With the various drama surrounding Foggy and Justin and Doc C's real identities, the subject of Birther anonymity has been on the forefront of my mind. Birthers are, after all, in the business of demanding extraordinary evidence when it comes to Obama's identity, and as of late some of them seem to be highly concerned with the identities of those who oppose their agenda online.

Meanwhile, Birthers are almost universally obsessed with their own anonymity. The Birther 'experts' all tried to keep their real identities secret. FreeRepublic posters are, by the nature of the forum, anonymous. Lucas Smith started out as an anonymous eBay seller. The Post & Email was set up by a pseudonymous individual who incorporated in such a way to preserve his anonymity. MissTickly and jbjd encourage others to file documents they've prepared (even encouraging the use of aliases), so that they don't have to put their real names on anything. Birthers proxy their website URLs, set up free email accounts under fake names, and even ask for Paypal donations, all in efforts to avoid public recognition.

As for Birthers who *have* willingly made their names public, they mostly fall into two categories. First, lawyers and litigants, whose names are a matter of public record by necessity. Second, bloggers and pundits who had a preexisting web presence who adopted Birtherism's beliefs. You also have various Birthers who started out secret, but eventually got found out by others and were unwillingly exposed. Beckwith, for instance, refused to allow his real name to be printed when he was interviewed for a 2008 news article. Off the top of my head, the only reasonably prominent Birther who voluntarily went public without an external need to do so was Sharon Rondeau.

But when it comes to those of us on the other side? They're not afraid to post our names, our photos, our IP addresses, etc.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Birther.

You left out Sharon Moron.

It's a tricky mindset birthers have to teeter along. On the one hand, they're these powerful patriots, fighting for all that is Good and Right. On the other hand, the obots are EXTREMELY powerful, aided by shadow money and black copters and tinfoil hat devourers -- which really does further feed into their fighting mindset. They can pull David and Goliath out of their myth handbook, and talk about the slingshots of heaven or what-have-you. They want to be heroic.

But at heart, they're petrified. Some of them might be ashamed, but I don't think that's it for most of them. I think they've talked themselves into the full belief that they're the only thing that can save the country from complete and utter disaster.

It's further complicated by the fact that humans are not morons, and their brains are occasionally hiccuping and telling them, wait, what? So they have to keep "arming" themselves against the smooth-tongued devil's obot lore.

Tricksy for them. But yeah, they HAVE to stay anonymous, because otherwise Soros will find them and send the meat trucks.

/simplification

Mind you, I have very little sympathy for them. People who deceive only themselves are deceivers nonetheless.

Just for the record, I didn't see the discussion over in the 'Birther Gallery' thread until after I already posted this one. Having seen it now, I can see how it might make this thread look a little different contextually than I intended it.

Does she have a brother?

Moron was adamant that her name be kept secret when she was Chalice Jackson. She said she woukdnt be able to get back to headhunting if her name was associated with political things. Then she was outed by a local newspaper and blamed us.

I think it is fair to say Sharon outed herself. Once she filed the "petition" in McHenry County Court the cat was out of the bag. Her name was actually in the pdf document that she posted on SCRIBD of her first filing. It was ineptly redacted and easily seen by just cutting and pasting the blacked over text. The local newspaper published the name a few days later.