Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory

This article is a followup article to an earlier piece I wrote concerning "absurd" questions about President Obama's birth certificate. I expected the previous article to draw some response from those who still believe that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen but I confess I was surprised by the quantity and veracity of such responses. The comments to the earlier article are still available for viewing to anyone who wishes to see exactly what I am referring to.

This article will be my last word on this issue for a long time which I am sure comes as welcome news for many of the those who still believe Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Any of those who disagree with my opinions here can certainly post their own last words in the comment sections below provided they argue in a civil fashion. Name calling, after all, should be a practice best left behind in elementary school.

The following is a summary of the arguments made concerning the last article and my responses:

Argument #1: Why would President not just release the long form version of his birth certificate or other documents proving his place of birth? The fact that he does not release these documents proves he is not natural-born.

First, President Obama has released a plethora of documents validating the place of his birth. Numerous photos exist the documents and the documents have been confirmed by the Hawaii Department of Health, FactCheck.com, and Politifact.com. Some will claim these organizations are puppets of the Obama regime, I will address that argument later in this article. Regardless, the fact remains President Obama has released more information and documents verifying his place of birth than any other major presidential candidate as far as I know. I think it relevant to ask why these groups did not make the same sort of demands on George W. Bush or John McCain.

Secondly, no matter what President Obama releases many conspiracy theorists will still hold on to their beliefs. The documents President Obama did release have been called forgeries by the conspiracy believers. If he releases more documents the opposition can simply say these documents are forged or tampered with as well.

Third, to those who say "Why doesn't he just release the documents to get it over with" again I would first respond by saying that would hardly make the doubters go away. Secondly, responding to a small group of extremists would only lend legitimacy to their argument which is right now outside the mainstream. Third, the doubters should ask themselves whether they would really be willing to give into someone demanding proof simply because they demand it. If the IRS does not believe your tax return numbers would you submit to their demands to see all your business records if they had no legal authority to make such demands? Going further, suppose you showed them all your receipts at which point they then accused you of forging the and tampering with the receipts. Would you then readily submit to their demands for even more proof?

Finally, let us do away with this concept that lack of document production = proof of conspiracy. To continue with my analogy, suppose I fail to produce a business receipt to the IRS; this fact alone does not prove I committed tax fraud it simply establishes that I cannot or will not produce one document. There could be a few hundred reasons for my failing to produce the receipt other than a supposed need to cover up tax fraud.

Argument #2: All the Obama documents are forged.

This argument is described in VERY great detail here by a man named Ron Polarik. I would explain all of Polarik's claims but it would make this post the length of a book. Follow the links if you want to read all the details. Liberals have questions whether Polarik even exist and, if he does exist, have questioned his curious absence from any public events and his supposed lack of credentials. Polarik's analysis was also criticized by another man who claims to be an expert in image analysis, Dr. Neal Krawetz, whose analysis can be read here. In the criticism it is alleged that, ironically, Polarik himself manipulated and tampered with images in order to try and prove Obama manipulated and tampred with images. If you are starting to get confused you are not the only one. Polarik, or someone pretending to be him, then responded to the criticism here.

Wow, OK what do we do with the contending experts who may or may not even exist? You can read both their arguments and decide for yourself. I am more convinced by the Polarik critic myself as I too have not been able to confirm the identity of one Ron Polarik, Phd or find any public images or speeches of Polarik. In addition copies of the Polarik material suspiciously keep moving around the internet while the critic's material stays in the same place.

Argument #3: Factcheck, Snopes, PolitiFact are all controlled by Obama forces. They cannot be trusted.

First, if FactCheck truly is a puppet of the Obama forces then some of the puppet strings must have snapped because FactCheck consistently and frequently criticizes claims of President Obama. One post in which FactCheck is very critical of Obama claims even goes as far as to call them misstatements can be found here. I encourage you to investigate their website yourself and see if you really think they are sold out to the Obama camp. Politifact too has been very critical and straightforward of calling out Obama on lies as can be seen here.

Argument #4: You cannot trust any information because it is all part of an Obama conspiracy.

Politifact did a very good job of basically addressing this argument here. The essence of their argument is this. Is it possible that there exist some grand Obama conspiracy involving hundreds if not thousands of people? Is it possible Obama was able to fool most of America and the mainstream media into believing he was a natural born citizen when he was not? Sure ANYTHING is possible. But just for a second let us ask ourselves what is reasonable. As Politifact puts it, is it really reasonable to believe Obama was able to control "officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State's office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies." In all sincerity I do not believe that is a reasonable belief. You simply have to accept too many assumptions to really believe the Obama conspiracy claims. Granted presidents are very powerful but you have to remember that this conspiracy theory began before Obama became president and while his Republican opposition held all the power in the White House.

Summary:

In the end I recognize no matter what I write or say there are many who will never be convinced. To a certain extent we have to accept this and while I will disagree with the conspiracy theorist strongly I will also, as Patrick Henry would put it, defend to the death their right to express their opinions. As I have said before I think our time is better spent debating the wisdom of the climate change bill or health care reform but if people want to continue to advocate the "Obama is not a natural born citizen" argument they have right to do so. This author, however, will be now be moving on to other issues.

http://www.examiner.com/x-5738-St-Louis-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m7d6-My-last-word-on-the-Obama-birth-certificate-conspiracy-theory