'Murica! (103 Viewers)
- Thread starter Fake Melo
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@Seven Pppfftt.
She doesn’t know what the hell she is doing, last minute shove in. Yet you guys still see her as the only option? SMH. She’s already been in office 3 1/2 years behind all the inflation and crazy home interesting rates. She’s in the White House right now, and she wants to “fix” things, she can do it right now, she’s already the vice president. You guys have some crazy lenses, you guys are wildin’ lol.
She doesn’t know what the hell she is doing, last minute shove in. Yet you guys still see her as the only option? SMH. She’s already been in office 3 1/2 years behind all the inflation and crazy home interesting rates. She’s in the White House right now, and she wants to “fix” things, she can do it right now, she’s already the vice president. You guys have some crazy lenses, you guys are wildin’ lol.
There's a slippery slope here too though. It just feeds the mistaken belief that election systems are rigged and there is mass fraud. Why else would you have Brian Kemp defending his turf against Trump?
Or this insane idea that criminals are pouring in over the U.S. borders with the explicit intentions of voting in U.S. elections, because that's why they survived the trek over the Darién Gap for: all to risk blowing their covers with law enforcement because of their blind allegiance to Kamala or whomever.
Because the problem is that when you start legitimizing questions like whether Obama was born in the U.S., the next thing you know people want to see birth certificates. And then birth certificates are surfaced (a total invasion of privacy, mind you), people will say Hawaii wasn't in the U.S. when he was born or that the doc was fake, etc. There is no placating conspiracy theorists because it doesn't end.
Which isn't to say there's isn't fraud in the system. But nothing that works at coordinated scale. It's actually one of the miracles of voting that attempts to do two conflicting goals at once: ensuring that only one legit person gets one legit vote, and ensuring that the privacy of what that vote is can be preserved for the benefit of the voter.
How about these videos instead?
Without diving deeper into the question of whether or not it is a good idea to ask for birth certificates, I do want to point out that in my opinion there would be no privacy issues if showing this to (some members of) the public was a requirement. If you're running for office, it is only natural that you give up some parts of your personal information. In the same way I think there is far too much attention for the privacy of politicians in Europe in the sense that it is often entirely unclear what their personal assets are and the question isn't even asked. I think it should be normalized to ask for transparancy on behalf of the people who make policy decisions.
This is different from people procuring that information themselves though. It is not up to the public to pry into personal information and documents when trying to recover a birth certificate.
This is different from people procuring that information themselves though. It is not up to the public to pry into personal information and documents when trying to recover a birth certificate.
Well I don't think that running for office should mean every candidate has to be fully pre-doxxed as a prerequisite. In private, yes, there should be vetting and checks. But not publicly.
At some level you have to trust that my driver's licenses is proof of my legal right to drive a motor vehicle without also having to pull my birth certificate out for every officer who asks for it.
Because being a birther isn't just about feeling you have a right to someone's birth certificate. It's about running around like an AI-powered algorithm seeking anything you can insinuate to invalidate a person.
Regardless of whether you like Tim Walz or not or don't give a crap, there are now armies of dirt diggers who are trying to find every reason to believe that Minnesota voters were clueless idiots who voted for an unqualified and unvetted candidate in both 2018 and again in 2022. Most of these people didn't even know Walz existed until last month, and they're out to prove they know much more about him than anybody in Minnesota who lived with him as governor for the past six years. Going after policy and track record is one thing, but the dirt-digging gotcha tactics are something else.
Yes, candidates should be challenged and screened. And as the stakes get higher, more scrutiny should be the norm.
But the birther thing is an example of an insane story that had multiple points of refutation ... only for it to conveniently continue where Republicans believed it in 2011 as per a NY Times poll then: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/politics/22birthers.html
I mean, read this progression... it's a sadly hilarous story of wishful stupidity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories
That is the sort of nonsense path that results when you both-sides invalidated conspiracy theories that are politically useful. It just makes the whole voting population and the voted-on dumber on all sides.
The flip-flop argument always struck me as a weird choice of weapon with little merit. For one, if they're good ideas, why shouldn't someone support them? (For the record, I think bribing the public with their own money when the federal deficit is over $35 trillion is a bad idea.)
For another, as John Maynard Keynes famously said: "When I find new information I change my mind; What do you do?" Are we supposed to reward learning or making policy a suicide pact?
The only beef I see that makes it legitimate is the suggestion that a candidate who hasn't changed positions might be less likely to lie about it. In the absence of real evidence, but just a hunch about fidelity. But if we're already saying that all politicians are liars anyway and none of them will fulfill their campaign promises, that doesn't exactly hold a lot of water either.
At some level you have to trust that my driver's licenses is proof of my legal right to drive a motor vehicle without also having to pull my birth certificate out for every officer who asks for it.
Because being a birther isn't just about feeling you have a right to someone's birth certificate. It's about running around like an AI-powered algorithm seeking anything you can insinuate to invalidate a person.
Regardless of whether you like Tim Walz or not or don't give a crap, there are now armies of dirt diggers who are trying to find every reason to believe that Minnesota voters were clueless idiots who voted for an unqualified and unvetted candidate in both 2018 and again in 2022. Most of these people didn't even know Walz existed until last month, and they're out to prove they know much more about him than anybody in Minnesota who lived with him as governor for the past six years. Going after policy and track record is one thing, but the dirt-digging gotcha tactics are something else.
Yes, candidates should be challenged and screened. And as the stakes get higher, more scrutiny should be the norm.
But the birther thing is an example of an insane story that had multiple points of refutation ... only for it to conveniently continue where Republicans believed it in 2011 as per a NY Times poll then: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/politics/22birthers.html
I mean, read this progression... it's a sadly hilarous story of wishful stupidity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories
That is the sort of nonsense path that results when you both-sides invalidated conspiracy theories that are politically useful. It just makes the whole voting population and the voted-on dumber on all sides.
The flip-flop argument always struck me as a weird choice of weapon with little merit. For one, if they're good ideas, why shouldn't someone support them? (For the record, I think bribing the public with their own money when the federal deficit is over $35 trillion is a bad idea.)
For another, as John Maynard Keynes famously said: "When I find new information I change my mind; What do you do?" Are we supposed to reward learning or making policy a suicide pact?
The only beef I see that makes it legitimate is the suggestion that a candidate who hasn't changed positions might be less likely to lie about it. In the absence of real evidence, but just a hunch about fidelity. But if we're already saying that all politicians are liars anyway and none of them will fulfill their campaign promises, that doesn't exactly hold a lot of water either.
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I completely agree that there is malice behind the debate. The birther argument is false, designed to spread misinformation and is based on nothing but sheer racism.
But I do believe running for public office, especially for president of the USA, comes with the responsibility to favor clarity over privacy. To me that's not so much about documents proving identity, honestly I'm pretty sure parties will not nominate a candidate born outside the US. But Trump's criminal record, his tax returns, his ownership of companies, his bankruptcies, his outstanding debts? Yes, I think you can make the case the public is entitled to know. And not just in Trump's case, but for any candidate.
I mean, I don't know what Kamala Harris owns. What if she has lots of Shell or BP stock? Surely that would be relevant to many of her potential voters, who may base their vote on the candidate's willigness to fight global warming?
But I do believe running for public office, especially for president of the USA, comes with the responsibility to favor clarity over privacy. To me that's not so much about documents proving identity, honestly I'm pretty sure parties will not nominate a candidate born outside the US. But Trump's criminal record, his tax returns, his ownership of companies, his bankruptcies, his outstanding debts? Yes, I think you can make the case the public is entitled to know. And not just in Trump's case, but for any candidate.
I mean, I don't know what Kamala Harris owns. What if she has lots of Shell or BP stock? Surely that would be relevant to many of her potential voters, who may base their vote on the candidate's willigness to fight global warming?
That's why any candidate has to come clean with their operatives before taking the stage. Nobody wants to invest money and resources and time into electing a candidate who is a convicted pedo. Everybody has a bad day or makes a wrong decision at some point, and that will be ammunition for the opposition.
You could say that Obama as a U.S. Senator was no required to be a U.S. citizen, and so the scrutiny for that should only really happen at the point he'd consider running for the presidency. There aren't a lot of checkboxes to vet from senator to president, so to your point that should be fairly simple for legality. If the next level questions are about intentions, investments, etc., then it's up to the candidate how much they're willing to share and whether not sharing reduces their votes. (See: Trump's tax returns.)
But we live in a world today where QAnon was legitimized. When people can no longer see a birth certificate and still presume there's a Manchurian Candidate with billions of dollars of a campaign being wasted by his own party for an illegitimate run, then any form of reality is a question and we have no basis to answer anything.
You could say that Obama as a U.S. Senator was no required to be a U.S. citizen, and so the scrutiny for that should only really happen at the point he'd consider running for the presidency. There aren't a lot of checkboxes to vet from senator to president, so to your point that should be fairly simple for legality. If the next level questions are about intentions, investments, etc., then it's up to the candidate how much they're willing to share and whether not sharing reduces their votes. (See: Trump's tax returns.)
But we live in a world today where QAnon was legitimized. When people can no longer see a birth certificate and still presume there's a Manchurian Candidate with billions of dollars of a campaign being wasted by his own party for an illegitimate run, then any form of reality is a question and we have no basis to answer anything.