Submitted to a Candid World
Obama denialism
Ask “Yahoo! Ideological Search”: Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
If you watch Digg, you’ve probably noticed that Yahoo! just released a search engine that lets you view the internet through ideological blinders. Oh good, says I: America definitely wasn’t partisan enough already, and factual relativism is the paradigm of responsible democracy. Anyways, let’s see how well this “ideological search” works, with one simple question: Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
“Your Papers, Please?” Birther Publication Tacitly Links Itself to Nazism
Dear readers, the brave writers of this blag work hard to spare you the nasty, unpleasant task of wading through the dreck that is the far right’s corner of the internet, just to get your daily opposition research. Sometimes, it strikes paydirt. On a recent sojourn to WorldNetDaily – the birthplace and perennial fountain of rejuvenation of rumors about President Obama’s “eligibility” – we discovered this (right):
Apparently, WND chose to name its chief publication boosting the conspiracy theory that Obama is somehow not the President after a command made infamous by Hitler’s Gestapo, who required Jews, and other minorities, to carry “papers” declaring their status. Call it an unfortunate coincidence, at best, but it’s still tacky, and a reminder of the xenophobia and racism that lurk just below the surface of the “Birthers’” complaints.
And yes, pointing it out is worth flirting with Godwin’s Law, but just barely.
Tax Day: It’s a Privilege to Pay*
Whatever happened to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”? (@ 4:05)
Earlier this year, when (now) Vice President Biden argued that paying higher taxes is, at times, patriotic, the right chuckled with derision. This was unfair, and a true reminder of the narrowness of the concept of “patriotism” as embraced by the far-right. Any sacrifice for the sake of the nation, freely or gladly given, is patriotic. American hegemony is neither cheap nor, in the modern era, optional. I understand policy disagreements with the way tax money is spent, but is it really any surprise or injustice that secure, stable government comes with a price tag?
Keep that in mind should you chance upon a tax day “tea party,” the right’s irresponsible, top-down anti-intellectual response to sensible pre-Bush taxation. And, should you want to go one (locate the closest one to you here), feel free to send us pictures. We’ll be sure to post them.
(* = For title, h/t “Urinetown”. No negative connotation intended.)
Obama Denialist Orly Taitz Off the Air!
It’s an Easter miracle! Taitz’s website, “DefendOurFreedoms.us,” has gone dark, taking with it her ever-increasing pack of lies and crippling her ability to bilk unsuspecting yokels out of their hard-earned money through the magic of PayPal! Taitz is gone, she is gone indeed!
Frankly, the circumstances are beyond me. Her webmaster has an “explanation” posted on the site, but he apparently suffers from the same bad grammar, slipshod spelling, and obtuse phraseology that we’ve come to know and love in Taitz. You’re welcome to try to decipher it: basically, it sounds like Taitz was using her site to skim viewers’ personal information (shocker!) and either it crashed the site, or her webmaster pulled the plug. I honestly can’t tell: his writing is truly appalling.
The big news here is that they’ve also lost the ability to censor comments. At least, that’s what I’m guessing from messages like these:
Cavity Kreep wrote:
I have had an appointment with Dr. Orly to get my damn cavity filled rescheduled six times while she is gallivanting around to stalk SCOTUS judges, go to teabaggings, run make believe grand juries, and write dossiers. This is the last straw. I am getting another dentist!Kukaniloko wrote:
Don’t taitz me, bro.
Go tell her what you think of her. Truly, the best remedy for bad speech is good speech.
A Little Perspective: the Last Time We Talked About “Tea Parties…”
Much ado has been made on back-water hyperconservative web-sites about latter-day “tea parties,” spontaneous gatherings of angry right-wingers, furious over upper-bracket tax increases that won’t even affect them, united in milling about public fora while shaking tea bags.
These little showings are beyond farcical, as are their participants, who have more in common with everyone’s favorite aimlessly angry undergrad protesters than with the patriots who risked life and limb to stand up to the world’s most powerful empire. But lest we forget who about the last group to invoke “tea parties” in defense of their ideology…
Yesterday, November the 7th, will long be a memorable day in Charleston. The tea has been thrown overboard; the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.
- “The News of Lincoln’s Election,” The Charleston Mercury, November 8th, 1860.
I am continually amazed by the hypocrisy of the far-right, who will with one breath accuse “liberals” of anti-Americanism, and with the next crow about secession and righteous civil violence. What’s next – “patriotic” anti-Obama flag-burning?
Anatomy of an Obama Denialist Lie: Wong Kim Ark & Natural Born Citizenship
The key tenet of the Obama denialist position is that for an individual to be “natural born citizen,” eligible for the Presidency, the candidate must have been born to citizen parents, on American soil. No matter what you may hear from their side, there is no authority for this proposition.
Bring this up to an Obama denialist, though, and you’re likely to hear about how a truly ancient U.S. Supreme Court decision – U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1897) - never bothered to declare that anyone born on American soil, regardless of parentage, is a “natural born citizen.” Because they failed to say as much explicitly, the story goes, they clearly implicitly rejected the idea. This, too, is false – and not just because of the tortured logic. The following is a precise quote from the case in question, unedited so you can see the context.
The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke, in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;” and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, “if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.”
See Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 693.
This much is indisputable. At issue in Wong Kim Ark was the citizenship of a child, born on American soil to Chinese nationals. Later, Wong Kim Ark, the child, left America, and returned from China during the operation of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which forbade the immigration of non-citizen Chinese. The Court held that Wong Kim Ark was entitled to re-immigrate, not just because he was a citizen, but because he was a natural born citizen, because (1) British law defined “natural born citizens” to include those born to foreign, non-consular parents on British soil, (2) American law tracked British law, and (3) this definition had never been modified. The Court did not have to examine the issue of natural born citizenship, but they did – explicitly, and at considerable length. If you don’t believe me, read the case, at least through page 693 (don’t worry, it starts on 649).
Nor was Wong Kim Ark the first case to confer natural-born citizenship upon children born in the United States to alien parents. The Ninth Circuit beat the Supreme Cour to the punch, See In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 907 (C. C. Cal. 1884, as the Supreme Court itself agreed later in the opinion:
In the courts of the United States in the Ninth Circuit, it has been uniformly held, in a series of opinions delivered by Mr. Justice Field, Judge Sawyer, Judge Deady, Judge Hanford, and Judge Morrow, that a child born in the United States of Chinese parents, subjects of the Emperor of China, is a native-born citizen of the United States. In re Look Tin Sing (1884), 10 Sawyer 358; Ex parte Chin King (1888), 13 Sawyer 333; In re Yung Sing Hee (1888) 13 Sawyer 482; In re Wy Shing (1888), 13 Sawyer 530; Gee Fook Sing v. United States (1892), 7 U.S.App. 7; In re Wong Kim Arm (1896), 71 Fed.Rep. 38. And we are not aware of any judicial decision to the contrary.
See Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 697.
Neither the facts nor the law are friends to the Obama denialist movement. They need to learn to accept this simple truth, and move on. And to you, readers, I swear this is the last wall-of-text post I’ll write on the subject.
Audio of Obama Denialist’s “Meeting” with Chief Justice Roberts
Orly Taitz seems to think she convinced Chief Justice Roberts to read her rambling legal “documents.” Thanks to commenter Lola, you can decide for yourself:
The audio belongs to media.spokesman.com, but feel free to listen here.
No Surprise: Obama Denialist Reveals Her Racism
Read one of Orly Taitz’s latest posts – if you can tolerate the shoddy site design, slipshod grammar, and deranged ramblings long enough to do so – and you’ll see this:
Why are you [Supreme Court Justices] afraid to speak up, to stand up for you constitution? Why are you afraid to tell this arrogant jerk from Africa and Indonesia- You need to go home, you cannot be a president and commander in chief because you are not a Natural born Citizen.
I wonder how long she’s been waiting to drop that “Africa” line.
Turnabout: Is Obama Denialist Orly Taitz Really a Lawyer? Will She Be For Long?
I don’t like to talk about the “Birthers.” They don’t deserve serious treatment, except the occasional concise or snarky explanation of why they’re wrong, both of which are done better elsewhere, at a friend’s site. Besides, debating them extensively just makes me feel like I’m lowering myself to their level. So please forgive this momentary diversion, a last glance at one particularly reprehensible villain.
“Dr.” Orly Taitz, a woman holding herself out as a lawyer, has managed to leverage the far-right’s distaste for President Obama into a number of conspiracy theories, a few scurrilous lawsuits, and fifteen minutes of fame, billing herself as the defender of obscure constitutional phraseology and – apparently – the republic itself. But “Dr.” Taitz may be the only “ineligible” player in her little farce. Continue reading
Obama Derangement Syndrome?
Several years ago, conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer accused “liberals” of exhibiting the signs of “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” namely, “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush.” It was a snide, derisive way to downplay legitimate criticism of Bush’s post-9/11 policies, just what we’ve come to expect of people like Krauthammer.
Now, unlike Krauthammer, I won’t begrudge Republicans their legitimate criticisms of President Obama. I’m excited about the stimulus, glad that we’ve ended torture, and counting down the days until Guantanamo has to close (it’s around 330), but insofar as their positions are consistent, I respect the Republicans for taking a principled stand on issues they care about. Dissent and debate keep American democracy alive.
However, I have no respect for the anti-Obama lunatic fringe, an unusually large and eclectic group of gullible, angry, tin-foil hat wearing web dwellers. Praying for Obama to fail, for example, is not a respectable position, but it finds adherents everywhere from Facebook (one, two) to WorldNetDaily. In such dire times, no sane American should wish failure upon a president. Being unsurprised by failure – as I was with Bush – is something else entirely. These individuals I would characterize as less than reasonable.
The few remaining groups that honestly believe Obama to be a Muslim speak for themselves (like Conservapedia). As do those who, knowing the falsity of the rumor, still try to benefit from it. I’m looking at you, Michael Savage.
Where the smart kids hang out on Facebook.
Same goes for the varied groups continuing to litigate the repeatedly failed idea that Obama is somehow not a “natural born citizen,” despite being born in the United States. These groups – which now include state legislators and soldiers, and count nearly 300,000 citizens as members – have created a cottage industry premised on delusion and denialism. “Dr.” Orly Taitz, the correspondence-school lawyer shepherding some of these suits along, has even gone so far as to encourage military officers toward sedition and ask them to disobey orders from the President. If any group can be fairly called “deranged” for nothing more than their political ideas, “Dr.” Taitz’s little cult is definitely it. Such a disconnect from reality is certainly unhealthy.
The question is, more than a month after President Obama’s inauguration, why do these groups persist? Why does Obama inspire such unreasonable, reckless hate? Part of it I blame on the internet. As I’ve argued before, the internet allows fringe movements to persist. By making it easier to find people who agree with you, fringe groups on the internet can quickly gain the requisite “critical mass” that their insanity would typically deny to them, where they forced to operate only in any individual community. But it’s more than that. While Bush inspired a firestorm of criticism on the internet, even the colorable, very real claim that his victory in the 2000 election was a mistake dropped out of the mainstream after a while. And the 9/11 “Truthers” were never that big. Why do conspiracy theories of Obama’s ineligibility persist?
I hesitate to play the “race card,” but let’s face it: for these groups, it fits. Most anti-Obama hate groups have, as a common thread, some conviction that Obama is inherently “other,” either Muslim, un-American, or “different” in some other significant way. Conjuring specious accusations of “other-ness” is a handy way to hide racism in plain sight. Again, I would not begrudge honest political commentatotrs their policy disagreements with the President. But for these groups on the lunatic fringe, I suspect the dominant alternative diagnosis for “Obama Derangement Syndrome” is just plain, simple, garden variety racism.
