quote:However, questioning where the president was born is not in itself a trivial manner, to be dismissed out of hand.
See, I dispute this. I think it is trivial.
The point of the "natural born" restriction was, at the time of the founding of the country, intended to prevent people whose allegiance was owed to one of the many larger foreign powers from moving to America and essentially handing the government over -- in spirit or in practice -- to the nation of their birth. We were at that time a small country beholden to the European powers, and wanted to keep ourselves free from their influence -- something that was driven home again and again in the early years, and which was made crucially important by the influx of European immigrants who brought with them the culture and political leanings of their home country.
But now? Does anyone here really think that, even if Obama were actually born in Kenya or Indonesia, that he is in some way more loyal to Kenya or Indonesia than to America? What possible reason might someone have to believe this?
The "natural-born" requirement might be said to be non-trivial for those people who immigrated here as adults, who might be legitimately considered to have strong sympathies for their original homeland -- but do we believe for a moment that John McCain thinks of himself as first and foremost someone born in Panama?
It's a ridiculous conceit, and I think we do the Birthers an enormous favor by even pretending otherwise.
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Natural-born doesn't even require a person be born on US soil, only that they be a citizen from birth, which Obama is even if he were born outside the US. Making the whole thing even sillier than it was before.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Natural-born doesn't even require a person be born on US soil, only that they be a citizen from birth, which Obama is even if he were born outside the US.
That's part of the dispute, neh? (The second half about Obama, not the first half about what natural-born means.)
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I agree that this requirement for president should be changed, for all the reasons you mentioned, Tom. As it stands right now, it is a part of the constitution, and as such it isn't a trivial matter. The process of amendment is the only legitimate -- and legal -- way to deviate from the document.
Which brings me to my own theory as to who's behind the birther issue...
Who stands the most to gain from the birther controversy? Who will benefit most from Americans realizing how silly is the antiquated requirement of being born in the United States?
That's right. He may be gone from politics for now. But he'll be back.
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quote:Originally posted by Graeme: Who will benefit most from Americans realizing how silly is the antiquated requirement of being born in the United States?
That's right. He may be gone from politics for now. But he'll be back.
posted
Trump sounds better than anything else the GOP is offering. Palin is too hated by the left. Mitt Romney is a liberal in Republican clothing.
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quote:Mitt Romney is a liberal in Republican clothing.
To me, it looks more like he's a classic Reagan-esque Republican in contemporary hard-right Republican clothing.
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quote:However, questioning where the president was born is not in itself a trivial manner, to be dismissed out of hand.
See, I dispute this. I think it is trivial.
And it was not dismissed out of hand when it was raised. His birth records satisfied inquiries from the state department, two federal judges, the Hawaii Department of Health, the FBI, and every major newspaper in America.
"THEY'RE NOT CHECKING INTO THIS!" EGADS! Because when they checked into it, everything checked out. It's like the birthers have some weird collective form of obsessive compulsive disorder: "Check now... maybe it's different now... you didn't check it all the way, you need to check it again... if you don't something TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN!"
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Natural-born doesn't even require a person be born on US soil, only that they be a citizen from birth, which Obama is even if he were born outside the US.
That's part of the dispute, neh?
What dispute? Of what dispute do you speak? By what reasonable measure would you consider this issue to be in dispute? Because personally I don't think it's good enough just to say: "some people think." That's not a dispute, that's a delusion- and it's one politicians are far too keen to take advantage of. They might as well campaign against elf-invasions, because some people out there probably think such a thing is likely to happen. Come to think, a whole hell of a lot of campaigning seems to be based on the nurturing of comfortable delusion.
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It pounds on the idea that Pres. Obama is different from real Americans. It is obvious that he is Not Like Us. Of course it makes perfect sense that he is Not From Here.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
That is word for word what they on the hard right believe.
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quote:Mitt Romney is a liberal in Republican clothing.
To me, it looks more like he's a classic Reagan-esque Republican in contemporary hard-right Republican clothing.
I would never have imagined that I would live to see the day when Reagan's politics would be viewed as liberal.
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posted
I think it is a little ridiculous that this birther issue keeps popping up. That being said, I can see why some would still have issues with it.
Some of the more popular arguments:
His own grandmother is on video saying that she remembers his birth in Kenya.
Hawaii has given certificates of live birth to other people not born in Hawaii.
His mother did not fulfill the 5 year residency requirement for her son to be a US citizen.
His school records in Indonesia have his nationality listed as Indonesian. (Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship at the time, and you had to be an Indonesian citizen to attend school)
His adopted father was an Indonesian citizen, which according to Indonesian law at the time makes him a natural Indonesian citizen.
That is a few of the arguments. PLEASE NOTE I am not agreeing with any of them, just pointing them out.
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quote:Mitt Romney is a liberal in Republican clothing.
To me, it looks more like he's a classic Reagan-esque Republican in contemporary hard-right Republican clothing.
To me, he seems more like a businessman. He does his market research, figures out what people want, and then sells it to them.
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posted
The problem with taking those arguments seriously, and with crediting those who take them seriously as honest* people, Geraine, is that many of those arguments even on casual examination are simply bunk.
Hawaii has given birth certificates to people not born in Hawaii-so we should take that as evidence that because he has one, he's not born in Hawaii? No.
It doesn't matter what Indonesia says about what sort of citizen Obama was when he attended school. Mars could say he's a Martian[/i] citizen, that doesn't somehow obliviate American citizenship. And so on and so forth. The only argument in favor of this birther nonsense is, "I really, really don't want him to be my President, and look! He might not be an American at all!"
It's just nonsense. We should stop pretending these arguments are motivated by, at best, blatant partisanship and at worst many other unpleasant things such as jingoism, racism, and Islamaphobia.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: ...just pointing them out.
That is a whole hell of a long way from a good enough reason to bring them up. Every time you do, despite the innumerable times that each has been satisfactorily dismissed, you get the opportunity to let them *not* be heard again. This lends them legitimacy. This is why no matter how closed the case is ( though it was *never* in doubt), there will be those who keep harping. You are not doing anyone any favors, and it's fairly lame of you to pretend like you are.
And I stress, Geraine, *satisfactorily* resolved and dismissed. Though each is already a non-issue, extensive research has gone into debunking every single one. And you post them as if this is not true. Not okay.
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posted
Trump seems to be taking on the Reagan mantle of Defender of American Pride. As in Reagan's "It's Morning in America", Trump asserts the need to reclaim America's mojo. (Paraphrase of Trump: "They [other nations] are laughing at us. They won't laugh at us if I'm president.") It's on this issue, confidence and pride, that will garner him the greatest support, IMO.
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I don't think it's quite clear that's what Geraine did, Orincoro-that he posted as though they hadn't been debunked. He did say it was ridiculous they keep getting brought up, but then went on to list a bunch of arguments as to why without context. I think overall the tone of his post was ambiguous, not 'posted as if they hadn't been debunked'.
But, y'know, listen-you shouldn't let that possibility stop you from getting borderline personally insulting or anything, and ratcheting up the nastiness in the discussion.
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quote:Originally posted by Graeme: Trump seems to be taking on the Reagan mantle of Defender of American Pride. As in Reagan's "It's Morning in America", Trump asserts the need to reclaim America's mojo. (Paraphrase of Trump: "They [other nations] are laughing at us. They won't laugh at us if I'm president.") It's on this issue, confidence and pride, that will garner him the greatest support, IMO.
He's delusional. The entire world will be laughing at us if we elect Trump.
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posted
Fact Check on Trump's accusations (and some of Germaine's questions)
quote: He claims the president’s grandmother says Obama was born in Kenya. In fact, the recording to which he refers shows Sarah Obama repeatedly saying through a translator: "He was born in America."
He claims that no hospital in Hawaii has a record of Obama’s birth. Hospital records are confidential under federal law, but Honolulu’s Kapi’olani Medical Center has published a letter from Obama calling it "the place of my birth," thus publicly confirming it as his birthplace.
He insists that the official "Certification of Live Birth" that Obama produced in 2008 is "not a birth certificate." That’s wrong. The U.S. Department of State uses "birth certificate" as a generic term to include the official Hawaii document, which satisfies legal requirements for proving citizenship and obtaining a passport.
He claims that there’s no signature or certification number on the document released by Obama. Wrong again. Photos of the document, which we posted in 2008, clearly show those details.
He says newspaper announcements of Obama’s birth that appeared in Hawaii newspapers in 1961 "probably" were placed there fraudulently by his now-deceased American grandparents. Actually, a state health department official and a former managing editor of one of the newspapers said the information came straight from the state health department.
He claims "nobody knew" Obama when he was growing up and "nobody ever comes forward" who knew him as a child. "If I ever decide to run, you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten," Trump said. Well, two retired kindergarten teachers in a 2009 news story fondly recall teaching a young Barack Obama.
quote:I don't think it's quite clear that's what Geraine did, Orincoro-that he posted as though they hadn't been debunked. He did say it was ridiculous they keep getting brought up, but then went on to list a bunch of arguments as to why without context. I think overall the tone of his post was ambiguous, not 'posted as if they hadn't been debunked'.
The post left a bad taste in my mouth too. It's like someone posting a bunch of the arguments claiming the moon landing was a hoax and saying "though I'm not saying I agree with these".
Then why post them? We already know what all the arguments are, and they've ALL been thoroughly debunked.
If you keep claiming to believe in something despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you are either ignorant, an idiot, a fraud, or insane.
This is true whether you are a birther, a moon hoaxer, a 911 truther, or some other brand of this same phenomenon.
That 51% of likely Republican primary voters buy into the nonsense makes me very sad for our country, and that's not rhetoric or hyperbole.
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I agree that it was bad on, y'know, honest politics grounds. I just don't agree that it was as bad as was suggested. It wasn't a slam dunk 'you get the sneering dripping-with-disdain' response, particularly since it opened up with a mixed message stating that the whole thing was a bit ridiculous.
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Agreed. Overreaction is something of a known problem for Orincoro, though that shouldn't excuse the behavior.
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: If you keep claiming to believe in something despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you are either ignorant, an idiot, a fraud, or insane.
I don't think so. I think that one can just be really, really invested in whatever it is they believe or conditioned to believe it.
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quote:The entire world will be laughing at us if we elect Trump.
Many will. And, as the Graemlin in your post demonstrates, many Americans will be laughing along with them.
But I think many Americans have a bruised ego. The explosive growth of China's economy, the lengthy wars in the middle east, the international berating brought on by the Bush administration, and especially the financial crisis have left many Americans doubting their strength and importance. Trump hopes to tap into this discontent and prove that he, a successful* billionaire, can get tough and make America great again.
*(I understand many dispute this. But the man is a billionaire, and, lest we forget, a celebrity. That is sufficient for many people, though obviously not for most Hatrackers.)
P.S. Can anyone tell me how to include a poster's name within the Quote, as in "originally posted by X"? I can only find the button for creating an indented quote by itself. Thanks.
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posted
The little quote marks image over every post, to the right of the timestamp. Click that, and you'll go to reply mode with the post in the proper quote tags.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Graeme: P.S. Can anyone tell me how to include a poster's name within the Quote, as in "originally posted by X"? I can only find the button for creating an indented quote by itself. Thanks.
Click on the quotation marks that are at the end header line for the post of interest. It will insert the entire post into your reply box with the header "Originally posted by". I then edit out anything I don't want to quote.
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quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: The little quote marks image over every post, to the right of the timestamp. Click that, and you'll go to reply mode with the post in the proper quote tags.
Ahh, I see. Thank you, AFR. Now I feel like a real hatracker.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I don't think it's quite clear that's what Geraine did, Orincoro-that he posted as though they hadn't been debunked. He did say it was ridiculous they keep getting brought up, but then went on to list a bunch of arguments as to why without context. I think overall the tone of his post was ambiguous, not 'posted as if they hadn't been debunked'.
But, y'know, listen-you shouldn't let that possibility stop you from getting borderline personally insulting or anything, and ratcheting up the nastiness in the discussion.
I was actually reponding to the other posters that made it seem like the only thing the birthers were harping on was the "Born in America" argument. I was simply pointing out that their arguments go beyond that. I didn't bring up the birther issue in the first place so frankly I don't understand the dogpile.
As for Orincoro, I'm used to it. I feel like I could copy a post he wrote word for word and present it as my own and he'd still find something wrong with it. (Besides plagiarism of course!)
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: That is word for word what they on the hard right believe.
I don't know what is believed, but I think that it is useful for the Republican party.
I mean what some actual people believe, may or may not overlap with the Republican leadership but certainly their more extreme supports.
The same people who use the words "Obamination" with a straight face.
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quote:But I think many Americans have a bruised ego.
Our collective ego needed bruising. We've overextended ourselves in so many ways, and to such an extent, that it will take profound change to correct course.
Of course, that's not going to happen.
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quote:But I think many Americans have a bruised ego.
Our collective ego needed bruising. We've overextended ourselves in so many ways, and to such an extent, that it will take profound change to correct course.
Of course, that's not going to happen.
Well, inevitably it will have to happen because we can't actually do that which we do not have the ability to accomplish.
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He also does a reasonable job of owning Romneycare while still condemning national HCR. Personally I think he'd get more traction with the view that he moderated the Massachusetts health care law significantly from what the Democratic legislature wanted to approve, and would have approved over his veto (which, from my perspective in MA, is exactly the case). His line of "it was a localized experiment that was taken, without learning lessons or collecting data, and forced onto an unwilling nation" seems less nuanced, but is a nice rejoinder to the several Democrats who are loudly proclaiming their gratitude to Romney for his authorship of Health Care Reform in a (IMO) clumsy attempt to poison his primary candidacy.
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Hm. This makes the whole "Trump is a poison pill" conspiracy theory actually seem much more likely to me.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Hm. This makes the whole "Trump is a poison pill" conspiracy theory actually seem much more likely to me.
Recent polls have Trump polling even with Huckabee for the top spot, with Romney fourth behind Palin.
What do you do when the shill is more popular than the 'reasonable' choice? You don't think Trump would jump at it if he really thought he could get it?
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: What do you do when the shill is more popular than the 'reasonable' choice?
More popular, in this case, being measured by a positive name recognition/association poll of the likely primary voters, a year before the election.
Trump stands next to no chance of winning the republican primaries, but if I thought there was a serious way to get him or Gingrich or some other schmuck to steal the republican primary, I would pursue this option with gusto.
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Because clearly what would outrage you and be considered grossly unethical if your opponent does, that's what you should do, because you don't like 'em and they've got it coming.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Hm. This makes the whole "Trump is a poison pill" conspiracy theory actually seem much more likely to me.
If so, do you think he is a willing conspirator, or is the party leadership using him as a useful idiot?
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Because clearly what would outrage you and be considered grossly unethical if your opponent does, that's what you should do, because you don't like 'em and they've got it coming.
I'd do the same thing to the democrats if they were pulling the same spoilers on themselves to appease a wantonly ignorant base. I want to cut the deadwood out, because it does us no good to have one of america's two viable parties be wantonly toxic.
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I was actually reponding to the other posters that made it seem like the only thing the birthers were harping on was the "Born in America" argument. I was simply pointing out that their arguments go beyond that. I didn't bring up the birther issue in the first place so frankly I don't understand the dogpile. [/QUOTE]
You were not simply pointing that out. Simply pointing that out consists of simply pointing it out. Listing the arguments is different. Listing the arguments demands, or at least invites, a response. And these were items which have all been responded to, in depth, and with a great degree of certainty, in the past and on the public record. Now, I understand how it seemed to you that people were only addressing the one argument about "Born in America." This is not because they think there is only one specific argument, but because they *understand* that there is only one general argument, and the details, fluid as they are, are not very important. The whole birther issue is *one* issue, and not a class of issues. The different claims are discreet only in that they are based on different sets of information and different leading interpretations of those sets of information. The interpretations lead to only one base claim, and that base claim is always the same, and generated for the same reason. See where we're going? Everybody else already got there. It's like we're having an argument about racism (this is a race related issue after all), and you need to go back and say, "hold on a sec, racists don't just hate black people for being genetically inferior, they hate them for being poor, stupid, dirty, and drug addicted as well." We got it. All those claims are bound up in the same bias, so as long as we understand, in this discussion, what that bias is, we understand all the claims and their motivations.
quote: As for Orincoro, I'm used to it. I feel like I could copy a post he wrote word for word and present it as my own and he'd still find something wrong with it. (Besides plagiarism of course!)
Try it. Go back into my posting history, and give it a shot. Never mind that the contexts will be different in such a way as to completely nullify your point. Do it! Make your point, even though it makes no sense. It shows what you really know about me. Anybody should feel free to disagree with me on this, but I would characterize myself, in this regard, as being quite consistent. I appreciate quality thinking, and while perhaps I don't acknowledge it enough when I see it, I don't argue in the same way with people whom I believe are thinking reasonably. I am dismissive of you because you seldom present anything I would term as quality thinking. On the contrary, though a lot of people do a lot of non-quality thinking a lot of the time, you often do worse. This recent post is an example (and again I think anybody could tell you I'm consistent in this regard), of what I see as fairly poor reasoning. Not only did you jump into the discussion to correct an assumption that was not being made (at least not to my eyes), but you didn't really know why you were doing it, did you? Why was making that list important to you? Did you feel it would enlighten others as to the depth of the issue? This is the problem, you don't seem to get where the depth of the issue actually is. You get the surface stuff- there are a bunch of people arguing about something- but what are they arguing about? Because making that list, again, invites responses to those points, and it brings the discussion to the level where people who made up those lists in the first place want it to be: "address me, acknowledge my concerns, and in so doing, acknowledge me and my feelings about this." It's feelings. The birthers want to be heard, and because what they want to say -what is in their hearts- is something that they have been trained never to reveal or even to acknowledge, they need to be acknowledged in this way. Children argue over petty details and inversions and restatements of the same arguments because they think that somehow, in engaging continually in the same debate, they will somehow by will alone overcome the grief of being denied what they want. In the five stages of grief, birthers are stuck somewhere between Anger and Bargaining. These claims and related claims and restatements of old claims, and reshuffling of the standards of evidence and what is or isn't common knowledge or official record is *bargaining.* And they get you involved in it too, unwittingly, by continuing to insist that they aren't being *properly* heard, and that they aren't being *fairly* addressed, because that's what you do when you are coping with loss.
See, here's the thing. I have a fairly evolved reason for disliking what you posted, and I won't be surprised now if you insist that it's just me being mean, and even use this post as evidence of me just being a big ol' meany, because I'm tough on you. But I have my reasons, and they go beyond not liking you- I don't know you, and my feelings about you are ambiguous, mostly because you are ambiguous and thin in a lot of what you have to say, all of which I read when it is addressed to me.
I imagine you think that because I came down so hard on you when you first starting posting political drivel that I disagreed with so much, I was only posting because I disagreed with your opinions. And now that you are not expressing opinions (at least you are being vague and coy and ambiguous about your opinions), you think I ought to leave you alone. But the thinking is the same. You're the same mind, and while I could forgive everything you've ever been wrong about, this is harder to forgive. Now, that you think me such a fool as to not recognize the same sort of thinking when you aren't actually claiming any position on an issue is just insulting. But I understand, you ignore me whenever you can.
Since you've already stated that you aren't liable to read my posts at all if you feel overwhelmed by my terrible invective, I'd say you don't have much of a right to claim my reasons for posting. I can always state my own reasons. Can you?
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: The same people who use the words "Obamination" with a straight face.
Do you remember when people actually argued, on this forum, that the term was not racially evocative?
To be fair, I can't remember whether they didn't believe it was being used that way, or whether it was intended to be used that way. Either way, maaaannn, that's a steep sort of denial.
Hell, I think a few people even claimed that the word Obamanation was somehow not referencing "abomination," or its meaning at all... Am i remembering correctly?
It's sort of like starting an opinion piece with the title: "Obama is Niggard," and then claiming that you were just pointing out that Obama is a parsimonious and ungenerous person, and that that was just the best word for it. I know they teach communication in colleges, but I feel like nobody understands semiotics at all. Or they think everyone is just so painfully stupid that it doesn't matter oh crass you are.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I don't quite recall that, only that Ron had never heard of the time which I found surprising.
The conservatives who've I've met (on a different terrible place) more or less always say the same thing; that he is clueless, idiotic, narcassistic, not enough like Bush, too much like Bush (whenever Bush is shown to be a moderate), UnAmerican, Not One of Us, a liberal, "community organizer" always as a term of disparagation, A Muslem Marxist Commie Nazi and that the whole birther controversy is one conspiracy actually originated by President Obama as some way of appealing to above aforementioned narcissism as a political ploy to gain sympathy.
"Islamophobe armchair generalissimos" indeed.
When I said "Well great to see respect for the office is going strong." I of course was chewed out for saying "that is the most asinine thing you've ever said." I got banned eventually.
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