Birthers vs. Truthers

Will

Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

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7 Responses

  1. ChrisWWW says:

    Not to say there isn’t some level of insanity on all sides, but I think it’s a stretch to say that “about a third of each party believes some seriously crazy stuff.”

    The Economist blog post you cited doesn’t prove craziness parity. The poll in question asked Democrats “Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?”

    Now is it really all that crazy to say yes, when there verifiable are stories like this?: Bush briefed on hijacking threat before September 11Report

  2. mike farmer says:

    This has got to be the silliest effort lately — scoring the birthers and truthers to see who’s worse. I wonder if rational adults could just denigrate irrationality, praise reason, logic and facts, drink a few beers and get on past this stuff.Report

  3. Zach says:

    There are two categories of conspiracies that nuts latch onto and won’t let go–those that are provably false, and those that are impossible to prove false.
    1. Provably false: Obama was not born in Hawaii, WTC brought down by controlled explosion/no plane ever hit the Pentagon
    2. Impossible to prove false: Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand, JFK was killed by whomever, aliens are running around Area 51, everything revolves around the earth in incredibly eccentric orbits (not provably false at one time)

    The second category is more plausible than the first even if the actual conspiracies alleged are more fantastic. Those in the first category are simply not plausible. There’s a subset of 9/11 truthers (apparently Van Jones at one point) who allege that Bush knew more than he says he did. This is ridiculous but it’s infinitely more plausible than saying Obama was not born in Hawaii.

    There’s also a subset of birthers who agree that Obama was born in Hawaii but say that he’s still not allowed to be President. These folks either don’t understand the law or pretend they don’t. They aren’t really conspiracy theorists, though. They accept the same set of facts that actually exist (even if it took them awhile to do that) and are just idiots.Report

  4. mike farmer says:

    So, what’s the score? I’m keeping my own scorecard — Citizens 912 — Government 0Report