Opinion Forum

The Birther Movement Is an Unnecessary and Destructive Distraction

June 4th, 2012

President Obama’s defeat must be our focus. If we don’t reelect him the circumstances of his birth will matter little. We will then be rid of him and can help the nation regain her lost sanity.

Wherever and under whatever circumstances President Obama may have been born, he is a disgrace and a poseur, spreading disunity and disinformation. He is alien to the values the United States has long held dear. Even thinking about another four years in office is depressing. We must do so, however, and persuade others to do so, because the dangers that another term in office would likely spawn are already real and fast approaching. President Obama may even lack a firm grasp on who he is and wants to be. Is he in denial? Sanity and the rule of law need to prevail and we must defeat him truthfully, not in the way that he has tried to take us ever “forward.”

We must do so in ways fully respectful of the Constitution, least likely to precipitate a constitutional crisis and least likely to precipitate massive race-based civil unrest.

Conspiracy theories and trust

For any government to function properly it requires the well ~~funded~~ founded trust of the citizens to whom it is ultimately responsible. Notice any cool “conspiracy theories” lately? They generally spring from the lack of accurate information, “fake but accurate” information and disinformation, all of which breed mistrust. When we trust the Government (or even don’t) and learn that it deceived us, trust properly diminishes.

Proponents of conspiracy theories based upon incomplete or misleading information, regardless of whether the proponents or those whom they attack are at the root of the mendacity — along with possibly demented proponents of fanciful delusions — all become distrusted to the point that even meritorious conspiracy theories are rejected as coming from dubious and even nutty sources. We tend toward paranoia and even truthful statements not involving conspiracy theories may be rejected. Here is an excellent article at PJ Media that does not promote a conspiracy theory; it is based on the author’s own earlier experiences as a Communist and now as a strong opponent of Communism and Socialism. Commenting on some of President Obama’s Communist associates, Van Jones for example, the author also points to his endorsement by the Communist Party of the United States. It is very well worth reading and even more scary than any conspiracy theory with which I am familiar.

Back to conspiracy theories. Heard about the gold foil wrapped babies the folks at the Bilderberg meeting in Virginia imported to eat? A video is at the first link where this transcript is also provided.

Alright this is just a person going to pick somebody up, they’re probably bringing him some child to rape or something in the trunk — no I’m not kidding, these people are sick.

Every week they catch them shipping little babies wrapped in gold foil for these guys to eat. They admit that’s where it goes to, I’m not making this up.

“You think I’m talking about babies wrapped in gold foil for them to eat — I’m not, I’m not joking about that.

This officer’s laughing at me — $10,000 they try to ship in roasted babies wrapped in gold foil for them to eat, $10,000 right now. You will lose, you will lose the bet!

This may be the little bit of truth behind the rant:

A British citizen has been arrested in Bangkok on suspicion of smuggling human infant corpses for use in black magic rituals after the bodies of six babies were found in a suitcase in a hotel room, Thai police have said. …

The bodies belonged to babies aged between two and seven months, Wiwat Kumchumnan, sub-division chief of the police’s children and women protection unit, told Reuters, though other reports suggested they were aborted human foetuses rather than dead full-term babies. Photographs obtained by Reuters appeared to show corpses too small to have survived to term.

Some of the remains had been covered in gold leaf, said police, apparently for use in black magic rituals.

Our incipient paranoia broadens. However, as President Obama seeks reelection there are more effective ways to defeat him. We do not need ways, perhaps enjoyably exciting and self-fulfilling, but otherwise wasteful of valuable time, energy and, worst of all, credibility.

Whatever validity they may have, birther issues have become inefficient uses of time, energy and credibility.

I read here that conservatives who are not wildly upset about President Obama’s genesis are phony and cowards.

After seeing the mountain of evidence on the subject, it is very clear that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and is a fake. Did you hear that, snarky media people? Nobody over ten believes this phony twerp was born in Hawaii. Those who publicly say they believe Obama’s birth certificate and biography are real simpletons who are hoping to have the liberal alligator eat someone else first.

Their cowardice doesn’t make them bad people, but their snarky swipes at those of us who understand that two and two has always been four and will never change make them despicable.

The truth is staring all of us in the face, and those who pretend to “take the president at his word”, regardless of their political allegiance, are way past annoying. They are insulting to our intelligence. Listening to (or reading) “conservative” commentators talk about this issue demands a response.

I am sick of hearing these people talk endlessly about Obama’s questionable nativity, then offering new evidence of Obama’s fraudulent persona, then patting themselves on the back with assurances like “Well I personally believe the president was born in Hawaii, but now let’s talk about what my next guest has uncovered.”

The Pontius Pilate act won’t work anymore. Nevertheless, not content to hide behind slick double talk allowing them to deny there is anything to the charge against Obama, while using it for ratings, these people so often go a step further. They talk as if those of us who actually have enough sense to be able to pour water out of a boot are toothless drooling halfwits.

If these phony “conservatives” really believe Obama was born in Hawaii, they are guilty of a grave disservice to him and all of us. Repeating what they “KNOW” to be a “terrible lie” is disgusting. If they really believe Obama’s birth certificate is legitimate, isn’t helping to perpetuate this charge almost treasonous?

How can they mock us for recognizing the “king has no clothes” from one side of their mouths and continue to talk about the questions surrounding Obama’s birth from the other? Who’s being phony here?

On the theory that anything is possible, it is possible that before the election, now only five months away, incontrovertible proof will be discovered that President Obama was born in Kenya or elsewhere outside the United States in circumstances not conferring “natural born” citizenship. Would that dissuade many of President Obama’s true believers? Or would they agree with this article that the subject is boringly over-technical and therefore irrelevant? That

this act in question was one that Obama, obviously, had no control over. And the act itself — the miracle of birth — isn’t scandalous. Plus, eben [sic] if true, all it would create would be a mind-numbing legal thicket.

True believers probably would not desert President Obama, but hardly anything would cause them to do so. Would less than incontrovertible proof dissuade many who merely lean toward him, or might it just be taken as part of yet another absurdly flawed conspiracy theory?

In many contexts, belief is somewhat faith-based or is at least similar to hope. I don’t believe that President Obama was born in Hawaii; I don’t know where he was born. In a political context, belief is an inadequate substitute for knowledge based on proof except when “preaching to the choir.” Governor Romney has said that he “believes” President Obama to have been born in Hawaii and is under fire for the efforts of his current ally, Donald Trump, to foster the birther controversy. That aspect of Mr. Trump’s support seems unlikely to help Governor Romney politically and might even damage him. Taking into account the already deplorable state of the nation domestically and abroad, economically, militarily and culturally, it is a politically silly issue and Governor Romney would be made to appear silly or worse if he pursued it. President Obama and his minions do that sort of thing quite well.

I look forward to learning what Sheriff Joe Arpaio may have to say, possibly next week. Shocking, Earth shaking revelations may be on the immediate horizon. In the meantime, however, the chances that we will know the circumstances of President Obama’s birth before we vote seem little greater than that President Obama will moot the question by not seeking reelection. Instead, he will very likely continue to play us in a shell game of his own creation. At that at least, he has done a masterful job. He seems to enjoy it and it provides one of the many distractions he desperately needs to divert our attentions from his flawed presidency. He makes the rules and he hides the pea, real or fake, under one of the shells (or in his pockets where his rules do not permit us to look). His minions may not know whether he put the pea in a pocket instead of under one of the shells but they do know that we don’t know either; they also know how to continue helping him to move the shells around with hands faster than our eyes.

Impeachment is not a viable option.

Even should there be substantial proof that President Obama is a “Manchurian candidate,” cloned in a Potemkin village in Outer Mongolia and groomed by Communist China to become the President of the United States to bring changes for which it hoped, President Obama would probably not be impeached by the current House (OK, I exaggerate, but only a bit). Gerald Ford once observed, realistically, that “impeachable offense” means whatever the currently sitting House of Representatives says it means. In view of the modest testicular fortitude (or commendable common sense, take your pick) demonstrated by the current House, it would be surprising were it to vote to impeach him. In any event, all House members are up for reelection and are therefore too busy trying to retain their seats to be concerned about trying to restore their less important consciences.

If impeached by the current House, the matter would go to the Senate under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution. Then,

when the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. (Emphasis added.)

The odds that the current Democrat controlled Senate would convict President Obama by two thirds vote are so miniscule as to amount to zero; even a new Senate with a comforting Republican majority, which we won’t have until after the November elections at the earliest, well might not do so. If President Obama fails of reelection, whether to convict will be moot. If he is reelected, he may bring with him a stronger Democrat party in both houses; then a new bill of impeachment and conviction under it seem very unlikely.

The Senate is a political, not a judicial, body and there is no appeal to any court but that of popular opinion; since post-election we would not be able to vote against President Obama, public opinion would be of little consequence. Nor is the Supreme Court or any other Federal Article III court likely to take up and finally resolve an independent question of his eligibility. Even if substantial questions of standing and of whether eligibility is more than a political issue were resolved and the matter were taken under review, the process would likely take years.

Why fritter away time, energy and other scarce resources trying to achieve the virtually impossible, while simultaneously diminishing the credibility of President Obama’s opponents — even those who say they accept him as constitutionally qualified? Why bother trying to get the current or even next Congress to impeach and convict him? Does it not make more sense to use our resources to best advantage in trying to ensure that President Obama is not reelected?

There’s plenty more than “birtherism” to work with.

President Obama should not be re-electable no matter where, when, why or how he may have been cloned or born. President Obama’s domestic policies have brought us close to ruin and if reelected he would most assuredly finish the job; he would then have all of the requisite “flexibility” to do even more as he pleases than he has had until now. Federal spending is already out of control and the entitlement society already feasts upon more than ample plant food; it is booming as well as blooming. We are already legitimately concerned about our diminishing freedoms but there are no constraints on President Obama’s “freedom” to leak national security information when he deems it useful for his reelection campaign. Is that related to his “reset button?” His foreign policies are already giving him, and through him us, a national character resembling the stage persona of Rodney Dangerfield. The world’s Rodney Dangerfield, we don’t get no respect because under President Obama we no longer warrant it. Rather than the good-natured laughs Dangerfield got, our nation gets derision. We knew Dangerfield was being intentionally funny and that he was only acting out a stage persona. We would not have thought him funny if, rather than simply affecting a stage persona to make us laugh, he had been convincing foreign nations that his own persona had become our actual national persona.

Circus clowns can make us laugh because they are funny but harmless critters. If, wheeled into a surgical suite for an operation, we were to discover that circus clowns were about to operate on us we would find nothing funny about it. Our surgical clown is President Obama, we have not yet succumbed to anesthesia and we can certainly find a better physician. Ceasing to rely on our clown-surgeon may well be the most important factor in our recovery.

President Obama, the “principled media” and his other minions have brought so much confusion and derision to the birther issue that even to consider the matter seriously is derided as demented. Perhaps unfortunate, that’s the way it is. Pursuing the birther issue will neither change that situation nor diminish the chances of President Obama’s reelection and may well enhance them, no matter how vigorously, persistently and temperately it is done. Vigorous, factually grounded and well sourced attacks on his destructive domestic and foreign policies, his fumbling while bragging and his lack of the resolve needed for actions required of a competent President will not be easy; his policies are moving targets even to the extent that reliable information is available if we bother to look for it. Even as to that, President Obama and his minions are playing us at another shell game; but at least the pea is harder to hide and even the principled media sometimes see it. That is the shell game that we must win. If a fraction of the efforts already expended in discovering the secrets of President Obama’s genesis had been devoted instead to exploring and exposing those of his flaws as President that far more voters are likely to be persuaded to agree upon, we would be much closer to ensuring that he will not be reelected. We still have a few months to make up for lost time.

Here are some pleasant thoughts to hold in mind before, during and after the election.

Until then, the Candy Man Can and will do as he has been doing.

(This article was also posted at Dan Miller’s Blog.)

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: birther, birtherism, conspiracy, defeat, election, Hawaii, Kenya, Obama
Categories: Politics | Comments (1) | Home

One Response to “The Birther Movement Is an Unnecessary and Destructive Distraction”

Tom Carter | June 4th, 2012 at 2:48 pm

Very well said, Dan. If Obama is re-elected, a large part of the reason will be the many distractions that take people’s attention away from the real failures of his Administration.

Conspiracy theories do exactly that. They’re promoted by zealots, self-serving charlatans, and weak-minded and usually poorly educated people. Not only does this kind of silliness distract people from facts, it makes the opposition in general look foolish and can make Obama somewhat sympathetic.

Birtherism is a great example. At this point, what the heck difference does it make? In fact, given the complexities that would result, we’re better off not knowing any more about it. As you said, defeat him and it doesn’t matter any more.