So I was having a discussion with a good family friend at a family gathering the other day. I always have had long political discussions with him and it is always very interesting, although I do not agree with him all the time. He frequents the Alex Jones forums alot, is a global warming denier and believes that there is a twin "sun" or some large object sitting towards the end of our solar system.... like I said, I always have very interesting discussions with him. Now technicially I should of seen this coming, that he was a birther as well, but it never really crossed my mind until yesterday when, while discussing something else, he slipped in the comment that not only was Obama a government puppet, but he was not even born in the US. What's more, he claimed there was a doctor in South africa that apparently admitted it and that Obama is a CIA agent like his mother. Other comments always went about concerning how Obama was an CIA operative that was involved in the kenyan elections back in the 80's or 90's and so forth. It is interesting... and this is really the first time somebody so close to me was revealed a birther.

I told him that the birther theory was nonsense and tried to steer conversation away. Could not debate any specifics with him like birth certificates or the possibility of his mother getting to kenya in the first place, he just believed what was reported to him and that was it. So.. can fellow Politijabbers tell me about their first personal birther encounter, or maybe family member or friend that revealed themselves to be birthers.

There's some discussion here viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1651&p=39048&hilit=met+first+birther#p39048

and here viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2045&p=84276&hilit=live+birther+interaction#p84276

Here's my copypasted account of an encounter from 2009 at a party...

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I was at a party where I was cornered by, horrors of horrors, a birther. I never brought up politics. She just assumed I was a wingnut like she was and started ranting to me, and I had no way of escape as we were on a balcony. I wish some of you could see my facial expressions as she dropped the following piles of poop on my lap. It was like being on a game show from hell during a birther-wingnut lightning round:

Her: "I love my freedom. I love my Constitution. I can't believe we have this man who is creating secret armies to imprison all of us."

Me: "Well, he's not."

Her (after getting over the shock of realizing that I didn't agree with her): "Why do you think he's doing with these 'volunteer forces' he's creating, then?"

Me: "I think he's suggesting that Americans do volunteer work that will help their communities. Like, helping homeless shelters and charities and stuff."

Her: "We don't even know where he was born. He won't say anything about that and won't provide any of his papers."

Me: "Yes we do. He was born at the Kapiolani hospital in Honolulu County, Hawaii and has published his birth certificate for everyone to look at."

Her: "His dad isn't American."

Me: "Doesn't matter. As Americans we don't have a racial purity test for deciding who can run for president."

Her: "Americans are being genocide [sic] and he doesn't even care."

Me: "Huh?"

Her: "Did you know that 32 million Americans have been genocide [sic]?"

Me: "Huh?"

Her: "Through abortion. That's how many Americans have been genocide [sic] through abortion. It's horrible."

Me: "Oh." (I wasn't going anywhere near that one.)

By the end of this conversation, which was forced on me because my "friends" stranded me with her and refused to come back and rescue me, I was ready to escape by actually leaping off the balcony and almost did so. This terrifying encounter took place on Halloween eve so I guess it was almost fitting.

He thinks there's a twin sun and you tried to tell him THIS was nonsense? I'm a lawyer and even I know that doesn't make mathematical sense!

I have yet to meet a birfer even though I have a couple avid conspiracists in my circle of acquaintances. I have talked to a couple people who sort of casually had doubts and wondered if there was anything to it, but were capable of accepting reality, even though they're Republicans.

There is some evidence that there is a large object of some kind in orbit beyond Neptune. The reason Pluto was concidered the 9th planet is that it happened to be in the right area as another marge planet that they were looking for and that people had calculated had to be there due to the motions of the planets (planets speed up and slow down in their orbits due to gravitational pulls. We have known that since Issac Newton Worked out the mathematics) Pluto was there and everyone stopped looking for it. It was only later that they realized Pluto was way too small., But whatever that planet was it seems to have a very elliptical orbit and has moved out of direct gravitational range, as the planets have been behaving themselves as an 8 planet system since the early 20th century.

If there was a big object coming into the solar system it would be impossible to cover up, as the Planets would be going apeshit and about 10 million amateur astronomers would be all over it.

Nemesis.

Yeah, Nemesis is a fascinating theory. I'd love if something like that were out there, but as the article states if it did exist its heading away from us at present, not heading into relatively close proximity with the Sun

Planet X or Nubira

I've never met a birther in person, but my Dad tends to be fairly conservative and has been known to spout some rather absurd right wing talking points from time to time. Fortunately, he actually gives me a chance to talk when we run into a disagreement, and he knows that I'm not going to feed him some bull just to make my point sound better, so I've generally had a good record in helping him get back on track. We generally try to avoid talking politics, though, because we do tend to be on opposite ends of the spectrum and my Mom was kind of the mediating force between us before she passed away.

I haven't heard of the Nemesis hypothesis for years. I didn't realise that it was still a 'live' theory. In the back of my mind I've got a recollection that the cycical timing of mass extinctions was quite a neat as first thought. I'll have to go and search my bookshelves.

In a way I've found that birthers are really a demographic crying for help. I mean they are a people who saw the changes or had their parents see the changes of the 60's and were taught the horrors of how america changed the day the progressives got their way. They won't argue against segregation even though they argue about the government that effectively moved to end it, but they will argue tha affirmative action was the start of this all (even though affirmative action is not mutually exclusive with ending segregation). They then saw the influence of a the United states decrease, they lost Vietnam, the world began to change view of the US, carter did not attack Iran when he had the chance, minorities are getting their way supposedly and with the election of Obama, this foreign looking (black man with a muslim middle name) was a elected, he ain't even american!

Birthers represent a cry for help from a generation or a population of people who do not like the changes and hold personal issues with these changes. It's the "things were all fine before THEY got their way" thought and these folks just ain't taking it anymore. They hide behind the constitution but are prepared to have papers please laws and mosque banning laws to go into place. This is not a disagreement on the constitution, most these folks are not merely "concerned" about the performance of government, this is about culture, this is a war of cultures, and right now the birthers represent the old view of culture that is on the losing end. Things are changing and they don't know how to stop it, they just want it to end. Now that the gays are in the military, what's next? While I do agree at times with many folks who are part of the "old" culture, you know, birthers, reaganites and so forth, while they have good arguments at times, they are deluded in most other issues. Sorta gotta feel sorry for them.... sorta.

The problem is that delusion is always bad, or almost always. I actually think it is a bad thing that there are so few conservative intellectuals, partly because they have virtually been driven out of academia. The problem is that in America, we are always going to have conservative politicians, and they are always sometimes going to take power. If their conservatism has no intellectual foundation, they're going to be crazy dumbfucks.

I look back in the past, even the recent past, and see conservative intellectuals like William F. Buckley, Jr. and, in academia, Leo Strauss. Neocons sort of use a bastardized, dumbed-down version of Strauss's dumbest ideas, but don't appear to have any actual political philosophy other than getting elected. They have no actual principles and are often too dumb even to have an ideology, much less adhere to it.

I feel sorry for them, but sort of like you feel sorry for Old Yeller. Yes, it's a bummer, but the mad dog has to be put down.

Look at the bright side: in 20-30 years they'll mostly all have died of old age/liver disease/diabetes/etc. Hopefully they won't have destroyed the world by then.

This is the bright side?

"Virtually been driven out of academia" implies that they were driven somewhere else. Where was that? A few could once be found at the Hoover Institution at Stanford or Hillsdale College, and a few at private think tanks like Heritage, Cato, and American Enterprise Institute. Yet, to my mind, none of them is the intellectual equivalent of Leo Strauss or Russell Kirk. None of them is even the intellectual equivalent of William Buckley.

We liberal academics did not drive conservatives from our holy precincts. They just never showed up to join us. Maybe that was because we were not producing them in our graduate programs, but it is awfully hard to train up a generation if it does not exist. Perhaps students who could have become intellectual leaders of American conservatism got distracted by the bright shiny balls of neo-conservatism and libertarianism.

In a way that's good. Yale is blessed not to have a successor to William Graham Sumner, one of the loudest proponents of Social Darwinism and a strong supporter of the American Eugenics movement. But it should not be embarrassed to have a modern Locke or Hamilton. Those people just don't exist, at least not yet.

The new scare is that North will become West in a single hour, as the planetary realignment occurs on March 21, 2011, or not long thereafter. This has implications for tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and a really bad day. Antarctica as a tropical continent should be quite interesting, although disturbing to resident penguins who will have to learn to use sun screen. Try Earth Changes and the Pole Shift for compiled up-to-date information, including lists of safe locations. This site taps into both human and alien sources, so it is unusually comprehensive. I have found, however, that the Zetas are often wrong. You might do better to go with the Greys.

I don't consider Buckley a political philosopher in the same sphere as Leo Strauss, although I considered him a delightful writer and rarely encountered a piece from him that was not at least worth reading. I will note I was probably echoing the sentiments of this article from The Atlantic last week.

I think it is a serious threat to the country that a party which often controls the country is literally, outright insane, and stupid and ignorant into the bargain. There are rational justifications for conservatism. While I will probably be on the opposite side of the spectrum for the rest of my life, I would prefer that my opponents be sane and rational. Stupid, crazy people are unpredictable and dangerous.

Just a message to all of you in this thread with thanks for the interesting discussion to follow (and that shortened my live span so much by surfing the web for all those names mentioned )

In my youth, I used to love Buckley...

But the man was not above racism.



Excerpt from "American Renaissance" at http://www.amren.com/ar/2000/09/#cover

Agreed, and homophobia and a variety of other positions of varying degrees of unpleasantness. However, he seemed to soften in those positions in later years. I do remember one hilarious exchange between Buckley and Gore Vidal where Vidal called Buckley a crypto-Nazi and Buckley, infuriated, called Gore a "quee-uh" and threatened to "sock" him.

I was on the Mainland recently, visiting family & friends, & was surprised that a few folks whom I had/still consider intelligent, brought up Obama's Birth Certificate. Sigh.....

The $$$ spent by the militaryhere has made some Hawaii folks related to me, supporters of the GOP. My own relatives were obviously embasrassed, when I pointed out in specific detail, how the Hawaii DOH handles our records. After all, they all know what their & their grandkids BC looks like!

It was sad that we spent time talking about this, rather than bragging about the accomplishments of our kids & grandkids. Or talking about our kupuna's old stories about life in Hawaii in the past.

However, I'm even more convinced now that Birtherism is a losing strategy for the RW GOP. And President Obama has done well by just ignoring these folks, & letting them ramp up their indignation.