You think that by releasing the long form of the birth certificate, the President has put this thing to rest. Au contraire, mon frère. "Facts are stubborn things," said John Adams, but conspiracy theorists are even more stubborn.
Take the Holocaust. Is there a historical event more surfeit of facts? There's the archival evidence of the Nazi regime. There's survivor testimony, meticulously recorded for posterity. There's the testimony of the liberators and the accompanying war correspondents. There's the Nuremburg transcripts. There's census data, and tax records from before and after the war. Most of all, there's the testimony of dead bodies. Their blood cries out from the ground.
And yet there are people out there who deny the Holocaust. Malice don't break for facts.
And malice of a sort motivates the Birther Movement. America is a white, Christian country, don't you know? Given that, and given the fact that our President is a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name, something has gone seriously wrong. Our country can't have succumbed to pluralism to that degree, can it? So, the Birther is faced with two choices: either his head explodes, or he subscribes to a conspiracy theory that explains this "usurpation" of power.
Birtherism is racism, pure and simple.
Now there's lots of conspiracy theories out there:
- Evolution is a myth.
- 9/11 was an inside job.
- Vaccines cause autism.
- The moon shot was filmed in Hollywood.
- Global warming is a hoax.
Some of these are benign; others are malevolent. What unites them all is the misguided belief that "the truth is out there," when in fact it is right under your nose. But it's an inconvenient truth. When confronted with facts that undermine one's preconceived notions, one has a choice: deny the facts or change one's mind. Guess which option is scarier for some?
All that said, I was rather disappointed after watching this:
In short, the President is mad because the media gave Donald Trump more attention last week than he. Well look, you're the President of the United States. You're the most powerful man on the planet. If you can't get the media to pay attention, maybe you or your staff needs to resign.
Bomb somebody, OK? Pardon somebody. (I'm being facetious.) Or tell the truth in simple, unadorned language: The Republicans voted to kill Medicare last week, and I won't stand for that.
Fight, Mr. President. Stop whining about the Lamestream Media. Leave that to Sarah Palin.
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