So, now that the 'Birthers' have been shown the door... (McCain, Glenn Beck)
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What will the next loony Republican conspiracy theory be?
I heard that now some conservatives are circulating that the healthcare bill is just a ploy to "get rid of old people."
Is this the new anti-Obama conspiracy du jour?
Definitely. The anti-health care reform crowd is reaching a fever pitch in their arguments. Many of them are suggesting that the government is out to kill seniors.
A second theory that's been popular lately is that Obama and Democrats in general are racists.
But the "health scare" conspiracies are dominant right now.
I'd forgotten about Bill Clinton going to take our guns away, but that's right, that was one of the panic points of the right wing back then. (Plus all the people the Clintons had killed.)
This is dated last April but it's still holding true.
Right-wing fearmongering about guns reaching a fever pitch
One of the hallmarks of the militia movement of the 1990s was the way it inspired violence: by essentially loosing the moorings of their followers from reality by promulgating a toxic brew of conspiracy theories, right-wing historical revisionism, and a bevy of false "facts" and claims against government officials and liberals generally. Chief among these, of course, was the belief that Bill Clinton and the New World Order were coming to take their guns away -- which, of course, he never did, though he did manage to pass an assault-weapons ban.
So when we point out the toxic effects of the revival of this kind of irresponsible rhetoric, it's because there's a real history behind it. It's not mere presupposition to point out that fearmongering that promotes palpably false and distorted claims often brings violent results; we already are too familiar with this causal relationship from experience.
The difference between the 1990s and now? When I was hearing talk like this then, it was coming out of the mouths of the Bo Gritzes and John Trochmanns -- the leaders and fanatical ideologues who drove the militia movement.
Now, it's coming out of the mouths of people with mainstream media programs: Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter.
The only thing weirder than the Birthers are the anti-Birthers, who blame the Birthers for being conspiracy theorists yet actively feed the conspiracy by refusing to call for President Obama to release his birth certificate.
The state official in Hawaii who manages such things has reiterated that there is indeed an original birth certificate on file which would confirm President Obama's having been born in Hawaii and that she has seen it, but state law won't allow her to release it unless the president authorizes it.
So what's the problem here? Release the original and let's be done with this madness.
I realize there are some faith-based Obama supporters who believe without seeing, but the rest of us in the reality-based world are starting to get that strange feeling we got when Mark Sanford tried to convince us that he was away from his family on Father's Day, hiking the Appalachian trail in order to clear his head and write a book.
During the last campaign, John McCain faced similar questions and promptly responded by releasing his original birth certificate. That's how normal people with nothing to hide handle these things.
Ohhh. You will probably never hear from this guy again, at least on Huffpo.
Ohhh. You will probably never hear from this guy again, at least on Huffpo.
I might even wager he will be forced to retract.
Oooooo...a Birther sympathizer stating that anti-Birthers are weird.
Lame.
Anyway, this thread isn't about Birthers. It's about what the next big crazy conservative conspiracy theory will be, now that the birth certificate nonsense has been put to rest.
A conspiracy requires two. Creation took only one.
See? It's already begun. Maybe next time they can have a clean sweep of PRESIDENTIAL candidates who do not believe in the process of evolution rather than all but three.
Unbelievable.
(for the record - I'm the last to believe that evolution is the only force at work in our world, but it's hard to deny the science and facts ... just like the birther movement, just like climate change .... science.
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