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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsjust got into a verbal fight with a birther
He is a black male, about 50, served as an M.P. in the Army back in the mid-late '70s, is pretty much homeless and is sorta employed down at an automotive shop, where he sleeps at night.
He is not a stupid person and luckily slow to offend, (i know it took some doing but I DID anger him).
I thought it ok to chide him on being a republican which set the whole discussion/argument/shouting match off. I asked him if I could say a few minutes worth on why I felt that republicans were anti democracy which he agreed to listen to. I informed him that democracy requires an informed electorate, that the republicans want instead to diminish the electorate and furthermore to divide and propagandize the electorate.
He stopped me from expanding on this by pointing out that we do not have a democracy, that we instead have a republic. (Typical quote of the propagandized...democracy sounds too much like democrat for their tastes I guess).
I tried to go on with voter fraud vs election fraud and who was actually doing what...that ACORN was a a means to get the elderly and the impoverished to vote when he stopped me again and claimed that both sides were equally guilty of voter fraud. I tried to explain the difference between the two forms of fraud and who has been busted for what historically when he stopped me again to inform me that Chicago Dems were notorious for having the dead vote for Dems.
At this point I was agitated enough to ask if he could back up his assertions when he decided to change the whole discussion to his problem with President Obama-that he is not even an American! Ok so now I see that I am dealing with a birther. I think I can maybe set him straight on this....boy was I wrong.
So I ask him what evidence does he have to back up that President Obama was not born in Hawaii. He claimed that if he is asked by the police for his I-D, he shows it but the President when asked to show his longform birth certificate refused to do so. My counter to this was to ask where in the Constitution did it say that a specific document was required to be presented and to whom as a prerequisite to be POTUS. (I knew already the requirements, producing any documentation is not one of the three listed requirements).
This is where our argument stalled out. He being angry that I refused to budge in my reasoning that it was NOT listed that a potential candidate is required to prove ANYTHING, he required that the president did indeed need to provide the longform birth certificate, that the reason President Obama refused to do so was because he was born elsewhere than in America.
He was quite angry at this time and I was shaking with frustration. I even went to a webpage with my cell phone and physically showed him the three requirements. When he saw the requirement of being born an American he treated
that as proof that I was wrong....I of course pointed out that there was nowhere a fourth requirement that President Obama was required to provide ANY proof-that the burden of disproving his citizenship was squarely on those who said he was not a citizen.
I eventually left, our debate an angry shouting match, and he feeling that I was the propagandized idiot. He promised to vote for Romney because Democrats have done nothing to help him and who knows, maybe the republicans will serve him better.
Later I researched an anti birther site, (thanks to DUs antipropaganda subforum) and discovered the real reason that President Obama can not produce this longform birth certificate-it being the sole property of the records department of the hospital where he was born and not the property of the mother, father or the person born there. Not even the President of The United States can get it released! They gladly will provide a certificate of birth and by Hawaiian law they do not have to provide more than that. They don't even have to provide a photocopy of the original.
So I have access to a hardcopy of the birther debunk page which refutes my poor propagandized friend but at this point I am not sure the debate is worth pursueing. I have read studies that show that the conservative brain shuts out facts and data which conflict with their reality. I have even complained to them about their conscious ignoring of the facts but my complaints just fall on deaf ears.
I guess I've nothing further to say, outside of how angry I am at those who have so fucked up this guy's head. This poor soul is so lost to America and our democracy....and he is legion in numbers. I suppose I now understand why the Vietnameese government decided to send much of its citizenry to mandatory deprogramming after the fiasco that we called the VietNam war. Like the Germans who were made to see those death camps, we have our section of the population who refuse to face the facts until they get forced to face them. For those poor lost souls, I am truly confounded that I know not how to help them and that just sucks!
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)chknltl
(10,558 posts)Ok so i was trying not to deliberately anger him....it just ended up that way. Hell, I think he is wondering why he came so close to swinging on me! He was that pissed! He actually had to walk off and cool off before he came back and tried to convince me that I need to accept that we have a difference of opinion. I was shaking with frustration even hours later. Posting this thread has forced me into a calming reflection.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)It's a Rush soundbite that assumes that the eighteenth century usage of the terms actually had anything to do with the modern political parties. In reality, the US is a democratic republic, like dozens of other countries.
Unusual to meet a black birther since birtherism is almost always a cover for racism.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)I kept thinking that this guy could not possibly be for real....but he was. iIve known him for about a year now, bump into him about once every week or so....I was just blown away by his being a birther and he was equally blown away that I was trying to set him straight....like I was some kind of arrogant idiot.
I have often heard republicans call us a republic before, noticing their reluctance to call us a democracy or a democratic republic. I didn't know that they got that from limbaugh.
lookingfortruth
(263 posts)"Birthers". It scares me because I don't understand the logic behind them. I know most birthers are racists but how do you explained these type of birthers?
jenmito
(37,326 posts)You somehow think there are "many." Where do you get that from???
lookingfortruth
(263 posts)a large company that allows me to see a lot of "diverse" and sometimes chilling view points.
jenmito
(37,326 posts)lookingfortruth
(263 posts)done nothing but make me feel like an idiot. I perhaps made a huge mistake joining this place if I am only going to be confronted by people like you.
jenmito
(37,326 posts)and I doubt that many, if any, of the Black people you know are Birthers. Black Birthers are very few and far between.
I will refrain from posting to you since I make you feel like an idiot. And I apologize. For now.
provis99
(13,062 posts)How do we explain black nazis and black neo-confederates? I guess a certain proportion of any population you care to look at is insane and irrational.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)I guess for me this is more than his being a birther.....
He is about half a step away from being utterly homeless. He is allowed to sleep in the auto shop and gets a little cash from who knows where to buy food with. He is NOT a stupid person, he easily recounts histories regarding our country's founding, civil rights, the Great Depression and etc.
I think that his problem is not his intelligence but instead it is an effect of the republican propaganda machine combined with a genetic pre-disposition that will not allow him to face his fears with rationality.
Being black, white, boy, girl or whatever likely has no bearing here. I now suspect even some of those Germans who were forced to see the Nazi death camps remained in denial until the day they died.
For some folks, there may be no way to actually help them and THAT line of thought bothers the hell out of me! They are our brothers and sisters and yet their actions bring great harm to everyone! I don't hate him, I want to 'fix' him and everyone like him, that I guess is my own stupidity because I see the hopelessness in what I want.
This man should be the poster child of what we progressives seek to help and he hates us! He is sooo screwed.......
chknltl
(10,558 posts)Hang in there with us for awhile.
Until today, I too thought birtherism to be a subset of teapartyism and definitely the racist subset. The man I argued with today was not racist nor does he see me as racist either. We have been casual friends for about a year. Truth be told one of his stories from his Army days is ...well...just dang cool: He did a tour of duty over in Germany and while there rode a tricked out Harley everywhere he could while checking out Bavaria. Seeing a black guy on a Harley is no rarity here in the states, but those bikes are never seen much on the streets of Germany and ridden by a black American? It just doesn't get more cooler than that! (Btw, this was back in the mid '70s I was there too then and having spent 9 years there I can tell you I did not see a single Harley anywhere...I am sure there were a few around but they were rare to none in my neck of the woods at that time.)
gateley
(62,683 posts)Does he want more of the same?
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)I have yet to find anything dumber then a MP.
chknltl
(10,558 posts).....well maybe you have a point. Decades ago as a teen army brat, I had a great connection to some fine acid from an MP.
When I ran away from home that same MP let me stay with him and his wife in their quarters on base. He, behind my back let my dad know where I was and that I was safe. He later talked me into going home and making amends with my family. With hindsight, this MP was pretty cool....but maybe not so smart for dealing LSD to kids.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)there's the cynical lyin mofos who don't give a tinker's dam about the truth but wanna stir up shit
and then there's the folk who ain't thinkin straight, what with all the cynical lyin mofos tryin to stir up shit in their brains
waste of time to argue with either kind, but for different reasons
EC
(12,287 posts)If you are in a state that passed one of the ALEC id laws, a veterans card is not accepted ID, so he may not be able to vote if he has no other ID...being homeless he may not have any.
I wonder how he'd answer if he knew Obama is the only President asked to prove his citizenship?
chknltl
(10,558 posts)I am betting he, like me, has a veterans card, used as you know, at VA hospitals. It serves as secondary I-D in many other places too-especially lately with folks being a bit more cognizant of who and what veterans are. (Being a Viet-Nam era vet I recall a different treatment for vets....thank you to all who recognize what Vets went through, your kindness' are greatly appreciated!)
I've been in a pretty good funk over our argument today, thinking I may make a point of not bumping into him ever again. But he likely does not know about ALEC and I was originally trying to show him how the repugs were screwing with the electorate by the dirty tricks we come to know as election fraud...if as I suspect, he has no drivers license, this could be the very ticket to get him to open his ears and actually listen!
Could break through...he does seem to be a sponge..absorbing the wrong stuff though.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)confederation of republics. We may technically be a democratically elected republic, but the choices we have in the elections are becoming seriously limited by the big money power brokers. We are becoming a plutocracy.
progressiveinaction
(150 posts)Who cares? What does that have to do with the story?
chknltl
(10,558 posts)and as others have said earlier in this thread, I was under the impression that being a birther was a a mask for being a racist, more specifically an anti black-racist. Apparently I was mistaken or at the very least my view here was broadbrushed. In my discussion/debate/argument with my friend, I was confounded by the fact that be was both a black person and a birther. I would have been equally confounded had he told me that he was a member of the kkk. My personal worldview regarding birthers is now undergoing a vigorous introspection and likely some drastic alteration.