The story and the headline can be described by many terms: spin, hype, bullshit, propaganda, lies. You fell for it, few others here did. Check your premises. One of the things I had to learn was that merely knowing about the issue of objectivity was not enough to me objective. Knowing how to do it is an entirely separate skill. It is hard to be objective in the sense that it takes time and effort and some checking and research.
“.. according to the writer”. His standards are your standards if you are going to be so promiscuous with what you allow to enter your mind.
What are the relevant facts in this case? I think what is relevant is that the birth certificate presented by Obama / The White House was not a State of Hawaii certified reproduction of the original. If I were going to sent my birth certificate to someone official (even for a job) the copy I would have to send would have to be certified by the State of Pennsylvania for it to be a legally witnessed copy of the original. I don’t see why a different standard ought to be applied to Obama, just because he is a Marxist Democrat and just because he is the President. So, in a legally technical sense, the digital image he presented on the internet is a forgery, since it wasn’t certified by the State of Hawaii, and no one seems to be able to find a witness willing to state under oath that the digital image is in fact a scanned copy of the original (or a legal copy that Obama had). So, I don’t think I am being non-objective. What facts do you think are relevant to the case?
By the way, those of you who are saying that all politicians lie and that if Obama lied about his birth certificate is just par for the course, are implicitly accepting the Kantian premises that the facts of reality don’t matter in issue of pure reason (or with principles not derived from the facts of reality). The more we let them get away with it, the closer we get to dictatorship. Yaron Brook is under the impression that a dictatorship will not happen overnight, but rather gradually, which means, if you understand the connection between individual rights and the facts of reality, that the more they are permitted to get away with it, the more our rights will be eroded.
By the way, those of you who are saying that all politicians lie and that if Obama lied about his birth certificate is just par for the course, are implicitly accepting the Kantian premises that the facts of reality don’t matter in issue of pure reason (or with principles not derived from the facts of reality). The more we let them get away with it, the closer we get to dictatorship. Yaron Brook is under the impression that a dictatorship will not happen overnight, but rather gradually, which means, if you understand the connection between individual rights and the facts of reality, that the more they are permitted to get away with it, the more our rights will be eroded.
Well now there is an interesting possibility in why we do not consider an unproven theory about Obama and the possible implication that it proves he is a liar - Implicit agreement with Kant.
Another interesting possibility is that we simply paid attention to what candidate Obama said four years ago and essentialized the truth about the man from his speeches. Or to prove he was liar we went through the complex process of simply paying attention to what he did when elected and compared the contradictions to his promises as a candidate. Obama as a terrible President, let alone a liar, is news at 11 and the real essential fact is that we need to move on with what we have already confirmed and remove him as President.
Nah… that would be way too ridiculous. It must be Kant blocking us from verifying he is liar because it still needs to be demonstrated.
What are the relevant facts in this case? I think what is relevant is that the birth certificate presented by Obama / The White House was not a State of Hawaii certified reproduction of the original. If I were going to sent my birth certificate to someone official (even for a job) the copy I would have to send would have to be certified by the State of Pennsylvania for it to be a legally witnessed copy of the original. I don’t see why a different standard ought to be applied to Obama, just because he is a Marxist Democrat and just because he is the President.
The problem is that this idea of a birth certificate being a “legally witnessed copy of the original” is just a stipulation set by certain bureaucratic agencies for their own purposes. I’m pretty sure I’ve already mentioned in in this thread, but I’ll say it again: that does not make a “non-witnessed copy” a “forgery” or illegal. It just means that such a photocopy will not suffice for those agencies, for those purposes. (It’s kind of like how Universities will only accept sealed transcripts; that doesn’t make it a crime – or a “forgery” – to possess unsealed transcripts.)
If I possess a photocopy of my birth certificate, that isn’t a crime; there is no “forgery” there. If you ask me to see my birth certificate, and I show you my photocopy, I haven’t committed any crime. No “forgery” there, either.
So, in a legally technical sense, the digital image he presented on the internet is a forgery, since it wasn’t certified by the State of Hawaii, and no one seems to be able to find a witness willing to state under oath that the digital image is in fact a scanned copy of the original (or a legal copy that Obama had).
Do you now see the mistake? It isn’t a “forgery” because it wasn’t certified by the State of Hawaii. That’s not what constitutes a “forgery.” This is what you can say of this birth certificate: it is unsuitable for those official transactions which require a certificate certified by the State of Hawaii. But that doesn’t make possession of this document, or its informal use (where a certified copy is not required by law), a crime, and it doesn’t make the document a “forgery.”
By the way, those of you who are saying that all politicians lie and that if Obama lied about his birth certificate is just par for the course, are implicitly accepting the Kantian premises that the facts of reality don’t matter in issue of pure reason (or with principles not derived from the facts of reality).
That is not Kant’s position. As I’ve pointed out many times, you’ve read Kant with extreme hostility and therefore have not understood anything he wrote. You prejudged Kant based on your accepting on faith Rand’s mistaken judgments of him, and then you went out looking to find justification, whether it existed or not, which led you to wildly misinterpret almost everything he wrote.
It’s your standard operating procedure. You leap before you look, and then twist yourself into pretzels in trying to justify your erroneous leaping.
The story and the headline can be described by many terms: spin, hype, bullshit, propaganda, lies. You fell for it, few others here did. Check your premises.
Hey hey, keep it civil! As I noted here, it took mere seconds to debunk this latest birther story. One just had to take an interest in seeking out an opposing view; immediately I found a site where evidence was provided. But that’s clearly not Thomas’s M.O., and this coming after his public mea culpa over the baby eating business, leaves one tempted to quote the prose stylings from, of all places, Checking Premises: “Well, the game is up: we are onto you, and we are not going to let this go unnoticed and without a fight.” And now me pound chest, arrrrrrr…
What are the relevant facts in this case? I think what is relevant is that the birth certificate presented by Obama / The White House was not a State of Hawaii certified reproduction of the original.
Stop right there. There never was a presentation by Obama, and therefore no one to receive a presentation. Officials of the State of Hawaii gave to Obama a copy of his birth certificate (the so-called long form). Obama then put a copy on the internet so millions of people could see what that document looked like. Should any other state’s official need a birth certificate for proof of citizenship then this document (in paper form) is what he will present, or have Hawaii officials mail an Official Notarized Copy of it direct from Hawaii. Because of the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution the state government of Hawaii is the final authority on whether Obama was born within Hawaii or not. So long as Hawaii stands behind its own record keeping system, which is fully computerized and not a warehouse of paper documents, that is the end of any possible legitimate dispute.
Does anyone here, besides Thomas, take this birther stuff seriously? It takes a matter of seconds to debunk with a little googling. In this case, an attorney notes that she doesn’t have to discuss whether the birth certificate that was released is genuine, since it’s irrelevant to the case. It simply wasn’t evidence in the case being argued. This goes into the birther spin-echo chamber, and becomes attorney admits birth certificate is a forgery!
Listen starting about 42 minutes in, if you don’t mind wasting a few minutes of your life. If you were alive and conscious in 2008, you must know that if there was anything to the birther story, Hillary’s goons would have dug it out.
I skipped over this before because of the 42 minutes, (way more time than this issue deserves) I preferred to go over a transcript or unofficial written account of the proceeding. But this is good evidence and thanks for finding it.
I’m not going to follow all of the links in the Wiki article (since there are just too many), but on the very first reference there is a link to an article whereby the proper official of Hawaii was willing to claim to be an eye witness to the original. I’m still waiting for the transcript of this threads opening article to see exactly what Obama’s lawyer admitted to.
“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai’i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai’i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai’i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago.”
In short, if it is a real conspiracy to keep Obama in office, he’s got a lot of government officials willing to lie for him.
I don’t want to branch out into Marxism and Obama in this thread, and Grames has already started a thread on Marxism and Objectivists based upon a video put out by an Objectivist.
Obama loves the birth certificate issue because anyone who takes the bait of buying into the conspiracy immediately brands themselves as a wack job. I think it’s fair really, since a 30 second Google search shows there is no credance to the whole thing. Obama held off so long releasing the certificate so that viable rivals would undermine their own campaigns. “Birthers” are not taken seriously in the public discourse and agreeing with Birther ideas only serves to discredit other, legitimate complaints about the President.
If you believe in the Birther nonsense, please don’t describe yourself in public as Objectivist or as liking Ayn Rand, since all you do is make it that much harder for the rest of us to get rational ideas taken seriously.
Yes, I am an Objectivist, and proudly assert that. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.