I can see three or four that are vaguely disputable:
Obama did lower taxes for 95% of working Americans, but perhaps he raised the total amount of tax revenue the the government takes in? Maybe the Tea Party were never claiming that he would raise taxes overall, but were instead claiming that the areas in which he would raise taxes would cause a lot of harm? I can see someone defending either of these theses.
Perhaps Eugine_Nier actually does believe that global warming is a hoax.
He almost certainly does think that the Tea Party is a grass-roots movement. I can mount an argument against this but at the end of the day it depends what your criterion for “grass-roots” is. I think this one was the weakest one on the list and I wouldn’t have put it there if I was the author.
I guess maybe you could add the one about the Washington march—although the number of people who attended is a matter of fact, not opinion, perhaps the argument could be mounted that the 70000 figure excludes people who should count towards the tally, or was taken during a lull in proceedings. The rest, though? If there are Birthers on Less Wrong then… Well, that would be a disappointing discovery. We’re supposed to be good at weighing up evidence.
If there are Birthers on Less Wrong then… Well, that would be a disappointing discovery.
Frankly, the whole Birther thing reminds of how, back in the day, debates about whether a prince was actually the king’s son served as proxies for debates about whether the prince would make a good king. I think this explains why both sides seem to be much more sure of their position than the evidence warrants. (Although most of the “birthers” whose blogs I read don’t claim to know for sure that Obama wasn’t born in the US)
As for the matter of fact, I don’t know where Obama was born However, it is interesting that until he went into politics, Obama himself claimed to be born in Kenya.
The link you gave doesn’t say “Obama himself claimed to be born in Kenya”, it says that Obama’s literary agent said Obama was born in Kenya. In fact the very link you gave even offers a further link from an earlier 1990 interview that says clearly “He was born in Hawaii”
So, I’m downvoting this, as even a cursory examination of the links you gave indicate your statement to be inaccurate and misleading.
Frankly, the whole Birther thing reminds of how, back in the day, debates about whether a prince was actually the king’s son served as proxies for debates about whether the prince would make a good king.
You are being unreasonably generous to Birthers. If they wanted to discuss Obama’s qualifications and abilities then they would be discussing them explicitly. A crown prince has the lawful right to take the throne when the reigning monarch died—one of the few ways to get rid of a bad prince was to have him declared illegitimate. If Obama is a bad president then he can be voted out, no need to invent spurious reasons for his disqualification. Birthers are manufacturing doubt about Obama’s birthplace and then demanding balanced coverage of both sides of the story. That’s also what you’re doing in the last paragraph of your post: “I don’t know the truth, but I find it interesting that...” You have all the evidence you need to come to an informed opinion. Balanced coverage would be reporting the fact that he was born in Hawaii and has the birth certificate to prove it.
This strikes me as an excuse to avoid looking at the evidence being presented.
No, the evidence is the birth certificate. I’ve looked at it. Saying “I don’t know, but I find it interesting...” is offering innuendo in the place of evidence, since you seem to believe the birth certificate is real, which means the “born in Kenya” claim has to be incorrect.
I can see three or four that are vaguely disputable:
Obama did lower taxes for 95% of working Americans, but perhaps he raised the total amount of tax revenue the the government takes in? Maybe the Tea Party were never claiming that he would raise taxes overall, but were instead claiming that the areas in which he would raise taxes would cause a lot of harm? I can see someone defending either of these theses.
Perhaps Eugine_Nier actually does believe that global warming is a hoax.
He almost certainly does think that the Tea Party is a grass-roots movement. I can mount an argument against this but at the end of the day it depends what your criterion for “grass-roots” is. I think this one was the weakest one on the list and I wouldn’t have put it there if I was the author.
I guess maybe you could add the one about the Washington march—although the number of people who attended is a matter of fact, not opinion, perhaps the argument could be mounted that the 70000 figure excludes people who should count towards the tally, or was taken during a lull in proceedings. The rest, though? If there are Birthers on Less Wrong then… Well, that would be a disappointing discovery. We’re supposed to be good at weighing up evidence.
Frankly, the whole Birther thing reminds of how, back in the day, debates about whether a prince was actually the king’s son served as proxies for debates about whether the prince would make a good king. I think this explains why both sides seem to be much more sure of their position than the evidence warrants. (Although most of the “birthers” whose blogs I read don’t claim to know for sure that Obama wasn’t born in the US)
As for the matter of fact, I don’t know where Obama was born However, it is interesting that until he went into politics, Obama himself claimed to be born in Kenya.
You may have just disqualified yourself for a Bayesian...
The link you gave doesn’t say “Obama himself claimed to be born in Kenya”, it says that Obama’s literary agent said Obama was born in Kenya. In fact the very link you gave even offers a further link from an earlier 1990 interview that says clearly “He was born in Hawaii”
So, I’m downvoting this, as even a cursory examination of the links you gave indicate your statement to be inaccurate and misleading.
You are being unreasonably generous to Birthers. If they wanted to discuss Obama’s qualifications and abilities then they would be discussing them explicitly. A crown prince has the lawful right to take the throne when the reigning monarch died—one of the few ways to get rid of a bad prince was to have him declared illegitimate. If Obama is a bad president then he can be voted out, no need to invent spurious reasons for his disqualification. Birthers are manufacturing doubt about Obama’s birthplace and then demanding balanced coverage of both sides of the story. That’s also what you’re doing in the last paragraph of your post: “I don’t know the truth, but I find it interesting that...” You have all the evidence you need to come to an informed opinion. Balanced coverage would be reporting the fact that he was born in Hawaii and has the birth certificate to prove it.
This strikes me as an excuse to avoid looking at the evidence being presented.
Birthers were claiming that the certificate was fake. That was at about the point I stopped paying attention.
No, the evidence is the birth certificate. I’ve looked at it. Saying “I don’t know, but I find it interesting...” is offering innuendo in the place of evidence, since you seem to believe the birth certificate is real, which means the “born in Kenya” claim has to be incorrect.