And now that it's off my mind

I came out of 40 days of Lent with an issue I had to write about, despite wanting to continue to have a civil discourse. For those of you that don't know, I made a Lenten pledge not to engage in the politics of ad hominem attacks. I kept that pledge (except for a questionable comment) and felt it was something I would continue. When the president released his long form birth certificate, I was compelled to write about it. In all honesty, I didn't know what to expect; uncharted waters perhaps. Except for links to a couple of fact check sites, I pretty much ignored the topic in the birther threads because I was convinced it was just another conspiracy theory. When the president released the birth certificate, I became convinced that it was an obvious distraction to the White House, so it was worth discussing.

Yesterday, I heard Canadian Jonathan Kay, the author of "Among the Truthers" A Journey though Americans growing conspiracies underground; describe the “Birthers” mindset. He said when a normal person is told that their believes are wrong, it would cause them to go back and rechecked their believes. He convinced me, when he compared it to religion. In my old workplace, there were a lot of people who said negative things about my religion and religion per say, and so I had to go back to validate their statements but all I could say was " I still have faith." ....He also said " all the evidence in the world will not change their mind because they will find something else to cling to."Thor found a YouTube of a couple of people trying to prove that the birth certificate was a fake. In fact there were a couple of morons on the Fox Business Channel, trying to say that the birth certificate was Photoshoped because of the green outer edge. ....Mr. Kay said with the advent of the Internet, the conspirators no longer view television news and just keep in social contact with people who share their views.

The local forum's thread on the birther issue quickly became a dumping ground for all things negative about President Bush and Obama.... My blog became so bad that GOP_ LoveChild, said "I sure hope the folks with Caterpillar, we buffaloed into moving here don’t read this thread."... I did get to clear up some issues with some a couple posters, so it was worth my time and effort.

I'm pretty sure the regulars got tired of the "birther" issue because it dominated the threads but the other regulars will be all rested up, come Monday, then they can dominate the threads. It all works out.

Enough already with the Birther issue

I don't blame the media for covering the Birther issue because it’s front and center, now that now that Donald trump has revived the issue. I'm not even surprised that most Victorians don't believe that president Obama was born in the United States, or they don't know. I believe there's a lot of mischief in the local polls. Some don't like the president's policies, and others don't like the person, so why not say it's because he wasn't born in this country. Then again,nationally 51% of republicans don't believe Obama was born in the USA, and about 24% are not sure.What's up with that?There was a time I thought the GOP had some smart people.I was going to post this blog in our local paper's forum, but I thought better of it, because posters like Thor would fill it with nonsense, encouraging others to do the same. I can just imagine all the documented proof from the Freerepublic.com and WorldNetDaily and other right-wing smear sites.

Can you be a reasonable person still have doubts? I don't think so, because anyone can obtain the "index data" of those born in Hawaii between 1960 and 1964. I understand that on page 1,218, there is a computer generated listing of a boy named Barack Hussein Obama II. There is a sign in sheet at the Hawaii vital records office that only the Associated Press and one other person have asked to see that information this month. About 25 people have seen the information since March 2010. In fact, the office has said no one identifying themselves as working for Donald Trump has come forward. Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the state's former health director has looked at the official long form birth records and confirmed that the document includes additional information like the hospital and delivery doctor. The documents belong to the state and they can't be released to anyone, including the president of the United States. Obama could inspect his birth records but the originals are never released. There is microfilm at the Hawaii State library that shows on August 14, 1961 the birth announcement in the Honolulu State bulletin that a son was born to Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, on August 4, 1961. The president was born on August 4^th, but it is customary that birth announcements are usually a week late.

I could never get into a debate with the Birther because my questions would never be answered. I would start off by asking if Obama's mom was an American citizen. My follow-up question would be " is the state of Hawaii, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Kapi'solani Medical Center for Women and Children (where Obama was born) in on the fraudulent scheme? If they are, for what purpose? I would never get answers for those questions, but they would expect me to believe that Mrs. Obama was sneeked into Hawaii from Kenya to have her baby because she knew her son would eventually be the president of United States. I wonder if the Birthers have asked for passport information during the week of August 4th of 1961. So far, the game has been played on their side of the court with questions of long- form, short form and a quote out of context from the constitution. The country was lured to sleep by the conspirators calling themselves "Birthers" but the right wing followers of Donald Trump think he brought some legitimacy to the issue. It's the same issue but this time it was brought forward by a different wacko.

Houston Chronicle Sunday April, 24, 2011 page a7 “Some Obama records easy to access" by Mark Niesse