- People are disputing whether Barack Obama was a natural born citizen of the US, as otherwise he can't be eligible for president. This debate is stupid
( Read more... )
It's utter rubbish, yes. They can't even wait to get teeth on the potential failure of US Auto or health care to bite.
Good thing this is a small percentage of Republicans. If this was the majority of Americans, can you imagine Obama's reality? Naked, in a cage, on a stage, no less ... what an unfortunate remnant of the nation's past, using ignorance and hatred to rule its passive-aggressive opposition.
Exactly, if the right wants to find things to attack, they should not be creating this straw man, but look at and examine the more debateable changes Obama wants to make.
Personally, I agree with most of Obama's choices so far (though the bail out of the banks and not the auto industry seems to have been at best badly handled now, and at worst cash to the wrong place, though I'd claim this was Washington response, not a Democrat or Republican issue. Detroit had less friends in DC than the Bankers.)
It was DC's response. The rich take care of their own, and you're right, Detroit spent the last 30 years dictating, not pandering, to Congress, so that's what happens when the tables are turned.
To study how Madoff basically friended the shit out of the SEC to the point of them allowing his behavior with full knowledge of his endeavors, that says it all for me.
Not such a small percentage. The poll I saw reported 28% of Republican supporters believing that Obama was not born American, and a further 30% not certain whether he was or not. So that's a majority who are unwilling to believe either his account or the evidence provided.
What worries me is that the conspiracy theory is so palpably absurd, it really requires a wholesale denial of reality.
The thing is that it shows a quite scary detachment from reality. It's as if they shout something loudly and often enough, it becomes "true" regardless of the actual facts. We saw this in the Bush years with eg. the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry, but now they're in opposition they have (literally) nothing better to do than intensify the conspiracy act.
And it's not just a lunatic fringe, but the absolute mainstream and majority of the Right -- TV channels, newspapers, senior politicians. Enough to make me quite glad that our Tories are just greedy, selfish, evil and corrupt, without actually being clinically insane.
I don't think it's a mainstream opinion, more than certain eejits are making it a talking point by sowing the seeds of doubt.
I've seen similar tactics with the Creationists claiming you have to consider both sides of an argument... even if there is no argument worthy of the name. It's shoddy.
My favourite aspect of the story is that some wag has faked a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama that a load of birthers are waving around, that contains enough deliberate errors that anyone can show it's fake after five minutes on Google (such as being headed Republic of Kenya when Kenya wasn't a republic at the time). It's a brilliant demonstration of how much they're clutching at straws.
should have been finished long before he took office.
This has been going on since before the election (not, I think, the idea that the birth certificate might be fake, but the initial question as to whether Obama was a natural born citizen), and was settled to the satisfaction of anyone vaguely reasonable on the Republican side. McCain also faced vague questions as to whether he was natural born, since he was born in the Panama canal (well, not in the canal, but in the American colonial zone there).
The frothers have, for whatever reasons, kept frothing. As far as I can make out, "natural born citizen" was agreed by all involved in the establishment to mean "citizen from birth", and not in fact "some thing that I made up so that Obama wouldn't be one, probably requiring two generations of documented citizenship and not being black". But I am not a constitutional expert.
Bush's supporters were the first to say you have to back the Office of the President, it's wrong to attack the person, and to support your country.There's a
( ... )
Comments 14
Good thing this is a small percentage of Republicans. If this was the majority of Americans, can you imagine Obama's reality? Naked, in a cage, on a stage, no less ... what an unfortunate remnant of the nation's past, using ignorance and hatred to rule its passive-aggressive opposition.
Reply
Personally, I agree with most of Obama's choices so far (though the bail out of the banks and not the auto industry seems to have been at best badly handled now, and at worst cash to the wrong place, though I'd claim this was Washington response, not a Democrat or Republican issue. Detroit had less friends in DC than the Bankers.)
Reply
To study how Madoff basically friended the shit out of the SEC to the point of them allowing his behavior with full knowledge of his endeavors, that says it all for me.
Reply
What worries me is that the conspiracy theory is so palpably absurd, it really requires a wholesale denial of reality.
Reply
And it's not just a lunatic fringe, but the absolute mainstream and majority of the Right -- TV channels, newspapers, senior politicians. Enough to make me quite glad that our Tories are just greedy, selfish, evil and corrupt, without actually being clinically insane.
Reply
Reply
I've seen similar tactics with the Creationists claiming you have to consider both sides of an argument... even if there is no argument worthy of the name. It's shoddy.
Reply
Reply
It's an easy thing to work out. Find another person born in Hawaii about the same time, find their Birth Certificate, show the same info. Job done.
Stupid, stupid.
Reply
This has been going on since before the election (not, I think, the idea that the birth certificate might be fake, but the initial question as to whether Obama was a natural born citizen), and was settled to the satisfaction of anyone vaguely reasonable on the Republican side. McCain also faced vague questions as to whether he was natural born, since he was born in the Panama canal (well, not in the canal, but in the American colonial zone there).
The frothers have, for whatever reasons, kept frothing. As far as I can make out, "natural born citizen" was agreed by all involved in the establishment to mean "citizen from birth", and not in fact "some thing that I made up so that Obama wouldn't be one, probably requiring two generations of documented citizenship and not being black". But I am not a constitutional expert.
Bush's supporters were the first to say you have to back the Office of the President, it's wrong to attack the person, and to support your country.There's a ( ... )
Reply
"If absurd conspiracy theories against Obama didn't exist, we would have had to invent them?"
Reply
Leave a comment