Building a Nation of Know-Nothings - NYTimes.com

(decline of symbolic efficiency)

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies.

So where is this “media?” Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:

“Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.”

Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate.

On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president “imam Obama,” and said, “I’m just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.”

You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that “people are questioning” things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says it’s a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama’s Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.

It’s curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.

“I am a devout Christian,” Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. “I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” That’s not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was “born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father.”

Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.

Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.”

The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.

via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

Comments

[Robert Ramsey]

"Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate."

“FactCheck”.org is an affiliate of the Annenberg, Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Ayers and Obama were on their board.

I like how you go on talking about how Fox News and Limbaugh, etc all the usual supects etc etc are right wing, yet you issue your "evidence" from left wing sites. I would say that the "birth certificate" you cite is the "short form" birth certificate which has been proven to have been issued to non residences of this country in the year it was issued to Obama. When a government agency asks you to bring a birth certificate to prove citizenship, that "short form" will not work, and is not valid.

Here's John Mccain's long form bc-

http://123722364835149753-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/obamabirth/Home/obama-short-form-birth-certificate/mccainbirthcertificate.jpg?attachauth=ANoY7cp3LuLhhl_SGF-FiAoOOv9HOIPpoFnZN7kTjV5B0S5tTtiULVlhVLcXfkZyDUHxxPDkGGmfKvrHzgQEW4laDSHSNeTG5MHxkIri_nWx0Jr6749ucNtpZp-MkzCvaKIIkoL67RDle7dmtkPs6cr--04N2NozFvrt0X91o5yObhWeXa96_4DWQTCk0xIruuUp8mbpYWOZk6qIIs-b_3Zz7HMP5Kb8PISOofXFDb-2docuUf2ULFd0caBkza99mo6YDKIiycudsxCqsALUnNxDDv4zCS7bmA%3D%3D&attredirects=0

I'll just leave this here:
http://sites.google.com/site/obamabirth/Home/obama-short-form-birth-certificate

I know you will ignore the questions that the presented information would pose to an unbiased person, and you will be unable to refute them in this public forum, but anyway.

I want to let you know that I am 25 years old, and have several decades ahead of me to salt down your faction's red lies here in America. Many young people see through the distortions. Fox News may be right wing, but what else is there? Generally, almost everything else is leftist. It's just the opposing viewpoint that is soooooo terrible to your kind. From Obama's actions, not his words I am almost certain he is Muslim. Any dhimmi can tell you that.

I've wasted enough of my time. I can tell you are hardcore, so I'll just close with saying that I will fight for smaller government, less taxes, and more personal responsibility until I die. Every time I think about people like you, I will just fight harder. I know you where more than likely indoctrinated at a young age, and are probably atheist, so I'll be praying that you are one day able to listen to an opposing viewpoint one day without immediately discarding the information.

[Jodi]

Robert--

I've looked at all the birther material. One of my research areas is conspiracy theory. There is no good reason to entertain any suspicion about Obama's birth certificate. The more disturbing question is why anyone would posit a theory that involves a multi-decade plot involving fake birth certificates. There is also no reason to think the President is Muslim. Perhaps you recall all the criticism of his minister, the Reverend Wright, during the election? But, even if he were Muslim, what's the problem with that? Religion is a private matter.

It could be that some of my views are linked to childhood indoctrination: I was raised Southern Baptist. I have always admired the organization of the early Christian Church--its model for the distribution of provisions was from each according to his ability to each according to his need. I've been puzzled for a long time now how a religion that teaches that its easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven could become equated with views of society that are so competitive, individualistic, and harsh. What happened to charity and mutual support?

The tax rate in the US is lower than it was even during the Reagan years. The effect is decaying infrastructure, the shutting down of fire stations, the failure of regulatory oversight (and tragedies like the oil spill and the salmonella outbreak in eggs), bank failures and the rise of predatory lending, the list goes on and on.

I wonder if you are really against big government. Some people who say they favor big government are also big fans of a strong military--that's expensive. They also sometimes favor strengthening the US border, building fences, deploying troops; this is also expensive.

Personal responsibility is important. I wish that the big banks had been forced to take responsibility for the risks they took. One way to have made them responsible would have been to cap their bonuses and salaries.

[Robert Ramsey]

Personal responsibility is important. Therefore, if one fails, they must own their mistakes. In the Clinton years, the government required banks to make loans to people who otherwise would not have been able to afford to take those loans without the programs put forth by that administration. Because of government meddling in the free market, there where a lot of people who lost those homes when things got a little tough, snowballing into the mortgage meltdown of today. Frankly, the collapse of the housing market today lies at Clinton's feet.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2008/02/clintons_drive.html

My point here is a bank who issues a loan to a person whom they are reasonably sure may not be able to fulfill that loan deserves for them to have it go bad. The person defaults, and the bank then owns the home, good or bad as a result. If they make this choice again and again, then the natural order is for that bank to go bust. More government intervention in dictating how much they should make comes nowhere near actually solving the problem here. By giving the people's money to such organizations is like "bailing out" a boat without fixing the massive breach in the hull. Let these banks fail.

I am against big FEDERAL government, and hope to see more carefully managed state's rights, not rule by Presidential fiat.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively..."

A good example is the federal government's intervention in state's rights to protect itself from the foreign threat of illegal immigration, drug running, and human trafficking from Mexico. The federal government intentionally sabotaged Arizona's right to defend itself from an ongoing federally sanctioned foreign invasion. As the informed voter knows, this is to build up the voter base of warm bodies who will vote Democrat in return for "immigration reform", i.e. amnesty for those who jumped over the fence.
Building fences should be taken care of on a state level. When one state starts building fences and effectively combating illegal immigration, the illegals, will then go through a state that doesn't have fences or protection. Because the flow of immigration will bottleneck through the states that do NOT protect their borders, illegal crime will rise in those states, emergency rooms will fill, and taxes will be raised by the local bureaucrats to support this new wave of people who are living there and consuming resources without paying taxes. That state will then build the fences for itself at the behest of the overtaxed electorate without the fed ever becoming involved.
Deploying federal troops to the border for me is 50/50. This would be permissible only if the state asked for that to happen because of it's own failings. Also, what purpose would they serve if they can't shoot the invaders? A good leftist solution, with a nod to the "stimulus", would be to hire more border patrol agents. That way we could "create" "more jobs".

Taxes. The domestic cudgel of federal power.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5685

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/03/growing-complexity-of-us-federal-tax.html

Did you know in 2010 the US tax code was estimated to be 71,684 pages in length?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/another-tax-pro.html

"Nancy Killefer, will withdraw her nomination
following the revelation that she had a $946.69 lien
on her property in 2005 for failure to pay taxes."
"Killefer joins the ranks of Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner, who failed to pay more than $40,000 in
payroll taxes when he worked for the International
Monetary Fund, and Secretary of Health and Human
Services nominee Tom Daschle, who -- as ABC News was
first to report last Friday -- on Jan. 2 filed more
than $140,000 in back taxes and interest, having
failed to disclose more than $300,000 in past
income, including the use of a car and driver for
three years."

"Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s nominee to
become Health and Human Services secretary, said in
a letter obtained by the Associated Press that she
made “unintentional errors” on her taxes and has
corrected her returns from three different years."

And I could go on and on there. What would happen to mom and pop if they owed taxes on more than $300,000 in past income? Nothing, if they affiliated with government. The tax code becomes more and more complex each year to punish political enemies of the government, and reward friends, also creating tax centric political distortions and propaganda for upcoming elections. The tax code is more of a political machine than a revenue raising instrument. This is why a flat tax is mouthed as "crazy","outlandish", and "fiscal suicide" by those in power. With it, all the numbers are in the open and there are very few secrets. Also, it would be harder to increase taxes on people to fund bigger government and bailouts because the referendum to increase the flat tax would be right out in the open for the people to see. However, we can't have that, can we?

About the "birther conspiracy theory". There have been over 20 lawsuits filed within the last 3 years detailed here:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Obama_birth_certificate_lawsuits

"FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate."

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

If factcheck.org staffers have seen the ORIGINAL long form certificate, why is is not possible for a presidentially appointed federal judge to do the same thing (or at least examine a certified copy)? If this is such a paper tiger of a laughable conspiracy theory, why does the case keep getting tossed again and again without examining the core facts surrounding the case. This puzzles me. After all, who doesn't want this whole "birther teabagger" thing to be cleared up, right?

[Robert Allen]

Personal responsibility is crap. I wish I had a dollar for every coworker who spouts this stuff- it would make a nice reality show, "survival" of the best right wing radio trope parroter. Robert needs to turn off the radio and take an economics class.....

[Robert Allen]

Sorry about that last post, should be deleted, I'm down with a bad fever and shouldn't be posting!

[Jodi]

Hey Bob--I really hope you feel better. My thought is that Robert Ramsey is swimming in conservative propaganda and mistakes this for thinking. It's funny that he asks why the case doesn't get clearered up. It doesn't get cleared up because birthers don't accept as evidence what others (state officials in Hawaii, for example) have vouched for. Filing cases isn't winning cases. A number of visible ones have been thrown out.

Robert--the argument you make on the origins of the mortgage crisis has been discredited by serious economists. It leaves out too much--namely, the incentives banks had to issue no money down, high payment later plans, the incentives banks had to sell the mortgages to investment firms, and the investment firms CDO industry as it bundled and tranched loans, using them to make their own books look more stable and to redistribute risk throughout the financial system. Most of these transactions were part of the 'shadow banking system' and not regulated.

My own idea would be there for there to one national bank (with local branches). Speculative activity would be reserved for Vegas.

Taxes are the way we contribute to shared benefits and responsibilities. They should be much higher on the rich. When we way our taxes, we are paying for the roads, for clean air, for the reliability and safety of our food and cars, for schools, for the health and well-being of older people who were working while we just kids and unable to contribute. Our taxes are like our pool of collective dreams and hopes. I'm outraged that bad guys distort these dreams and make the militaristic, aggressive, and deadly. I'm dismayed when they make the dreams punitive and work on imprisoning people. Taxes got us to the moon!

My grandfathers used to say how they got through the Depression. They both, living in different states, were able to keep food on the table by working in the Civilian Conservation Core established by Roosevelt. This has always seemed to me to be reason for government, to provide a safety net when people fall, and to use our collective strength to envision and undertake projects that would be too much for any small group.