The reason that I have so much motivation to combat birtherism is that I consider it immoral, and not just immoral in and of itself, but a movement that promotes immorality and encourages others to act badly, and not only does birtherism encourage birthers to be immoral, it also entices its opponents to act badly as well.
The scripture text for today’s sermon comes from St. Paul’s letter to Rome:
And as they didn’t keep God steadily in mind, God left them to their unsteadiness of mind to do things that decency forbids, filled as they were with all kinds of unlawfulness, meanness, greed, and evil, rampant with envy, murder, discord, treachery, and disorderly conduct: rumormongers, character assassins, God-haters, criminals, haughty, boastful, fabricators of evil stories, disobedient to parents, with no comprehension, no cohesion, no affection, no compassion.
Gaus, Andy (1991-01-01). The Unvarnished New Testament (New Translation from the Original Greek) (Kindle Locations 5157-5161). Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.
While several items from the indecent list fit things I see in the birther movement, the one that I think most characterizes it is “character assassins.” (I could have picked the closely-allied “fabricators of evil stories.”) What is the birther movement, after all, but an attempt to find something bad about Barack Obama, initially to keep him from being elected president, and later to try to make him fail in office, or to get him out of office? Birtherism springs from and promotes a visceral dislike of Barack Obama, whether it is because he beat out Hillary Clinton, or that he is black, or urbane, or progressive, or has an Arabic-sounding middle name.
Birtherism has had its consequences, and I can think of no greater waste than former Army physician Terry Lakin, who ruined his career, lost his medical license, and lost his pension because of birtherism. On the other side consider Adam Cox who was convicted of threatening Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Would he ever have done this if not enraged by the character assassination of the birthers?
It is important to try to distinguish those who make up stories and market them from those who just spread the stories. At the top of the food chain we have folks like Joseph Farah, Jerome Corsi, Bob Unruh and Jack Cashill. They make money stirring up ill will. While folks like that deserve greater condemnation, still people who spread stories (like, for example, Donald Trump), the “rumormongers,” bear responsibility for not checking out stories before they pass them on.
Web sites such as Birther Report are noted for the “meanness” of the comments as much as their misleading stories. And when I see meanness and “haughty,” “boastful” fabricators of evil stories, it makes me angry and under that influence I can sometimes be mean too (that’s why I gave up BR for Lent).
Birtherism is not just wrong; it is indecent.
They make me mean, too, as you know. Everyone who knows me in real life will tell you that I’m really a nice guy. But birthers bring out the anger instead of the angel. Not being a Christian, I have no compunction about being mean to birthers. They are the worst people on the planet, and somebody has to say so in terms they can understand. I admire and respect your beliefs and the choices you make, but I must follow the beat of my own drum.
While you make fun of birthers, I don’t recall you ever making up lies that make them appear worse than they are. Even satire’s purpose is to reveal the truth.
Back in ’08, when I first started fighting the madness, I tried to be civil and explain in objective fashion why you couldn’t, for example, lose your American citizenship at the age of 6, even if there was some evidence that you had been adopted in a foreign country (which there is not, in Obama’s case). The birthers responded with banning, insults, and the like. Even back in the early days, they fantasized that the Democratic Party would be outlawed and that all 69 million of us who voted for Obama would be imprisoned or executed, and our worldly possessions distributed among the hatriots.
They would dearly love to see us both executed in public, Doc. They’d love to see my children become orphans after the execution of myself and my wife. Eventually, I grew to see the vast evil of the birther movement, and I responded in kind. I don’t threaten their lives or freedom, but I do enjoy making them suffer anger and anguish. I try never to waste my time on rational arguments with the birthers, though I do slip now and then. There’s no reaching them with facts or rational argument. All they understand is mocking and being made laughingstocks.
They have, as I documented in a letter to my congressman, more than 60 separate lies they tell about the president, about his family, and about American law, including the Constitution. Birtherism is a fabric of dirty, disgusting lies, based on nothing but hatred and racism. On the bright side, it must really suck to be a birther. President Obama has been in office 1,957 days, and they didn’t even enjoy the period between the election and the inauguration. I’d have real trouble seriously hating anyone for more than 2,000 days. I just can’t hate like that. I do have some morality of my own, I reckon. 😀
Yes. You know, we wouldn’t waste a moment of time dealing with such irrationality, were it not for the fact that they are, while insane, a potential serious threat to the President because lightning strikes and assassins shoot. We know that the hateful, deliberate liars among them are immoral people, the way (I think) we know that no priest who deliberately molested children could have believed in any conventional “God”.
Was I wrong to point out on a recent thread yesterday that the birtherism movement includes at least one sex offender*? If so, I deeply apologize.
See Klayman: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/02/birther_lawyer_fighting_joe_ar.php
*While Klayman is the most notable, there are very likely others. Sheriff Joe Arpaio also hired a sex offender to guard children for the schools posse in Maricopa County. Sheriff Joe doesn’t mind such company apparently. – http://kstreet607.com/2013/02/13/sheriff-arpaio-hired-former-employee-convicted-child-sex-criminal-for-armed-school-posse/
In a post about Right Wingers arguing that people should be tolerant of anti-gay activists Booman (Booman Tribune) said,
“I think what terrifies these folks is that they’re are being defined out of polite society.” ☞ LINK
Birtherism reminds me of how racists wanted Blacks to answer the question “How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?” in order to vote.
Oh yeah, Arnold Begay too! – http://samuel-warde.com/2012/09/child-molester-sues-obama-for-dna-to-compare-to-bin-ladens/
This article reminded me of something that occurred the other night in the RC Radio chat room. After Brian Reilly called and and began explaining why he left the Cold Case Posse over concerns about the way Mike Zullo was handling the investigation and that there was no accounting at all for where donors money was being spent jy1977 suggested that it would be a good idea if someone slashed Mr. Reilly’s tires. (No I didn’t save a copy of the chat but I am sure a bunch of people who were in chat would verify that).
Now I don’t think jy himself would actually slice Mr. Reilly’s tires. jy doesn’t seem like type to actually do anything. He likes to suggest others do things like contact Loretta Fuddy’s brother to obtain a copy of her autopsy to satisfy his own morbid curiosity.
In jy’s warped and immoral view of the world Brian Reilly, who suggested the idea of the investigation and who was the first person to donate to the Posse, and who had every right to want an accounting for what the Posse was doing deserves to have his tires sliced. However, Mike Zullo who has lied, violated Arizona law, and made money off donors is a hero in jy’s world.
Yes, Foggy, that is whom we are dealing with.
There’s a reason I took to calling them “lying, unpatriotic, un-American SCUM”. Isn’t jy1977 the same person as john here at Doc’s? I give him points for one thing – he is the most determinedly ignorant person here, but he does at least have the guts to take us all on. He doesn’t run away, like Falcon and many others. One time Falcon jumped on him over at Birther Report, but he popped right back up and holds his own. Still, that slicing tires thing is so typical of birthers. They can’t touch the President, so they want to lash out at his supporters. Disgusting and immoral.
I just got banned from WND. I was making fun of Terry Lakin, that I found him working the drive through. My final post? “Terry Lakin! Still serving his country! One happy meal at a time!” Mean? Yes. But funny.
Or as I consider them, butthurt crybabies who are itching for reprisals.
True for me as well. The only other people I will not put up with are 9/11 Truthers. Rage inducing human-garbage as far as I’m concerned.
So tame and mild, really, but that’s WND, they ban you if you simply hold a contrary view to theirs. Seriously. I was banned the first time I posted there, lol. Of course, that may have been my spelling Larry’s name “KKKlayman” 😀
A lot of the birther sites that banned me are no longer around, but I’m still here. 😀
What a terrible waste.
Doc, you touched on one of my favorite under-served topics: the real culpability of the liars at the top of the stack.
I may have mis-remembered some details, but the gist of the following is true:
There are those who think it’s fun to claim that Obama has instituted Gun Confiscation Squads.
A guy named Richard Poplowski was hanging out in his trailer one day when three LEOs showed up to serve him a fairly ordinary summons. Poplowski, thinking they were a Gun Grabbing Posse, came out blazing. Two police were killed, one a young father.
Without us, literally no one would be pointing out that the LYING RIGHT-WING SCUM who get their rocks off saying anything that harms and turns people against Obama are directly (in my mind) responsible for those deaths.
Sure, Poplowski was a dumb violent loser. But those who loaded him with shells of delusion and cocked his hammer with paranoia are a very special caliber of evil.
This article has been updated to mention Terry Lakin.
I disagree Foggy. John/James is entirely a coward. When asked specific questions he doesn’t answer. When confronted in chat he ignores what is said to him and when he does engage he gets beat so thoroughly that he runs away. He’s exactly like the others.
I would say “Yes. Absolutely”.
From the very article you linked to, quoting the court decision:
To me, that means the court concluded that he is not a “sex offender”: just someone who did something, unnamed, that’s generally considered “inappropriate”.
I’ll add that there is an element in our “sex offender” mania that’s very similar to what Doc decried above. There are horror stories about people being branded for life as “sex offenders” for ridiculous “crimes” like taking a leak in the woods while not realizing that there was a troop of Girl Scouts hiking nearby who saw him. Or married couples trying to get the husband “unbranded” because he was 18 and she was 17 when they first hooked up, and a disapproving parent cried “statutory rape”.
I see that as being the same sort of attempt to feel superior by demonizing others, with complete disregard for whether it’s justified, that the birfers engage in.
immoral, indecent, blah blah blah.
I don’t know where o was born, but those like yourself who champion his side in the fight to withhold his birth certificate and to hide his other records are the epitome of the banality of evil.
Not so. You know it was proved he was born in Hawai’i; you choose to dishonestly pretend otherwise.
Which document he has released. Twice.
What other record is required? What other record that establishes his eligibility under Article II is required? What other record that you’ve also demanded of his predecessors is required?
You’re not very good at this, are you?
You owe everyone here a new irony meter.
Thankfully, these bigoted morons are a dying breed.
” That, however, does not mean that he did not engage in those acts or that his behavior was proper.”
So you want to say he did not engage in those acts and/or they were proper.
Hmmm!
The fact that you are ignorant doesn’t change the fact that the REPUBLICAN Governor of Hawaii confirmed the birthplace of Barack Obama years ago. Governor Lingle said:
“You know, during the campaign of 2008, I was actually in the mainland campaigning for Sen. McCain. This issue kept coming up so much in the campaign, and again I think it’s one of those issues that is simply a distraction from the more critical issues that are facing the country. And so I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health, and we issued a news release at that time saying that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that’s just a fact. And yet people continue to call up and e-mail and want to make it an issue. And I think it’s, again, a horrible distraction for the country by those people who continue this. … It’s been established. He was born here.”
The statements from Governor Lingle’s Director of Health were: “There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.
“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.
“No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai‘i.”–issued by Dr. Chiyome Fukino on October 31, 2008 and,
“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawai‛i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai‘i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai‘i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago.”–issued on July 27, 2009
226 lawsuits and six years later, those statements from the state of Hawaii still stand.
No.
Let’s not forget Mario Apuzzo.
I cannot believe that at this layer stage, Apuzzo hasn’t figured out the meaning of Vattel actually wrote.
Yet he keeps spreading his lies, willfully and deliberately, for whatever agenda compels him, racist, financial and otherwise.
Imagine how some of you might feel if they discovered the writings of, say, Thomas Jefferson were purposefully distorted by a French neo-nazi to promote his hate agenda?
When I see the hate-filled attacks at BR when I politely correct that misinterpretation– even though they could still be true to Vattel and attack Obama! — I feel disturbed by such individuals.
Frankly, this goes beyond political opposition; I think they need psychiatric attention.
I posted this at the Fogbow today:
I am eventually going to follow up with a blog post about the show the other night. There was so much substance in what Mr. Reilly said about what went on with the Posse when he was there. Thanks to Mr. Reilly we know that “they” (Zullo) came to Reilly and said “we have to find a way to get you paid”. Well that certainly implies that Zullo was paying himself and probably still is. We also learned that several unauthorized trips out of state were taken to run down crazy Birther conspiracy leads. Mr. Reilly did not want to disclose the purpose of those trips but we know at least one was to Seattle where they met Mr. Vogt at a Starbucks and visited Mercer Island where Ann Dunham lived with her parents from 1956 – 1960 while she attended high school.
We also learned that no one except Zullo knows where the money went. He paid for the trips. He was the one who offered at least $5,000 in Posse money to reimburse the Maricopa County for part of the expenses incurred from an apparently authorized trip to Hawaii with Jerome Corsi. That payment was eventually refused by the Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County.
One has to ask at what point does this rise to tax evasion? Can Zullo just pay himself or others a salary like that and take trips wherever he wants to pursue crazy theories? Did Zullo report as income the personal use of the any of the three vehicles owned by the Posse that he drives? These would be good questions for someone in the local media to ask Mike Zullo.
Let’s not, for Mario Apuzzo has not forgotten us. On his blog, http://puzo1.blogspot.com/ , he hasn’t posted a new article since July of last year, but in the active and heavily-moderated comments he and his sycophants keep maligning and misrepresenting Dr. Conspiracy and commenters here.
This very article drew the comment from Mario Apuzzo Esq.:
“Dr. Conspiracy must be losing his mind, arguing that we Anti-Obots are immoral for arguing, as the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court explained in Minor v. Happersett (1875), that a natural born citizen is a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth.”
Really, Mr. Apuzzo?
Should anyone doubt the immorality of Mr. Apuzzo’s birtherism, here’s a smear of Obama he posted — in the form of a question because he’s subtle — on Bob Quasius’s ‘Café Con Leche Republican’ blog:
“Was Obama one of the many who-in the words of veteran security analyst, Bahukutumbi Raman, a former Indian counterterrorism chief-visited Pakistan to feel the greatness of the Afghani jihad against communism and their fascination for Abdullah Azzam.”
— Mario Apuzzo ESQ. 18 Sept 2013, 19 Sept 2013, 1 Oct 2013, 4 Oct 2013, 5 Oct 2013, 6 Oct 2013, http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/is-ted-cruz-a-natural-born-citizen/
Ugly stuff, and no, I am not exaggerating. Check it out. In that one thread Esquire Apuzzo posted it, word for word, six times.
The questions for Mr. Zullo are piling up like the temperature is rising in Phoenix.
I think it’s going to be a tough summer for him.
CarlOrcas…..
“I think it’s going to be a tough summer for him.” (Mike Zullo)
Especially if he can’t find his patrol car in 100+ temps.
I hope that if he leaves Gallups in the car, he cracks a window and leaves a bowl of water; good lapdogs are hard to find.
Well, thank goodness for that.
Sorry Will, but at this point in the game anyone allowing their irony meter within 4.5 AU of a birther should know better.
My article doesn’t touch on the NBC topic, but Apuzzo was arguing the born in Kenya, and other lies in the Kirchner suit.
True.
And IM tech has come a long way.
Just a slight correction regarding Mario’s current moderation policy. I’ve been commenting there for several months and, as far as I can tell, as long as you give some sort of legal argument in your comment, Mario will let it through. I’ve said many things critical of him and his sycophants that he hasn’t blocked or edited, but one comment which only discussed the meta-issues of birtherism was blocked.
I should come clean. I’m the other obot over there.
Many of my comments have gotten through, but recently many others were blocked.
Wait a sec, according to ajtelles, we’ve been working together! You mean that hasn’t been you at the obot “cadre” meetings? Now I’m confused…
If Mario’s moderating you, I’d just post comments he wont let through over at the Fogbow. They deserve the entertainment and it’s always good to document birther moderation policies. Just my $0.02.
Anything particular about the comments that got blocked?
p.s. The Story quote was magnificent!
Nothing stands out to me. I posted an example of a banned comment in the, “Reply to Mario Apuzzo on immoral birthers” thread here.
I saw that. He must have either thought that comment was too hard to deal with or he was just “thinning the herd”, so to speak…