You yourself are one the people making it. If your question now is intended to deny that it’s a significant claim because only a minority of posters are making it… you appear to be saying, in effect, “Don’t listen to me; I’m just a member of a minority of posters making an untenable point.”
Since I cannot imagine you mean to say that… why do you care about whehter it’s a minority or a majority?
This doesn’t make any sense to me … unless I’m reading it wrong.
The proof that birthers’ irrationality isn’t race based is because tax protesters’ irraionality isn’t race based? You could just as well have said the moon-hoaxers irrationality isn’t race based therefore it’s imposible that birthers have any racial agenda. No sense does it make.
I meant that Dio was talking about a real situation, while Saint cad was attempting to introduce a fantasy “what-if” situation into the conversation. Nowhere did I say(or even imply) that Dio’s conclusion was reality.
Even if your erroneous conclusion were correct, it wouldn’t mean that I thought that the President being black were the only reason for the “Birther” protest.
Tax protesters aren’t motivated by racism? Really? I suggest that many of them are strongly motivated by racism. You don’t need to dig very far into tax-protestor arguments before you encounter the mythic negress welfare queen, or illegal immigrants getting “our tax dollars”. A billion-dollar B2 bomber is fine, but Christ forbid that a poor brown person gets an elementary school education or antibiotics on white America’s dime. And then consider that the teabaggers were silent… nay, nonexistent, for the eight years that George W. Bush blowing money like a fucking drunken sailor on military boondoggles and all sorts of pork…
Seriously, there is probably a small minority of tax protestors who aren’t primarily motivated by race, but I think it’s obvious that most of them don’t really give a shit what happens with their taxes as long as it goes to white people.
Tax protesters and racist groups haven’t been completely separate, though. A few racist scumbags like Tom Metzger first made their name in tax protest groups, and a lot of them claim that taxes are a race issue. Metzger himself stated that when he was a tax protester he stated that most of his fellow protesters were “atheist racists, Christian Identity racists, neo-Nazis, all kinds of people.”
So if you want to say that birthers are as race-neutral as tax protesters, well, have at it.
So my hypothetical is fantasy but his hypothetical is reality? Please explain how you know AS A FACT that there would be no birther issue if Obama were white AND how you know AS A FACT that no Democrat on this board would raise McCain being born in the Canal Zone as a issue had he won.
The claim is: Birthers’ irrationality must be race-based, because no other explanation makes sense.
How might I refute that? One way would be to show another motive for irrationality, so that we see that irrationality can exist for non-race reasons.
Now, if the claim is, “Birthers’ irrationality is race-based, and we know this because of Reason X,” then my argument is useless.
My argument is only valid to reject the “no other motive could have this effect” claim. If the other side concedes that irrationality like this can arise from many different motives, then my argument doesn’t apply at all.
A few, perhaps, but I’ve seen many who are furious at the “$600 screwdrivers” that the military uses. The “The Global Sovereign’s Handbook,” to take one example, makes these kinds of cases.
So I completely disagree that anywhere near a majority of tax protesters “don’t really give a shit what happens with their taxes as long as it goes to white people.” Have you a cite for your claim?
Well, if you’re not comfortable with a characterization of “fantasy,” it’s difficult to deny that it is rooted in supposition, and untestable supposition at that.
However, if you’d like to give your supposition at least a somewhat tenable backing in reality, you could post a couple of polls in IMHO. You could try something along the lines of “Obama Voters: What were your top three reasons for not voting for MaCain in 2008?” and “McCain Voters: what were your top three reasons for not voting for Obama in 2008?”
Admittedly, this approach has some problems, not the least of which involve self-selection of the participants. If you’ve got a couple of extra bucks left over after your income tax return check shows up, you could maybe commission Gallup to do it. My sense is that the McCain voters would have “birth-eligibility questions” a LOT more often than Obama voters would.
Beyond that, when dealing with issues of “coulda-shoulda-woulda,” challenging people to demonstrate knowing anything “AS A FACT” strikes me as kinda vapid.
The McCain thing was brought up by Ron Paul supporters early in the '08 campaign and the argument was thoroughly ridiculed by the liberals on this board.
I agree completely. In fact, I said (as the 3rd post, we should have shut it down then ;)):
There is some fundamental misunderstanding in this thread of the pathology that creates conspiracy theorists. There may be many birthers who are racist (though I’m sure there are many who are not). But they aren’t birthers because they’re racist. They’re birthers because conspiracy theories, for them, satisfy a pathological need, a need to answer certain questions, to blame an elite class, to belong to a tribe, to explain their powerlessness, etc. There are a number of psychological theories (some think projection is involved; some psychologists believe that those who believe in a conspiracy theory will tend to believe in many; etc.). The people in this thread looking for some sort of logical syllogism that demonstrates that birthers must be motivated by racism are completely missing the point. Simply put, conspiracy theorists are people who find conspiracy theories compelling and satisfying. Period. They are a particular type of nut. Racism is not at all a requirement (though, again, it may well be present).
I also fully expect that this will be ignored, and the pointless debate will continue.
Hey Dio, as long as you’re here, let me just say that the whole “PUMAs [del]are[/del] were Pubbie plants” thing has a whiff of “false flag attacks” to its flavor that, imho tends to jeopardize the proponent’s appearance of deserving to be taken seriously. And by extrapolation the likelihood that the proponent will be taken seriously. Particularly when the assertion is forwarded without any corroborating argument.
Bolding mine: He just might; he has hinted that he will vote for any viable candidate other than Sarah Palin; if she is the GOP candidate, he MIGHT vote for a Democrat. He isn’t completely crazy.