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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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 Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 6:36 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Take a look at your own avatar. |
What does my avatar have to do with anything? An anti-TEPCO graphic? Are you seriously so lame that that's the best response you come up with? Pretty pathetic. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 6:43 am Post subject: Re: White House Releases President Obama's Birth Certificate |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Madigan wrote: |
| sirius black wrote: |
| Which current candidate or politican's world view do you agree with? |
Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Marco Rubio and Jeff Blake are some of the politicians I agree with on most issues. For a more comprehensive view of where my views are mostly aligned, I'd suggest The Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek. |
I think I've spotted your problem. |
What are you talking about? Madigan is awesome.
| Ya-Ta Boy wrote: |
| Someone down thread wrote: |
| The problem with president Obama is that he is a product of the university, an intellectual. He has fallen for the conceit that many intellectuals fall for. The idea that many ideas can be explored and tested, as in the university, by government as it relates to society. |
You are an anti-intellectual, and therefore quite naturally I may say, have gravitated to Rand Paul. Senator Paul hasn't heard an idea newer than about 1883 that appeals to him and wants to return to a hypothetical time that never existed. The social engineering that the good senator and his more-or-less ally Representative Ryan is not based on anything but a radical ideology. Simplistic, but radical. |
He's right, Ya-Ta. Obama has been tripped up by his intellectual conceits and caution, particularly in domestic policy. That doesn't mean that Obama's cerebral disposition doesn't confer him advantages. It certainly has helped him, too. Such a position isn't anti-intellectual. Its not anti-intellectual to suggest that a mix of real-world and academic experience forms the ideal background for the President, and that Obama has sufficient academic experience but insufficient real-world, and actually, government experience. Honestly, its time we stopped putting the denizens of the Ivy Towers on a pedestal.
| Ya-Ta Boy wrote: |
A radical retreat into the past is an exercise in futility. You can't go back. No one can. Around 1420 or so, China stuck its collective fingers in its ears and started muttering, "Blah, blah, blah!" to block out the modern world. Look what happened to them...500 years of isolation and defeat. It wasn't until they took their fingers out of their ears and stopped resisting that they started to solve their problems. |
That was fun. I'm putting this in my pocket for the next time I'm in China. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Why would they, after this long, release a shoddy fake. |
Good question. Either they really are that inept, or there is some other agenda here. I couldn't tell you.
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| That's pretty poor reasoning. You notice where you say it's fairly unbelievable how sloppy and obvious it is, I agree, it's fairly unbelievable that it's a fake. Glad to have found common ground. The thing that gets me about conspiracies is the implausibility of it all. If he wasn't born in the U.S. then there are many many people who have something to gain by proving it, why haven't they? You seem to forget, the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation, not the defendant. Of course you, and your photoshop tricks, know better than everyone else, and no amount of logic will walk you away from what you think. |
It's not a photoshop "trick", it's a simple right click to separate the layers contained within the image. This proves absolutely it was altered (a simple scanned image, photo, or otherwise unaltered file is consists of just a single layer). Nor was I the one who discovered it (did you think I was trying to take credit  it's all over the internet, just google it). Basically it's just so blatantly obvious that even an amateur could spot it, but most people won't even take the 30 seconds needed to see for themselves. |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 6:57 am Post subject: Re: White House Releases President Obama's Birth Certificate |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| You are an anti-intellectual, and therefore quite naturally I may say, have gravitated to Rand Paul. Senator Paul hasn't heard an idea newer than about 1883 that appeals to him and wants to return to a hypothetical time that never existed. The social engineering that the good senator and his more-or-less ally Representative Ryan is not based on anything but a radical ideology. Simplistic, but radical. |
Really Yata, you need to get out of that MSNBC groupthink you find yourself mired in. You'll notice that there are many competing ideas outside of the liberal establishment's periphery. Many people, including myself, have concerns about keeping taxes low while keeping the value of the Dollar honest and strong with stable predictable interest rates. None of that is "anti-intellectual." Of course, we can continue to do what the intellectuals in the liberal establishment have been pushing. Then we can all deal with the higher taxes and devaluing Dollar/inflation that go along with what many modern liberals seem to be clamoring for. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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Obama was born in America.
Please get over it.
It is possible to be born in America and be completely wrong on economics and even destroy the country with bad policies and still be a natural born American who wants to do the right thing.
Obama is just completely unable to understand economics. He and his supporters are just a century out of touch with the field of economics.
But, he is a native born American. There is no conspiracy about his birth.
However, the timing of this document release was probably coordinated with the Bin Laden raid.
That was just double smart politics. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
Obama was born in America.
Please get over it. |
While the debate is basically a distraction from more serious issues, it is still relevant and far from over.
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| Obama is just completely unable to understand economics. He and his supporters are just a century out of touch with the field of economics. |
The Obama administration is not "out of touch", they are just deliberately anti-free market. He is a front-man for the elite, just as every other US president after Kennedy has been. The Goldman-Sachs gang and the rest of the private banking cartel run the government and their goal is to loot the middle class for all its worth and vertically integrate power into their own hands. This is the Corporatocracy that runs America, and the rest of the world for that matter. Obama is a just teleprompter reading actor who does whatever he is 'advised' (ordered) to do. Beyond fooling the public with charismatic speeches, he serves no real purpose and has little power to make real changes even if he wanted to. Anyway, the problem is ruthless corruption and greed, not economic ignorance. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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Honestly, its time we stopped putting the denizens of the Ivy Towers on a pedestal.
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That's more articulately put than when Sarah Palin says it, I'll give you that.  |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
Look, I don't take this issue seriously at all, and honestly I really don't want to discuss it. None the less, I posted a casual snark, and being dragged into the discussion is a legitimate price to pay for that snark. I'm going to make one comprehensive post on this issue, and I'm going to try to avoid being too offensive in the process, but that's all, because this really isn't something I want to spend the next week or so arguing to absolutely no effect.
| wintermute wrote: |
| But, Fox, have you committed a logical error by concluding that this proves that all arguments about obamas citizenship or what not are false? |
There is quite literally nothing more Obama can do to prove he is a natural born citizen of the United States, and if the level of proof he has provided is insufficient to prove he is a natural born citizen, then no one in the entire nation can ever be proven to be a natural born citizen. It's that simple: people continuing to argue Obama isn't a citizen are essentially (if they would apply the same behavior in a consistent fashion to everyone instead of just to Obama) skeptics that would never accept any proof of citizenship ever; any certificate could be forged, any governmental testimony could be backed by a conspiracy, and any incidental evidence could be forged. It's like indulging in solipsism; sure, you can't really disprove it, but once you leap that precipice, you give up the solid footing required to make any real positive, demonstrable assertion ever again. Any vote for any Presidential candidate from a birther ever is going to be an act of hypocrisy, plain and simple, because they can never, ever know if they're not actually voting for a non-citizen in violation of the law. A normal person can happily rely on the legal procedures we have in place for determining citizenship, but a birther has all ready declared those to be thoroughly invalid and incapable of screening out non-citizens.
| wintermute wrote: |
| The first paragraph of your comment seems to indicate that you believe that this video has successfully put the matter to bed, and everyone should stop this nonsense. |
Everyone should have stopped the nonsense as soon as he released his original file and it was confirmed by the State of Hawaii. That's what should have happened.
| wintermute wrote: |
| In this case, the logical position would be to say, "The argument in that video was disproven. We cannot say for sure whether he is a citizen or not". |
If we can't say whether or not Obama is a citizen, we can't say whether or not anyone is a citizen ever. The level of skepticism you're demanding with regards to Obama's citizenship could just as easily apply to anyone else. If that's the level of skepticism you want to demand, then we just plain can't have Presidents anymore, because we can never be sure that there isn't some huge conspiracy to make a non-citizen appear to be a citizen.
| wintermute wrote: |
| Instead, you chose to attack an imaginary group of people for being stupider that you. |
Birthers aren't an imaginary group of people. Birthers are a very real group of people who affect our political process both by voting themselves and by trying to influence their fellow citizens.
| wintermute wrote: |
| How can you treat "conspiracy theories" as one entity with regard to their validity? |
What makes you think I'm doing so? There's a reason I qualified the term "conspiracy theory" with the modifiers "inane" and "little." Some conspiracy theories may well be valid; from time to time people do in fact conspire. That's simply not the case here.
| wintermute wrote: |
| Every one is different, and must be evaluated as such. |
I agree. In this case, anyone looking at the issue dispassionately (as I do, given I'm not actually an Obama supporter but also by no means a Republican or conservative) can very clearly see that it's not a valid conspiracy theory, but rather an inane little conspiracy theory that is completely indefensible without, as I said, essentially denying the idea that we can ever know if anyone is a citizen, ever, and further building upon that through a series of completely dataless suppositions. The best you can say about someone that is still pushing this issue is that they've gotten unfortunately carried away and need to reassess their position.
| wintermute wrote: |
| Some people express frustration at the sheer number of conspiracy theories |
Well, I don't. Some conspiracy theories (such as ones regarding the Federal Reserve and monetary policy) likely have at least some validity. I have no problem with conspiracy theorists in general; they're no doubt often wrong, but their wrongness generally costs society nothing, so it's not an issue, and at times they provide other citizens with useful and even valuable information. This isn't a topic where that is occuring.
| wintermute wrote: |
1. I think you are overestimating the number of people who need to know in general, and in this case you definitely are. Who are the "huge numbers" of people who would know the truth of exactly what is on the certificate? A doctor or two, the intelligence people who worked directly with his parents, and a few in-the-know insiders in the administration. The rest are doing exactly what you are doing - assuming they know the truth! |
Hospital staff, officials in the Hawaiian State Government, officials in the White House, at least a few among his campaign staff, his parents, whoever coordinated this, and newspaper staff back in 1961 who planted the birth announcement would all have had to had to have been involved at a bare minimum. Zero leaks. Possible? I suppose. Rational reason to believe it happened? None at all.
| wintermute wrote: |
| 2. There are powerful mechanisms that exist to ensure that those "in the know" can be kept silent. |
But simultaneously both so politically impotent that they had to chose a "foreign" man to become President and hide it instead of just choosing the clearly superior option of a natural born candidate of their choice, and further inept enough that internet nobodies were able to figure them out? Again, that's a pretty dubious combination. So dubious that no one reasonable and dispassionate would ever adopt a belief in it without substantial evidence. The fact that people are so eager to believe this that they're swarming over things like pdf files having layers or the word "African" being used thoroughly demonstrates such dispassionate belief is not what we're dealing with.
| wintermute wrote: |
| 3.In spite of the this, leaks happen. Whistleblowers exist. There many obstacles to the information reaching your ears. Some obstacles are external, some are internal, but the fact that you don't hear about them, or see them acknowledged in the mainstream media, does not disprove their existence. |
And again, we're back in the, "Even though we have no proof something exists and no reason to believe it exists, you should not only accept it as a possibility, but treat it as a legitimate position." You're essentially taking a common Christian argument for God and applying it to Obama's birth status. You can't expect me to accept that. If you've got some seriously solid evidence, it's worth considering. This, "We can never know if anyone is a citizen ever, it's an unknowable unknown!" philosophy isn't something I can embrace though.
| wintermute wrote: |
| Finally, the video response effectively refutes the claims made by the original video, but it does not set the matter to rest. |
Nothing can ever set the matter to rest, ever, because the people who believe Obama isn't a citizen aren't basing that belief on information, and are very obviously willing to declare anything and everything a lie in order to defend that belief. There is nothing in the world you can't defend in a similar fashion.
| wintermute wrote: |
| It is not inconsistent with tampering, so it is still worthy of further investigation |
No, it's really not, and I can't bring myself to spend any more time on it. I think I've done sufficient penance for my snark now. |
This post should have ended the thread. Spot on. |
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Menino80
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Location: Hodor?
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| Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I think we will need to see some sort of analysis of the decision making process of a guy like Bush and compare it to Obama's if the whole "academic" meme can be graduated to an actual falsifiable theory. I find it hard to believe that there is that much information out there about Obama's method of communicating to his cabinet, chief of staff, and the JCS and how it has differed from Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II to the extent that anyone can make a reasonable assertion that Obama's executive style is "academic". |
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shifter2009
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Location: wisconsin
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| Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 1:44 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
Obama was born in America.
Please get over it. |
While the debate is basically a distraction from more serious issues, it is still relevant and far from over.
| Quote: |
| Obama is just completely unable to understand economics. He and his supporters are just a century out of touch with the field of economics. |
The Obama administration is not "out of touch", they are just deliberately anti-free market. He is a front-man for the elite, just as every other US president after Kennedy has been. The Goldman-Sachs gang and the rest of the private banking cartel run the government and their goal is to loot the middle class for all its worth and vertically integrate power into their own hands. This is the Corporatocracy that runs America, and the rest of the world for that matter. Obama is a just teleprompter reading actor who does whatever he is 'advised' (ordered) to do. Beyond fooling the public with charismatic speeches, he serves no real purpose and has little power to make real changes even if he wanted to. Anyway, the problem is ruthless corruption and greed, not economic ignorance. |
What confuses me about your position is this: You think he is nothing more than a puppet and a figure head for shady corporate and military interests, why do you care where he is from? So he can be a more legitimate figurehead? The shadow brokers couldn't find someone else from the US to read their teleprompters? |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 2:16 am Post subject: |
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| shifter2009 wrote: |
| What confuses me about your position is this: You think he is nothing more than a puppet and a figure head for shady corporate and military interests, why do you care where he is from? |
I don't see why you're confused. I've already said it's a side issue. But nevertheless the truth matters at the end of the day.
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| So he can be a more legitimate figurehead? |
Actually, this is the most important point. If it could be proven he's lying about his citizenship, then theoretically everything he's signed over the years would be null and void. Obamacare, funding for wars, TSA police state measures, bailouts, all would be retroactively canceled. Of course I won't hold my breath on that...
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| The shadow brokers couldn't find someone else from the US to read their teleprompters? |
Of course they could. But Obama was the man for the job. Just look at how much he's accomplished: trillions in bailouts to the banks, eviscerating the constitution, lying to the public about everything, expanding war and torture around the world... and even getting a Nobel peace prize for his efforts!
Also, it's harder for politicians to go off track when the elite have dirt on them. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 5:47 pm Post subject: Re: White House Releases President Obama's Birth Certificate |
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| Madigan wrote: |
| sirius black wrote: |
| Which current candidate or politican's world view do you agree with? |
Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Marco Rubio and Jeff Blake are some of the politicians I agree with on most issues. For a more comprehensive view of where my views are mostly aligned, I'd suggest The Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek. |
Was McCain on that list? |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 7:01 pm Post subject: Re: White House Releases President Obama's Birth Certificate |
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| sirius black wrote: |
| Was McCain on that list? |
no |
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Fat_Elvis
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: In the ghetto
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| Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not American, so I find the whole birther argument weird, but I thought you guys might find this interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01conspiracy.html?pagewanted=1&hpw
I think they might have a point when they say that the birther argument boils down to one of race. My favourite quote, referring to conspiracy theories and appropriate to some of the discussions I've seen here:
"�It [a conspiracy theory] almost becomes an article of faith, and as with any theological belief, you can�t confront it with facts,� said Kenneth D. Kitts, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke"
But then it's from the New York Times, part of the left wing media establishment trying to bring about the communist New World Order, isn't it?  |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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Nice find, Fat Elvis. How's life at the gas station in Michigan these days?
This is a particularly nice bit: By definition, Professor Goldberg said, a conspiracy theory is a belief that cunning forces are seeking to bend history to their will, provoking terror attacks or economic calamity to move the world in the direction they wish.
�I look at this birther conspiracy as a typical example,� he said. �This is far beyond the issue of whether this is a legitimate president. The real issue for them is this belief that this is a ploy by this hidden group to get power, to move Americans toward socialism or globalism or multiculturalism using Barack Obama as a pawn.�
I'm a little puzzled by this sentence: "I'm not American, so I find the whole birther argument weird". Ummm, 'and' would have sufficed.  |
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