Real issues get ignored when the media and the left can focus on birthers and conspiracy cranks to deflect attention.
I don't want to appear to be opposing absolute freedom of speech, but there comes a point when, as a personal favor to sane people everywhere and to reduce the level of national embarrassment, I just have to ask the rat-brained social deviants who think there's a great conspiracy to conceal President Obama's real place of birth to please shut the hell up. I realize that they have no personal dignity or common sense, but out of respect for the rest of us who oppose President Obama for legitimate and rational reasons, couldn't they just crawl into a closet somewhere and close the door behind them so we can't hear them mumbling to themselves in the darkness?…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Pablo
Sure Davey, that's why he has spent in excess of a million bucks not releasing it. I do however love the irony here. The great so called libertarian defending his "socialist" president on a matter of constitutional law.
Like I said previously I do not know where Obama was born, and you don't either Nalle.
I guess that was NOT the Press Secretary that spent about 5 minutes not dignifying this issue yesterday! hehehe
You go boy!
27 - Matthew T. Sussman
Thanks, Pablo. The fact that the PAC paid a law firm $1+ million still doesn't conclude anything, although I don't doubt the amount. The doubt lies in the conclusion. I mean, you could also conclude that it's considerably less than his certifiable opponents are willing to pay for this. $1 million vs. $25 million. What are they hiding?
28 - Dave Nalle
Sure Davey, that's why he has spent in excess of a million bucks not releasing it. I do however love the irony here. The great so called libertarian defending his "socialist" president on a matter of constitutional law.
You need to read more closely here, Pablo. I didn't defend Obama in this article in any way. I just attacked the birthers whose bizarre behavior is counterproductive.
Like I said previously I do not know where Obama was born, and you don't either Nalle.
Yes I do. I know that his birth is recorded in the Hawaii state database and a printout has been produced just as it would be for a kid applying for a drivers license. Under the same standards applied to any other citisen in that state he has proof of birth.
Why do you think he should have to meet different standards than other citizens?
Dave
29 - Pablo
Dave,
Allow me, if you will to give you a rudimentary lesson in knowledge versus belief. Knowledge by its very nature comes from a direct perception with the environment. As in "knowing" you are a man for instance, by virtue of your genitalia. Or when you put your hand on a hot pan and get burned, you know have "knowledge" that you can get burned. It may seem like a silly distinction for you, but you seem to have a problem differentiating between knowledge and belief.
Belief on the other hand is when you have second hand information alluding to a truth. As in hmmmm lets say a birth certificate! A document stating someting to be true. This still does not give YOU Davey knowledge that Obama was born in Hawaii, it give you the belief. I am being very elementary here Dave, because I have frequently noticed that you have a difficult time differentiating between belief and knowledge. Similar to how you poo poo a conspiracy belief that you dont agree with, with another conspiracy theory, in the case I am referring to is of course 9/11.
As you like to denegrate to your heart's content those that do not buy the official "conspiracy theory" of 9/11 with the official one. You still after all these years cannot admit that you too are a conspiracy theorist by the very definition above.
You could Dave, if you were so inclined actually look up the words in the dictionary. Belief and knowledge, it might give you a clue as to what I am talking about. The FACT is Dave, neither you nor I, know where Obama was born. You choose to believe in a short form certificate, but that is indeed a far cry from knowledge pal.
30 - Clavos
Who gives a rat's ass where he was born?
Better you should keep your eye on what HE'S DOING -- those are the far more important issues, especially since no one will ever be allowed to "prove' where he was born to Pablo's satisfaction.
The whole issue is a gigantic Red Herring to distract the morons who believe these idiotic rumors from the far more substantive issues of his legislative activity.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the WH is fomenting all these rumors about where he was born; talk about a great smoke screen!
31 - Dr Dreadful
Ironic that Dave titles his article 'Will the Birthers Please Just Shut Up?' knowing full well that Pablo and a cohort of like-minded folks would show up to have their say... :-)
32 - Clavos
No irony at all, Doc, it's brilliant marketing.
33 - Cuchulain9
Pablo 23, and so you still do not reference ANY source for your claim. You say 600k was spent, it could be 0. If you have a basis, state it.
34 - STM
Clav's right. Watch what he's up to ... it's undemocratic to only allow native-born Americans to run for the presidency anyway.
All men are born equal remember? If he's a US citizen, and that should NOW be the only requirement of that kind, who gives a rat's.
Anyway, the conspiracy theorists (geez, isn't the US full of the buggers??) are probably very wrong.
Although, it should be pointed out here that the state flag of Hawaii still contains the Union Flag of Great Britain in its top left-hand corner (the Hawaiian flag prior to territorial annexation and statehood).
Which indicates to me that the British still have a hand in US foreign policy and must therefore be stopped.
Why would the US have left the British flag in the corner of one of its state flags if that wasn't the case???
Obviously, the British still have an evil hand in US foreign policy.
This is the real issue conspiracy theorists should be worried about: Obama's GENUINE British links through his father, and therefore his left-leaning social democrat tendencies.
I believe the whole thing's a plot by the Crown to undo the 200-plus years of madness that has followed in the wake of America's great mistake in breaking away from the mother country.
Now, like the prodigal son, through Obama it is returning sneakily to the table ... and deciding what's to eat, and who's bringing all the wine.
Didn't his olive branch to continental Europe ring any alarm bells??
Next there'll be a North American Union, just like the EU.
Resist, I say. Get those tri-corner hats on again and march on Washington.
35 - Pablo
Clavy 30
"Who gives a rat's ass where he was born?"
It's a document you may or may not be aware of Clavy, it is called the Constitution, and it sates very specifically that a President must be a natural born citizen.
As to my satisfaction Clavy, producing a document that is known as the long form birth certificate which states such trivial unimportant information such as the attending physician, the hospital, etc would be nice.
As you may or may not be aware Clavos, the document produced by the Obama campaign folks, under the law at the time in Hawaii, allowed for a parent or parent to receive a birth certificate such as the one produced even thought the child was born abroad.
36 - Matthew T. Sussman
"I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the WH is fomenting all these rumors about where he was born; talk about a great smoke screen!"
Mystery of the Urinal Deuce
37 - Clavos
Bingo, Matt!
38 - Clavos
As usual, you totally miss the point, paulie.
You're never going to get him to produce the long form or anything else, because he doesn't have to, everybody else, except for the whackjobs, has accepted that he's the Prez.
It's a distraction, a Red Herring.
39 - MarkSaleski
Arguing with fanatics is generally pointless and counterproductive. Better to ignore them or ridicule them.
bc politics in a nutshell.
with a side of roasted irony.
40 - Irene Wagner
Didn't his olive branch to continental Europe ring any alarm bells??
Nope. The newsworthiness of recent trans-Atlantic passages of olive branches-- and even armies-- absolutely pales in comparison to what went down (or didn't) in Massachusetts this month or Hawaii some forty-odd years ago.
41 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Man, but I really hate having to step away for a few days when I've got a good argument going.
But that one's past and we're on this one now.
Dave, you're to be commended for being rational enough to call the 'birther' argument nutso. Where I disagree with you is your claim that the Left is using the 'birther' movement to make smear attacks. I checked the link you said was 'proof' of your claim, and frankly speaking, they're right that much of the 'birther' argument stems from pure and simple racism.
Why?
Because if Obama had been a white guy named Smith with the exact same set of circumstances, you'd never have seen this idiocy from the Right. You can deny it, but you KNOW this.
Dave, I know racism when I see it. I know code when I see it, and I can tell when people are trying to push the envelope to make as racist a statement as possible without saying something that can be labeled as 'racist' by the MSM.
You can deny it all you like, but in your heart of hearts, you yourself know that much - or most - of this 'birther' movement is rooted in racism...the same racism that is going a long way towards costing the Republican party the Hispanic vote for a long time to come after the Sotomayor debacle.
Conservatives hate change - hence the title 'conservative'. But the world is changing, and as with every other type of evolution, evolve or be left behind in the dustbin of history.
42 - Clavos
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...
43 - Glenn Contrarian
And on a side note, I am sincerely surprised to see several 'birthers' on BC! Dave, I think this is an indication that the 'birther' virus is more widespread among the conservatives than any of us would have believed. I guess conservatives really do have a greater immunity to fact - hence the conservative desire to replace the teaching of evolution in school with neo-con versions of Biblical creation.
44 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos - you know that much of it stems from racism, too. Am I correct that you said you're from Mexico? And yet with all the smuggled-from-America firearms fueling the drug wars in Mexico leaving hundreds, perhaps thousands dead, you're still pro-conservative?
45 - STM
Pablo: "It's a document you may or may not be aware of Clavy, it is called the Constitution"
It should be changed. A US president shouldn't need to be native-born ... just a US citizen.
It's archaic and designed for the conditions that prevailed 200 years ago when the main fear of the US was Britain, and at a time when most migrants to the US came from Britain.
That no longer applies.
It's also discriminatory.
It's actually the kind of discrimination that wouldn't hold up for three seconds in any US court if the same kind of thinking were applied to ANY other situation.
Can you imagine the uproar in the US if a corporation refused a CEO a job, for instance, on the basis of the country of his or her birth, even if he or she were a legitimate US citizen.
Or refused service in a Selma diner because of the colour of his or her skin?
Think about it.
My understanding of the constitution is that even the founding fathers never intended it to be an inflexible document and hoped that Americans of future generations would change it as they saw fit.
This is the kind of stuff that holds America back, socially at least and within a certain demographic. There is no flexibility regarding the constitution in the minds of too many.
It's worth remembering that it's a document designed for men by men, and not the holy grail.
I've heard you make this very argument in support of the 9th amendment when it comes to rights.
46 - STM
Irene, I wasn't being serious about the Brit connection. It's all part of the same conspiracy.
47 - pablo
Cuchulain9 33
I linked to a reference in post 23, as I said the MSM won't report on the financial cost incurred by the birther issue to the Obama campaign, hence no reference via the MSM.
The whole issue is really rather simple, aside from all the gobbledygook. People wanna see the long form certificate. I being the coinspiricist that I am, have been following it from the outset. As I stated clearly before in another post, I would not at all be surprised if the whole issue had been contrived from the outset by the ruling elite. The same ruling elite that put Obama in his seat at the table, the electorate notwithstanding.
God forbid that I should ever find myself on the same side of a political issue than most republicans, particularly avid right wingers, however on this issue, I suspect a rat.
31 - Dr Dreadful
"Ironic that Dave titles his article 'Will the Birthers Please Just Shut Up?' knowing full well that Pablo and a cohort of like-minded folks would show up to have their say... :-)"
Uhhh this issue has been all over the press of late, including tonight. I have also commented on this issue numerous times before on other posts. Dave is an opportunist hence most of his political articles are based upon minor political issues of the day. This being a classic one of them.
Whatever the sum is, whether a million bucks or less. The Obama campaign and administration has spent mucho denero over the last year not producing a long form certificate. This in and of itself breeds suspicion.
Clavos 38
"You're never going to get him to produce the long form or anything else, because he doesn't have to, everybody else"
That's the problem in a nutshell. They will make you bend over and take off your shoes at the airport, yet some schmuck can run for the most powerful political position in the world without having to prove his credentials. I support not only the current right wing legislation to have future presidential contenders having to prove their place of birth, but will go one step further.
All future presidential hopefuls must take a piss test monthly to prove that their blood is pure enough for the state! And should the blood test prove negative for THC, she/he be summarily impeached. :)
48 - pablo
STM 45
Ok, it SHOULD be changed. In the meantime it is the law of the land, and ignoring it, only furthers despotism and tyranny.
49 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, whether the birthers are or are not racists wasn't really what I was trying to address. The "smear" to which I refer is the ongoing attempt to tar the entire right and Republicans in general with the birther taint, even though most on the right are just as skeptical and annoyed by them as anyone else. That's why I referenced the article, not the racism element.
But, at the same time, racism does tie in, because it's part of the same smear campaign. Just as some left propagandists would have us believe that all Republicans are birthers, for much longer they've been trying to promote the fallacious idea that all Republicans are racists based on the behavior of a very small minority, most of whom wouldn't even self-identify as Republicans.
It's all part of the same strategy of demonization.
Dave
50 - Matthew T. Sussman
Perhaps a political episiotomy could help remove the birther taint.
51 - STM
Actually, McCain qualifies too despite his birthplace of Panama.
Previous decisions of US courts have interpreted native-born or natural-born to also include someone who is an American citizen at birth ... ie, the child of an American citizen or citizens.
Which at a stretch, since his mother was American, even if he wasn't born in Hawaii (and there's no evidence of that, and plenty of statements to the contrary) he's still an American citizen at birth.
So the whole argument in regard to this is moot anyway.
It wouldn't stand up in a US court (hasn't)even if you were arguing that it's unconstitutional, especially given previous rulings as to what exactly constitutes the meaning of natural born.
Since it's also been ruled to mean American at birth ... there's your answer. Nowhere in the constitution say that an American president must be born on American soil. It just doesn't.
He's an American by birth. Get the f... over it and stop carrying on like little cry-babies.
PS, one of my friends in Australia was born in the US to Australian parents and holds dual (now legal and accepted in the US and by the US government) US/Australian citizenship.
Under the notion that you need to born in the US to be natural born, then he qualifies to run for office of US president.
Since the Australian federal government is still nominally The Crown, how does that work???
Birthers need to get their hands off their tonks and think about some things that are really important ... like the US staying afloat during the global financial crisis, reducing its ever-expanding national debt caused by huge borrowing from overeseas governments - through higher levels of taxation internally.
52 - Glen Boyd
The next most logical place this will be going is that Obama wasn't even born on earth, but is actually a reptilian alien. Quick! somebody call David Icke!
53 - Christopher Rose
If people such as Pablo insist that direct experience not documentation is the only real knowledge, why does it matter at all whether the long form or short form birth certificate is produced? Neither one is knowledge, only belief.
54 - RJ
Jesus Christ. Pablo is making more sense and being more logical than anyone else here, and he's an admitted conspiracy theorist!
Look. Was 0bama born in Hawaii? Most likely. Is there any way to prove that? Yes. How? A long-form birth certificate. Does such a thing exist? Yep. Does 0bama have the authority to release it? You bet. Has he done so? No. Why? NOBODY FUCKING KNOWS!!!
Want the "birthers" to just "shut up?" How about demanding that 0bama release his long form birth certificate? If he did that, they would shut up. Problem solved. But, for some inexplicable reason, he won't. And that just fuels the conspiracy theories.
But, hey. None of that's really important, right? No, let's just call people "nativists" and "racists" and ignore the actual issue at hand. Sounds like a mature, rational debate to me!
Socrates would have eaten you people alive...
55 - El Bicho
"If he did that, they would shut up."
No they wouldn't because now enough time has passed that one could have been easily faked. But I am fine with people questioning whatever they choose instead of being told they have to accept facts.
56 - Glen Boyd
Boy this place really has gone to hell in a handbasket hasn't it?
-Glen
57 - Clavos
Yawn
58 - Robert
Nalle is the poster child for psuedo-journalism. How anyone in the industry could actually advocate for a restriction of speech? The mad man calling others nuts? LOL!
59 - Ruvy
Gotto agree with RJ, here. Pablo is holding his end of the argument up very nicely - making a simple and reasonable request - that the "Blessed of Hussein" release his long form birth certificate. It may cost him all of $100 or $200 in archival fees if something actually did happen to it to dig up a facsimile - but that's a lot cheaper than 600 big ones or a round million to refuse, which is what the lying bum has done so far.
When a man acts like he has something to hide, he usually does.
60 - Matthew T. Sussman
For years I've asked President Obama for a picture of his penis. I don't think this is asking much. Just visual evidence of the ol' presidential dong.
What is he hiding? It's very simple to take a cell phone picture and send it to me. Until he does so, I remain convinced that Barack Obama is a female.
61 - Bliffle
60 comments? Hard to believe.
62 - Irene Wagner
All I can say at this particular juncture is "Arnold Schwarzenegger." (STM, I never take you seriously when you talk about Brits.)
63 - Clavos
Neither do the Brits, Irene.
64 - Irene Wagner
Both jokes in #62 aside, though, given my radical door-hanging past, if I were going to be concerned about NLE 09 (#40), I'd be more concerned about the Missouri State Police's involvement in the terrorist-targeting exercise than I would be about the fact that armies from England and Australia have been asked to participate.
I always figure arguments, fair and square, are always more effective than ridicule. When it gets personal, laughter and hoping for the best after one has done what one can do, trumps worry every time.
65 - Clavos
What's a radical door?
66 - Irene Wagner
The past was radical. The real question is: what was it about "door-hanging" that made it so. The "wallses have earses," Clavos. I can say no more.
67 - Phillip Winn
I just enjoyed reading the Lou Dobbs is an idiot. AMEN!
68 - Kanani
Amen.
It's been a long drawn out topic of conversation on many a mil blog, and even there the consensus of those who do the main writing is that birthers are wrong.
69 - Dave Nalle
The problem is that the main support for the birthers comes from the left because they know that every time a birther opens his mouth it makes everyone on the right seem less credible.
BTW, you can go to wikileaks.org and see the birth announcement printed in the Honolulu paper the day Obama was born. That's documentary evidence from a neutral and non-governmental source.
Dave
70 - Joanne Huspek
The birth certificate issue might be a moot point or might not. The entire thing could be solved by the President producing the original, if he has it. Instead, he's letting the issue blow up and stay in the consciousness of the nut cases who won'g let go.
I'm not "birther" but what the heck's the big deal? Show the birth certificate! I also was born abroad of American parents. I still have my original BC both in English and in Japanese (I was born at home, not in the hospital), although the DOD long form is pretty tattered. I was taking weekly trips to Canada when I had the State Department make me a brand new one. It takes about $60 and a few months. I show it to whoever asks to see, including when I have to take trips to the DMV & Social Security office where foreign born workers with horrible English tell me I should get naturalized.
Obama could squash all the rumors just by producing the document. He's probably got a right not to, but... just sayin'...
71 - pablo
Nalle 69
"BTW, you can go to wikileaks.org and see the birth announcement printed in the Honolulu paper the day Obama was born. That's documentary evidence from a neutral and non-governmental source."
I suggest in the future Dave, that if you are going to engage in a conversation about "facts", that you uhhhh get your facts right.
Obama was born on Aug 4, 1961, the reference to the Honolulu Advertiser birth clipping is August 13.
It does little to your assertions that you are a person who knows facts. As your comment so comically shows, you don't.
For a guy who claims to be so against what the Obama administration stands for, you sure fooled me, as you either decided to not report the truth, or even more repugnant, ignore it. In either case I did get a kick out of it pal.
72 - handyguy
For some [mostly pitiful] 'birthers' in the heartland, this may actually be about Obama's birthplace. [Perhaps BC's own conspiracy addicts, like Ruvy and Pablo, think this is about 'facts' too.]
But for all the Republican congressmen who refuse to go on the record saying they believe the president is a citizen -- and for Beck and Limbaugh and Dobbs and others who pretend this is a real story -- it's about something else. It's about taking pleasure in destructive political rhetoric. Facts are just annoying little mosquitoes that get in the way of tearing the Enemy of the Moment down.
Two other groundless rumors are circulating now: that 'Obamacare' will kill inconvenient old people and force them to select ways to die; and, from Beck yesterday, that Obama [raised by a white mother and white grandparents and surrounded by a mostly white cabinet] is an anti-white racist.
Whether these assertions are true or not is irrelevant to the people promulgating them. If enough people start to doubt the president, for whatever reason, Beck & co. 'win' the argument. [In reality, we all lose.] This tactic worked with Clinton. I'm hoping it will fail with Obama.
[Dave Nalle himself pushed an offensive version of the 'health care reform will kill people' argument in a recent article on here, with the same purpose: stop Obama, never mind the truth.]
[I do agree with Dave that the 1961 Hawaii newspaper birth announcements may be more convincing debunking documents than any government certificate.]
73 - handyguy
By the way, the promulgators of the 'Obamacare is a plot to kill seniors' fiction have been nicknamed 'deathers' by Christopher Beam on Slate.com [and Rachel Maddow on her show].
74 - pablo
Handguy
I guess you are counted at one of those what they now refer to as the fifty centers. Those that still support a guy (Obama) that has gone back on his word more times than any President in modern history.
Is there anything that he has kept his word on Handy? I really loved it when he appointed to cabinet level positions some of the very same people who have engaged in the largest theft in history. Geitner comes to mind, as does Larry Summers. He has also chosen to have Henry (Dr. Strangelove) kiss-ass-inger working as an emissary too! What a true liberal eh Handy? Isn't that the same Dr. Strangelove that is wanted for war crimes in certain countries in the world? You know the same guy who goes to ALL of the Bilderberg meetings, and is butt buddies with Brzesenski another bleeding heart liberal. hehehehe ;)
You go Handy
75 - handyguy
He's only been in office 6 months, so saying he's done anything 'more times than any President in modern history' is just silly.
Stick to facts. Don't exaggerate. [Well, at least try.] Politicians, like all people, are rarely all good or all bad. If you need to pretend otherwise [that Obama, or Bush, or whoever is all bad], then that says more about you than about them.