Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Obama's Birth Certificate

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

I did not expect a Tea Party associate newspaper to come out and claim the birth certificate was a forgery as confirmed by Obama's lawyer to be hype over a technicality.
You seem to think the tea-party is by and large a sensible group of people. In fact, they're a rag-tag bunch. The sub-groups -- the fiscal conservatives, the idiot religious guys, and the middle-of-road guys who simply want a little less government -- each want to wear the term "tea-party". Some members see the tea-party as essentially Christian, some think Sarah Palin best represents them, some think Wall Street is evil, ... all these are just as much "tea-party" as anyone else who claims the epithet.

However, technically, since the long-form was not endorsed or certified by the State of Hawaii, then it is a forgery; as it would be if any of us tried to get away with that.

Added on edit: Try to get away with it when filing for a driver's license or any other official documentation of your place of birth as required by law.

So, anything not endorsed by a state government is a forgery.Is your picture, posted on the web a forgery? Imagine what would happen if you try to get away with "it" when filing for a drivers license. Frankly, these two sentences you've written are simply gobbledegook.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

However, technically, since the long-form was not endorsed or certified by the State of Hawaii, then it is a forgery; as it would be if any of us tried to get away with that.

Why do you persist in saying that this is a forgery, even if only "technically," when you've demonstrated no such thing? As I've said a couple of times (and you've ignored), a photocopy of a birth certificate is not a forgery.

If I tried to "get away" with showing you a photocopy of my birth certificate, because you had asked to see my birth certificate, I would get away with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As an aside, there are some documents that may not be copied by law. Even a photo-copy is illegal. One that I know of is a "Certificate of Naturalization" that one gets when the U.S. government allows you to become a naturalized citizen. I don't know why the law disallows copying it: maybe to prevent possible fraud. Even so, making a copy or posting that copy -- while illegal -- is not forgery.

Even most conspiracy theorists do not claim that posting the document on the internet constitutes forgery. The forgery claim comes from a few technical people who examined the internet image and found "layers" etc. in the document, and said that -- in their opinion -- the document was not simply a scan of an original, but had been put together and fabricated in the sense that it was not from a single original, and in the sense that it was an attempt to represent that it was a scan of some original when in fact it was not. However, other experts looking at the same document said that the evidence was consistent with certain settings turned on (OCR in particular) and then taking the document from one format to another.

Thomas: Wikipedia is a hundred times more reliable than your tea-party source.

Edited by softwareNerd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, anything not endorsed by a state government is a forgery.Is your picture, posted on the web a forgery? Imagine what would happen if you try to get away with "it" when filing for a drivers license. Frankly, these two sentences you've written are simply gobbledegook.

Talk about hyperbole! I did not say that the State must endorse or certify anything or everything you do; what I am saying is that when it comes to official government documents -- like a birth certificate or a driver's license -- then, yes, it must be certified by the State according to the law; and no, I could not use my own photograph for a driver's licenses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with SN basic assertion about the Tea Party associates -- they are a rag-tail bunch. However, they do want to hold our government officials to the meaning of the Constitution and they do want freedom. Their problem is that they do not have an intellectual base and tend to be more "common sense" oriented, but don't present a coherent rational philosophy. They desperately need one, and a large part of our future as free Americans hinges on them getting one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with SN basic assertion about the Tea Party associates -- they are a rag-tail bunch. However, they do want to hold our government officials to the meaning of the Constitution and they do want freedom. Their problem is that they do not have an intellectual base and tend to be more "common sense" oriented, but don't present a coherent rational philosophy. They desperately need one, and a large part of our future as free Americans hinges on them getting one.

Most t-party people I've seen on TV couldn't possibly understand the first thing about the Constitution and "freedom" in any rational way. For them representing that cause of liberty which apparently consists of being unable to perform simple math. How does this further the cause?

There's nothing "common sense" about wanting lower taxes for yourself yet the same exact government. It's just moronic blabbering, and insofar as it occupies the same space as real advocates for liberty, it is very much a setback for liberty, and does more damage than any organized call for socialism could ever do.

The t-party people are absolutely the same as the "occupy" people in terms of their effect. Neither have any sort of ideology at all--but at least the Occupy people have the (albeit bizarre) honesty to proclaim they stand for nothing in particular except "anger".

T-party people are Occupy people with better costumes. Neither have anything fundamental to say, and both are either desperately pointless or looking to cash in on the same. One is vaguely democrat and the other is vaguely Republican.

I've alluded to this in (another thread), but I'll reiterate: these days I have much more hope for real rational change coming from the "left" side of the world than the "right" as the latter has turned decidedly against reason in any form. If I have to choose between higher taxes with reason still existing and lower taxes but we have to all pretend that squares are round, then I'll choose reason any day of the week...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found an article that has the relevant video at the bottom of the NJ trial. From listening to it carefully (turn the volume up because the sound quality is very bad), Obama's lawyer admitted that the image presented on the internet was never intended to be a Hawaii certified legal document and would not be offered as evidence for Obama being a natural born citizen. When pressed further, Obama's lawyer said it would not be so presented because there was nothing in the New Jersey law that stipulated that one's natural born citizenship had to be legally documented before getting on the Presidential ballot. The spin on the right and throughout the Tea Party affiliates is that therefore Obama's layer had admitted that the internet image is a forgery, but this was not something Obama's lawyer agreed to -- she only agreed that it was not a certified copy and that it would not be used in court. So, the bottom line is that it doesn't matter what was put on the long-form image, since Obama never said it was a certified copy in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.westernfr...vice-documents/

Here, have an actual analysis of both the birth certificate and the selective service card. (Skip the first video on that page. It's just an introduction.)

I originally distanced myself from this whole birth certificate issue for the same reasons you guys are: Because I thought it was a redneck conspiracy theory. But this analysis shows the digital copy of the birth certificate to be very suspicious, and the selective service card to be an outright fake. And such a bad fake that a kindergartener could've made it.

I don't know if I accept their dumbed down analysis of the certificate itself as proof. But it definitely seems suspicious. But keeping in mind that the selective service card is a blatant fake, this context makes the certificate seem all the more suspicious to me.

EDIT:

Actually, this youtube video has the presentations themselves without all the talking. But you can still watch the video in the above link to get more context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93cullaHRQc

Edited by Amaroq
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, this youtube video has the presentations themselves without all the talking. But you can still watch the video in the above link to get more context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93cullaHRQc

I went through their claims when someone linked those videos on Facebook a month ago, and they're absolutely unfounded, particularly their assumptions - based on one example - of what the document should have looked like when scanned in. That depends entirely on the scanner used (unknown), the brand and version of scanner software used (unknown), the image filtering settings in the scanner software (unknown), and most importantly the OCR sensitivity/threshold settings (unknown). I've personally worked with OCR software to scan old books and convert them to readable text (ABBYY Finereader), and it is a tedious process. The recognition of text is highly sensitive to the settings you use, but these people act as if the results should've looked like their one example. This is just idiotic.

Their claims about the selective service card being a forgery are very weak, particularly what they assume the stamp should have looked like and what it should have said - even their few cherry-picked counterexamples are not totally consistent in appearance. They blindly assert that the reason the stamp only shows two digits is because the "forgers" could not get ahold a rubber stamp from that era, as if constructing a fake rubber stamp is some outstanding feat.

Edited by brian0918
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found my original youtube comments on that video. If you haven't watched the videos yet, I was responding primarily to this guy's phony authority, hence my use of strong language.

This is what happens when a non-technical individual watches a few videos on OCR and photoshop and thinks he is an expert. You're an idiot, and your most basic assumptions about the expected results of OCR are absolutely wrong! You compare an unknown OCR software, unknown version, with unknown settings, to your own selected OCR software, and presume you'll get the same or even similar results. Why?

Whether or not the text is readable depends entirely on the OCR software. It's much easier to program recognizing a block of text without actually translating it into text. The number and content of the layers that result from OCR depend on the tolerance/fineness settings used in the OCR software. It's obvious that this layering is from OCR - if you move the text, you see empty white underneath, rather than the detailed green background of the document, because there's no data to display.

And your mysterious white halo effect is just a basic sharpen filter that was probably automatically applied by the scanner software. Oversharpening routinely produces a white halo effect along dark edges.

I cannot emphasize enough how baseless are your basic assumptions. It indicates your lack of technical experience in this area. Try OCRing an old book and converting it to text. It's a constant battle with the settings in the software. In other words - the results change dramatically depending on the settings you're using in the software. And you don't even know what software was used, let alone the version or the settings that were used. That authority in your voice is completely bogus.

Edited by brian0918
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm. I suppose I stand corrected on the birth certificate. At least on the white halo. But how does an entire stamp and signature, etc get lifted onto its own layer? Does OCR software or some fancy optimization software lift stuff like that and put it on layers as one coherent piece? Does OCR detecting normal letters but not signatures explain the fact that most of the characters looked smooth, but the signatures looked pixellated?

I should've known this was too stupid to be true.

I don't really buy what you said about the stamp though. So what if it's possible to just manufacture a new stamp. That doesn't really explain why the year is in two digits when all post offices were supposed to be using four digits. The fact that you can make a good forgery doesn't explain why it looks like a bad one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm. I suppose I stand corrected on the birth certificate. At least on the white halo. But how does an entire stamp and signature, etc get lifted onto its own layer? Does OCR software or some fancy optimization software lift stuff like that and put it on layers as one coherent piece?

Yes.

Does OCR detecting normal letters but not signatures explain the fact that most of the characters looked smooth, but the signatures looked pixellated?

I don't remember the full context of this point, where in which video do they discuss this? Some possibilities:

1. The software detected text and chose not to apply certain filtering to it, while it still applied filtering (e.g. sharpening) to the rest of the image, making it more pixelated.

2. Alternatively, it may have detected the text and applied selective filtering to it to make it more acceptable to OCR.

3. Or it could have just been an effect of the automatic process of putting the text in a separate layer.

I don't really buy what you said about the stamp though. So what if it's possible to just manufacture a new stamp.

That's the whole point. Their entire rationale for why you would need to take two characters from another image and paste them into a different image was because the original stamps are no longer available (a blind assertion on their part), as if making another stamp is out of the realm of possibility.

That doesn't really explain why the year is in two digits when all post offices were supposed to be using four digits.

Other possibilities:

1. They didn't load the first two digits into the rubber stamp (by accident, or for whatever reason).

2. Not all stamps are the same, and some only show two digits, regardless of what the official policy actually states.

3. The rubber stamp was damaged in some way, leaving the first two digits blank.

4. The ink didn't get onto the first two digits on the rubber stamp. Notice how Obama's was stamped at a weird angle, like the user forgot and quickly stamped it later.

5. The ink didn't get onto the paper from the rubber stamp.

The fact that you can make a good forgery doesn't explain why it looks like a bad one.

It hasn't been established that it looks like a bad forgery. The only thing we know is that it looks different from some other cherry-picked examples, which themselves are not totally identical to eachother.

Edited by brian0918
Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, those of you arguing that the long-form birth certificate was a fake due to image quality and possible edits, it is now totally beside the point. After the NJ trial shown above, it doesn't matter one squit what the documents was forged or not (as in not a image of a real document) because Obama will never use it in a court of law to assert that he is a natural born citizen. Maybe it is a fake and maybe it isn't, but it doesn't matter what he presented to the American people and to the world because it could never prove his place of birth one way or the other not being a Hawaii certified document. And I do say that the fact that he could assert one thing to the populous and yet something entirely different in a court of law does come from Kantian premises. The idea that reality conforms to the subject and especially conforms to a collective subject is straight out of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Obama's mannerisms (and the mannerisms of every collectivist dictator in the 19th and 20th Century) comes from the idea that there is no truth independent of human subjective consciousness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do say that the fact that he could assert one thing to the populous and yet something entirely different in a court of law does come from Kantian premises.

I think it just stems from different requirements for proof between the public and a court of law. The court requires original documents in certain cases that most people may not think is necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it just stems from different requirements for proof between the public and a court of law. The court requires original documents in certain cases that most people may not think is necessary.
Obama should sell original-certified copies of his birth certificate. Anyone who wants a copy, send in $100 to his campaign fund and you'll get a true-certified copy. Might as well clean up some of the opposition's money while generating a couple of extra jobs in Hawaii!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right...the point is that if he could have legally asserted under oath via his lawyer that the long-form presented on the internet was a Hawaiian certified duplicate of the actually long-form, then he could have cut to the chase in NJ and told everyone to get off his back. Since he didn't do that, since he and his lawyer skirted the entire issue by saying it wasn't required, then he is only adding fuel to the fire against him by those who says he needs to prove that he was a natural born citizen.Andif you noticed, his lawyer tried to get away with saying that the burden of proof is on those saying he is NOT a natural born citizen, that he doesn't have to prove a damned thing. Fortunately, the Tea Party advocate lawyer and the judge killed that maneuver post hast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What happened to the side discussion regarding the state of the economy and whether or not we are heading for dictatorship. I think it was off-topic, and I think what needs to be said about Obama's dealings with his birth certificate has been resolved, but I was going to reply to that part of the thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What happened to the side discussion regarding the state of the economy and whether or not we are heading for dictatorship. I think it was off-topic, and I think what needs to be said about Obama's dealings with his birth certificate has been resolved, but I was going to reply to that part of the thread.

It was moved here: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23409

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right...the point is that if he could have legally asserted under oath via his lawyer that the long-form presented on the internet was a Hawaiian certified duplicate of the actually long-form, then he could have cut to the chase in NJ and told everyone to get off his back.

To analogize: years ago I moved out of a rented apartment and the landlord made big deductions from my security deposit. In my state there are some strict rules on how a landlord can do that, one of which is that he has to send the refund by a certain number of days after the tenant has moved out. If they don’t, they lose the right to make any claims against the security deposit, and further, are responsible for the legal fees the tenant incurs to sue. In my case, the postmark on the envelope was past the required date, so I sued. The landlord had all kinds of stories about damages (false of course), but all I to do to win the case was produce the envelope with the tardy postmark. I didn’t have to address any assertions about damage to the apartment, so I didn’t, and I won.

Likewise, Obama’s attorney didn’t have to answer claims about the online birth certificate, and there’s nothing more to it. She was there to win the case, not to do public relations, and above all not to expand the scope of the dispute.

Edited by Ninth Doctor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with SN basic assertion about the Tea Party associates -- they are a rag-tail bunch.

Do you mean "ragtag"? The Tea Partiers are no more ragtag than those who call themselves Objectivists.

However, they do want to hold our government officials to the meaning of the Constitution and they do want freedom. Their problem is that they do not have an intellectual base and tend to be more "common sense" oriented, but don't present a coherent rational philosophy.

I've known many Tea Partiers who have a much deeper intellectual base than most Objectivists I've encountered online. Calling oneself an Objectivist doesn't automatically make one right or intellectually deep. In fact, there are some people in Objectivist circles who might better be called "OINOs" because they're Objectivists In Name Only. They do a lot of theorizing, but they're not very good at translating the theories into reality and putting them into practice. They claim to be Objectivists but go around advocating things like the violation of others' property rights, for example -- they make up something as ridiculous as the claim that their "metaphysical survival" is at stake, and that the only way to stop the "eminent" threat to their existence is to not allow a single building to be built in a specific location! Not exactly what I would call coherently applying a rational philosophy.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found my original youtube comments on that video. If you haven't watched the videos yet, I was responding primarily to this guy's phony authority, hence my use of strong language.

Quote

This is what happens when a non-technical individual watches a few videos on OCR and photoshop and thinks he is an expert. You're an idiot, and your most basic assumptions about the expected results of OCR are absolutely wrong! You compare an unknown OCR software, unknown version, with unknown settings, to your own selected OCR software, and presume you'll get the same or even similar results. Why?

Whether or not the text is readable depends entirely on the OCR software. It's much easier to program recognizing a block of text without actually translating it into text. The number and content of the layers that result from OCR depend on the tolerance/fineness settings used in the OCR software. It's obvious that this layering is from OCR - if you move the text, you see empty white underneath, rather than the detailed green background of the document, because there's no data to display.

And your mysterious white halo effect is just a basic sharpen filter that was probably automatically applied by the scanner software. Oversharpening routinely produces a white halo effect along dark edges.

I cannot emphasize enough how baseless are your basic assumptions. It indicates your lack of technical experience in this area. Try OCRing an old book and converting it to text. It's a constant battle with the settings in the software. In other words - the results change dramatically depending on the settings you're using in the software. And you don't even know what software was used, let alone the version or the settings that were used. That authority in your voice is completely bogus.

Well said! The video clip on the OCR software appears to have been created to fool people who are easily fooled. And it's pretty shocking how many people are easily fooled.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What’s with all this blubbering about Kant? When did Obama’s attorney say that his birth certificate is a forgery? Either give us a reference, meaning a verifiable quote from the hearing, or admit that you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about when you started this thread, with its breathless opening salvo: “Obama's Birth Certificate *WAS* Faked”.

Hey hey, the thread title has been changed! I note this here so future readers will understand what I was referring to in the quoted post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, now that I have more context, I take back what I said. It probably still is just a redneck conspiracy theory. And the redneck investigators with little technical knowledge producing the "proof" that they are is just going to make everyone with a rational beef with Obama look like fools.

The burden of proof -is- kind of on the people who think Obama's certificate was faked. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. He and/or his lawyer(s) can skirt the issue as much as they want, and it's still up to the opposition to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Whatever the effect on his public relations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Related to this thread, someone posted a question on FB: does the FBI do background checks on presidential candidates, or at least on the final nominees? Forget the birth-certificate -- what about things that matter? For instance, before someone is appointed to a senior post in the CIA, they probably go through a background check. So, what about the President who is their boss and who will get all their information. I'm not sure I'd support such a check, but I'm curious whether anything like that is done.

Edited by softwareNerd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...