Saturday, April 23, 2011
Birthers and other conspiritists
Much has been written to discredit the birthers, those who don't believe Barack Obama is a natural born citizen, and much was written to discredit the Kennedy assassination conspiritorists,those who did not believe that John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
What keeps both issues alive is that the information is fragmentary and it is the nature of humans to want to create coherent narratives from information, regardless of how fragmentary. I don't believe that the Kennedy issue will ever die, because 1) Kennedy probably was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, and 2) the Warren Commission did its job extremely well. It confused the data and testimonies so thoroughly that it is impossible to learn the truth. It was never convened to learn the truth, but to obscure it. Motivation to squelch the truth in the Kennedy assassination was to avoid some extremely nasty political fallout, and to possibly prevent a withdrawal into national self-examination and controversy in a time of external threat. An act of both self-service and, in the minds of the perpetrators, an act of national service. "Earl, you have to cover our a****. It is a matter of national security."
The birther controversy has much the same flavor, though the motives and players are diffferent. Part of the problem with the birthers is that at first only what would be considered a lunatic fringe would suggest such a scenario. However, as time has gone on, I have read in various places, information, if true, that is circumstantially very damning. However, birthers don't know how to build a case and for the most part are so rabidly anti-Obama that they give away all the pieces of their case piece-meal, allowing them to be defeated one at a time, when the collective whole might be convincing.
The motives to suppress such information and make its expounders look foolish is powerful. First there is the question of ego, we will look like fools for supporting without question BO (the MSM). Second is the Constitutional mess that will follow if BO were not a natural-born citizen. If we say it is too messy to clean up and we will simply disallow anything he says or does from this point forward, we have abrogated part of the US Constitution without amendment. (Not that we aren't doing this already) If we find that BO is not a natural-born citizen, then he is not Constitutionally qualified to be the President of the US, and everything he has done in the name of the Presidency is null and void. In effect, we have operated as a country without a President for over two years.
Much as it might be a conservative wet-dream to see all of the laws enacted in the last two years and all the Presidential orders declared null and void, the chaos would be tremendous. It is fear of this consequence that the Supreme Court claims that the birth issue is political and not an issue for the Court. (Please explain to me why the qualifications of the President of the United States as spelled out explicitly in the Constitution are not a constitutional issue.)
In addition, political careers have been destroyed supporting the policies of this incompetent. To find out that they were destroyed supporting an imposter would be a major blow to many in the Democratic Party. In fact, it most likely would destroy the Democratic Party. They would become a laughing-stock and be seen as more unethical than most politicians.
The fear of the chaos that would follow has even conservative columnists denying problems with Obama's birth record and falling back on his incompetence as sufficient grounds to defeat him. Ideology and political correctness keeps the MSM from properly investigating any of this in adequate detail. Where are Bob Woodward and Jason Bradlee now? The press did a brilliant job of bringing down Richard Nixon, but won't even try to investigate Barack Obama, and they started with less cause.
We have become a nation of cowards and craven liars. Rather than face the truth, regardless of consequences, a value we once held high, we hide from it in every way. We have lost all sense of honor, not even those who claim to be honorable act in that way. They have become masters of spin, or simply, liars.
Just as there are conspiritists, those who claim there is a concerted effort to hide Barack Obama's true birth records, there is a conspiracy to maintain a particular narrative at all costs, avoiding any dissenting discussion. It makes one suspect they are indeed hiding something.
What keeps both issues alive is that the information is fragmentary and it is the nature of humans to want to create coherent narratives from information, regardless of how fragmentary. I don't believe that the Kennedy issue will ever die, because 1) Kennedy probably was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, and 2) the Warren Commission did its job extremely well. It confused the data and testimonies so thoroughly that it is impossible to learn the truth. It was never convened to learn the truth, but to obscure it. Motivation to squelch the truth in the Kennedy assassination was to avoid some extremely nasty political fallout, and to possibly prevent a withdrawal into national self-examination and controversy in a time of external threat. An act of both self-service and, in the minds of the perpetrators, an act of national service. "Earl, you have to cover our a****. It is a matter of national security."
The birther controversy has much the same flavor, though the motives and players are diffferent. Part of the problem with the birthers is that at first only what would be considered a lunatic fringe would suggest such a scenario. However, as time has gone on, I have read in various places, information, if true, that is circumstantially very damning. However, birthers don't know how to build a case and for the most part are so rabidly anti-Obama that they give away all the pieces of their case piece-meal, allowing them to be defeated one at a time, when the collective whole might be convincing.
The motives to suppress such information and make its expounders look foolish is powerful. First there is the question of ego, we will look like fools for supporting without question BO (the MSM). Second is the Constitutional mess that will follow if BO were not a natural-born citizen. If we say it is too messy to clean up and we will simply disallow anything he says or does from this point forward, we have abrogated part of the US Constitution without amendment. (Not that we aren't doing this already) If we find that BO is not a natural-born citizen, then he is not Constitutionally qualified to be the President of the US, and everything he has done in the name of the Presidency is null and void. In effect, we have operated as a country without a President for over two years.
Much as it might be a conservative wet-dream to see all of the laws enacted in the last two years and all the Presidential orders declared null and void, the chaos would be tremendous. It is fear of this consequence that the Supreme Court claims that the birth issue is political and not an issue for the Court. (Please explain to me why the qualifications of the President of the United States as spelled out explicitly in the Constitution are not a constitutional issue.)
In addition, political careers have been destroyed supporting the policies of this incompetent. To find out that they were destroyed supporting an imposter would be a major blow to many in the Democratic Party. In fact, it most likely would destroy the Democratic Party. They would become a laughing-stock and be seen as more unethical than most politicians.
The fear of the chaos that would follow has even conservative columnists denying problems with Obama's birth record and falling back on his incompetence as sufficient grounds to defeat him. Ideology and political correctness keeps the MSM from properly investigating any of this in adequate detail. Where are Bob Woodward and Jason Bradlee now? The press did a brilliant job of bringing down Richard Nixon, but won't even try to investigate Barack Obama, and they started with less cause.
We have become a nation of cowards and craven liars. Rather than face the truth, regardless of consequences, a value we once held high, we hide from it in every way. We have lost all sense of honor, not even those who claim to be honorable act in that way. They have become masters of spin, or simply, liars.
Just as there are conspiritists, those who claim there is a concerted effort to hide Barack Obama's true birth records, there is a conspiracy to maintain a particular narrative at all costs, avoiding any dissenting discussion. It makes one suspect they are indeed hiding something.
// posted by Bill @ 9:23 PM 
