Today I want to reaffirm and make it more definitive. If you think 9/11 was an inside job or you really want to debate whether or not Barack Obama is an American citizen eligible to be President, RedState is not a place for you.
Predictably, some posters are irate. Erick is sifting through the profanity-laden hate mail, and shares some of the more vitriolic rants on his front page.
I applaud his decision. I believe that Tea Partiers need to "thin the herd" if we are to have a credible voice. What do you all think?
I think the 9/11 people are absurd. Have they never watched those shows on the Discovery Channel on what it takes to bring down a building by controlled explosions? There is no way that could have been done with no one knowing about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I think the birthers may have a legitimate question, so what? The Obama presidency is a fait accompi. That is not going to stop it now. Even if he wasn’t born in the U.S., the Dems are trying to violate so many other Constitutional provisions that can still be halted that it is better to try and block them. However, I do find it interesting that the question has morphed into “Is Obama a citizen?” I don’t know of anyone who doubts that.
The best way to do that is to elect people who want to do things the way the Constitution says they should be done. Get the right people in there, and the problem will take care of itself.
Well, I am certain the Barry is an American citizen. *Whether a 'natural-born' (and therefore legally eligible for the presidency) citizen is moot.
ReplyDeleteAs Matt said, it is a fait accompli.
And as Matt also said, it is his accomplices that need to meet their fates, by being voted out of office ASAP. In fact, the ASAPer the better, before irreparable damage is done.
* IF he is a 'natural-born' citizen, then WHY does he spend millions to prevent his actual long-form birth certificate from being made public?
I am simply disgusted with the whole situation, and would dearly love to see a new law passed in congress that ANY candidate of ANY party must be certified by that party as legally eligible, with a punishment of 1/2 of their years prior fund-raising amount as a fine if it is shown that they fielded an ineligible candidate in ANY election.
Sid, I looked into the birther thing and published my findings on DL a while ago.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Obama has a Certificate of Live Birth from Hawaii means he's entitled to the presumption of being a natural born citizen.
OTOH it's likely he's hiding something on his original birth certificate.
I doubt it's material; I haven't really been impressed with the stories of him being born elsewhere.
Example: as I related on the link above; my own birth certificate is (almost) complete fiction. I know this because I know I'm adopted and my birth certificate lists my adoptive parents, not my birth parents. Birth certificates circa early sixties are like that - quite flexible with respect to reality. I _was_ born in Boston; however, I'd be hard pressed to prove it to a determined political operative.
And perhaps someone could uncover some very distant aunt who had seared - _seared_ - into her memory my delivery in Toronto. People "remember" all kinda shit, as John Kerry amply demonstrated.
IMHO it's not crazy to believe Obama _might_ have been born elsewhere; it _is_ pretty arrogant to think it's _proven_ he was born elsewhere; it's demonstrably false that the issue is a winner; it's a pretty tight case that Obama has made public all the docs he really needs to _legally_, and anyone pushing the issue in bad faith (who cares what the truth is, let's see if this shit sticks) is pretty pernicious.
That said, I'm disinclined to want to "purge" the "birthers" so publicly; it buys nothing from the people who smear - and will continue to smear - the Tea Party folks. If Eric had quietly erected a velvet rope, as opposed to wielding a public banhammer, I think it would have been more effective.
Truthers are another matter. Having heaped ridicule on the likes of Van Johnson et al, it is necessary to be evenhanded.
Here's my problem with the whole "birther" thing. While I think it's a legitimate question (and my suspicions are aroused by Obama's refusal to release his long-form certificate) I agree with Matt; it's a fait accompli. Most reasonable people have begrudgingly come to the same conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThe self-avowed "birthers" that roam the internet blogs are, for the most part, Obama haters. They aren't really interested in the Constitutional legitimacy of Obama's presidency; rather, they obsessively HATE him and will use any means necessary to discredit him. I find it tedious, futile, and horribly time-consuming.
We must pick our battlegrounds. Getting bogged down in obsessive "birther" spit-flyin' mania weakens the entire Tea Partier message, and makes us all look like unreasonable kooks.
Erick asked these people repeatedly to cool their jets, and they flat-out refused to do so, constantly cluttering up his comments section with obsessive "birther" crap. I'm not a big proponent of the ban stick, but in this case I believe Erick did the right thing for the right reasons.
/rant off. Time for another cup of coffee. :)
Okay, weighing in on the "birther" thang, I don't think Obama's birthplace has been adequately established. LadyR, I'd agree that it is a fait accompli, but I tell you what: I am always glad to see someone continue to fight if they think that a wrong has been committed by the government. Too many times has the government been straightened out by Americans who just would not give up fighting for what they thought was true, lawful, constitutional.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of retired men up in Sacramento - all they do is pore over pending legislation to ensure it doesn't threaten homeschooling. They've been doing this for years. They've found so many efforts of legislators to sneak in anti-homeschooling stuff, tucked into the hidden corners of measures that had nothing to do with homeschooling. That kind of mentality is GOOD: the government is ALWAYS trying to pull a fast one so stay on your toes or pay the price.
I love that these guys haven't gotten bored with the fight, and I love that there are people in this country who are still pushing to find out what is being hidden in Obama's past. If there was nothing to hide, why all the hiding?
There is just something very wrongheaded that smacks of brainwashing in the thinking that we should ascribe positive motives to the actions of the government, individuals in the government, and most especially the FEDERAL government. We shouldn't EVER.
Every person in the government and every move they make should be scrutinized.
Our founding fathers talked about that at length, and now we have gone the other way: the government gets a pass as most people think "it is probably okay", or more terribly "there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway".
The "truthers and birthers are all crazy" kinda rhetoric is really....the level of animosity is bizarre. This sort of talk is also very PRO-government/anti-citizen. Geeze, I don't know as we will ever know the entire truth of either event/issue, but the very categorizing of citizens as "truther" or "birther" is demeaning.
Know what I think is really going on? If the people who think 9/11 was engineered or allowed (or even known of prior to the event by individuals on the govt payroll), if there is a determined effort to hide Obama's birth information and information about Obama's past...if these people are correct? If absolutely irrefutable evidence surfaced that these things were true? It would shake the worldview of others in a scary way and they wouldn't LIKE it. That's why they are so nasty. Basically they are scared. Their version of reality is more comfortable, and they don't want it threatened.
makes us all look like unreasonable kooks.
ReplyDeleteOnly if we continue worrying obsessively over what the political left says.
We are really such babies. The left calls us "racists" and WE are the ones that can't stop rushing around trying to reassure everyone that isn't nailed down that we have black friends.
For YEARS the conservatives in this country were all about apologies for who they are and what they believe.
I think rather than blaming the "birthers" or "truthers" for our image, we should perhaps analyze ourselves to find out why we are so touchy ABOUT our image. How did we get to be so paranoid that someone might think ill of us?
SO what if the left calls us kooks. That doesn't mean we have to slink back under the rock we've been under for years, embarrassed at how we are perceived. Those tactics really served the left political wing well for a lonnnnng time. We need to stop worrying about what they think and say. Really we do.
Very good points, monkeyweather.
ReplyDeleteI think the "conservatives" who are worried about what the left thinks are "conservatives" such as John McCain. However, conservatives to leave themselves open by trying to set a good example. When the Republicans made a rule that any Republican Congressional leader is accused of a crime, he would step down from his leadership position. All that did was have bogus charges pressed against Republican Congressional leaders causing them to step down.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the citizenry needs to keep a close eye on the government. In Washington State, voters have passed three initiatives in the past 18 years restricting how the State could increase taxes. The Legislature has passed laws undoing the will of the people.
That being said, nothing good can come from pushing the "birthers'" issue. Let’s say we find definite proof that Obama was born in Kenya General Hospital. So what? Who's going to remove him? The Democrat-controlled House is going to impeach him and the Democratic-controlled Senate is going to convict him? The Democratic-controlled Justice Department is going to file charges against Obama in court? Ain't gonna happen. Why waste the effort?
Matt I don't think anything is going to get Obama out of office either.
ReplyDeleteBUT - I do think there's nothing wrong with people fighting for what they believe is right, even if the fight looks like an absolute losing battle ;O) Gosh, cuz you never know, huh? Sometimes losing battles get won by the weak ineffectual little underdog (classic example: Israel now and in biblical times)
I think the "conservatives" who are worried about what the left thinks are "conservatives" such as John McCain.
ReplyDeleteHeh - well I don't think a conservative like Anne Coulter loses any sleep over what the left thinks about conservatives ;O)
Excellent analyses, MW.
ReplyDeleteOne thing, though. A large part of the reason that we scramble to get out from under the words the left uses is that we've allowed them to define those words.
It has become 'racist' to object to set-asides in jobs, contracts or schooling. It is now 'racist' to object to welfare for the healthy, IF they are not white, and it is 'racist' to dislike, disagree with, or even question the policies of the current president.
When 'pro-life' can be made a pejorative term, both our language and our culture are in deep trouble.
Great comments, everyone. You know, I really don't worry about what the far left/progressive crowd thinks. I don't respect them, and they don't operate in good faith. In fact, I think most of them are a bit tetched. They certainly don't live in MY world.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I AM concerned with the opinion of the secretary in Indiana, or the bus driver in Georgia. If our aim is to target and remove the corrupt politicians, and install reputable/honest representatives, we'll need all decent and hard-working Americans to help at the ballot box.
If the Tea Partiers are seen as whacky conspiracy theorists, folks won't hear our "return to the Constitution" drumbeat, IMHO.
If a group wants to research the birth certificate issue in a scholarly way, I'm all for it. Beating it into the ground, with no proof in hand, seems counter-productive to me. (I might be wrong on this. Monkeyweather makes some excellent points.)
Sidd, the more the left labels me a "racist", the firmer my resolve to kick the bastards to the gutter. Let them keep blathering. Fuel for the fire.