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NYT Article: Are Tea Party members conspiracy theorists, or patriots?

Sabrina said:
I have to echo the concern that Joey's expressed about these folks potentially becoming violent.

Understand, I do not by any stretch of the imagination think such a thing is CERTAIN to happen; but the potential is there, however remote. And given the rhetoric spewed by the likes of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones, the possibility grows with each new fruitcake idea espoused by either one of these knuckleheads. I do not advocate a repeal of the Second Amendment, nor do I think these individuals should be treated like potential terrorists. I do think that we, or at the very least people more versed in the particular subjects than the "armchair quarterbacks" such as Beck and Jones, should make a concerted effort to educate them on the folly of their positions. The only thing that can defuse these people, in my opinion, is knowledge, because like I said earlier, they don't seek it. They're the little baby birds opening their beaks and swallowing whole whatever Beck and Jones and the like regurgitate. It won't reach all of them, but I have to believe that enough of them would understand the remote likelihood of ANY of the things they fear coming to pass that they would realize just how silly they appear and would cease acting like idiots.

Perhaps a futile hope, perhaps not; but so long as no one makes an effort to educate these people, the lunacy will only grow. I'd do it myself, but I'm only an "armchair quarterback" at best; I don't have the expertise in the subject matter that would be needed to counteract the lunacy.
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I can see how you education program is going to work just fine.
 
JoeyDonuts said:
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it, especially if it doesn't taste just the way he'd like it to.

If they are really going down the rabbit hole, you can throw hard facts at them all day and nothing will stick. Rational discourse is viewed as an attack.

I mean, we see this all the time with the 9/11 CT crowd, don't we? If evidence doesn't fit or support their conspiratorial worldview, it's dismissed out of hand.

I've seen this with my family that went down the Birther hole. (I hear you laughing in the back, UC. Pay attention.) They still say 'he's never produced his birth certificate!' I'd tell them, the Governor of Hawaii and a number of other agencies have vouched for it. They'd counter "I haven't seen it! It must be fake! The government ALWAYS fakes things like that!"

It's really frightening to hear the same kind of twisted logic and thinking the 9/11 Truth Movement uses, but coming from your own family.

They still don't know I'm an atheist. This probably isn't the time.
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Obama could clear all of this up if he had a real birth certificate and just presented it.
 
eutychus said:
To be fair, a lot of them say that it's not a left/right thing for them; that they saw this all coming a long time ago and are only now getting riled up enough to try to organize and do something. It's just too coincidental for me that it's all happening immediately after we elected a predominantly black and allegedly "Muslim" president.
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Isn't it great people are finally begin to take action.
 
MaGZ said:
The 9/11 Commission Report is a good book to burn. It shows our contempt for the government which expects us to believe their lies. There should be rallies across this land burning this bundle of lies.
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"Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." - Heinrich Heine.

I wonder if you would have been a book burner in 30's Germany.

I'd put money on "yes".
 
MaGZ said:
He was setup by the FBI
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In the same way drug dealers are "setup" when an undercover cop buys drugs from them. I tend not to feel bad about these "setup"s because it is easy to avoid them by not engaging in illegal activities in the first place. For example not getting paid to illegally modify a shotgun.

and his family was executed by the FBI (ATF and U.S. Marshals).
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No, the ATF, U.S Marshals, FBI(rule 10) up big time, but the person most responsible for the death of his family is Randy Weaver. Not only because he engaged in the affore mentioned illegal activity, but because he said that he wouldn't be taken alive. Not a good thing to say to the police.

MaGZ said:
Do you think the government should close down Tea Party rallies that advocate violence? Does the government have the guts to do this?
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Teabaggers have a right to say what they wish...to a point. Birthers have a right to say what they wish...to a point. I think that when a person calls for the death of a President, and the violent overthrow of the United States government that they should either spend time in a mental hospital or a prison. I think your right to free speech ends where my nose begins.

As far as the "guts" comment, I think the first time that a tea birther attempts actual violence the government will crack down, and it won't take much more than a few dozen going to prison to convince the 501st keyboarders in the tea birther movment to tone down the tough talk.
 
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MaGZ said:
I can see how you education program is going to work just fine.
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A) that happens to be solely my opinion on the way these people think, and B) I never said I wanted to be the one to reeducate them. I doubt I'd have the patience required.
 
GreNME said:
Funny, because he did that already back in 2008. Must be all cleared up now, huh?
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First let me say this, I accept Obama as the President. When the state of Hawaii says he was born there and provides him with a Certificate of Birth, I believe them. Obama is the legal POTUS. Full disclosure - I did not vote for him.

However, an original Birth Certificate has not been shown. In fact, I know this because I do not have an orignal Birth Certificate. I lost it in a storage unit break-in in the early 90's. Certifcates of Birth are easy to get. Send a copy of an official State ID with your request to the hospital you were born. Done. So you could probably change your identity this way, but it would not create a record of birth where one did not already exist. Therefore, I conclude Obama has a legal "copy" of his birth record. This is adequate to meet the requirement for President.

So I have to wonder, why not show the orignal and give the birthers the finger? Why not admit you lost the orignal and have been provided a 100% legal copy? Why not authorize the hospital or state of Hawaii to show the orignal? The only person giving the birthers traction is Obama himself. I wonder why? Not to the point of not believing him. Not to the point of thinking a CT is invovled. Just curious. On purpose? He doesn't give a d? He wants to have a group of loons/racists/whatever to laugh at? Or is it just because he doesn't have to?
 
The last one.

He doesn't have to prove to a group of loons that he's eligible.

HRC wanted the Presidency in a big swollen woman-balls kind of way. If there was ANY inkling of truth to this, it would have been uncovered by the Clintons or somebody at DNC. They weren't about to risk losing the election to McCain/Palin on the hopes that somebody wouldn't ask this question, if one would like to inflate this conspiracy to include senior DNC staffers, which if true, would most certainly be 'in on it.'

And besides, what do you think would happen if they were shown the original birth certificate? Think hard about this. You know exactly what would happen, it's the same thing that happens every time a group of conspiracy-addled folks is presented with solid evidence.

I can't believe this is still getting traction, but with the crap I hear spewing out of the Teabaggers (Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Levin et al) I'm not surprised that there are still a great many people that cling to this.

It tracks right along with their self-styled belief that they are the "Conservative Underground," the only true patriots standing against Marxist-Leninist-Socialist-Anarcho-Liberals who want to turn the US into another Soviet Union - bread lines, cold war and all. Every day they hear time and time again that their country has been "hijacked" - stolen from them. From the radio hosts, it's hyperbole aimed at locking their viewership in. And boy, is it ever working.

Conservative talk radio advertising revenues are skyrocketing, extending the life of a format many thought was on its way out with analog TV.

Nothing that the birthers or even the mainstream Teabaggers are hearing on a daily basis encourages critical thinking and careful examination of the facts at hand. They're fed out-of-context appeals to emotion and other logical fallacies hand over fist. This ninety-five percent white group is tying this belief inexorably together with their faith as well. Pat Robertson's been remarkably quiet of late. I would have figured he would have jumped at the chance to insert himself into this situation and create a second Moral Majority.

Every day I see more and more of my family fall into this, spouting the talking points, and throwing around words like "revolution" and "stolen democracy."

It breaks my heart, because I know that almost nothing I do has a chance of encouraging them to put the brakes on and really take a look at what this movement is saying.
 
Umm.. oftern mrunderstood, if you peruse the 9/11 conspiracy theories subforum for a while you may notice a behavior pattern common to conspiracists: they tend to believe that they are entitled to spout claims which lack even superficial plausibility and demand that they be disproven in detail. When this is done, they simply hold up another hoop and demand that the reality-based community jump through that hoop and then another one and on and on until eventually they trot out the same claim that began the process and demand that it be refuted in detail all over again.

If you were to present birthers with Obama's original birth certificate, what would most likely happen is that they would cobble up some excuse to reject it - something like "it can't be from Hawaii- it wasn't signed in pineapple juice!" and all you would get is another round of "if you can't conclusively disprove any claim I pull out of my lower GI tract I must be right".

These people are not entitled to be truckled to or to the endless argument which is the goal of virtually all conspiracist rhetoric. The only thing they are entitled to is a fair share of our supply of laughing-dog smilies.
 
often mrunderstood said:
However...<snip>...Therefore, I conclude Obama has a legal "copy" of his birth record. This is adequate to meet the requirement for President.
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It also helps that a COLB is prima facie evidence, and everything else about "originals" is nonsense to be disregarded.

So I have to wonder, why not show the orignal and give the birthers the finger? Why not admit you lost the orignal and have been provided a 100% legal copy? Why not authorize the hospital or state of Hawaii to show the orignal?
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Well first Obama cannot produce an original because that falls outside his authority. That is a state matter, and when the state issues a COLB it is prima facie evidence of the vital record being on file. He cannot authorize the state or hospital (which wouldn't that that record anyway) to show the original because again...it is outside his authority. If you don't believe me than go find the proper form to authorize the release of the "original" to a third party, first look to Hawaii and then when that fails try to find one for any of the other 49 states.

The only person giving the birthers traction is Obama himself.
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No the lack of education and common sense among birthers keeps them in traction. Nothing Obama could do would satisfy them.

I wonder why?
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I wonder why people "just ask questions".

Not to the point of not believing him. Not to the point of thinking a CT is invovled. Just curious. On purpose? He doesn't give a d? He wants to have a group of loons/racists/whatever to laugh at? Or is it just because he doesn't have to?
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It is because nothing he can do would satisfy them, he doesn't have the authority to force a state to release it, oh and he doesn't have to.
 
JoeyDonuts said:
The last one.......
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Wow, JoeyDonuts, you're way more emotionally invested in this than I ever care to be. I don't know how to reply. I want Obama to fullfill his rightfull term(s).

Is it wrong to casually wonder where the original BC is? I know why I don't have one.

If the original was produced, I would accept it as the original. Just like I accept the copy as a Legal copy.
If he claimed to have lost the original. I could truly relate.
 
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