind this plot made sure local Hawaiian newspapers published notices of Obama’s birth. The secret cabal behind Obama was also able to fool, evidently, the state of Hawaii.
One might go on and ask why someone who supposedly is a secret radical Islamist, determined to create a Sharia state in America, would add troops to Afghanistan to fight radical Islamists there; launch predator drone attacks against Islamist terrorists in Pakistan; and keep the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facilities open despite his campaign pledge to shut down the facility?
Yet another problem with the conspiracy theories is that they distract from more serious criticisms of the administration. I have written articles in opposition to Barack Obama’s policies and I will continue to do so as long as he pushes policies that I think are harmful. However, we have to have responsible leadership in the Republican Party that opposes Obama on the basis of principle and uses reasoned discourse, not idiotic falsities, to make its case.
Conservative commentators, leaders and thinkers have a responsibility to denounce idiocy put forward under the conservative banner. Republicans and conservatives have a real opportunity to take back the country in 2010 and 2012. But they aren’t going to do it by promoting outlandish conspiracies.
I am just a little insignificant peon who matters little.
The first three words of the U.S. Constitution are “We The People”. That says everything about who is really the boss. We’ve been dormant for over ninety years as the “progressives/liberals/communist/fascist” whatever you want to label em have run amok. This no more.
EFFORT BY McCAIN, OBAMA, McCASKILL, LEAHY, CLINTON AND COBURN TO CIRCUMVENT US CONSTITUTION
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2246688/posts
:-)
Miss Traveler, are you busy LOLing or did you see the question regarding McCaskill?
“We The People”
Hear Hear!
Obama, Clinton, McCaskill ORIGINAL ‘BIRTHERS’ (April 10, 2008): Scrubbing McCain’s NBC Status, Obama’s too
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2298857/posts
Another one for you.
That’s your right and your choice.
A derivative document by a state official on a matter outside of her expertise, and the presumed, alleged opinions of unnamed state officials’ lawyers who did *not* sign the statement, has no apparent relevance to a legal issue unless supported by legal arguments (which you have failed to supply). Hawaii can pronounce the world is flat or round or that the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa for that matter but it does not give any state official in Hawaii any authority or jurisdiction to determine the veracity, legal or otherwise, of such matters. Hawaii state lawyers can vet legally useless, irrelevant, and obfuscatory statements until they are blue in the face but that does not guarantee the legally useless, irrelevant, and obfuscatory statements are accurate or complete.
LOL, indeed.
We’re all insignificant in terms of being a single voter. Of course, we all know that. The only significance is in large numbers.
Now, figure this one out.. the large numbers that we saw in the last election was about 10 million more of the voting public for Obama than for McCain. And then, when you get down to looking closer at the conservatives, there is *by no means* a majority of the conservatives who are on this birth certificate thing.’
I’m pushing for a state law, as I said, and that would be considered “moderate” on the issue... LOL...
So, when you take the numbers in the last election and the numbers in terms of conservatives on this birth certificate issue, you’re going to come down to a very small minority involved in it.
And since the State of Hawaii statement came out, that answers the question on the qualifications issue definitively. That pushes more out of the camp of the birthers and into the larger majority (because of that statement).
And so, it’s like I’ve always said, in that this will never go away (for sure) but it will be a small minority involved in it...
No matter how factual or logical you are she will repeat her post dozens of times more until she morphs into her next argument.
Well I don't think it's all that straightforward. And as far as the statement speaking for itself, I'm sure it does, but I'm still not convinced about what it is saying. As far as Hawaii holding the original document, that proves nothing. (It is, however, a good way to add verbiage to your argument and give the impression that you are actually saying something. Well done on that.) As far as them knowing what they are talking about, I'm sure they do, they just haven't told us what that is yet. Their statements are like yours: they sound nice but they still don't answer the question.
If you want the answer to the question of what is on the birth certificate, fully and completely, you’re going to have to get that state law going... that I’ve been talking about...
Welcome to the club, brother. It could be worse, you could be nurdly too.
” if the State of Hawaii doesn’t know this information — then no one is ever going to know it — because no one else has had it all these years... except the State of Hawaii... LOL...”
No one else had it all these years..except Obama’s grandmother and we assume,
when he came of age-Obama took custody of his important papers.
Like his birth certificate.
Page 26, “ Dreams From My Father “
“I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms,
when I was in high school,”
Obama goes on to write that in the interview with his father,( the 16 yr old article he discovered )
he never mentioned a wife and son and he wondered if BO Sr did that on purpose and if so, why.
Or we could just keep raising the issue and raising the noise level until a judge decides to subpoena the document. That's what WE'VE been talking about.
“very small minority involved in it”
Says who, you?
A lot of lies were told, not just the Birth Certificate issue.
You seem to want to help cover them up.
And what do you gain by doing so?
True liberty lies not with ANY government but the people.
Liberty is based upon principles and not policies or the word of courts or government officials. Principles are based on truth.
No person who loves liberty, can, in the face of the danger of its loss, stand idly by when life itself and the pursuit of happiness, hang so precipitously in the balance.
It is in the hands of the citizens.
And at what expense to liberty does your intent to hide the truth
cost the rest of us?
I can’t see how he can be considered “natural born” with a Kenyan father and he admitted that he had dual citizenship through his father. The admission was on his own website. How can a “natural born” citizen also citizenship in Great Britain?
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