House of Eratosthenes

Okay…it’s pretty hard this morning to find some news that doesn’t have to do with that damn birth certificate, so let’s just wind the whole thing up here.

Neal Boortz points to Glenn Reynolds’ round-up, which is pretty good.

My Hello Kitty of Blogging update, if I dare say so myself, offers a salient summary:

Document Drop Day Plus One: This is the hard part. It took Obama three years to provide His real birth certificate. The challenge to Obama fans is to take this, and make it look like there’s something wrong with the people who were asking to see it. Tall order. But they’re trying…oh, Lordy, they’re trying real hard.

They’re in a jam. Think about it: How do you say “you never should have asked to see this…uh…this piece of paper…right over here.” It’s taking the position of, you shouldn’t have insisted on this thing you wanted us to do — after our side caved. Now that we have caved and you’ve lost nothing, there’s something wrong with you that you kept insisting on this. How do you do that?

I think behind closed doors they’re protesting that very thing.

We know we’re not going to turn to stone, or cause the universe to supernova, just by looking at it. We looked at it yesterday. Just a boring piece of paper, and the question that pops up after you’re done looking at it is: What is someone thinking when He refuses to release it? Who does that?

At least one argument they could’ve used up until now, and in fact have used, has completely imploded: You stupid crazy racist birthers are insisting on seeing something that doesn’t exist! Destroyed in fire, shredded when the department went to electronic records, etc. Now we know that was a lie. The hunt for hard links is time-consuming, which is to be expected…maybe I’ll pick that up and maybe I won’t. It happened. Lots of Google histories and 404 links out there. Quite the Tidy Bowl operation that seems to have taken place since.

My favorite analogy is one of my own inventions: Two jackasses you unfortunately have as extended relatives, have gotten into an extended altercation in which one demands to see written proof of something from the other. See, generally you take a lot of emotion out of things by getting rid of the whole democrat/Republican thing and keeping everything else.

Your family gets together frequently because you live close together. You are the host for nearly all of these. Picnics, ball games, funeral wakes, bridal showers, whatever…these two idjits keep getting into the same tired old argument. Your furniture is getting broken.

First couple times it happens, you might take the attitude “C’mon uncle Jack, his word is good, you don’t need to see the piece of paper.”

Then it goes on into the third year.

And then you find out the other guy has the piece of paper. Furthermore, the reason he isn’t showing it to the other guy, is his position is the other guy should take his word for it — I’m-just-so-completely-wonderful-and-awesome. Anybody who doesn’t believe every little thing I say, has something wrong with him. So I’m going to convert this other guy, see. Force him to believe me by not showing him the piece of paper. Which I have.

We’re in our third year of this nonsense.

You’d have to conclude:

1. The guy with the piece of paper is responsible for the conflict.
2. This doesn’t have anything to do with facts. It’s about privilege.
3. The guy wanting to see the paper isn’t exactly vindicated…but this other guy who has the paper? It might be time to look into assisted living. The guy’s whacked.
4. You’d probably want to be reimbursed for broken furniture. And not on a 50/50 basis. The guy with the piece of paper should pay all of it.
5. And finally…Jesus Fucking Christ just show him the paper you asshole!

You know, it’s funny. At this point, the kindest thing you can say about Obama is that He can’t actually run anything, but He’s gifted at coming out on top in these conflicts and whether we knew it or not, that is what the country was voting for.

But then things like this happen, and you realize — waitaminnit, He doesn’t even have what it takes to come out on top. You can’t conclude Obama is good at something unless you started examining the situation with that bias firmly planted in your mind already.

He commands an emotional vibe when He appears before a crowd of people. He can do that much pretty well. But what is that, exactly?

In sustained factional conflicts like this one, He doesn’t emerge victorious any more often than the average guy. And, based on what I’m picking up on Document Drop Day Plus One…I don’t think He’s come out on top here. He’s got some people in His corner, true. But that’s bedrock for Obama.

I think He’s hurt badly. Ready for another analogy? You’re in the Donner party. After you’re done cannibalizing each other and you get rescued, during the helicopter ride home you find out one of your companions had a stash of chocolate and energy bars the whole time. That guy who’s been holding out on you then, somehow, has the job of sustaining some kind of “personal approval rating.” That’s Barack Obama.

You wanna be Barack Obama right now?

Yeah, except Obama showed the relevant piece of paper in 2008. You see, in the U.S. we have this thing called the Constitution. It requires that all states honor the official documents of other states.

In 2008 the State of Hawaii issued — under seal — a document affirming the facts, that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in August 1961, making him a “natural born citizen” under all statutory and case law in the U.S.

He wasn’t the fucking asshole who demanded that he show more paper. He wasn’t the fucking asshole who made no similar demands to any Republican, nor to any white or brown candidate. He wasn’t the fucking asshole who created 40 or 50 blogs to keep up the hoax call for “more.” He wasn’t the fucking asshole who, in great passive-aggressive tones, said “we’ll take him at his word, but where’s the document?”

You know, it’s funny: You call Obama a fucking asshole while you’re the one being the asshole. Why didn’t you simply say, “Hawaii issued the document, and that’s good under the Constitution,” and pass that along?
- edarrell | 04/30/2011 @ 02:16
None of which addresses any of my points, with the possible exception you’ve drawn from me calling Obama an asshole and re-shaped that statement into Ed calling me an asshole. Which just goes to show Ed Darrell lives in a pocket universe in which everybody to the political right of Al Gore is an asshole…this is nothing we didn’t already know.

What’s news to me, though, is that you don’t understand the difference between the Constitution requiring the states to do something, and the Constitution requiring the people to do something. Even though that document, in many places, works according to a meaningful differentiation among states, federal government, and people, codifying proper relationships among the three. And nowhere, so far as I know, does it require people to have certain thoughts in their heads or not to have certain thoughts in their heads.

I’d be interested in understanding how, with our modern liberals, it keeps getting back to this: “Such-and-such a written law requires you, lowly person, to think a certain thing.” Reality again rises up to protest (as it did here) that, if a thought can be thought, someone, somewhere, is thinking it…and this pretty much derails whatever the plan was. But the lesson is never learned. “See we told you this wouldn’t end it, there are still some people who think Obama was born in Kenya.” Of course there are. His actions with regard to this document have been deeply suspicious. Three years just to produce the long form birth certificate?

Wow. Michelle must be in charge of the hard stuff. Like returning the Census form…
- mkfreeberg | 04/30/2011 @ 07:25

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At Least One Argument Has Completely ImplodedThursday, April 28th, 2011

At Least One Argument Has Completely Imploded
Thursday, April 28th, 2011