It looks like birther KenyaBornObamAcorn has added yet another to her list of YouTube accounts: FogbowObotsExposed. KBOA, under the principle “fair is fair” has made it her mission in life to get back at those who criticized her at The Fogbow forum by broadcasting their personal information1 in YouTube videos. Below is the latest video in the series of attacks against Fogbow forum users. Yours truly, Dr. Conspiracy, makes an appearance (at 7:10) in the video too as the owner of a blog The Fogbow links to.
What is more disturbing is when Orly Taitz goes one step further, trying to intimidate and cause harm to these individuals by threatening to file complaints against their employers and urging her follows to do likewise. Orly launched such an attack against Butterfly Bilderberg yesterday [link to Taitz web site], and today against Reality Check [link to Taitz website].
The video’s claim that birthers aren’t concerned about where Obama was born has got to be the most outrageous comment of the millennium. How could someone who’s Internet persona is KenyaBornObamAcorn claim that “Our issue is not about ‘where’ Obama was born”?
The Video has been removed from YouTube.
[hr]
1The Fogbow also exposes personal information about birthers. KBOA has covered up SOME personal information, including email addresses and phone numbers in this latest video. However, she still shows employer information.
This is one area where I disagree with The Fogbow. I do not allow personal information on my own site.
Old Trace is spamming this crap all over Birferstan right now, Dr K(H)ates, CdrKerchner, Freeperville etc.
God we must terrify the living cack out of these sad, pathetic feckwits.
I think we’ve all met someone like this sometime in our lives. Certifiable.
I tend to wonder about the legal implications of contacting someone’s employer with the intention to harass. Is this legal?
Typical Obot strawman. It was never about Obama’s birthplace or his eligibility. It was always about the war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia, and we have never talked about Obama’s eligibility.
Also, 15 minutes? I thought Youtube had a limit of 10. Did that get lifted some time recently?
I frequently find myself wishing Youtube would charge for uploads. Forget about paranoid conspiracy theory rants for a moment. I just hate when perfectly sane but incredibly boring people decide to turn on a webcam for 10 minutes and just braindump, then upload to Youtube. Say what you will about meddlesome TV and film studio executives, at least they’re creating SOME sort of minimum standard, the existence of Two and a Half Men notwithstanding.
Nope, not even a little bit. I had an incident where an individual was being sent abusive and threatening email to her work email address and her boss was getting sporadic hits as well.
Sent to the local PD, the FBI and they got visited, their home ISP was informed as was their email provider and both cut the abuser off within less than a week.
Now some companies may react differently but if they do nothing OR penalize the employee for doing something that is not employment related then the firm could end up looking at the shitty end of a civil lawsuit. Promoting a hostile work environment anyone…..
Worst case I can imagine is if the harrassed person was doing their posting via company equipment and the firm took they view that it was impinging on their quantity or quality of work. In that case they MAY make a point about it.
I don’t follow this, but I have seen several comments in various places that the current limit is 15 minutes.
Here’s an example of a YouTube video that probably fits your description, but that I nevertheless enjoyed. It’s a way to meet people (in a sense) that you wouldn’t get to see otherwise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFGevTX0hJ8
How do we know that Obama’s father wasn’t a US citizen? We have only 2 sources for this:
1. Government documents
2. Obama’s own words
Yet, we know the birthers don’t believe either of those. So, I say, Obama Sr WAS a US citiizen and I defy anyone to prove me wrong using any source other than #1 and 2 above.
Taitz pulled a similar stunt way back, accusing an innocent victim and causing work-related embarrassment.
The case of David R___
That’s an interesting way to look at it.
another irony fail: birfers claim that obots are afraid of them and sweating bullets at their every move, yet they use background music designed to reverberate (even more) fear amongst the faithful in their little echo chamber. ooooh — that music sure was spooky! so who’s really afraid of who here?
To be quite honest, birthers do frighten me. They’re one seriously unhinged group that have shown that they feel it is totally appropriate to go on witch hunts and harass anyone that disagrees with them. Not only that, but they believe they actually believe the insane notion that they have the right to form their own grand juries. What’s to stop them from thinking they can then pass sentance and carry out judgment with their own little lynching parites. This path has already been tread by some nutters in the sovereign citizen movement. Not a big stretch to think a birther could go out to “carry out sentance” on what he has determine are “traitors.”
These people are nuts that seem to think the rules don’t apply to them. You should be very cautious these kinds of nuts.
YouTube increased the maximum length last July.
I couldn’t disagree more. I find birthers to be immensely entertaining. I can’t remember the last time I had as much fun with a political issue as with the Obama eligibility/natural born citizenship issue. Birthers don’t scare me and I don’t fear even their most mentally defective cohort.
I find them to be: 1) sad; 2) ignorant; 3) pathetic; 4) scared; 5) deranged; 6) profit-motive driven; 70 exploitive; 8} lonely; 9) frustrated; 10) depressed; 11) angry; and 12) hurt.
It also the same circle logic. When Birther are presented with evidence that they are wrong they shift arguments, until they finally end up with their original “strawman.” For them it is better for them to believe their lies than accept the truth. There is no limit to how far they will go to satisfies their frustration.
Don’t get me wrong. I do find birther immensely entertaining (in a cruel kind of, “mock the slow kid in class” way). On the other hand, do I want them calling me at work and home, harassing my employer, my clients, and my family? Or knowing where I live? Not really. I think there are birther out there perfectly willing to do to us, exactly what Orly claims the big bad obots have tried to do to her.
Yours truly is also featured. The claims are so outlandish — and they are more embellished with every retelling — that no employer would take KBOA or Orly seriously.
Honestly, Rep. Darryl Issa is going to hold Congressional hearings about me? Any day now. Any day …
Yeah, I hear ya. I should have added two of Sarah Palin’s descriptors for birthers to my list: annoying and distracting.
You know, KBOA could have done better than finding a 4 year old OKCupid profile and a five month old screenshot of my blog. Even Sam Sewell did a better job and he still got most of his “facts” wrong.
As for my employer, let’s say they’ve tried. My employers know what my hobby is. And they don’t care what the birthers want to claim.
i’m with joey on this one; i find birfers worthy of only derision. if i were to put together a kboa-style “expose” of the birfers, my soundtrack would not be “friday the 13th” — it’d be full-tilt warner bros. looney tunes.
birfers are all talk and no walk; all hat, no cattle; all smoke, no fire; all whine, no dine. just look at their track record — it’s virtually scoreless and that’s because they’re spectators and not players. they’d rather wait for someone else to take the field while they cheer from the safety of the sidelines between bags of cheetos.
but i say “virtually” scoreless because birfers can nonetheless claim one success: the holocaust museum shooting in june 2009. a birfer got off his lawn and rolled his hoveround to washington to take back his country — or something — and killed a complete bystander. though indeed tragic and worrisome, that event has proven so far to be an obvious outlier.
the time to be frightened of birfers is when birfers can inspire more than twenty people to show up to their own events.
as i wrote on doc’s blog back in may 2009:
This is one ugly, hot mess! CONSTITUTIONALISTS, PATRIOTS…….Yeah right! It’s rather scary how many mentally disturbed and unhinged people there are in the ‘birther’ community……seriously.
I flagged her video as inappropriate, and encourage others to do the same.
As the birthers continue to lose more and more arguments on the merits, expect their hyperbole and personal attacks to get worse before it gets any better. Remember, for most of us this is just an interesting parlor discussion. In birther eyes, however, the country has been taken over in an unconstitutional coup in which the future of the United States is in the balance. We may laugh at it, but they really think the end of the United States is at hand. That will cause them to act in very desperate ways – much like the followers of Harold Camping did.
Me too. (well before I saw your post)
re: Any day . . .
On the current homepage of the birther cesspool, Canada Free Press:
All Obama’s appointments and all the legislation he has signed will be null and void
Obama’s ineligibility: Picking up the pieces after political Armageddon
It is becoming increasingly likely that Barack Hussein Obama will be forced to resign the Presidency before the 2012 election.
Vice President Biden will also be obliged to resign, as will Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.
All Obama’s appointments and all the legislation he has signed will be null and void.
. . . Feeding the delusional daily.
Kenyabornobamacorn is why debunkers need a pointy stick brigade.
Speaking of delusional, the newest mushroom-induced birther hallucination involves a 1982 Canadian certificate of name from “Barak Mounir Ubayd” to Barack Hussein Obama. Stephen Pidgeon is pitching that one. It’s not all that he’s pitching. For just 14.95 (+ S&H) you can purchase The Pidge’s new book.
He needs the cash, no doubt to pay the attorneys’ fee sanction against him and Leo D. for the disastrous appeal of the disastrous Chrysler dealer mess they made.
KBOA’s video blatantly violates the YT terms of service by using personal information including images without permission. She knows that, of course, which explains why she created a new account specifically to post the videos. The video does not seem to rating more than a passing comment or two at some of the loonier birther blogs.
These videos will have no effect on me or my efforts to show that the Birthers are misguided conspiracy theorists at best and demented sociopaths at worst. I suspect my attitude is typical for other anti-birthers mentioned.
She at least claims not to understand this (even though I cited the specific Community Guideline to her on a previous video). She confuses “public information” with “private information.” Because she got all her stuff from Google, she considers it public and OK. However, the YouTube guideline is “personal” not “private.”
I wish that YouTube would provide a way to flag a video for “personal information.”
I found a list of YouTube accounts allegedly belonging to KBOA, 4 of which had been closed for violations.
I would say this is common with birthers – the belief that if it’s possible to find something out, or if someone tells you something, it immediately waives any and all privacy concerns with that thing.
The P&E and WND have been taking this tack lately, saying that since Obama released the long form, that the Hawaii state privacy laws and HIPPA laws are waived because it’s “Out there anyway.” But it doesn’t work that way. Just because someone tells you they were in a hospital doesn’t mean the hospital is going to give you that information, and just because you can Google someone and know their name, address, and employer doesn’t make that information any less personal.
I filed a complaint and posted a comment.
This is what part of a letter from The YouTube Team to a violator……
Protecting a person’s privacy is protecting their personal safety. When uploading videos in the future, please remember not to post someone else’s image or personal information without their consent. Personal information includes things such as names, phone numbers and email addresses.
As someone stated, the more the birthers continue to lose more arguments their attacks intensify, and with the posting of personal info, could lead to a threat to personal safety.
I have always maintained, and history will bear me out, that the birther movement is headed towards violence.
If one takes a look at the history any terrorist organization, one invariably finds a group formed of tthe fringe element in a society, which promotes a highly idealistic and often delusional agenda. These groups begin by trying to force government to do something that reasonable people reject out of hand, often through law suits or challenges to legislation. Failing that they move to attempt to popularize their cause by mobilizing common people to accept their premise and “solutions”. When they fail to make inroads with the ordinary people, and usually about this time find their numbers dwindling, they adopt a dangerous combination of paranoia and hyper-“patriotism”. The end result is the adoption of terrorism in order to “save the constitution/country/race/society/whatever”.
There was a time when Al-Queda would have been indistinguishable from where birthers are now.
I think that there is a missing ingredient. If the government herded the birthers into FEMA camps, subjected them to sleep deprivation through playing Barack Obama speeches through loudspeakers 24 hours a day, and forbid them any contact with the outside world, then I think you’d have a recipe for violence.
YouTube seems to have a similar policy. I now get the following when I try to access the video:
They do. You might look at the “infringes my rights” — you will find “invades my privacy” as one of the options.
Obviously, those of us who responded to the obvious violation of YouTube protocols by flagging the video as soon as it was brought to our attention have succeeded.
Oh dear….what a shame, expect to see it back up under ANOTHER stupid bloody ID in 3……2……1…..
(of course with the obligatory whine and screech that OBAMA DID IT….SWEATING BULLETS, WHAT ARE THEY HIDING etc etc)
The problem is birthers’ paranoia–most of them truly believe that Obama is orchestrating an harassment campaign against them and that they will ultimately end up in a FEMA camp under the conditions you describe unless they act to disrupt it. This is why the birther echo chamber is so dangerous–they reinforce each other’s delusions. I wouldn’t be surprised to see birther-inspired violence one day.
For the most part yes. As offensive and annoying as many of their statements are, including those that are outright seditious, most of these folks are nothing but “hot air” and will never do anything but wail and pretend that they are tough. I consider that a “good thing,” as their keyboard commando mentality can do very little harm in reality.
Unfortunately, there has been MORE than just this one incident of violence by actual Birthers.
I’ll discuss this further in a follow-up post of its own.
AGREED. Really, the true “worst case” scenario of danger from birthers and their ilk is that you get a small posse of nuts taking action, instead of just a “lone nut” and they “hunker” down in some small conspiracy compound or take some small-scale domestic terrorist style action. Think Ruby Ridge, Waco or Oklahoma City. Such things would assuredly be a terrible and awful thing to happen; but such things are ultimately small-scale and containable.
No matter what their seditious fantasies entail, no serious danger of another “Civil War” or “government overthrow” exists. They have neither the numbers nor the competence to do any lasting or large scale harm.
Make sure to include the unknown number of casualties that could have had better care if Lakin hadn’t pulled his stunt.
AGREED.
But see also my responses to “aarrgghh” at 7:15pm above and my accounting of “Violent Acts by Birthers and Similar Minded Groups” below.
There is no “missing ingredient” for the “lone gunman” type nuts. Those that are seriously unhinged and prone to anger and violence don’t really require that much to “snap” and cross the line. Most of their “perceived” slights require very little taunting – just a reality that their internal bigotry cannot accept. All they require is to lose patience with writing meaningless letters and following frivolous lawsuits that will never go anywhere. At some point, these unhinged folks decide to take matters into their own hands.
Von Brunn was one clear example. I’ll list some more in a follow-up post below.
I think folks like Walter Fitzpatrick are prone to snapping like this….so there definitely is a core element of the crazy that needs to be monitored closely.
Similarly, certain obsessive “stalker-ish” types of behavior, such as those displayed by KBOA, seem to follow a disturbing pattern of “activism” crossing into the real world, which could lead to harm. I’d view those types as close to snapping too and I wouldn’t rule out any type of behavior on what they are capable of.
Others, such as Orly, Lame Cherry and Dr. Kate – I see their long descent into madness as pretty much just harmful to themselves and their own lives. I don’t really see them capable of pulling a Von Brunn
Your point is well taken, but Lakin’s bad actions and their ramifications are definitely deserving of a category of shame and endangerment that stands out all on its own.
G,
You are spot on with every point that you have made!
BTW…..in my complaint to The YouTube Team I noted that many have noted that this person has reposted videos in the past under a different name, and to be alert for that in this case.
List of Violent Acts by Birthers and Similar Minded Groups
You can google any of these or ask me for specific links and details on each of these names and incidents.
As there are quite a few (NOT just VON BRUNN), I want to list only the most basic info in this post, so the impact is properly illustrated.
What is noteworthy about these modern acts of domestic terrorism and violence by Bigots and Anti-government paronoids (the common denominator) is that a SIGNIFICANT portion of them are being committed by much OLDER people, which is completely opposite from the standard youthful age pattern of such acts in history. Ages that I list in these posts will be the age of the person at the time of the act.
1. List of known Birthers who committed Violent Acts:
04/04/09: PA – Richard Poplawski, Age 22: Killed 3 cops, injured 2 others. Thought Obama was going to “take his guns away”.
06/09/09: DC – James Von Brunn, Age 89: Went to Holocaust Museum in DC to kill Jews, shot & killed black security guard that tried to stop him.
08/04/09: PA – George Sodini, Age 48: Killed 4 women at a health club in a mass-murder/suicide act.
01/13/10: OK – Charles Dyer, Age 29: Found with illegal stolen military rocket launcher & lots of other weapons when picked up for raping 7 yr old girl. Had been making violent threats.
03/25/10: PA – Pastor Wiley Drake, Age 66: Pastor uses his church to pray for death of all 219 Dems in Congress who passed Health Care bill. Infamous also as a key Birther client in Orly’s lawsuits.
04/04/10: TN – Walter F. Fitzpatrick III, Age 59: Arrested at Court House after trying to “citizen’s arrest” local county grand jury foreman, local law enforcement, etc by illegally interrupting a jury in progress and resisting arrest.
04/25/10: OH – Joseph Sean McVey, Age 23: Airport police arrested for carrying a handgun and listening to police radio frequencies near the runway around the time President Barack Obama’s flight was leaving Asheville Regional Airport.
05/04/10: TN – Darren Huff, Age 44: Charged with traveling in interstate commerce with intent to incite a riot and transporting in commerce a firearm in furtherance of a civil disorder (see Walter Fitzpatrick).
10/06/10: TX – William Matteson, Age 70: Secret Service investigated email assassination threat against President over the birth certificate issue.
FYI: a partial history of other known assassination threats against the President can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_assassination_threats
Thanks, G. Great rebuttal to have when a birther claims their efforts are entirely just patriotic and harmless.
2. List of Additional Violent Acts by Groups with similar motivations comparible to Birthers
I think it is very important to list these too, as it is the associated paranoid/bigotry based atmosphere that leads to Birtherism which also leads to these types of groups…and it is vital that the true pattern and scope of recent violent behavior between these mindsets is put out here, so people realize that it is not just a small handful of incidents that has taken place since Obama ran for and became President.
I’m going to list even less detail on these, for space considerations. Just date, location, name, age and associated groups. You can google any of these or ask me for specific links and details on each of these names and incidents.
07/07/08: TN – Jim David Adkisson, Age 58: Bigot, RW/Religious extremism, inspired by Glenn Beck, Bernard Goldberg & FNC.
10/27/08: TN – Daniel Coward, Age 21 and Paul Schlesselman, Age 19: The ATF broke up plot to rob gun store, assassinate Obama and target a predominantly black high school by 2 neo-Nazi skinheads wanting to shoot/decapitate 102 black people in a TN murder spree.
12/12/08: OR – Bruce Turnidge, Age 58 and son Joshua, Age 33: Militia, Anti-government, racist, RW extremism
12/09/08: ME – James Cummings, Age 29: Racist. Was making bombs and planning to assassinate Obama when wife shot him dead.
01/16/09: WI – Stephen Joseph Christopher, Age 42: Racist/Bigot arrested for wanting to assassinate Obama.
02/26/09: NC – Kody Ray Brittingham, Age 20: Racist arrested for wanting to assassinate Obama.
05/31/09: KS – Scott Roeder, Age 51: RW/Religious extremism, anti-government, Militia ties.
01/04/10: TN – Johnny Lee Wicks, Age 66: Anti-government.
02/12/10: MA – Gregory Girard, Age 45: RW/Religious extremism, Tea-Party.
02/18/10: TX – Joseph Andrew Stack, Age 54: Anti-government
03/04/10: DC – John Patrick Beddell, Age 36: 9/11 Truther
03/17/10: KY – Johnny Logan Spencer, Age 28: Racist arrested for threatening to assassinate Obama.
03/26/10: TN – Harry K. Weisiger, Age 71: Road rage incident over Obama bumper sticker.
03/28/10: MI, OH, IN – HUTAREE MILITIA (9 people arrested): Fundamentalist / Armageddonist militia group plotting against local & federal law enforcement.
04/06/10: WA – Charles Alan Wilson, Age 63: Tea Party, inspired by Glenn Beck
04/07/10: CA – Gregory Giusti, Age 48: Bigot, RW/Religious extremism, inspired by Fox News (FNC)
04/08/10: TX – Larry Eugene North, Age 52: Anti-government
04/14/10: OH – Brian “Sonny Thomas”, Age 37: Racist, Tea-Party
05/20/10: AR – Jerry Ralph Kane Jr, Age 45 (and son Joe, age 16): Anti-government (Sovereign Citizen), RW Religious extremism, possible militia & racist ties
06/07/10: MI – Russel Hesch, Age 73 and son David, Age 50: RW/Religious extremism
06/09/10: OH – Matthew Fairfield, Age 30: Militia.
06/23/10: VA – Timothy dement, Age 40: Anti-government, racist
07/18/10: CA – Byron Williams, Age 45: RW, inspired by Glenn Beck
08/02/10: PA – Raymond Peake III, Age 64: Militia, anti-government
08/04/10: PA – Hardy Lloyd, Age 32: Racist
12/14/10: FL – Duke Clay, Age 56: Anti-government
01/06/11: CO – John Troy Davis, Age 44: angry about his social security benefits
01/08/11: AZ – Jared Lee Loughner, Age 22: mentally ill with anti-government issues
01/15/11: IN – Cheryl Allen, Age 51: RW
01/17/11: WA – Kevin Harpham, Age 36: Racist, anti-government
03/10/11: AK – Schaeffer Cox, Age 26: “Sovereign Citizen” anti-government Militia leader
05/27/11: WI – Ralph Lang, Age 63: RW / Religious extremism
Well, that should do it for the list that I have personally compiled. I’m sure that there were others that I’m just not aware of.
As you can see, the list of incidents that cross the line over just the past several years, from this associated collection of behaviors, is quite extensive.
It really should give anyone pause and realize that some of these other bitter and frothing folks are bound to snap at some point and add to the pattern of troubling incidents we’ve seen arise during the Age of Obama.
yes, birfers are part of a much much larger violent right wing extremist element. i agree with that wholehardedly. if i sounded as if i forgot that, don’t worry; i was opining only on birfers, not “”similar minded groups”.
because a birfer is an extremist but an extremist isn’t always a birfer. most extremists have plenty of other grievances against obama, democrats and liberals (gun paranoia being very common) without jumping on the birfer bandwagon (though the leap is fairly effortless).
for instance, where was it confirmed that poplawski was a birfer? or sodini?
of the confirmed birfers, how many successfully carried out their wish to do harm? if you reread my comment, you’ll recall that “success” was what i was counting, by which i mean actually doing physical harm to someone. your impressive compilation, while of course not comprehensive, includes only five “successes”: poplawski, von brunn, sodini, dyer and weisiger. six if we include cummings, but “suicide by spouse” we can immediately discount. we can discount dyer since, as far as i know, raping girls wasn’t politically motivated. weisinger only harmed a vehicle. i don’t remember reading anything about poplawski or sodini being birfers, but i could just be poorly informed. so again we’re left with only von brunn.
again, birfers are certainly part of this larger pre-existing violent movement, but i can’t see any of them — in particular the regular players, the true believers, the folks who actually show up to birfer events, that we’ve been following for the last three years — as anything more than cheerleaders waiting for someone — anyone — else to do the real work.
oops, i somehow missed roeder and loughner. were they birfers?
I went back through my notes and I’m going to issue a correction:
I’m retracting the categorization of Richard Poplawski and George Sodini as Birthers at this point and moving them to the 2nd category of people with associated beliefs who have acted out.
My apologies and thanks for questioning. In my haste to compile & put together this list, I overlooked that the Birther connections between these two in articles were always speculative and didn’t have any hard confirmation behind them.
In the early days of the Poplawski incident, it was found that he had made a number of posts on both Stormfront and Alex Jones InfoWars sites. Alex Jones is a fervent Birther, which is what led to the speculative linkage in commentary at the time. However, in doing further research, I have found NO direct confirmation of Poplawski expressing actual “Birther” views and the latest info on Poplawski’s upcoming trial (scheduled for June 20th) states that his online postings will not be allowed at this part of the trial.
The only confirmed links to Obama in Poplawski’s statements so far are to his fear that Obama was going to take his guns away and fear that Obama would instigate FEMA camps.
Here are just a few useful links on Poplawski:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Pittsburgh_police_shootings
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11155/1151376-53.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09167/977635-53.stm
Similar situation for Sodini. The links to “birthersim” were very speculative… some articles outright called him one, but there was never any hard evidence. For example:
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/racist-republican-birther-kills-4-at-health-club-in-pennsylvania/question-540059/
Sodini was a religious conservative and did have some weird racial issues with Obama that he blogged about, but the main driver behind his snapping and murdering those 4 women stems from his own failures in dating women.
Here’s some more links about Sodini:
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/08/george-sodini-pittsburgh-mass-murder-obama-driven-racism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sodini
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/media-ignore-pittsburgh-k_b_251797.html
http://forbesavenue.com/2009/08/07/hacker-finds-and-posts-george-sodini%E2%80%99s-private-online-history/
Overall, murders in the 2nd category are still worthy of reporting and taking note of. Between these two cases, 3 cops died, 2 cops were injured and 4 innocent women were killed. I still view such tragic consequences from people who “snapped” as issues of concern in the current political/economic environment, regardless.
No evidence of that, which is why they are in List #2 and not the Birther list.
To clarify, for EVERYONE on List #2, we simply DO NOT KNOW where these folks actually stand in terms of the Birther issues.
Many Birthers have various anti-Obama, ideological, bigotry-based, and/or conspiricy based beliefs in common with the folks listed on List #2.
However, we simply have NO concrete evidence from any of the people on List #2 that they expoused or held actual Birther beliefs. Speculation doesn’t count. Which is why I’ve moved Poplawski and Sodini off of List #1 and onto List #2.
But the corrollary to that is also true – we have NO concrete evidence regarding ANY of the folks on List #2 indicating that they are NOT Birthers either.
We simply don’t know where these folks stand on that issue – period.
We live in a world where polls still show an unhealthy level of support for Birtherism amongst Conservatives (and to a lesser extent other groups – which I suspect are primarily anti-govt types or PUMAs), despite all these past years of coverage on this issue, the COLB and the LFBC press conference and release.
If you asked those same poll questions to the people listed on List #2…how would they answer? At this point, we simply don’t know one way or the other….
…But I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if any of them turned out to believe in Birtherism too. They simply fit the demographic patterns of those susceptible to such beliefs…so they are probably strong candidates to support birtherism, based on extrapolation from the polling data we’ve seen so far.
I am always uneasy with lists like this. They focus attention on one characteristic of a group, but not on others. The question is whether birthers are any more prone to violence than the population as a whole. The list leads one in the direction that there are, but in fact one cannot reach such a conclusion from the list.
You could probably use a similar technique to suggest that left-handed people are associated with extremist violence, or Republicans, or bald people, or people who listen to the Rolling Stones.
I disagree. Here is why:
Of course the topic of domestic terrorism is “uncomfortable” to deal with. After all, we’re talking about individuals that have gotten to the point that they see no other alternative for expressing their views than to take harmful actions against their own country and fellow citizens. There is nothing to be proud of or happy about in contemplating what leads someone to that path, nor what results from it.
For one thing, I think we can all agree that in any angry, resentful group that only a tiny fraction of those will ever go beyond their keyboard and act out in the physical world. Most will, thankfully, remain keyboard commandos and just huff and puff with nothing but harmless smoke coming out. They may end up ostracizing their circle of personal relationships and make their own lives more miserable in the process, but they are no actual threat to the broader real world.
However, their populations are worth monitoring, for signs of those few amongst them that are capable of sliding over the edge and snapping. If you ignore this element, then incidents result in real world harm instead of threats being intercepted in advance, through vigilance.
I would rather read about a domestic terrorist plot being thwarted than one that succeeded in killing people any day. I’d rather see an article in the news mentioning that the Secret Service arrested and thwarted some attempt on the President than wake up to a story of the President being assassinated.
Frankly, the population of actual CONFIRMED Birthers is too SMALL of a segment of population on its own, relative to the entire size of the US, to give the broader picture of how “on edge” this group is. We know that polls show vastly greater numbers of people “claiming” Birtherism than we ever see amongst online populations or physical gatherings.
But we DO know many of the shared beliefs and ideological characteristics that seem to motivate those that claim Birtherism. These beliefs are also characteristic of the types of groups I included in List #2. There is a lot of overlap and commonality between them.
Therefore, I feel it is necessary to look at that broader picture of related motivations in order to truly assess the real world danger that is out there and take steps to monitor and mitigate it.
If there is anything that is a sore point to set off anger within these shared belief systems, it is their perceived desire to not see Obama be re-elected. As we get closer to the 2012 election, I would prefer to keep a broader eye out for signs of danger in advance than to either be myopic about the issue or pretend it is not a valid concern.
I think that in connection with this “outing” video, G is right and it is important to be aware that there are some people on the fringe who might do serious harm to someone whose personal information is revealed in that way. it’s not that the maker of the video intends such harm — it’s just that the video happens to give away information about a person who is either readily accessible or has become the object of an obsession — and, coupled with the scary music on the video with its sinister connotations — it has the potential to lead to violence. I know that many who were on that video were laughing it off, but I think they would do well to recognize that a significant number of birthers, by definition, are nut cases, and that some small fraction of those nut cases also happen to be nut cases with a high potential for violence.
There are a couple of Wikipedia articles that you may find interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_obama_threat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_the_United_States
Thanks, but I have those already. In fact, the first link you provided, is the same one I posted earlier at this site, at the bottom of my June 4, 2011 at 8:41 pm post.
Agreed and very good points and concerns, which I share.
I agree that the whole issue of “outing” has a lot of ramifications that we struggle with. I can see arguments for and against the outing of just a name in association with a poster, but I always feel that identifying someone’s address, workplace, family/friends/associates, SSNs, etc… – COMPLETELY OUT OF BOUNDS.
Really, of what relevance is any of that level of detail of personal information, except to give access to some nut to intentionally harass, stalk or harm someone?
On the other side of the equation, where I struggle with what is acceptible – I can see situations where name, state and even city (but NOT physical address) can be acceptible and even useful information to put some perspective or context to an identity. Same with links to other writings they’ve published, sources they’ve referenced and even certain past history tidbits, such as lawsuits or criminal behavior. Those things can help give a broader understanding of someone’s background or motivations.
It is not an easy line to establish and I can see where everyone has their own take on what is ok and what is on the edge or crossing the line.
If someone goes out of their way to publish info that seems to have mainly the intent and purpose of opening the door to harrassment, harm or identity fraud, then I think that clearly is a red flag and goes to far.
I’m not going to comment on the actions of anything that has happened at Fogbow, because I simply do not know the details of what went on there. However, in terms of where KBOA has come over here and the stuff she’s trying to put on her youtube sites… it really does cause a level of concern as to what her intentions are. I don’t see anything innocent in her actions and I’m bothered that she’s purposefully crossing the line and I don’t want to see anybody harmed as a result of the stunts she is pulling.
Just want to point out that I was not making any premise regarding why, nor the actual motivations or percentage chance of any particular individual or type of birther that may resort to violence. I was simply noting an historic trend.
I don’t claim to have any particular insight in why fringe groups often resort to violence, or what element of them ultimately succumbs to the temptation… but I believe you’ll find that history bears witness to the path and trend I have laid out.