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The Internet's New Alternate Reality
Hugh Pickens writes "Tim Rutten writes in the LA Times that when President Obama released his long form birth certificate last week, one of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room Wednesday was the rapidity and ease with which so many leading birthers rejected the evidence he presented. 'Until very recently, if every professional news organization in the nation examined a charge and found it baseless, it was — for all intents and purposes — dropped,' writes Rutten. 'Today, the growth of the Internet has drained the noun "news" of its former authority. If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs.'"
You are supposed to trust the police, but then one of them treats you like shit. Then you end up not trusting any of them.
It is easy to criticize people for not trusting the media, but who hasn't been intentionally lied to by the media? The blame belongs on a lot of people here. Don't just blame the birthers.
"If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs."
That's the way it has always been. People choose the newspaper or TV channel that selects / presents / distorts / invents the news in the way most fitting to their own world view. All that has changed is that the number of available publications has increased.
I can't be the only one who sees the irony in the URL being /news/opinion/...
"But everyone should know everything." -markab
Many revelations in later years have show us that the news establishment don't care for the truth at all. Many of the things reveled in the wikileaks cables was known but not reported. The war against Iraq was totally baseless but nobody seemed to care in the media. All they did was distributing what officials told them, without even bothering a simple fact check. All in all i think the problem described comes from the total lack of moral fiber in the media.
When you know almost everybody is lying to you, its only human to be drawn to news you think sounds most plausible.
HTTP/1.1 400
There is a real problem of people selectively tuning in to news sources that cater to their bias, but the summary has a tone implying that established news sources are more correct or neutral than new media when this isn't always the case. The scare quotes around 'facts' clearly suggest that new media are wrong and established media is right. Using the term 'birthers' paints the believers as conspiracy theorists, which may be accurate but is unnecessary.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I think the traditional mass media has done plenty to damage their own credibility. Why blame the internet?
Yeah, it's a bit of both... We are being lied to by media / governments and by our self delusion online... Neither is the full story. The problem is distinguishing the lie from the truth is becoming more and more impossible for people...
We must not underestimate the importance of reputation and multiple sources. Modern technology, sleight of hand and a convincing smile mean that any claim can be well supported by physical "evidence" and we need independent tests of the reliability of the evidence.
For example, OBL was killed within the past week. We know this because the US government says so. The US government say they've confirmed it because they performed DNA tests. This means that we must trust the US government and, if the DNA test data is released, that the data is not fabricated. Why should we do that? What about the alternatives: that he is not dead, or - per Benazir - that he has been dead for several years already? We do not have sufficient reliable evidence for any of these claims, so we should not assume that any are true.
Similarly, what does OBL's birth certificate say? It says that a piece of paper was produced resembling a birth certificate. Is this sufficient evidence that he was born in the US? No. Is there credible evidence that he was not born in the US? No. We must either trust him, not care, or explore further. I've always thought the "where you're born" rule about the Presidency is against the principles on which the US was founded, so I'd pick the "not care" option.
Since TFA cites the example of Miller, may I remind everyone that the rapture is happening this month: http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/may21/ and I predict a recalculation on May 22nd.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Over where I come from we have 3 main Tv channels. One is run by an independant group, and two others are run by different political parties.
If you watch the three news programs in series, you'll go from a country which is collapsing due to corruption and bad stuff the PM is doing, a country which is perfect because of what the PM is doing, to something in the middle.
So yeah, this is pretty much the case everything has been in for years.
The release of the "long form" birth certificate is a perfect example. In a day in age when someone says "Show me what you have" and then you take 3 years to release the info" when the correct response should have been, "hold on give me a second to scan it." People are justified in being skeptical of your motives and your message over something that should have been "news" for no more than 24 hours.
So they finally scan the damn thing and release it. People take one look at it and realize the thing looks like shit and justifiably immediately say "THAT LOOKS FAKE!"
They are justified because of all the hair pulling and stalling and name calling and the simple fact that which ever idiot flunky scanned the damn thing used a PDF file generator and had the compression settings set way too high. So to the untrained eye the thing looks wrong. (Even to the trained eye it looks fishy.)
Again the media and the politicians could have fixed the problem immediately by rescanning it and releasing it as a high resolution uncompressed TIFF or other file type. Something that would have taken only hours to do. This would have helped most of the general public understand easier and would have taken away most if not all the doubt, .
But that is not what we get. Again what we get is the media and the politicians wagging their fingers at us calling us names and calling everyone paranoid and racists when it was they who failed to communicate the information on both ocassions in a timely and clear manner.
People are fed up with this crap, so why should they trust them any more when they have repeatedly proven themselves to be at best incompetent much less trust worthy?
This is yet another story about something we've heard a million times over, but they put "Internet!" in the title and treat it as though it's novel.
"Birtherism" isn't new, nor limited to black presidents. There was a long argument over whether McCain was native born, there were even debates about whether George W Bush was native born, and have been about presidents going way back. Even recently there was a huge amount of discussion over whether Sarah Palin was really Trig's mother. Even after multiple journalists reported that they had seen her pregnant belly, other equally prominent journalists were still Just Asking Questions.
And birtherism is loopy, but nothing compared to trutherism. About one third of Democrats believed that the government intentionally killed its own citizens to start a wars or, at least, that Bush knew about 9/11 and let it happen. Most Democrats also still claim that W was AWOL from his guard duty, and many prominent figures demanded explanations. CBS's Dan Rather, a 40 year veteran reporter, completely destroyed his career trying to pass off some forged documents. To this day, the guy insists that those forgeries were "fake but accurate". And, of course, there are long standing conspiracy theories about the Bush family's involvement with Nazis and such.
This gets play because "ooh, look, the Internet!" but if you look at what various conspiracies have in common, they're all old fashioned fishing expeditions. After Obama presented the long form, Trump *instantly* went to demanding his college records. The weird Palin birthers want all sorts of hospital records. The AWOL Bush people had huge lists of demands.
All these demands seek to scrutinize every possible second of a person's life. What happens when it's put into practice is the unbounded, independent prosecutor. Ken Starr, for instance, started out by investigating serious claims of corruption by the Clintons. When that turned up nothing, it morphed into a fishing expedition that turned up Lewinsky, Jones and Flowers. Incidentally, there are Clinton obsessives who are still Just Asking Questions, I won't link to it, but do a search for the "Clinton Death List" if you're curious to see some real crazy.
I occasionally get a glimpse of US news shows (clips and some cnn), the contrast with bbc or al jazeera is pretty striking:
The most important piece of information is always the name of the host, which is repeated every 5 seconds.
The hosts seem to be picked up straight from plastic surgery, complemented by exaggerated facial expressions.
Its roughly 5 minutes of program then 5 minutes of commercials.
If there are 2 hosts they spend half the time demonstrating their "chemistry" for eachother, its painful to watch.
The graphics remind me of old arcade cabinets, classy like las vegas.
Interviews are rude and annoying, the object seems to be that noone should speak a complete sentence.
I dont think its odd americans dont trust news, theres nothing trustworthy about it.
When that was written , America had just come out of an independance war and didn't want to have foreign interference any more.
Kinda like the right to bear arms. Both made sense in that time, but they don't make as much sense nowadays.
That was the point. NO other candidates have ever had to proven themselves born in the USA.
Bush didn't Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't Carter didn't. non of the other white guys have ha to do it. you get a non white guy with a non anglo saxon name in office and all the racists start a birther movement because they can't believe a non white guy was born here.
Think about it why was Obama singled out above all others? was it name? was it color? the fear was irrational and stupid.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I would've sworn McCain did. (See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23415028/ns/nightly_news/, "McCain's citizenship called into question".) Sorry, Charlie, not everybody who disagrees with Obama is racist.
professional news organization
argument from authority.
of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room
rhetorical nonsense.
yes, it appears obama's citizenry is legitimate.. However, the community here being what it is, it should realize how easily documents can be faked, especially in high level government. No, I'm not saying he isn't legit. I'm saying a paper document proves nothing. The fact this nonsense went on for months should be a red flag at the very least. obama handled this very poorly for someone who had an interest in claiming legitimacy.
People rarely attach themselves to political ideologies (and persons) for rational reasons, so it is no surprise that such an obvious point is ignored by most people. Most of them will divert such questioning with ad hominem directed at those asking like "you must be paranoid" etc. Those running the press are no different.. Even if individuals within the press want to tell the complete story, as long as their career-survival depends on them not stepping on 'too-big-to-fail' political and economic organizations, they most often will not do so. There are exceptions like Assange. Typically, the US government has been trying to sully his reputation with allegations of sexual abuse. Whether that's true or not is irrelevant. at least he and those who are involved with wikileaks are attempting some investigative reporting. no they don't have smooth talking prettypeople with flashy graphics and sound on their own cable channel, but at least they get some of the truth out there so people can make up their own minds. The harder the US government tries to lock it down, the more hypocritical they appear to the public. They are cowards.
Follow the money trail. follow the power trails. Track actions taken. this is how you discern real intent..from anyone. The 'professional' news outlets didn't lose their legitimacy because of selection bias on the part of viewers, they lost it because their whole power base is fallacious. They have momentum, slick headlines, nicely dressed prettypeople, and in the written world, good writers with excellent vocabularies. None of this means they're telling the complete truth. If anything, they are the ones guilty of selection bias at the very least, due to outright greed (selling out) or emotional commitments to ideology. (or fear of reprisal from those above). Ask yourself about the intentions and real desires of those who own the major news outlets. What are their priorities? What are they afraid of?
This is what really blew my mind. When people started asking for his birth certificate, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me, because I had always assumed that it was standard practice. Why is it that I have to present multiple forms of ID, my social security number, large amounts of contact info, and admit to any felonies just to get a job bagging groceries, but the person running for the highest office of one of the most powerful countries in the world does not have to produce a birth certificate to prove that they fulfill two of the basic requirements of holding the position (natural born citizenship and at least 35 years old)? Sure, you'll always have conspiracy nuts, but it seems like much of this would have been avoided if the candidates for President had to prove they fulfilled the requirements, just like every other person applying for a job in this country.
While "explaining the unexplained" may be a reason for some people to believe in god, in my opinion that is a minority. Most deeply religious people don't care about the "unexplained" and wouldn't even come up with any of the questions that where driving science and modern society for centuries.
Most religious people simply seek a omnipotent protecting father figure that shields them against plain everyday peril and distress. Something where they can take refuge in cases of illness or poverty. And something that gives them the hope, that they may see again those who they have lost in some "paradise" after death.
Why does it not make sense to allow a person to own an item?
Don't you need to draw a line somewhere? Which of the items below would you ban? Any of them?
1. Three foot poles.
2. Ten foot poles.
3. Unroadworthy cars.
4. Guns.
5. Car bombs.
6. Heavy weapons.
7. Non-weapons grade nuclear material.
8. Biological weapons.
9. Nuclear weapons.
The difference is that McCain's birth was questioned, the question was resolved, and people moved on. Since then the only questioning of McCain's birth has been as a counter-example to the questioning of Obama's birth. On the other hand, Obama's birth was questioned, the question was resolved, and people continued to question anyway.
Simple disagreement with Obama is not racism, but continuing to question the circumstances of his birth long after any reasonable doubt on the issue has been removed (which happened long before the release of the long form birth certificate), indicates something far beyond simple disagreement.
It also conveys a sense of meaning and purpose to life and the universe. It is far more comforting to imagine an all-powerful being guiding providence by will alone, who offers eternal afterlife to those believers who are deemed worthy to receive it; than to imagine a cold and uncaring universe, with no design or purpose, operating by mere quantum chance, and an existence that to some seem arbitrarily short and cosmically pointless.
Some people feel this way and religion provides their needed hope that there's a reason for it all.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Of course the idea that a god existing makes anything more meaningful is also pretty funny if you think about it.
What would then be the "reason" for that god existing for example?
In the end there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself. Most find it easier to copy their meanings from others - and the larger a group is, the more convincing their meanings appear..
which is totally what she said
Article II - The Executive Branch
Section 1 - The President
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;"
Question: who is "natural born"? I propose all candidates must prove they are natural born.
Well, it's clear that no one living today was a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of that Constitution, so it looks like we need to stop having presidents.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What evidence would the birthers accept as proof that Obama is in fact a US citizen? The actual birth certificate, which as far as I know is legal proof good enough for any court in the country, doesn't seem to be sufficient. So what evidence will satisfy them? I suspect that the answer is "Any evidence presented is fake, because it contradicts my strongly held belief".
You mean like when he originally released his birth certificate that serves as valid ID anywhere else? That actually happened. What then followed was two years of people saying he needed to go even further than anybody else and release a "long form" certificate that nobody else needs to submit. Somehow this became a claim that a birth certificate wasn't released when it's simply not true. Thanks for being gullible enough to repeat it, though.
Wrong. You're a liar, woefully misinformed, or conveniently forgetting that the short-form (which has legal standing) has been released a /long/ time ago.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Just because a person is born on American soil does not make that person a citizen. (Take the children of diplomats, for example.)
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." If you aren't here under diplomatic or some other kind of immunity, you're subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; see 83 US 36 and 112 US 94.
Does the fact of one of his parents being a British National confer British citizenship on him? Dual citizenship? Does it depend on the laws in effect at the time of his birth? How does that affect his eligibility?
Maybe; I'm not familiar with British citizenship law, but I imagine that without being born on British soil, application for citizenship under jus sanguinius would be required when he wanted to claim that citizenship. You can have dual citizenship in both the UK and the US. As it turns out, the Constitution only cares that you're a "natural born citizen," which clearly means that you're not a naturalized citizen. Being a citizen by jus soli or jus sanguinius means that you were born into citizenship (by location or by blood), which is about as "natural born" as you can be. Also, 169 US 649 would seem to indicate that he is indeed a citizen by the 14th amendment unless said parent happened to be working for the British government in an official capacity, which isn't the case.
If his mother became an Indonesian citizen, doesn't that mean he, as a minor, was also an Indonesian citizen? Doesn't he have to file a form during his 21st year asserting his birthright to American citizenship? (If he didn't, is he an illegal alien?) Did he attend Occidental College and Columbia as a foreign student? If so, how does that affect his eligibility?
Maybe; I'm not familiar with Indonesian citizenship law. However, in most countries, the mere act of your parents being naturalized doesn't have any effect on your citizenship, in much the same way that a child of a foreign national, born on US soil, doesn't immediately make his or her parents into citizens despite the rabid claims about "terror babies." As we've already established he's a citizen by jus soli, and US law assumes anyone born on US soil is a citizen unless a proper objection can be raised to the contrary (and in this case, that'd be that both of his parents were not subject to US jurisdiction at the time, or that the birth certificate is fake, and both of those objections have been disproven), no forms need to be filled out. I don't know where this "file a form during his 21st year" thing is coming from, since the only relevant form here to assert citizenship in the US is the notification of foreign birth, which is filed by the parents with the State Department after the birth in cases of jus sanguinius where the child is born outside the US.
I am bothered more by the fact that Obama and his groups have spent millions of dollars trying to suppress attempts to find out the facts, than I am by crazy people spreading doubts about where he was born.
Really? Because I think crazy people spreading doubts complicates the political discourse to no advantage and is essentially demeaning an institution and a person with no evidence. In my book, that's rather unethical. Would you be okay with people bringing up doubts here about your sanity, or your recent battles with drug abuse? See how easy it is to "spread doubts" that serve no purpose other than to engage in a cheap shot against someone with whom you disagree?
The Freelance Wizard
Plain, simple (really simple) racists.
It's pretty simple.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?