Obama Conspiracy Theories

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Birther crazy

by Dr. Conspiracy on 19. Jul, 2010 in Lounge

Part of my reading in support of this blog includes lawsuits filed by mental patients. I have found people obsessed by a quest that consumes their life: trying to prevail against some government bureaucracy, public utility, encroaching neighbor, or medical insurance company. Perhaps their antics seem quirky and odd; some of the militia types seem downright scary, but I wouldn’t make fun of any of them. My life to some small extent is defined by my quest to convert the birthers and this gives me a glimpse of how it might be to be totally consumed by something like that, something were one can never prevail.

If I had a buck for every time Orly Taitz has been called crazy on the Internet…

Hyperbole and caricature abounds about public figures and we chuckle over the antics of some and the sheer preposterousness of the things they do. That’s all good fun. What is more of concern to me is when we get serious and say that someone is mentally ill. If it’s really true, perhaps it’s an inappropriate topic for the Internet. If it’s false, then it’s just plain wrong.

I have some medical information about some of the characters we talk about here; I believe it’s accurate. However, you’ll never hear me talk about it, because there is a possibility that I could be wrong and more importantly the possibility that I could be right.

If you see me calling someone “crazy” or “nutcase” or “wacko,” know that it’s caricature and not meant seriously.

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No more “long form”

by Dr. Conspiracy on 19. Jul, 2010 in Birth Certificate, Lounge

I have made an editorial decision to standardize the way I talk about birth certificates, and in particular to stop using the phrase “long form.” I think the “long form” / “short form” designations create more heat than light.

Hawaii Department of Health Director Fukino used the phrase “original birth certificate” to describe the document they hold and that’s what I will use. Adding “hospital” or “typewritten” in front is unnecessary, and I’m going to stop doing that.

The documents that individuals get from vital records agencies are “certified copies” and I will use that term as the general term, consistent with industry terminology. This is also what consumers commonly call a “birth certificate.” When using the term informally to apply to a particular document, I’ll use “birth certificate” too.

There are two types of certified copies of original birth certificates: “certified photocopies” and” certified abstract copies”. The latter is a certified copy of information taken (abstracted) from the original birth certificate. I’m going to use those terms to distinguish between the two types as in “President Obama published a certified abstract copy of his birth certificate”.

And what of the COLB? As it is commonly used in the Obama Conspiracy community, this term is fairly meaningless, particularly because the acronym applies equally to a “Certificate of Live Birth” as it does to a “Certification of Live Birth,” terms that appear on original birth certificates as well as both kinds of abstract copy. The term has value when used properly. I will use the term “Certificate of Live Birth” (COLB) to make a distinction between a live birth and a foreign born adoption or an out of state birth.

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Constitutional fundamentalism

by Dr. Conspiracy on 14. Jul, 2010 in Lounge, Tea Party

I was listening to a piece on NPR this afternoon, Tea Party: It’s Not Just Taxes, It’s The Constitution, talking about the enthusiasm that Tea Party members have for the US Constitution and I was struck by their comment that many Tea Party members carry a copy of the Constitution around with them.

Karen Cole says she carries a copy in her purse. “The Democrats are eviscerating our Constitution,” she says. Her friend Betty Anne Olsen agrees. “This current administration is trashing our Constitution; they couldn’t care less about the values. They’re breaking the laws.”

It reminded me of my college days when some Christian students (they called them “Jesus freaks” back then) carried leather-bound copies of the Bible around with them. Now there’s nothing wrong with carrying a Bible or the Constitution; I have a copy of both on my iPhone, but there other parallels that are troublesome and I list some of them here:

Attributing to the Constitution absolute moral authority and attributing infallibility to the Framers. They idealize the past.
An attempt to reclaim the past by going back to the Constitution, devoid of the historical baggage of interpretation.
Using the Constitution as a bastion against any kind of change.
Reading the Constitution literally, devoid of historical/political/legal context, denying the possibility of any difference in interpretation.
Reading individual words and short phrases out of the larger context of the document.
The Constitution is used as a rallying point against perceived enemies.
They justify their prejudices by the Constitution even if they don’t really know what the Constitution actually says (or doesn’t say) on the subject. (The birther claim that the Constitution clearly states that the President must have 2 citizen parents, is a great example.)
They deny that the Constitution is a “living document” that has the possibility of adapting to changing conditions through novel application by the courts.
They believe that the Constitution excludes viewpoints held by others, even to the point of calling those with other views “traitors” (“heretics” is the analogous religious term).
They use the Constitution as a talisman, carrying conspicuously copies, either booklet or facsimile.

NPR said:

Tea Party members are often vague about exactly how their constitutional rights are being denied. But they all believe the federal government has expanded far beyond what the Constitution intended.

In that regard, I think Christian fundamentalists have a much better handle on exactly what they believe is wrong.

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Crimes against democracy

by Dr. Conspiracy on 13. Jul, 2010 in Lounge, The Blogs

Angry Dr. Conspiracy

Accurate information is essential for the voters

I feel very strongly that any attempt to mislead the public for political gain is a crime against democracy. Our Constitution protects most speech including outright lies, but just because speech is legal does not mean that it is moral. Accurate information is essential for the voters in a democracy to make informed and intelligent decisions.

Some happier with a Taliban-style government

A fair number of folks that I’ve run into in this birther business, while happy to use the trappings of the American government (the US Flag, the Constituti0n, bald eagles, and other symbols), do not really believe in democracy, and certainly not in democratic elections. They would, I think, be happier with a Taliban-style government, only replacing Islamic fundamentalism with their own brand. They have no compunction against using misleading and outright false speech to further their anti-democratic ends.

This brings me to the particular offense that prompted this rant. It comes from one of those birther blogs: Obama Release Your Records. Here’s the quote:

It’s also significant that the AP [Associated Press], which has stated publicly that the president’s “birth certificate” has been made public even though the image of the document posted online actually is a “certification of live birth,” which under Hawaiian procedures was available to those not born in the state, reported on Vitter’s comments.

That’s a damned lie

This is a damnable attempt to deceive the reader and to attribute this lie to a responsible news service, the Associated Press. What did the AP actually say? Look at what is quoted: “birth certificate” and “certification of live birth”. Well yes, they did say that. What the AP did not say, imply or hint, and never will because it is not true, is: “under Hawaiian procedures was available to those not born in the state.” That’s a lie. It is an intentional lie. It is an intentional attempt to trick the reader with false context. It assumes that people who read it are stupid.

Do you consider yourself stupid?

If you trust Obama Release Your Records for information, you most certainly are dumber than a fence post. It is not me that has called you stupid; it’s Obama Release Your Records. Does what Obama Release Your Records thinks of you make you angry? It made me angry.

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The Doc’s FOIA Update (not)

by Dr. Conspiracy on 13. Jul, 2010 in Lounge

I got a call from the Department of State. They said they had an update on the status of my FOIA request. I got all excited. [Read more about my FOIA here and here and here and here. ] What a let down when the status they gave me was the same thing they told me a month before! It was still with the passport section (where it’s been for a year) and it’s still undergoing legal review (where it’s been for at least a month). So basically I have been waiting for 18 months and still have no indication as to when I will get a response.

The Doc appeals to Congress

That “no response” response was the last straw: I wrote my Congressman. Unlike my senator, Jim DeMint (“Senator Tea Party”), my Congressman, Bob Inglis, is a remarkably sane fellow for a Republican. In fact he lost the Republican Primary last month after 6 terms in office, for standing up to the extremists on the right. I told Congressman Inglis my tale of woe and asked if he couldn’t find out something.

We’ll see.

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Writers block

by Dr. Conspiracy on 12. Jul, 2010 in Lounge

I think I had a string of pretty good articles there, but nothing worth writing about is coming to mind to follow them. There are a few things going on. We have the Walter Fitzpatrick III arraignment transcript [thanks, Rickey]. Some candidates for office mention the birth certificate thing. Sharon Meroni is trying to blackmail candidates in Illinois to cough up their birth certificates. I learned that my brother-in-law is a birther today. Orly Taiz claims she’s going to appeal her sanctions to the US Supreme Court. Nothing worth an article.

So I wrote this so that if someone wants to say something it won’t accumulate on the other articles and make those pages too slow to display.

While I’ve had nothing to write, I’ve been doing maintenance on the blog. The FAQ has been reformatted. The Docket has been updated. A big project has been the refactoring of the menu system. There are fewer menus up top, and some items have been consolidated. I added my first off-site menu link under the docket to the Birther Scorecard. I’ve add some other bookmark items.

I was really disappointed by the discussion over IP addresses and sock puppets that just occurred under the Oh No! thread (it’s been moved, by the way, to the Great Mother of All Off-Topic Comment Dumps topic). By the way, under the new blog setup, you can’t comment on things in the Dump.

What went wrong in that discussion thread was that some folks here based an argument on information they really didn’t have. They jumped to the conclusion that I had observed the same IP addresses from several screen names. The ensuing argument was between one person who said a logically true statement designed to mislead, that all the messages didn’t come from the same computer, and others trying to defend the conclusion jumped to. Then I saw stuff about 97% and 1:10,000 odds and I thought we’d started talking about Obama’s legal fees again. The quality of information about computer networks was spotty in places. The result was a huge argument: misleading v. uninformed, that devolved into a pissing match.

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