The proper care and feeding of nutjobs
By Thoreau
First, let me just say that if your only concern is entertainment value then putting Orly Taitz on the air is by definition justified.
However, if one wants to make a dumb idea go away, is it better to laugh at it, ignore it, or treat it as something worthy of serious scrutiny? The academic in me cries out for the last option (isn’t my job all about examining ideas and teaching?) except that even we have our limits. I don’t even spend any class time on wrong ideas about motion put forth by even a serious figure such as Aristotle, let alone wrong ideas put forward by nutjobs. Then again, biology faculty don’t (usually) spend much time on creationism, and it’s not clear that the ignoring tactic is making much headway. As Bill Maher said:
But we live in America, and in America, if you don’t immediately kill arrant nonsense, no matter how ridiculous, it can grow and thrive and eventually take over, like crab grass or reality shows about fat people.
(Some might say that Bill Maher is not a person to be taken seriously, but when the topic is “Obama is a Kenyan Sleeper Agent” I think seriousness has to be graded on a curve.)
Another part of me says that media attention for birthers is, in a subtle way, a form of (quite possibly unintentional) bias: There are serious people on the right, opposition figures with ideas that are at least worthy of examination even if you disagree with them, and they deserve far more attention than the birthers.
So, what say you about birthers: Laugh, ignore, or refute?
Comment by dhex —
August 3, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
msnbc is quite aware of its status and mission, i can assure you; booking birthers is not a bug, but a feature.
Comment by Mike Kozlowski —
August 3, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Export.
Comment by Bill Arnold —
August 3, 2009 @ 7:10 pm
One possibility is that Obama (and maybe Rahm) is essentially trolling. Obama is a poker player – perhaps the “long form certificate” will appear sometime around when peak birtherness has been reached. If so, it seems a somewhat physically dangerous play.
Comment by Eddie —
August 3, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
I think Politicians should ignore them and let everyone else laugh at them until they go away.
Comment by BDB —
August 3, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
Seriously, her name is “Orly”. I’m thinking she is a performance artist.
Comment by Fin Fang Foom —
August 3, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
Refute once, laugh at twice, then ignore forever.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 8:52 pm
The conservatives themselves don’t put forward their serious people – John McCain, Dick Lugar, Tim Pawlenty – as their representatives. It is they who’ve decided that the crazies and the birthers and the paranoids speak for them.
It’s bad enough when the press has to treat idiocies from the right as the equivalent of facts in order to be “balanced” and “nonpartisan.” Now, it’s bias if they don’t invent a more responsible conservative movement in order to avoid making the real one look bad?
Comment by BDB —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
Come on, joe, even Karl Rove and Ann Coulter say the Birfers are full of it. I don’t think the Birfers are any more representative of the right than the Troofers were for the left circa 2003.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:18 pm
joe,
I think you have a point. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that conservatives have openly elevated the crazies above the serious folks, but I would agree that conservatives spend too much time lauding crazies as “real Americans” rather than saying “WTF?”
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:47 pm
And Karl Rove and Ann Coulter are all over the airwaves making that point, despite it being a minority position among conservatives.
Which is my point: Ann Coulter, of all people, is the “respectable” alternative. Would making Ann Coulter the spokesman for the conservative movement be “biased?” How about Rush Limbaugh?
Troofers have never been more than 10% of “the left,” and usually much less. Birfers about 3-4 times more common on the right. There’s no comparison.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
What legislation were Troofers able to get any Democrats to sponsor, BDB? Last time I checked, exactly one sitting Democratic Congressman (Cynthia McKinney) expressed Troofer sentiments, and she was defeated in her next primary in a deep-blue district.
IIRC, there are eleven cosponsors of the Birfer-inspired bill in the House, and a number of Senators have expressed sympathy for the Birfers.
Comment by BDB —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
“What legislation were Troofers able to get any Democrats to sponsor, BDB?”
Good point, but Cynthia McKinney and the like did manage to shut down the counting of the electoral vote before Congress in January, 2005, because of Diebold “stealing” the election. The only tiem in history the electoral vote counting has been stopped. Not in 1801, not in 1877, not even 2001, but 2004! I guess the better comparison would be to the Diebold conspiracy theories.
Comment by BDB —
August 3, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
Just to clarify, I mean they shut it down temporarily because Di-Fi joined with the nutjobs. So they had to hear bogus “challenges” to votes for an hour or so. Do you think more than 10% of the Left believes the 2004 election was stolen?
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
OK, good point, joe. When we reach the point where Ann freaking Coulter is the “respectable alternative” you know something is messed up in the way the right is treated.
Comment by McMartin —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
Are you sure it’s just treatment? Research 2000 had a recent poll in which neither Republicans nor Southerners cracked 50% YES answers to the question “do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States?”
Depending on where you put your ear to the ground, birtherism could be dense indeed.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
That seems to be a rather significant false equivalency.
Questioning the probity of the vote-counting process in Ohio and the Birther conspiracy are not in the same ballpark.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
McMartin-
Those are some scary numbers. I know nothing about Research 2000. Is it a reliable polling outfit?
Pingback by To hell with it § Unqualified Offerings —
August 4, 2009 @ 12:45 am
[...] McMartin in the comments points me to this poll: QUESTION: Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not? [...]
Comment by BDB —
August 4, 2009 @ 9:14 am
PPP says only 32% of Virginia Republicans believe Barack Obama was born in this country, most are “not sure”.
Theory: could it be most Republicans don’t consider Hawaii to be “America”? I’m serious here.
Comment by dhex —
August 4, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
Questioning the probity of the vote-counting process in Ohio and the Birther conspiracy are not in the same ballpark.
it’s a similar ballpark in that the central driver is the fear of the loss of control (or, more accurately, the illusion of control) to foreign influences. i.e. either “corporate masters” or “foreign governments/NWO”; you might be surprised how at close the nwo/alex jones and adbusters continuums track in terms of narrative flow.
Comment by Glaivester —
August 4, 2009 @ 6:18 pm
Then again, biology faculty don’t (usually) spend much time on creationism, and it’s not clear that the ignoring tactic is making much headway.
Then again, how many people believe in creationism who are actually in a position where it matters?
Seeing as creationists have not been able to influence the scientific community appreciably, and seeing as most people do not deal with macroevolution on a day-to-day basis, and seeing as no one denies microevolution, how much of an effect are creationists really having?
Comment by All Your Summer Songs —
August 4, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
John Mc Cain is not a serious man. Tim Pawlenty is not a serious man (& more likely, not even a man but a pre-op Sarah Palin). Jindal could have been a serious man, but he gave into nuttiness with his hammering of Mag-Lev. Crist could be a serious man… If the GOP would unbar the Log Cabin.
I’ll give you Lugar though. But fundamentally, even from the start of the Contract with America years, the GOP was window-dressing, big shows, & camera-whoring while behind the scenes the restoration of the Reagan-Stockman Perpetual Trickle Machine was the only goal.
Of course, when you’re the party of the status quo, the right, you don’t really require that many new ideas. The old ones are just fine. So, you have plenty of time to be a vapid star. (To wit: Ms Palin.)
Comment by Moe Blues —
August 5, 2009 @ 8:08 am
I don’t see how it’s the media’s responsibility to create a rational right. Look at the spokespeople the right puts forth: Buchanon, Dobbs, Limbaugh, Malkin, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, and lunatics like Taitz.
These choices are not accidental. The fact that criticism of these nuts from fellow conservatives is, at best, muted is also not an accident. The objective is to whip up the base, foment hatred, and (most importantly) spread false information as aggressively as possible. Reality-based people may find these antics bizarre, but the right’s goal it to reduce the number of reality-based people. And the polls strongly suggest they are succeeding.
Comment by dhex —
August 5, 2009 @ 10:18 am
jesus, “reality-based”. good lord. there are so many ways to wave the douchebag flag, to be sure. the maddows of the world need their other, to be sure, so that they never forget how special they truly are.
snowflakes, one and all.
Comment by Moe Blues —
August 5, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Uh-huh. Good comeback–nicely argued and filled with facts. I withdraw my previous comment in the face of your overwhelming logic.
Comment by Seward —
August 5, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
I had no idea that people were still talking about this.
When this is non-issue about someone’s “personality”* is forgotten (like every other one of these things eventually is), another one will roll along I’m sure. Best to fight the urge to participate and simply ignore it.
*I am sure that Obama is a native born U.S. citizen.
Comment by dhex —
August 5, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
moe: so the whole “reality-based” memetic tapdance is fact-filled?
do you really believe that?
if so, i have bridges. so many bridges. and daddy needs a new pair of shoes. (seriously, these rockports are just not cutting it)
anyway, i look forward to the coming gop civil war as the scarborough wing tries to unzip itself from the hooded sweatshirt of mania.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 5, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
Mmm, I can sympathize: the new pair I bought a few months back hasn’t held up nearly as well as prior pairs, and the big rubber soles make ma a walking static generator.
Comment by dhex —
August 5, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
yeah, i mean they are comfortable to some degree – better than the kenneth coles i had before them, to be sure – but they wear out fast as hell. on the other hand i only paid 50 bucks (thank you dsw) and one probably gets what they pay for in these cases. it’s a fucking pain in the ass trying to find size 13 EEE shoes that don’t look like frankenstein’s flippers, however.
Comment by BruceR —
August 5, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
I, for one, assumed Orly Taitz was the latest Sacha Baron Cohen character. Color me confused.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 5, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
OK. It’s a different ballpark in that one is batshit insane, and the other is perfectly plausible, even if not ultimately convincing.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 5, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
I will cease using the term “reality-based” to distinguish liberals from conservatives when it ceases to be accurate.
I’m not going to pretend that the two groups are comparable in their relationship to science, evidence, and bullshit, merely to spare the feelings of those who are devoted to a narrative of equivalence.
Comment by dhex —
August 6, 2009 @ 7:54 am
OK. It’s a different ballpark in that one is batshit insane, and the other is perfectly plausible, even if not ultimately convincing.
we differ on that. [pause for dramatic effect] the plausibility requires a similar level of supernatural obscuration and silence across many levels of conspirators. not that the image of cheney reading a report and then eating the only paper copy, choking down sheet after sheet of bond paper, doesn’t fill my heart with joy. oh, to live in such a world.
the term “reality-based” is great for those who are devoted to a narrative of superiority. the birthers believe themselves to be “reality-based”; so do autism/vaccine people; so does ANSWER; so does the folks who nickle and dime for the DNC or RNC. politics are deeply emotional and subject to great distortions because of that. and so the world turns.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 8, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
What?!?
There has been cheating in elections from time immemorial.
Or do you imagine the counting of votes in Chicago in the 1960 election was pristine?
It take absolutely no “supernatural” anything to believe that cheating happens in an election.
Actually, the phrase was coined as a term of derision for Democrats by a Republican White House official.
Think about that for a second. That about what that means, that someone would hurl the term “reality-based community” at someone and mean it as an insult, or that a Republican would choose to characterize his opponents by that term, in order to make them seem inferior to Republicans.
And it also happens to apply quite accurately to those who reject birtherism, understand evolution, and consider the gut-check to be a poor method of ascertaining truth. In this day and age, the Democrats are superior to the Republicans on the matter of basing their opinions on objective evidence rather than feelings.