As noted before on this blog, to be a member of the GOP today - especially the Tea Party branch of the party - one needs to be either insane, have had a lobotomy or have an IQ of the trainable retarded. Objective facts and modern knowledge are irrelevant to those who doggedly cling to ignorance, bigotry and prejudice. One would think that Obama's release of a long form copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate would have ended the birther debate. But not so. Birtherism is alive and well and springs in my view from the less than subtle racism that is now an ingrained part of the mindset of the GOP base. These folks cannot tolerate that the nation is moving on and that a minority can be president, that gays might deserve equality under the law, and that American exceptionalism is a myth that was never fully founded in fact. The Washington Post looks at the continued lunacy of the far right. Here are some highlights:
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It proves nothing. It could be fake. It’s all so fishy. Aren’t there multiple layers on the scanned document released by the White House? Why did it take so long to produce? The people who do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States showed Wednesday that a good conspiracy theory is like a coal mine fire: something that can’t be doused in a day.
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The president, pestered by “birthers” since he began running for the White House, finally felt compelled to try to put an end to the controversy, providing his original birth certificate for the first time.
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“Yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital,” Obama told the White House press corps, before going on to demand an end to the “silliness” about his birthplace that he fears has distracted the country from urgent policy matters involving wars, the federal debt and the economy.
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The birthers, far from chastised, found themselves newly energized and freshly suspicious. “It raises far more questions than it answers,” said Joseph Farah, editor in chief of WorldNetDaily and birther extraordinaire, almost breathless between media interviews.
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But it is the nature of a conspiracy theory that all information must pass through a very discerning, yet simple, filter. Information that is confirmational is accepted; that which is contradictory is rejected.
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Conspiracy theories have the self-sustaining gift of ramification: They sprout new tendrils, like a mad vine that has invaded from another continent. For the committed conspiracy theorist, there is always another angle to explore, another anomaly to scrutinize.
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At one hotbed of birtherism, the certificate appeased no one. “You know as well as I do that you can produce a fraudulent form,” said Sharon Guthrie, legislative director for Texas state Rep. Leo Berman (R), who has introduced a bill that would require that anyone running in Texas for president provide an original birth certificate proving American citizenship.
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The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Wednesday night that the birthers use “coded and covert rhetoric to stir up racial fears,” as part of a broader attempt to delegitimize Obama and push back against civil rights and equal rights. “It’s a code word: ‘He’s not one of us,’ ” Jackson said, giving his view of the birther mind-set. “ ‘He wasn’t born here. He’s not a Christian. He’s a Muslim, we don’t worship the same god.’ It’s a very coded designation to try undermine his legitimacy.” Jackson added, “ ‘Birther’ is a kind label for a much deeper and toxic movement.”
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It’s easier psychologically to come up with a rationalization than it is to admit that you were wrong,” said Ronald Lindsay, president of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, in Amherst, N.Y., publisher of the myth-debunking magazine The Skeptical Inquirer.
*
“If you have a pre-commitment to a certain point of view, and that point of view is important for your identity — if you are emotionally attached to it — your emotion is going to shape your reasoning process. You’ll be presented with facts, but you’ll find some way to minimize the significance of those fact,” Lindsay said.
*
If the USA is in decline - and I would argue that it is - it is in large part because of the far right and its open embrace of ignorance, prejudice and a dumbing down of education so that Christianist beliefs are not challenged by modern science and knowledge which make it clear that Bible inerrancy is a lie.
It proves nothing. It could be fake. It’s all so fishy. Aren’t there multiple layers on the scanned document released by the White House? Why did it take so long to produce? The people who do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States showed Wednesday that a good conspiracy theory is like a coal mine fire: something that can’t be doused in a day.
*
The president, pestered by “birthers” since he began running for the White House, finally felt compelled to try to put an end to the controversy, providing his original birth certificate for the first time.
*
“Yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital,” Obama told the White House press corps, before going on to demand an end to the “silliness” about his birthplace that he fears has distracted the country from urgent policy matters involving wars, the federal debt and the economy.
*
The birthers, far from chastised, found themselves newly energized and freshly suspicious. “It raises far more questions than it answers,” said Joseph Farah, editor in chief of WorldNetDaily and birther extraordinaire, almost breathless between media interviews.
*
But it is the nature of a conspiracy theory that all information must pass through a very discerning, yet simple, filter. Information that is confirmational is accepted; that which is contradictory is rejected.
*
Conspiracy theories have the self-sustaining gift of ramification: They sprout new tendrils, like a mad vine that has invaded from another continent. For the committed conspiracy theorist, there is always another angle to explore, another anomaly to scrutinize.
*
At one hotbed of birtherism, the certificate appeased no one. “You know as well as I do that you can produce a fraudulent form,” said Sharon Guthrie, legislative director for Texas state Rep. Leo Berman (R), who has introduced a bill that would require that anyone running in Texas for president provide an original birth certificate proving American citizenship.
*
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Wednesday night that the birthers use “coded and covert rhetoric to stir up racial fears,” as part of a broader attempt to delegitimize Obama and push back against civil rights and equal rights. “It’s a code word: ‘He’s not one of us,’ ” Jackson said, giving his view of the birther mind-set. “ ‘He wasn’t born here. He’s not a Christian. He’s a Muslim, we don’t worship the same god.’ It’s a very coded designation to try undermine his legitimacy.” Jackson added, “ ‘Birther’ is a kind label for a much deeper and toxic movement.”
*
It’s easier psychologically to come up with a rationalization than it is to admit that you were wrong,” said Ronald Lindsay, president of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, in Amherst, N.Y., publisher of the myth-debunking magazine The Skeptical Inquirer.
*
“If you have a pre-commitment to a certain point of view, and that point of view is important for your identity — if you are emotionally attached to it — your emotion is going to shape your reasoning process. You’ll be presented with facts, but you’ll find some way to minimize the significance of those fact,” Lindsay said.
*
If the USA is in decline - and I would argue that it is - it is in large part because of the far right and its open embrace of ignorance, prejudice and a dumbing down of education so that Christianist beliefs are not challenged by modern science and knowledge which make it clear that Bible inerrancy is a lie.
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