Why aren't more discussions about blatant greed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

[Anonymous]

Since the average DCUM HHI is > $250,000+, can you define greed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

This, exactly. Stripped away any legitimacy from it all.

[Anonymous]

I am no fan of trump but a lot, A LOT, of people have become rich off of climate change, USAID, Obamacare, and other programs Trump is looking to cut. It is very Pollyanna to think otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

So, it was racist because Colin Powell said so? Sure, many of the people that went along with the birtherism were probably racists, but the proposition that Obama was not born in the US is not racist by itself. The reason Trump didn't question Cruz and McCain likely had more to do with partisanship. And Cruz is latino, you know, the kind of people that Trump is trying to deport en masse. It's not like Trump would let accusations of racism stop him from doing anything if he felt the urge.

If anything, birtherism was motivated by Islamophobia. Both racism and Islamophobia are rooted in xenophobia and bigotry, and I understand why Average Joe commenter might conflate Islamophobia with racism. But I expect journalists who write for "serious" publications to use the term correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am no fan of trump but a lot, A LOT, of people have become rich off of climate change, USAID, Obamacare, and other programs Trump is looking to cut. It is very Pollyanna to think otherwise.

Meh, I think those people were already rich...either that or it just diverted the corporate welfare from one entity to another. The fact that our government procurement process allows breeds a sort of institutionalized corruption doesn't mean the things above were bad ideas. It's just that we can't do anything in this country without oligarchs skimming off of the top. The oligarchs who've benefited from USAID are dwarfed the ones who've benefited from DoD contracts (not to mention some of them are the same people).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

So, it was racist because Colin Powell said so? Sure, many of the people that went along with the birtherism were probably racists, but the proposition that Obama was not born in the US is not racist by itself. The reason Trump didn't question Cruz and McCain likely had more to do with partisanship. And Cruz is latino, you know, the kind of people that Trump is trying to deport en masse. It's not like Trump would let accusations of racism stop him from doing anything if he felt the urge.

If anything, birtherism was motivated by Islamophobia. Both racism and Islamophobia are rooted in xenophobia and bigotry, and I understand why Average Joe commenter might conflate Islamophobia with racism. But I expect journalists who write for "serious" publications to use the term correctly.

But Eric Hehman did a study, and Jack Brigham extrapolated from that study. So, it must have been racism and not just a stupid partisan conspiracy theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

So, it was racist because Colin Powell said so? Sure, many of the people that went along with the birtherism were probably racists, but the proposition that Obama was not born in the US is not racist by itself. The reason Trump didn't question Cruz and McCain likely had more to do with partisanship. And Cruz is latino, you know, the kind of people that Trump is trying to deport en masse. It's not like Trump would let accusations of racism stop him from doing anything if he felt the urge.

If anything, birtherism was motivated by Islamophobia. Both racism and Islamophobia are rooted in xenophobia and bigotry, and I understand why Average Joe commenter might conflate Islamophobia with racism. But I expect journalists who write for "serious" publications to use the term correctly.

The initial question - "Obama's father was not an American citizen. Is Obama a natural born American citizen?" is not, in itself, a racist question. However, it's one that is easily answered by noting that his mother was an American citizen, therefore Obama is a natural born American citizen. Taking the question "Was he born in the US?" the answer is (a) it doesn't matter, given the citizenship of his mother, and (b) there is evidence that, yes, he was.

That should end the inquiry, as it did for McCain and Cruz, and if you stop there, then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You might not be a racist."

However, the birther movement went much, much further. They claimed that the birth announcement in the Hawaii paper was fraudulent, that the applicable government officials in Hawaii were lying, that the various forms that were made available were doctored or fraudulent, and such claims were made for years after Obama was elected. They filed lawsuits claiming that he was ineligible and/or not a legitimate commander in chief.

Those claims, as well as the claims that Obama was a "secret Muslim," were all intended to de-legitimize him as a candidate and a president.

Your attempt to deflect the birther movement from being associated with racism was actually the subject of the study noted in the USA Today article.

"The influence of racial prejudice in contemporary U.S. society is typically manifested in subtle, indirect forms of bias. Due to prevailing norms of equality, most Whites attempt to avoid appearing biased in their evaluations of Blacks, in part because of a genuine desire to live up to their egalitarian standards, but also because of concern regarding social censure," notes the study. "As a consequence, Whites' prejudice is more likely to be expressed in discriminatory responses when these actions can be justified by other factors."

The lead researcher of the study said:

President Obama has consistently faced a number of controversies that are, frankly, not based on fact. We thought that his critics' persistence in pursuing these fantasies, such as Obama's birth in a foreign nation or being a Muslim, in the face of facts saying otherwise, might be indirectly rooted in racism.

Our research investigated whether people who held racial prejudices might be more likely to see Obama as "un-American," presumably because of his race. Indeed, this is what we found. Whites who were prejudiced against Blacks were more likely to see Obama as un-American, and in turn, evaluated Obama as performing more poorly as president. Whites who were not prejudiced, and Blacks in general, did not do so. Additionally and importantly, this relationship was only found with Obama, as prejudiced Whites did not see Vice-President Joe Biden as un-American, despite the fact that Obama and Biden share political party affiliation and agenda.

The April 27 release of Obama's long-form birth certificate is a situation where President Obama and the White House eventually had to exert effort to quell a controversy that should never have been an issue. Our research indicates that one reason it may have initially become an issue at all has more to do with his race than his place of birth. We find that racial prejudice can, in part, influence evaluations of an elected leader, a phenomenon which is quite "un-American".

The article goes on to quote psychologist Jack Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research who was not part of the study: "[T]he results strongly support a role of racism in the birther movement."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there anything in the current GOP's platform designed around anything other than more dollars in the pocket of big business and billionaires?

I feel like all the conversation about policy minutiae (is climate change real? how do we fund high-risk pools?) are completely pointless, because the decisions are driven by cost-cutting for business and the possiblity of lower taxes for very rich people.

Let's just get it out in the open.

because it seems like the entire educated elite class has abandoned ethics for greed, the fight is not democrat or republican.

The few managers at my current company, that I know well, are polished liars, devoid of normal human emotion. In fact the key to success is the ability to keep a poker face while lying to employees.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/harvard-business-school-financial-crisis-economics-578378.html

Greed has nothing to do with political party, race, sex, or any other category. It is very easy to be generous with other people's income. That's the model of the Democratic party. The Republicans push back on that to make the income redistribution a little less severe. But rich people pay plenty in taxes and way more than they get from the Government in services and entitlements.

If you are saying the Republicans are unduly influenced by [rich] donors, that's a fair point. You could make the same point about Democrats.

We ought to strongly consider moving to a consumption tax. The rich would still pay more because they buy more goods.

As long as we have a rigid 2 party system, nothing is going to change.

The problem is, we do have wealth redistribution, but not at all in the sense that conservatives keep talking about - what we've had since the 1980s is a reverse-robinhood scheme where the rich have been getting richer but the middle class and working folks on whose backs the rich have made their money have stagnated. Sure, the rich pay a lot in taxes. But that said, they hold most of the wealth. The 400 richest people in America have more wealth than the bottom 61% of America. Yes, they have more wealth than the bottom 193 MILLION Americans, combined. If you can afford $200,000-a-year golf club memberships then you can afford to pay a little more in taxes. But if you are living paycheck to paycheck and have to skimp on groceries just to pay your bills then you can't afford to pay. We don't need to be giving deductions on mortgages for $10 million dollar homes. This is what Republicans don't seem to understand in their "flat tax" proposals. And NO, the wealthiest are NOT the job creators. The majority of jobs are still in small business, and what drives the economy and growth is money changing hands and disposable income, the more transactions the better. But when most of the money is concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest, but for the working class, their wages are stagnant and they have little disposable income, then the whole economy stagnates. This has been borne out in all of the economic data.

We do not have equality of outcomes in this country. We have a progressive tax system, but no guaranteed minimum income or right to food, shelter, or health care. There are countries that profess to offer those types of things but those countries are generally not doing well the last time I checked.

I would not mind paying more in taxes if I thought that our Government would spend that money wisely. That is not what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

So, it was racist because Colin Powell said so? Sure, many of the people that went along with the birtherism were probably racists, but the proposition that Obama was not born in the US is not racist by itself. The reason Trump didn't question Cruz and McCain likely had more to do with partisanship. And Cruz is latino, you know, the kind of people that Trump is trying to deport en masse. It's not like Trump would let accusations of racism stop him from doing anything if he felt the urge.

If anything, birtherism was motivated by Islamophobia. Both racism and Islamophobia are rooted in xenophobia and bigotry, and I understand why Average Joe commenter might conflate Islamophobia with racism. But I expect journalists who write for "serious" publications to use the term correctly.

The initial question - "Obama's father was not an American citizen. Is Obama a natural born American citizen?" is not, in itself, a racist question. However, it's one that is easily answered by noting that his mother was an American citizen, therefore Obama is a natural born American citizen. Taking the question "Was he born in the US?" the answer is (a) it doesn't matter, given the citizenship of his mother, and (b) there is evidence that, yes, he was.

That should end the inquiry, as it did for McCain and Cruz, and if you stop there, then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You might not be a racist."

However, the birther movement went much, much further. They claimed that the birth announcement in the Hawaii paper was fraudulent, that the applicable government officials in Hawaii were lying, that the various forms that were made available were doctored or fraudulent, and such claims were made for years after Obama was elected. They filed lawsuits claiming that he was ineligible and/or not a legitimate commander in chief.

Those claims, as well as the claims that Obama was a "secret Muslim," were all intended to de-legitimize him as a candidate and a president.

Your attempt to deflect the birther movement from being associated with racism was actually the subject of the study noted in the USA Today article.

"The influence of racial prejudice in contemporary U.S. society is typically manifested in subtle, indirect forms of bias. Due to prevailing norms of equality, most Whites attempt to avoid appearing biased in their evaluations of Blacks, in part because of a genuine desire to live up to their egalitarian standards, but also because of concern regarding social censure," notes the study. "As a consequence, Whites' prejudice is more likely to be expressed in discriminatory responses when these actions can be justified by other factors."

The lead researcher of the study said:

President Obama has consistently faced a number of controversies that are, frankly, not based on fact. We thought that his critics' persistence in pursuing these fantasies, such as Obama's birth in a foreign nation or being a Muslim, in the face of facts saying otherwise, might be indirectly rooted in racism.

Our research investigated whether people who held racial prejudices might be more likely to see Obama as "un-American," presumably because of his race. Indeed, this is what we found. Whites who were prejudiced against Blacks were more likely to see Obama as un-American, and in turn, evaluated Obama as performing more poorly as president. Whites who were not prejudiced, and Blacks in general, did not do so. Additionally and importantly, this relationship was only found with Obama, as prejudiced Whites did not see Vice-President Joe Biden as un-American, despite the fact that Obama and Biden share political party affiliation and agenda.

The April 27 release of Obama's long-form birth certificate is a situation where President Obama and the White House eventually had to exert effort to quell a controversy that should never have been an issue. Our research indicates that one reason it may have initially become an issue at all has more to do with his race than his place of birth. We find that racial prejudice can, in part, influence evaluations of an elected leader, a phenomenon which is quite "un-American".

The article goes on to quote psychologist Jack Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research who was not part of the study: "[T]he results strongly support a role of racism in the birther movement."

There are all kinds of dumb conspiracy theories. Have you heard the one about 9/11 being an inside job? Or the one arguing that women who have been raped can be denied health care coverage under the House bill that passed this week? A psychologist ought to perhaps consider the possibility that people are easily fooled because they want to feel important or "in the know."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're right. We're all focused on the horror this would potentially wreak on our lives that no one has the energy to see that the GOP is a bunch of lizard slugs.

I hope the Mercers and Kochs rot in stinking hell.

Hell would be too good for them.

They are just expressing their First Amendment rights like you are on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're right. We're all focused on the horror this would potentially wreak on our lives that no one has the energy to see that the GOP is a bunch of lizard slugs.

I hope the Mercers and Kochs rot in stinking hell.

Hell would be too good for them.

They are just expressing their First Amendment rights like you are on this forum.

Jeff said there's no 1st amendment rights here.

[Anonymous]

"Dumb conspiracy theories?"

Um, puh-f*ckin-leeze.

Again, compare:

1.) Barack Obama, black guy, with a foreign sounding name, born in the US, with evidence that he was born in the US, and zero credible evidence he wasn't. Per polling done a few years ago, fully 45% of Republicans believed he wasn't born in the US and thought his citizenship was a huge issue.

2.) Ted Cruz, white guy, with a foreign name (Cruz), NOT born in the US (born in Canada), authentic Canadian birth certificate produced, and yet virtually 0% of those exact same Republicans thought his citizenship was an issue.

Wanna explain that one to us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're right. We're all focused on the horror this would potentially wreak on our lives that no one has the energy to see that the GOP is a bunch of lizard slugs.

I hope the Mercers and Kochs rot in stinking hell.

Hell would be too good for them.

They are just expressing their First Amendment rights like you are on this forum.

Buying elections is not "free speech."

MONEY IS NOT SPEECH.

When I, as a regular Joe, am trying to get my voice heard, but then some billionaire with a 10,000 watt PA system rolls up and completely drowns me out then my own free speech has effectively been denied. The rich should not be entitled to more voice and more say than anyone else.

We seriously need to fix campaign finance and lobbying, and get money out of politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't call the man who spent 8 years insisting that the first black President wasn't born in the US a racist without people dismissing you as a far-left liberal loon...exactly how far do you think a discussion calling Republicans greedy is going to go?

What does insisting that a person wasn't born in the U.S. have to do with racism?

I liked Obama, and voted for him, and I don't care where he was born, but I've honestly wondered the same thing. I keep seeing people just reflexively call birtherism "racist." It just seems symptomatic of the increasingly broad overuse of the term to label basically any stupid comment that a white male says. Birtherism may have been wrong and pointless, but it wasn't racist.

Because actual study of the issue indicates the association of birtherism and racism: See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/social-scientists-look-at-racisms-role-in-birther-viewpoint/1#.WQ4LzXnD9Mt

The hacked emails of Colin Powell provided his thoughts on this issue as well:

In an Aug. 21 email from Powell to Miller, he blasted Trump for embarking on a “racist” movement that believes President Obama was not born in the US.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/13/colin-powell-hacked-emails/90341788/

Finally, let's look at a couple of other potential examples. Ted Cruz was actually born in Canada with a Canadian birth certificate, but the birther movement had no problems with his candidacy, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In neither of these cases did anyone repeatedly require ever-more-detailed “proof” that they are American citizens, nor were there conspiracy theories spread about how the documentation was "altered" or somehow being hidden.

So, the real question is how can anyone think that the birther movement, and its attempts to delegitimize first a candidate and then an elected president, was anything other than racist?

This column from the Boston Globe provides some interesting historical perspective - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/02/birthers_shameful_racist_roots/

So, it was racist because Colin Powell said so? Sure, many of the people that went along with the birtherism were probably racists, but the proposition that Obama was not born in the US is not racist by itself. The reason Trump didn't question Cruz and McCain likely had more to do with partisanship. And Cruz is latino, you know, the kind of people that Trump is trying to deport en masse. It's not like Trump would let accusations of racism stop him from doing anything if he felt the urge.

If anything, birtherism was motivated by Islamophobia. Both racism and Islamophobia are rooted in xenophobia and bigotry, and I understand why Average Joe commenter might conflate Islamophobia with racism. But I expect journalists who write for "serious" publications to use the term correctly.

The initial question - "Obama's father was not an American citizen. Is Obama a natural born American citizen?" is not, in itself, a racist question. However, it's one that is easily answered by noting that his mother was an American citizen, therefore Obama is a natural born American citizen. Taking the question "Was he born in the US?" the answer is (a) it doesn't matter, given the citizenship of his mother, and (b) there is evidence that, yes, he was.

That should end the inquiry, as it did for McCain and Cruz, and if you stop there, then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You might not be a racist."

However, the birther movement went much, much further. They claimed that the birth announcement in the Hawaii paper was fraudulent, that the applicable government officials in Hawaii were lying, that the various forms that were made available were doctored or fraudulent, and such claims were made for years after Obama was elected. They filed lawsuits claiming that he was ineligible and/or not a legitimate commander in chief.

Those claims, as well as the claims that Obama was a "secret Muslim," were all intended to de-legitimize him as a candidate and a president.

Your attempt to deflect the birther movement from being associated with racism was actually the subject of the study noted in the USA Today article.

"The influence of racial prejudice in contemporary U.S. society is typically manifested in subtle, indirect forms of bias. Due to prevailing norms of equality, most Whites attempt to avoid appearing biased in their evaluations of Blacks, in part because of a genuine desire to live up to their egalitarian standards, but also because of concern regarding social censure," notes the study. "As a consequence, Whites' prejudice is more likely to be expressed in discriminatory responses when these actions can be justified by other factors."

The lead researcher of the study said:

President Obama has consistently faced a number of controversies that are, frankly, not based on fact. We thought that his critics' persistence in pursuing these fantasies, such as Obama's birth in a foreign nation or being a Muslim, in the face of facts saying otherwise, might be indirectly rooted in racism.

Our research investigated whether people who held racial prejudices might be more likely to see Obama as "un-American," presumably because of his race. Indeed, this is what we found. Whites who were prejudiced against Blacks were more likely to see Obama as un-American, and in turn, evaluated Obama as performing more poorly as president. Whites who were not prejudiced, and Blacks in general, did not do so. Additionally and importantly, this relationship was only found with Obama, as prejudiced Whites did not see Vice-President Joe Biden as un-American, despite the fact that Obama and Biden share political party affiliation and agenda.

The April 27 release of Obama's long-form birth certificate is a situation where President Obama and the White House eventually had to exert effort to quell a controversy that should never have been an issue. Our research indicates that one reason it may have initially become an issue at all has more to do with his race than his place of birth. We find that racial prejudice can, in part, influence evaluations of an elected leader, a phenomenon which is quite "un-American".

The article goes on to quote psychologist Jack Brigham of Florida State University, an expert in racial attitudes research who was not part of the study: "[T]he results strongly support a role of racism in the birther movement."

There are all kinds of dumb conspiracy theories. Have you heard the one about 9/11 being an inside job? Or the one arguing that women who have been raped can be denied health care coverage under the House bill that passed this week? A psychologist ought to perhaps consider the possibility that people are easily fooled because they want to feel important or "in the know."

Wow. If only the psychologists had thought to consult you for your expertise they could've saved so much effort! I'm sure they never thought of that one. On the basis of your common sense approach you should propose teaching in a psych grad program so that all budding researchers could benefit from your wisdom.

There are lots of conspiracy theory idiots out there - birthers, 9/11 truthers, sandy hook truthers, anti-vaxxers, those who believe Lee Harvey Oswald had help, those who believe the Moon landing was faked, those who believe AIDS was created by the CIA, those who believe global warming is a hoax (perpetuated by the Chinese), etc.

The question the PP (possibly you) brought up was why people believed and supported the birther conspiracy theory and argued that it wasn't really a racist question and that those who supported the birther conspiracy theories weren't motivated by racism but rather Islamophobia. So, I provided two recent examples of presidential candidates who were actually born outside the US, but for whom the birther movement was not bothered. The primary differences between those candidates and Obama was their race and their party.

Then I cited to a study that demonstrated a link between support for the birther movement and racism.

So far no one has provided any evidence to support the position that the birther movement was not fundamentally racist.