This article comes out of three recent events: my participation in comments at ObamaReleaseYourRecords, my interview by a reporter who asked me a lot about birthers, and my extended phone conversation with Orly Taitz this afternoon. Particularly in that first instance, I found that birthers don’t know much about the other side.
I have spent four and a half years studying the birthers, focusing primarily on their arguments and their evidence. Others on my side of the fence have spent time studying the personalities of individual birthers. I’ve read thousands of pages of birther legal briefs and web sites; I’ve watched innumerable videos. It is my belief, and readers may feel free to contradict me, that we Obots (meaning “anti-birthers”) know the birthers very well, but it is also my experience that birthers know virtually nothing about Obots and their thinking. So for the benefit of the birthers, I will try to channel my inner conspiracy theorist and hope that I can answer some birther frequently asked questions about Obots.
Are Obots paid to support Obama on the Internet? No. The bloggers you see on the Internet are independent persons who write for their own reasons. The Jack Ryan person who posts legal documents at Scribd gets some donations from other bloggers to pay a small part of the cost of providing those documents for everyone.
Are Obots Obama supporters? Some are and some aren’t. I count myself an Obama supporter, but others supported Ron Paul or call themselves Conservatives. Being an Obot really isn’t about political party.
If you aren’t paid and aren’t Obama supporters, why do you work to enable that piece of trash in the White House? Everybody has their reasons. What I pick up in conversation with other Obots is a fundamental anxiety about the possibility that irrational ways of looking at things might become mainstream, to the detriment of the country. We not only think that birthers are wrong, but that they make decisions and process information in a defective way, that could lead to wrong choices. We’re afraid of a government composed of people who live by rumors and conspiracy theories, as opposed to facts and expertise. We’re afraid for our basic freedoms if the birthers ever got control.
Why do you support someone who’s constitutionally ineligible? We believe that it is well settled in law that a US-born person is a natural born citizen (except in the family of a foreign diplomat). We are confident of this because courts and courts of appeals in no less than 8 states have said so.
Why are you dead set against the Supreme Court deciding the issue? I’m not against this, and I have never done anything to hinder it. The Supreme Court, not I, decides what cases it will hear. On the other hand, since I believe the issue is settled, I am an advocate for the Supreme Court getting involved.
Why do you support someone who is obviously using forged documents? That really goes to the heart of the issue. We do not believe the President is using forged documents (or a stolen social-security number or any of that other stuff).
How can you not believe the documents are forged when every expert who has looked at them says they are fake? Because that’s not true. The real experts don’t say its fake. A number of us have researched, done experiments, tried and tested the claims of forgery and found that what birthers see as forgery are just the normal way documents of that type are scanned, compressed and saved into files.
How do you explain the halos, the layers, the ability to move the registrar seal around? These are normal for documents processed by any number of commercial hardware and software document processing systems. These things look odd, but only because most folks don’t have experience with the wide range of what is normal in scanned documents. (A number of articles on this site and other Obot web sites go in to great detail on this.) We Obots see things that are odd, but we ask why; we make hypotheses; we test them. We do this rather than claim “forgery” without asking what alternatives are more plausible.
We have many expert affidavits that disagree. No credential forensic document expert has ever said Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.
What about [insert name of person here]? They are all people with inflated resumes, who do not meet any of the criteria of an expert. They have never been qualified by a court as an expert, they do not have advanced degrees in the subject, they have never taught document examination, and they don’t do it for a living. They only looked at the documents for the purpose of finding some anomaly that proved them fake, not arriving at a true conclusion. You wouldn’t let a volunteer who watches medical shows on TV, and volunteers as a patient advocate in a hospital operate on you, would you?
Why do you hate America and the Constitution? We don’t hate America or the Constitution. We believe in the rule of law. We believe that the country is best served by well-sourced information and reasoned argument. We think birthers have faulty information and fallacious argument.
How can you say that you believe in the rule of law, and yet aren’t advocating for our cases to be heard in a court of law? The reason is that the law is not with you. The issue of standing that has derailed so many of your lawsuits is a constitutional requirement. To support the rule of law means that the birthers cannot use the courts the way they are trying to use them. I have never said that birthers shouldn’t get their day in court. If the law is with them, fine. However, I have read many, many court decisions dismissing birther lawsuits, and the judge is right on the law every time.
Why do you Obots support socialism? Obots don’t have any single political view. They range from Libertarian to Socialist and everything in between. I’m not a socialist myself.
Why do you hate the birthers so much? I don’t hate birthers, but some birthers can be pretty nasty at times, say vile things, make threats and get one angry. (Obots sometimes do the same thing to birthers.) What I hate is for innocent people to be smeared. Barack Obama may be the most smeared man in America today. That really bothers me.
How can you be so sure that you’re right? Because I have studied your side far more than you have studied mine. In my interactions with birthers, I find them extremely ignorant of the arguments against them. They have never hear of masses of information that contradict what they say.
I don’t know if this helps at all, but I wrote it, so there.
Great article — I look forward to commentary from those of the birther ilk.
That seems like a fair description.
I will roll this in with something you touch on later: when the birthers (or truthers, or antivaxers, or IDers…) bring up a point of contention, my general thought is, “Huh. Why do they say this? Is there some element of truth to what they’re saying? Let’s dig in.” It’s an interesting puzzle, and I want to see where it leads.
Usually, it’s straight into a bucket of mud.
It’s good to have this set down, but I am pretty sure the birthers don’t care. I realize I have a bad habit of stating the obvious. But I don’t think birthers have as part of their mental process the questions “what does that mean?” or “is that true?” Either a statement seems to work for their side, in which case it’s treated as fact, or it doesn’t, in which case it’s treated as false. So if you say that birthers think Obots are paid to blog, you are using the word “think” in a special way. When a normal person “thinks” something, they have at least slightly asked themselves if it’s true. But when a birther “thinks” something, that process has been skipped. And since they don’t ask themselves questions, they aren’t going to care about anybody’s answers.
You might want to reread the Supremes answer.
“Either a statement seems to work for their side, in which case it’s treated as fact, or it doesn’t, in which case it’s treated as false.”
That is, unfortunately, too true. So as noble as your effort is, Doc, I think you’re wasting your time and breath. (Or…. your fingers… or whatever.) I mean, if they were able to process information in a logical way — such that they might appreciate your post — they wouldn’t be birthers.
Every time I read what you write I am impressed. Nice work with the sanity.
My wife is a birther and it has caused me to question my sanity sometimes. I have asked her to look at the other side but she still believes her ” feelings ” that the President is what all the smears say he is. I trust the President as far as any politician. This decisiveness that has come to the country about this situation is horrible.
OMG…. neither of you own a gun I hope
I totally agree. It’s interesting to see how rumors morph. One recent poster here claimed that Obama’s application to Occidental was on the Internet. That new meme came from the April Fool’s spoof. I like to figure out where the kernel of truth in the urban legend came from.
I participate here because it is intellectually stimulating and educational. I also find myself compelled to debunk falsehoods and urban legends, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they emanate from.
An interesting phenomenon is the people who take umbrage when it is pointed out to them when they spread stories (via e-mail, Facebook, or whatever) which are provably untrue. I do it gently, with links to Snopes or FactCheck or PolitiFact, but rarely does anyone acknowledge being wrong and some have gotten angry at me. On the other hand, an unexpected benefit is that a few have dropped me from their e-mail lists.
Doc, after reading this I am in awe at your patience. I found myself gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw to keep myself from screaming and swearing at the screen. The level of hatred and the unwillingness to accept anything that doesn’t totally agree with the birthers’ view is amazing to me.
I’m new to your blog but see the opposing sides so clearly in every post. Where we Obots show reasonableness and openness to understanding other people’s viewpoints, the birthers are rigid in their self-righteousness. The fact that you don’t censor opposing views is in marked contrast to the birthers’ need to control every post.
Earlier tonight I noticed a new name, Luni, I believe, appearing repeatedly on one of the Orly blogs from today. Each posting was filled with nothing but hateful lies and contempt for anyone else’s comments. This too was painful for me to read, as I realize that people like this will never, ever, ever consider a real dialog with anyone hwho isn’t also a birther, even someone who’s moderate in his/her thoughts.
Some of us who might appear to be “Obots” are in fact foreigners. I do care who runs the US of A (everyone in the world does or should) but it doesn’t extend to caring about Mr. Obama’s legitimacy, his birth certificate, SS number, etc.
I do care however about seeing Vattel’s writings constantly distorted by meretricious birthers (like Mario) in order to prove their crazy theories.
Lupin: I do care however about seeing Vattel’s writings constantly distorted by meretricious birthers (like Mario) in order to prove their crazy theories.
you, being french and familiar with vattel, has certainly added to the conversation – i don’t know whether the distortions of vattel are willful or rather an ignorance of the french language
on this blog, i have asked mario to translate a simple french phrase (i created) using “les parents” several times and he has chosen to ignore me while he has responded to other questions i asked him
(he told me to ask a french waiter)
I totally agree. As far as I can tell, none of the so called ‘obots’ get paid to do the excellent work they perform in disseminating information.
Personally, I am mostly interested in the flawed legal foundations for their claims as well as in exploring the so called evidences provided.
Almost every time I dive into a supposed evidence of fraud or forgery, I come to realize that far simpler and more probable explanations exist.
My motivations include opposing the hatred, fear and ignorance that permeate the birther movement in the hope that at least some can still be convinced of their follies and if not, that at least the fence sitters will have an opportunity to hear more sides of the story and make up their minds accordingly.
Given that President Obama has been re-elected and will soon be sworn in, the issue of his eligibility has become totally moot.
However I do not believe that this will stop some from continuing their follies with the same results…
“We believe that it is well settled in law that a US-born person is a natural born citizen “.
No, you are incorrect. There has not been a single court case concerning “natural born” citizens (“natural born Citizen”, is a child born in the country of two citizen parents who have already entered into and become members of the society”).
This definition of the two distinct terms has been adopted by many US Supreme Court decisions – the Venus, 12 U.S. 253 (1814) and Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874) to cite two.)
The presidential qualification question has never being involved, neither the 14th Amendment (which covers only “citizens” who are permitted to gain membership in and enter American society by either birth on U.S. soil or by naturalization and being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States), nor Congressional Acts (8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401), nor any case law (U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)) has ever changed the original common law definition of a “natural born Citizen.”
This amendment and laws have all dealt with the sole question of whether a particular person was going to be allowed to enter into and be a member of American society and thereby be declared a “citizen”.
The 14th Amendment did not involve Article II, let alone define what a “natural born Citizen” is. Never having been changed, the original constitutional meaning of a “natural born Citizen” prevails today.
Some history concerning citizenship in the USA dealing with our elected representatives.
Basically it was the fear of foreign influence invading the Office of Commander in Chief of the military that prompted John Jay, the first U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, to write to George Washington the following letter dated July 25, 1787: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen (underlying “born” in the original).
That recommendation did make it into the US Constitution. Article II, Sec. 1, cl. 5 of the Constitution: “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President. . .”.
In this clause and in Articles I, III, and IV, the Founding Fathers distinguished between “Citizen” and “natural born Citizen.” In the same US Constitution Senators and Representatives can be just “citizens,” but a President is required to be a “natural born Citizen.” The Founders sought to guarantee through the “natural born” citizen clause that the ideals for which they fought would be faithfully preserved for future generations of Americans. The Founders wanted to assure that the Office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military, a unique and powerful civil and military position, was free of all foreign influence and that its holder has sole and absolute allegiance, loyalty, and attachment to the U.S. The “natural born Citizen” clause was the best way for them to assure this. Plus Congress was comprised of many but the Executive was only comprised of 2. There was less chance for mischief to arise if only a couple of the elected officials in Congress were naturalized from foreign nations, however with only 2 in the Executive, there clearly was a need for more stringent requirements to guard against foreign influences & intrigues.
The feudal form of government that the British adopted did not allow for natural rights for all citizens. All rights were granted to the people by the government of the Monarchy, the Monarchy was the sovereign not the people. In the very 1st US Supreme Court decision (Chisholm v. Georgia) written by Chief Justice John Jay, the first clue as to the type of citizenship the founding fathers adopted for the new nation:
“The sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation, and the residuary sovereignty of each State in the people of each State…
At the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects…
1st commentaries on US law, Lectures on Law by Justice James Wilson, 1791. In the lectures Wilson expounds heavily on early philosophers and the different forms of government from the earliest of times that have been recorded. When he gets to discussing the laws adopted by the Continental Congress and ratified by the states, he writes:
“The law of nature, when applied to states and political societies, receives a new name, that of the law of nations. This law, important in all states, is of peculiar importance in free ones. The States of America are certainly entitled to this dignified appellation…But if the knowledge of the law of nations is greatly useful to those who appoint, it surely must be highly necessary to those who are appointed…As Puffendorff thought that the law of nature and the law of nations were precisely the same, he has not, in his book on these subjects treated of the law of nations separately; but has every where joined it with the law of nature, properly called so…the law of nature is applied to individuals; the law of nations is applied to states.”
What did the law of nations say as to who were the citizens of a nation?
‘The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent…
… in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
The 1866 act passed by congress stated: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”
In 1885, US Secretary Of State under Grover Cleveland, Thomas Bayard, decided that ‘the son of a German subject, born in Ohio, was not a citizen under the statute or the Constitution, because “he was on his birth ’subject to a foreign power,’ and ‘not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’.
George H. Yeaman, constitutional scholar from the mid-late 1800’s; Yeaman was the US Minister to Copenhagen from 1865-1870 and was also a professor of law at Columbia College. In 1867 Yeaman wrote a thesis titled: Allegiance and citizenship: An inquiry into the claim of European Governments to Exact Military Service of Naturalized Citizens of the United States. In the thesis, Yeaman writes of the unconstitutionality of dual citizenship and its ill effects on sovereign citizens & the continued existence of our sovereign nation.
To quote from American writers and statesmen who maintain the liberal view on this subject would be to incur the objection of attempting to sustain our position by our own authorities. To accept as law the opinions of those modern European writers who have maintained the theory of indissoluble allegiance and continuing, unavoidable duty to serve the crown, would be to yield the contest for truth and right, to those who discover a supposed interest in. maintaining what we hold for error. It will be far more satisfactory to rely upon general principles, and, so far as authority is invoked, to seek for it in the works of those great European masters of the Laws of Nature and of Nations who built up and illustrated the science of which they are the acknowledged fathers…
Vattel discusses the matter more explicitly than any who had preceded him in the science of natural and public law and international jurisprudence…
every man, on coming of age, may determine for himself if his interest is to remain a member of the society in which he was born…
writers, statesmen, diplomats, and legislators who have treated allegiance, which is imposed by the accident of birth, as an indestructible tie, have labored against reason, against nature, against the highest authority and against common sense practical to mankind. The states which adopt this theory are far municipal regulations, an extraterritorial effect, in this, that though they may enforce them against those who under the laws of nations does not subject a foreigner to any but the command of his own government…
James Kent, who was the 1st professor of law at Columbia College from 1793-1798 during which time he also resumed his seat at the NY state assembly. In 1798 Kent then went on to serve as a Justice on the NY State Supreme Court where he became the Chief Justice in 1804. COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826) {progressives incorrectly cite from 2 completely different sections in Kent’s commentaries as if the above phrase was all part of the same section}
The actual text of Kent’s commentary on the qualifications for president taken from Kent’s original works, not cites from unknown sources and taken out of the original context, state something quite different:
(2.) The constitution requires that the President shall be a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and that he shall have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and shall have been fourteen years a resident within the United States. Considering the greatness of the trust, and that this department is the ultimately efficient executive power in government, these restrictions will not appear altogether useless or unimportant. As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners cannot ; intrigue for the office, and the qualifications of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption, negotiation and war, which have frequently and fatally harassed the elective monarchies of Germany and Poland, as well as the Pontificate at Rome…
James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, Part II: Of the Government and the Jurisprudence of the United States, 1826
There is much more on the difference between natural born citizens and citizens, but this should be enough to at least understand that there is a big difference, that a strictor requirement for the office of the US president was, and still is, required, and that there is much more for you – and me – to learn.
KBright, OMFSM!! What have we done??? What can we do in the face of such unassailable logic?
Before you say I am a “birther” (Obama does NOT qualify under our laws), or a “rascist” or .. idk, what ever names those who use names to belittle instead of coming back with facts to disprove – guess if anything you can call me a Constitutionalist.
I have been fighting UN Agenda 21 and for the USA to get out of the UN since Bush. I have also been fighting to get both Bush’s, the Clinton’s, and Obama, there adminstrations (past and present) arrested for subsequent prosecution for treason against the USA and her people. I read executive orders, bills (not all of them or I would never get to sleep), but as many as I can – including Obamacare 3 times – study our US Constitution, the framers and forefathers writings, listen to congress/senate when we are allowed to, listen to parliament, read foreign news, NAFCA, WHO, UN, Nuremberg Trials, etc.
I take copious notes also. So where do you get your information?
Where do you stand on treason, breaking the oath of office – a criminal act under our laws – murder, mass murder, war crimes, etc. The US Constitution is still the highest law of this land (NOT the federal government) – and it does NOT countenance “assassinations, assassination lists, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, torture, warrantless spying/tracking/etc, war crimes, mass murder, etc; matter of fact just the opposite.
Yes, I can prove all those allegations I made. Can YOU disprove them? Since most people today read pretty much only “texting” I will break this up into different comments.
Sef, you can always try educating yourself more. I find it helps clarify much.
Sef, I am sorry.
That was rude of me and uncalled for. If you read my long comment then you are much brighter then a lot who post or text.
It was not logic, it was facts presented from history.
Please, somebody, make the sound of exploding irony meters go away . . .
Oh, and Orly Taitz, she is correct as far as my research since 2008 on Obama has gone.
What is funny, is much that I used to be able to access is now gone — sanitized I believe it is called within our government. Even taken from the Archives after a few of us presented for public perusal archival information. That takes someone higher up then a janitor.
Hi Arthur
BBL if I get any comments.
Ah, I see. It’s a predisposition you have. I wish you continued pleasure from your hobby. Please remember to preface your writings as your personal beliefs.
Hey! How ya doin’?
There were no facts, merely cherry-picked quotations, quite a few of which actually disproved your thesis. You can find somone from the past with some credential or another who will argue anything you like. Every odious idea has someone wling to argue for it. The fact is that numerous court cases in the last 4 years starting with Ankeny in 2009 and going through various cases in 2012 have clearly ruled that anyone born in the US is eligible to be President.
Now you are welcome to say they are wrong, but in the matters of the law, it is what judges say that really counts. No matter how much time you spend reading, they make the law and you (and I) don’t.
I agree.
You are reading way more into the Constitution than is there. Nothing in the Constitutiion forbids most of those things. The Constitution sets few hard limits on how the US can conduct wars, whether it is dropping nukes on Japan, using chem/bio weapons or torturing POWs. What does regulate the conduct of war in fact are various international treaties through the UN which you want to pull out of. It is they who define war crimes and set up a structure to punish them. The Constitution is rather weak in the area of limiting how wars are conducted.
The one I got direct from Soros.com has a self-repairing function. Just plug it into a 440 socket and you’re back in business within 24 hrs, depending on the damage.
KBright: “that a strictor requirement for the office of the US president was, and still is, required, and that there is much more for you – and me – to learn.”
i think somewhere in “founder heaven” they are laughing at those who think a third class of citizenship is required for pres/vp
either you are naturalized or natural born on us soil with few exceptions
the latest tea party heartthrob is ted cruz who says he can become president – he was born in canada to an american mother and cuban father
instead of continuing the fruitless efforts regarding obama, who was elected twice and determined a natural born citizen in several courts, i suggest birthers switch their efforts to the eligibility of rubio, jindal, cruz, etc (of course in birtherstan) –
or is it only african americans they question and not “brown” people?
Just got off the phone with them. They say my account is frozen until I make more mocking comments on birther YouTube videos. I said, “But I’m watching the playoffs!” They weren’t sympathetic. I bet Saul Alinsky didn’t have to work on Sundays.
To that list you can add Rick Santorum, who the folks at ORYR say isn’t an NBC because his father was not naturalized until after Rick was born.
Arthur:
true re santorum – and in researching santorum, i realized that i too have dual citizenship with italy – that dual allegiance thingy is a no no in birtherstan
several times, i asked mario if he also has dual citizenship with italy but that was another question of mine he ignored
Sef: The one I got direct from Soros.com …………….
wow – george only pays my real estate and school taxes to post anti-birther stuff – i never asked him for an irony meter
I forgot to mention that the 440 must be 3 phase, 400 Hz. I usually tap directly into the transformer on the plane.
I guess there will be no “donna for president” in 2016.
Arthur: I guess there will be no “donna for president” in 2016.
lol – i’ve been in therapy ever since – my italian parents said i could grow up and be ANYTHING i wanted – so they lied to me
When you talk about electricity that way, I get all tingly.
Well you may be surprised to hear this, but this system was imposed upon us by Norman conquerors in the C11th.
Don’t take my failure to pick up and comment on your many many other errors as other than a reflection of the lateness of the hour here. However, please carry out much more research on the common law on ‘subject’ before you post further, to save any further embarrassment for you.
Well ain’t you the special one with a Concert ‘A’ irony meter!
I got the cheaper version; its tuned to Middle ‘C’.
Having spent about that much time myself, I would tend to agree with you. I’ve said for years that I’ve never seen ANY credible evidence to back any of their claims. What I have seen is an “echo chamber” mentality where only their facts and beliefs are permitted in their blogs and forums, and any dissent is immediately dismissed.
And then they wonder why their claims don’t fare well in a real-life courtroom.
I am sorry to burst your bubble, I really am, but in the real world, the law is well settled and you are incorrect. Neither Minor nor the Venus defined nbc. Rather NBC was defined, in part, by WKA wherein the Supreme Court held that any child born on US soil is a NBC except under two circumstances. It could actually be read in a broader sense to mean that anyone who is a citizen at birth is a NBC. That is also consistent with the passage from Minor that you mistakenly claim defines NBC as the children of citizen parents born on US soil.
As to foreign influences–if the founding fathers were concerned about foreign influence why was the eligibility requirement include only 14 years of residency in the US? Considering that the age requirement is only 35 years, the founding fathers were tolerating a president that lived in the US for less than 1/2 his life. So kindly explain this to me.
Plus the Minor SCOTUS decision specifically says that there are only 2 types of citizen: NBC & Naturalized, but the birthers totally ignore this.
Nowhere in your conspiracy theory fueled rant did you come close to approaching anything that resembles fact.
If you read Minor carefully, it never says the children of citizen parents born on US soil are NBC. Rather, it says that they are citizens upon their birth. It then goes on to say that these (citizens upon their birth) are native or NBC. Thus, the court was really saying that citizens at birth are NBC. It is dicta anyway, but that is the real meaning of the passage, not what birthers claim.
It’s like what just happened with the election and Fox News.
They all believed their own BS and when Obama won they were dumbfounded.
They could not believe their own eyes.
I know. It happened to me. Here’s a picture:
http://chrisabraham.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nobodyknowsyoureadogontheinternet.jpg
Refuse to pay your taxes.
Mine goes to eleven – in B flat.
What are you doing about, other than this blog? I still say you should refuse to pay your taxes, at the very least.
“Bonsoir, monsieur. Tonight’s special is zee punch in zee nose, and zee kick in zee knee. I trust it will be to your liking.”
“Oww. What was that?”
“House rules. For dessert, Mousse au chocolat.”
“House rules, I suppose?”
“Non, it’s chocolate pudding.”
How fun, new stuff. I’ll go through this later, as I’m on an iPad and it’s hard to address long posts that way.
Did you mean to say this? Can you restate this please? Because at a quick glance there’s
Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454 (1920), which said:
“It is not disputed that if petitioner is the son of Kwock Tuck Lee [Chinese] and his wife, Tom Ying Shee [also Chinese], he was born to them when they were permanently domiciled in the United States, is a citizen thereof, and is entitled to admission to the country. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649. But, while it is conceded that he is certainly the same person who, upon full investigation, was found, in March, 1915, by the then Commissioner of Immigration, to be a natural born American citizen, the claim is that that Commissioner was deceived, and that petitioner is really Lew Suey Chong, who was admitted to this country in 1909 as a son of a Chinese merchant, Lew Wing Tong, of Oakland, California.”
In this case, the parents were not US citizens and could not become citizens, but the son was a natural born citizen. There’s more cases, too.
The Venus is about domicile, not citizenship. See Doc C’s artcle here: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/06/the-venus/
Minor v Happersett says that there may be doubts about whether children born in the jurisdiction without regard to their parents are citizens, but that the court had no reason to explore that issue to rule on this case. They never said the ONLY way to be a native or natural born citizen was to be born to 2 citizen parents. An analogy would be Quarterbacks are football players. Some have doubts about whether Defensive Ends are football players, but since were talking about a Quarterback we don’t have to decide anything about Defensive Ends. We’ll let another court handle that.
I’ve noticed that no cases on Google Scholar reference Minor on the definition of Natural Born Citizen. Plenty reference Wong Kim Ark.
How about Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939)? In the decision, the court referred to another case, saying:
“This principle was clearly stated by Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont in his letter of advice to the Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, in Steinkauler’s Case, 15 Op.Atty.Gen. 15. The facts were these: [Prussian father had child in St. Louis/USA. Four years later, father returned to Germany with child. When child turned 21, he was drafted. Father requested US intervention on ground that “son was a native citizen of the United States,” but declined to have son return to US.] On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion: “Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States; …. “”
The dissenting opinion in US v Wong Kim Ark knew that the majority had decided that WKA was a natural born citizen. Justice Fuller wrote: “Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution, I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that “natural-born citizen” applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances, and that the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the Presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not.”
Not true. The court had repeatedly said that there were only two ways of becoming a citizen: natural born, and naturalized. 1) Born a citizen, and 2) born an alien and later made a citizen. The Congress was clear that the 14th amendment didn’t change anything, that it was a recognition of the status quo except that it covered everyone. The debates about the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which convinced Congress that an amendment was necessary to secure the rights of negros as an act can be later changes, are full of references to what exactly the existing common law was and how the act would affect it. As in prior court cases and legal writings, they equated “natural born” and “native born”, and “citizen at birth” with “natural born citizen”.
“It is a singular fact, however, that to-day, under the Federal Constitution, a negro may be elected President, United States Senator, or a member of the lower branch of Congress. In that instrument no qualification for office is prescribed which rejects the negro. The white man, not native born, may not be President, but the native-born African may be.” Sen. Henderson, Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, pg. 387 (1866)
“The Constitution of the United States provides that no person but a native-born citizen of the United States, with other qualifications as to age and residence, shall be president of the United States…. Is the Congress of the United States prepared at this time to adopt a proposition that negroes and Indians and Chinese and all persons of that description shall be eligible to the office of President…” Senator Williams, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 573 (1866).
“By the terms of the Constitution he must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years before he could take a seat here, and seven years before he could take a seat in the other House; and, in order to be President of the United States, a person must be a native-born citizen. It is the common law of this country, and of all countries, and it was unnecessary to incorporate it in the Constitution, that a person is a citizen of the country in which he is born….I read from Paschal’s Annotated Constitution, note 274: “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are, in theory, born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.” Sen. Trumbull, Cong. Globe. 1st Session, 42nd Congress, pt. 1, pg. 575 (1872)
“Who does not know that every person born within the limits of the Republic is, in the language of the Constitution, a natural-born citizen.” Rep. Bingham, The congressional globe, Volume 61, Part 2. pg. 2212 (1869)
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Continued in next post.
The Chinese Exclusion Act, which kicke in in 1882, prompted a slew of such federal cases which found the children of Chinese immigrants to be natural born citizens. The first was Look Tin Sing, which cited Lynch v. Clarke. Again and again, Chinese Americans, born citizens, who left the country (oftento visit China), were detained by Customs on their return and held at Angel Island. Several sued for re-entry and won recognition of their citizenship. The gov’t did not appeal these cases, knowing they would lose. Finally, Wong’s case was selected by the Justice Dept. as a test case to take to SCOTUS. And they lost.
Reactions to the ruling were immediate and varied, and are often being repeated still today.
Some said it was authoritative and settled the question. This is the prevailing view.
A few stated there was still room for debate, as it was not a unanimous ruling. We still hear this from birfers todays. “It isn’t precedent, it wasn’t unanimous!”
The San Francisco Chronicle decried the ruling as ‘unpleaant’: “What’s next, citizenship for Indians?” Oh, the horror. They also suggested a Constitutional amendment limiting citizenship to whites and blacks (Not a sentiment heard often these days!) to the exclusion of Asians and Native Americans. The same editorial also gave thanks that states could still ‘protect the ballot box’ against these races.
Birfers love to pretend that WKA was an anomaly or exists in isolation. It is not, and does not. It was the culmination and highpoint of 60 years of jurisprudence regarding birthright citizenship.
While the Continental Congress was debating behind closed doors, rumors began to fly in Philadelphia. One was that the delegates were going to invite a son of royalty to come to the US and lead. Names were mentioned, including Baron Von Steuben. This is why John Jay wrote to Washington. Jay wasn’t privy to what was being discussed in sessions, but he was aware of what was rumored in the streets. (e.g., he didn’t know that the Convention had combined the Commander in Chief with the President.) Hence his suggestion to exclude the alien-born. Here’s what the words meant to Jay and Washington, from “A compendious dictionary of the English language” By Noah Webster, 1806:
Alien, a. foreign n. a foreigner, a stranger.
Allegiance, n. the duty of a subject to princes, or to the state in which they live (pg. 9)
Citizen, n. one inhabiting a city, a freeman.
Foreign, a. belonging to another country, diftant, not connected with (pg. 122)
Foreigner, n. a stranger, one of another country, (an alien) (pg. 122)
Jurisdiction, n, legal authority, power, a district (pg. 168)
Native, n. one born in any place; a. natural, real (pg. 199)
Natural, a. produced by nature, baseborn, easy (pg. 199)
Natural, n. an idiot, fool, native quality or gift (pg. 199)
(Discussion here: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/02/the-allen-files/#comment-156043)
So the John Jay quote becomes:
Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of [aliens] into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a [native] born [freeman].
It’s a huge leap from naturalized to 2 citizen parents, particularly in an era where a woman took the citizenship of her husband when she married. (Were women citizens? Sort of, kind of, not like men, maybe — pretty loosey-goosey up until the mid-1850s when they started being added to laws and immigration began to ramp up.) In the dictionary above, Foreigner meant alien, not citizen with alien parents. With travel difficult and expensive, the “foreign intrigues the Framers were afraid of were wealthy adults coming over, establishing citizenship, and purchasing their way to the Presidency in just a few years. Notice they only required the President to be resident in the US for 14 years. They believed that allegiance was formed by being born in a place.
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.” James Madison, the Congressional Debate to seat House member William Smith, 1st Congress 1st session. (1789)
There were a few years between the Feudal period and the US Constitution. What about the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, that whole English Civil War thing? By the time the Founders and Framers were reading law and learning English Common Law, the people in Britain had plenty of long-established rights that didn’t arise from the Monarch. The case you cite below has quite a history of where the sovereignty came from in Britain and the US.
As an aside, back then there wasn’t one decision written. Each justice wrote his opinion and they were all published in order of seniority. Also the 11th Amendment was written specifically to overrule this case.
Sovereignty of the people is at best a few sentences of the case. The primary topic is sovereignty of the state — and the 11th amendment pretty quickly overturned the case. I’m not at all sure what this has to do with natural born citizenship.
Law of nations means international law, how nations deal with each other. It evolved over time, particularly in the 16th to 18th centuries, when many scholars wrote treatises on the topic.
Stop right there. The law of nations wasn’t Vattel and nothing else. Vattel was one author who wrote one treatise. There were many others, and Vattel drew on them, just as subsequent writers drew on Vattel and the others. Vattel said: “The Law of Nations is the science which teaches the rights subsisting between nations or states, and the obligations correspondent to those rights.” Doc C has a spectacular article on Vattel here: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/03/de-vattel-for-dummies/
Your sentence must read: What did Vattel’s The Law of Nations or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns suggest as to who were the citizens in an ideal nation? As Vattel also said:
“Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.” Doc C notes that “de Vattel’s wording is contrary to English law, which describes such a person a “natural born subject”, not a naturalized subject.” Vattel also says “The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.”
Remember — Vattel was a philosopher writing about the law of nature applied to the evolving international law. He wasn’t Blackstone writing a definitive history of the common law.
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More in the next post.
Not that simple, as the father was permanently domiciled in Germany and wasn’t in the US when the son was born. Doc C has an excellent article on Bayard here: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/09/donofrio-misfires/
The source of your information is an issue of The Atlantic from 1894. After discussing other Secretaries of State’s decisions which disagreed with Bayard, the Atlantic says: “The question may, therefore, be considered to still be awaiting a decision of the highest court.” (This was before 5 years before Wong Kim Ark, when the Supreme Court cleaned up the doubts.)
Yeaman says doesn’t say dual allegiance is unconstitutional, he says it is impossible.
“But the idea of a double allegiance and citizenship united in the same person, and having reference to two separate , independent and Sovereign nations or governments, is simply an impossibility. And those writers and jurists , some of them of our own country, who have spoken of a double or dual citizenship and allegiance , have not , it will be found upon examination, meant really to define any such impossible thing. The cases will be found to be only those of native allegiance and foreign domicile, or the allegiance of birth and an inchoate adopted citizenship, or that temporary state of suspense and transition (sometimes happening in the case of civil convulsion and revolution) during which the right of election to become the adherent of one Government or the other may be exercised.”
I scanned the book, and I believe Yeaman would consider President Obama to be a citizen of the United States as he was born here and has remained here. Yeaman’s focus is military service. He was writing in 1867, just after the Civil War. He wanted naturalized citizens in the US to not have military obligations to their birth country, but domiciled foreigners in this country to be subject to our military service. His views on citizenship seem to be related to who could draft whom. Yeaman was a legislator from Kentucky before he was the United States Minister to Denmark. He helped write the The Conscription Act (and appears in the Lincoln movie, it seems). http://www.nytimes.com/1863/02/19/news/conscription-act-bill-for-enrolling-calling-national-forces-for-other-purposes.html The book is new to me but it’s a free download.
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More in next post.
Birther = “Obama does NOT qualify under our laws.”
All of our Presidents have, to date, been born in the 50 states. Notably, President Obama was born in the state of Hawaii, and so is clearly a natural born citizen.
– former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
One of the passages we mostly quote is from US v. Wong Kim Ark, and the ellipses are in the decision.
“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.” http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
These 2 passages are separated by 2 sentences about the status of blacks. If it’s good enough for Justice Gray… If you mean a different set of quotes from Kent, please provide it.
This passage equates native born and natural born. Native born means born in the country. Period. Kent also says what I said in a previous post — he’s worried about foreigners, not children born here.
More Kent:
“Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States. This is the rule of the common law, without any regard or reference to the political condition or allegiance of their parents, with the exception of the children of ambassadors, who are in theory born within the allegiance of the foreign power they represent.” Kent’s Commentaries, Vol. 2
“There is a convenient and easy mode provided, by which the disabilities of alienism may be removed, and the qualifications of natural born citizens obtained. The terms upon which any alien, being a free white person, can be naturalized, are prescribed by the acts of Congress…” Kent’s Commentaries, Vol. 2
BTW — one of Kent’s chapters is “Of Offences Against the Law of Nations ” — he footnotes Vattel exactly once and doesn’t mention him in anywhere else. If Vattel was THE source of the The Law of Nations, don’t you think he’d be mentioned more than once?
There is a HUGE difference between “citizen” and “natural born citizen.” Citizen = natural born (born a citizen) + naturalized (born an alien and made a citizen later).
Nothing about Calvin’s Case (Lord Coke, 1608)? That was part of the English common law that all the states (except Louisiana) adopted.
Apparently one of us much more than the other. To be clear, I mean you.
Very nicely done, kudos
Excellent research, Whatever4! I used to spend time like that on conspiracy nutters, but now I’m old. 🙁 Just don’t have the energy to deal with ill informed nutters any more – mostly, I just say “STFU”. So I appreciate the effort you’ve spent explaining the law to KBright who, unfortunately, will probably just stick his fingers in ears and go “nah nah nah I can’t hear you”.
I hope it will enlighten the birther-curious. You’ve done a wonderful synopsis of relevant law and related academia.
When I was a newly admitted lawyer, the firm gave me all the nut cases – like peeps who don’t pay taxes because it’s “unconstitutional” and peeps who don’t pay debts because of the gold standard, etc. Of course, my arguments would always prevail, but then I had to walk past the defendants’ fans who yelled various insults and on occasion stalked me. They didn’t have a clue, but were adamant in their ignorance. I see the same willful ignorance and misplaced anger in the birthers.
The older ones are far more robust and tougher. They have a Meantone temperament. However, they are a bit pricey and could make one, baroque.
thanks, that’s why I do this research. I miss those halcyon days when there was actual dialog between birthers and anti-birthers. Now it mostly seems to be trading insults.
I do enjoy reading new sources, particularly when they prove my points.
Sheriff Arpaio: 602-876-1801 and 602-542-5025
Let us know what happens.
The only reason I put up with birtherism is that it is sometimes entertaining in its nuttyness and surprising in its inventiveness.
If it were just for dealing with a couple of racist loons, I’d have quit long ago. After all, I don’t try to talk sense into Holocaust deniers/downplayers on a daily basis either (if I wanted to, I’d just have to hang with my dad more often…).
But birtherism has always stood out somehow, at least for me. That’s why I’m still around. Though I’m not sure if they can keep me hooked after the current flurry of events (elections, EC votes, Congress certification, inauguration) is over. They’ll have to come up with something *really* good by then.
Mario never ever answers questions put to him. Good faith is as alien to him as the dark side of the moon.
To be fair, what was amazing about that was that the two Fox regulars (Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier) were not so dumbfounded at all — they were openly mocking Rove, and in quite an elaborate way. (“Here, let’s walk on down to our room full of number crunchers. Hey, what do you guys think?” “We think Rove is an idiot.” “Well, OK, then. Karl?” — More or less)
That was even better than 2008, when Brit Hume looked like he was passing a kidney stone when he called the election for Obama.
KBright? KBright? Paging KBright…. Waiting to your brilliant response to my several hours of research….
etc.
Nooooooo! We just never knew! God forgive us– that changes eeeeeeverything!
You’re right. I keep asking him if he’s found a new barber yet, and he just won’t tell me.
Would that “underlying” be “underlining”? That’s kind of interesting.
I’ve been spending some quality time with Wong Kim Ark lately, and I’ve been paying more attention to Chief Justice Fuller’s dissent. He wrote:
“In the convention it was, says Mr. Bancroft, ‘objected that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for that place; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, on the 7th of September it was unanimously settled that foreign-born residents of fourteen years who should be citizens at the time of the formation of the constitution are eligible to the office of president.’ 2 Bancroft, Hist. U. S. Const. 192.”
Well, that intriguing and distinctly unVattelist passage piqued my curiosity about this “2 Bancroft, Hist. U. S. Const. 192”, which turns out to be Volume 2 of “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” by George Bancroft (who has been quoted and featured before in some of Doc’s articles, like this one: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/03/obots-in-history-george-bancroft/ ). And as it turns out the book can be downloaded or read, for free, from both Google books and Archive.org. I went to page 192 looking for the passage in context, and found that even more intriguing:
“One question on the qualifications of the president was among the last to be decided. On the 22nd of August the committee of detail, fixing the requisite age of the president at thirty-five, on their own motion and for the first time required only that the president should be a citizen of the United States, and should have been an inhabitant of them for twenty-one years.
On the fourth of September the committee of states who were charged with all unfinished business limited the years of residence to fourteen. It was then objected that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for that place; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, on the 7th of September it was unanimously settled that foreign-born residents of fourteen years who should be citizens at the time of the formation of the constitution are eligible to the office of president.”
Not being one to leave well enough alone, I looked at another facsimile edition of what I at first thought was the same book and found this different text substituting for the second portion I’ve separated out immediately above (following “an inhabitant of them for twenty-one years”):
“The idea then arose that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for the office of president; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage in the formation of their institutions, the committee of states who were charged with all unfinished business proposed, on the fourth of September, that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the adoption of this constitution, should be eligible to the office of president,” and for the foreign-born proposed a reduction of the requisite years of residence to fourteen. On the seventh of September the modification, with the restriction as to the age of the president, was unanimously adopted.”
That confused the hell out of me, until I realized that I was now reading page 346 of Mr. Bancroft’s Volume 1. In volume 1 the phrase “natural born citizen” appears, in a direct quote from the proceedings of the Convention; in Volume 2, only the word “citizen” appears. The obvious explanation is that when our Obot time machine went back to alter the records, we got the settings wrong and missed Volume 1. (If any birther, or anybody else for that matter, has bothered to read this far, I’m just kidding. Honest. We wouldn’t have made such a trivial mistake.)
At any rate, according to Mr. Bancroft’s account, the fear of foreign influence was so pervasive that the founders went out of their way to make sure that foreigners were eligible for the Presidency, going so far as to reduce the residency requirement for them– while the nation was in its infancy, and most vulnerable to foreign influence.
Now I understand that that still leaves us today with the natural born citizen requirement, and I understand that a fear of foreign influence was indeed a large part of the rationale for imposing that requirement, but it’s an interesting dichotomy that this specific exception arose and was adopted.
So regardless of Jay’s letter, it sure looks like they didn’t “declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” If the founders weren’t afraid to extend Presidential eligibility to foreign born-and-raised soldiers at our nation’s beginnings, why should we think they’d be afraid of the eligibility of the American-born son of an American mother and an absent foreign father?
I doubt it – she is correct about very little in law and required procedure. Please elaborate!
that is, if you are still here…. have you been frightened off, by Whatever 4 and Dave, who have some useful research for your consideration?
And after his intensive research through all those musty old books Dave proved that foreign-born and raised soldiers are natural-born U.S. citizens after having resided in the U.S. for only 14 years.
You can’t make this stuff up. Only Obots can.
That is not what he says. Would you care to respond to his actual point?
Lowly, desperate trolling is beneath you. This is not the entertaining Hollyhock we all know and love; you can do better.
Well you just made that up, didn’t you?
Birthers rarely show any semblance of common sense or reading comprehension skills.
This pathetic troll is an illiterate poseur.
Rarely is the question asked: is our birthers learning?
And can they make the pie higher or are they just pitbulls on the pant leg of opportunity where wings take dream?
He says whatever is most expedient. It’s the ultimate fallback position in a Say Anything campaign. He’s been burned out yet again, and ought to take a break to formulate some new material (Which will in turn be burned down!) Until he ‘reloads’, he’ll just keep embarrassing himself. Betraying and denying, tying himself up in more and more complex knots.
It’s the eternal challenge of all fundamentalism: Learning just means having more to deny. Philosophy, not dogma, is fundamental. Put ends before means and you’ll wind up in a silly place doing silly things … like birfin’.
I am curious. Hermy is clearly an idiot who has lied about a scientific backgrund. He is wrong about everythinbg he has said and we, the rational thinkers know it. It is clear that he loves the attention yo9u are giving him. So why are you dfoing it? He does not bring anything either honest or intellectual to the conversation. Ignore him.
Sometimes I ignore idiots, other times I feel like slapping them around, because they so openly asking for it. In terms of how you classified him, I completely agree.
I will say one thing about his latest post – at least Hermie finally figured out how to use the Quote button…
But back to the main topic of this particular blog post – I really thought this “Obot FAQ” article was both a good idea (in general) and extremely well organized and presented…
Yes, there are some specific FAQ responses in which my personal answers would differ to some extent from Doc’s, but that is to be expected among any group of individuals and I think his overall take is extremely representative of “obot” views as a whole.
…That being said, we are 4.5 years into this nonsense…so the idea that there are a bunch of merely “birther curious” folks still out there is fairly naive. Sure, there are bound to be a few exceptions and a few “new” people who get pulled into nonsense from time to time…but those are really outliers.
Most “birthers” have been such for years now…and they’ve had many chances to deal with real info and facts…yet chose not to…because the truth isn’t what they want to hear and they simply can’t accept hearing anything except what feeds their emotional fears and deep personal gut-distaste for Obama. Reason and understanding is simply not their goal.
Over the past month 39% of visitors to this site were first-timers. What I think is that there are some significant number of birthers who have heard only one side of the story. They are certain because of the birther echo chamber. I certainly run across poorly informed birthers all the time.
That sounds reasonable, considering we just had a major election.
Just because people are first-timers to this site doesn’t mean they were completely unaware of the clown-conspiracy known as Birtherism all this time. It is more likely that they simply paid more attention to some crazy specific Birther-myth rant as a result and that led their inquiry for more information here…
So yes, I agree this site will always have a useful purpose of providing the history and factually researched and detailed topics on all aspects of the crazy Birther mythos.
…But what I was meaning to drive at is the concept of Birtherism in general – I really don’t think there are that many “true Birther curious” out there, in the sense that they are just hearing about Birtherism for the “first time” and haven’t already formed a general sense of Birtherism being either a flop movement of kooky ODS bunk OR conversely are already of the hard-core ODS persuasion, and merely looking for a red-meat fix…
But thanks for your response! (Hey, aren’t you supposed to be enjoying a well-deserved vacation? 😉 ). The stats and the additional points you made make complete sense. I just hope what I said above better clarifies what I intended to convey in my original statement.
I understand and think this is likely true.
One group that visits the site, and I know this from the Contact form, is folks who have somebody they are trying to win an argument with in real life. In some of these situations, the birther only has one argument, not the full spectrum that we see from the more dedicated birthers. I don’t get reports back on how those arguments go.
Also based on the contact form, I get the rare individual who has heard a wide range of birther claims, and who represent the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” faction. Sometimes those folks will express surprise to learn of all the debunking that has been done. On a birther site, all they see is “the obot debunking has been discredited.”
Hey, don’t discount the ever-present, “wanderers bumbling about the interwebs” faction. Since you aren’t advertising, and I would guess you’re not linked to by very many, if any, non-birther-related pages / articles, I am sure that the vast majority of new traffic comes from search results.
The fun question is how many aren’t searching for anything birfer (pro- or anti-), but instead something tangential (anything non-birfer Obama, Constitutional queries, birth certificate-related issues, etc.), wind up here and get a glimpse through the looking glass. “What the heck?!?”
Better OCT than ORYR!
This is perhaps the great birfevil of WND … a (twisted) general interest current tabloid, serving as a gateway to birferism. Is there an analog on the rational side? Hmmm …. various new site regularly slapdown birfer outbreaks, but no general interest media sites are dedicated to anti-birfing (that I know of). A point for the WND Faithful to ponder! If only they would. It is, of course, just another manifestation of the Great Cover-Up.
Offline, people I know generally taking birfer memes for granted (it is Okieland, after all), or reject them outright, and neither side gives a rip about detail. Me, I can’t help it. “People are saying what?!? This I gots ta see!”
I’ll add that to my list of favourite quotes. 🙂
Thanks for providing that info! Makes sense….
Yeah, that’s the offline gen pop reaction I always come across too… although where I am, I encounter more Tea Party paranoia crazy stuff…and very, very little willingness of even the open ODS nuts to support Birtherism.
All the sane folks just roll their eyes and wave the topic away as soon as they hear it – demonstrating they full well are aware of it and think it is simply too stupid and too “yesterday’s news” to bother with even mentioning further.
My response to these people:
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…and where there’s fire, there’s often an arsonist.
Well said! I’ve heard Thomas Brown say the exact same thing here before as well. It certainly is a clever slogan that really cuts to the bottom line point and so it bears repeating…
…Whether it is effective in reaching through to those people who need to hear it is another matter. If they can actually be “reached”, then I think this analogy is about as concise and effective as it gets.
Where there’s smoke, there’s often a punk kicking up dust for the fun of scaring people.
Or just an old smoke machine and a few disco lights.
Bingo! The smoke machine portion of the analogy is also extremely apt. Sorry about forgetting that one. Another spot on classic that delivers.