I’ve established without contradiction that:

My, my, someone has a high opinion of themselves.

The 1961 original birth certificate is the best evidence of Obama’s birthplace, and that it hasn’t been made public despite its availability.

Ahh, you’re using the internet definition of “established without contradiction,” meaning “have made a subjective assertion.” Thats clarifies things somewhat.

No baby pictures depicting the newborn Obama in Hawaii are available on the internet or elsewhere.

No pictures of Obama defecating are available on the internet or elsewhere either, but I’d wager money that the man has done so at least once…

Still, the underlying logic of your argument is flawed. Obama could have been born in outer Mongolia. As long as one of his parents was a citizen he holds birthright citizenship and is thus eligible to be president.

Those who have actually offered arguments have either (1) provided strategic reasons for withholding the certificate

Its part strategy and it’s part principle. Demanding the long form of Obama’s birth certificate is like demanding that he provide blood tests to prove he doesn’t smoke crack. Its offensive, racist, unnecessary, of little utility, and frankly comes from a place of ignorance and fear that is unlikely to respond to the facts. Obama is under no legal obligation to provide the certificate, and doing so would only be playing into this little racist delusion.

argued that 2007 certificate is sufficient because it was stamped and sealed (an appeal to authority).

I hate to break it to you, but asking for any government document is an appeal to authority. There is no legal difference between the 1961 long form and the 2007 form. If you believe that the 1961 form is valid you must necessarily believe that the 2007 form is valid because both are signed and sealed by the same authority. Arguing that either is valid is an appeal to authority.

So the paranoia on the left on this issue seems at least equal to that on the right.

You’re using that word incorrectly. Paranoia is not what we’re seeing on the left, we’re seeing incredulity. There is a difference. On the right, we’re seeing some potentially delusional thought with a paranoid flavor, but I’m not sure it would count as paranoia. Paranoia describes a specific cluster of beliefs, interpretations, and ruminations involving others seeking to hurt you. Its necessarily idiosyncratic. Precision matters.

I also point out that some of you are “sure” that the birth certificate “is sitting in a file somewhere in Hawaii” (William”) or”lost” (Pega). This sharp factual dispute doesn’t mean that one of you is “wacky”– it just mean that one of you is wrong. In this case it’s Pega, because it is undisputed that the state of Hawaii has a copy and Obama mentioned finding it in his “Dreams” book.

While I thank you for your support, I still wonder why you’re continuing on with this point. Again, the birth certificate is irrelevant. If you really want to question Obama’s eligibility to be president you would need to be talking about his mother’s birth certificate. The fact that you’re focusing on an irrelevant document, a document which could not possibly do what you claim it might, speaks volumes.

The appeal must always be to the facts, not what you wish them to be.

Facts are funny things. One of the things that makes them interesting is that they are contextual. A fact cannot exist in a vacuum because it depends on a network of other facts around it provide meaning. The fact itself is basically useless, it is a floating piece of data devoid of reality. Only with interpretation does a fact carry any weight. This is the problem with the entire birth certificate discussion.

Whatever the “facts” surrounding Obama’s birth certificate, they are only of interest to people other than biographers or genealogists because of what they tell us about Obama’s citizenship and eligibility for president. This is the underlying context of the facts themselves. In order to understand what these facts mean, we must understand the questions we are trying to answer. Facts are hierarchical things, and facts further down a chain are unimportant if a prior fact answers the question that one believes more distant facts might answer.

If one would like to question Obama’s status in order to illuminate the issue of his eligibility one must move further up than merely where he was born. Instead, one must ask to whom he was born. Where he was born only matters if both of his parents were not US citizens. Thus, in order to actually answer the question you would like to answer with his birth certificate you would need to perform DNA analysis. As you said, we must appeal to the facts (or rather, their context) as they are rather than to what we would like them to be.

Now then, “appeal to authority” means taking authority’s word for it on an issue of metaphysical Truth. In this case we’re taking the State of Hawaii’s word for it that this is an official document of the State of Hawaii — and they’re the ones who’d know.

So what these a**hats are saying is that since they haven’t personally seen this document any proof they’ve been shown to the contrary is specuous and that automatically means our President isn’t? (I missed alot of the controversy on this election I was in Iraq when most of this happy horsesh*t occurred) That’s dumb, as others have pointed out, as long as at least one of his parents was an American citizen, no matter where in the world she was when she gave birth, so is he.

By their logic, my baby brother, born to American parents residing in Germany at the time, would be barred from holding my nation’s highest office because his father decided to join the Air Force nearly a decade before my brother was born and, following the orders of his superior officers (as he was sworn to do) moved his family overseas.

Apparently I’m supposed to immediately deport my brother back to Germany, where he is REALLy from, according to these morons? Or maybe since we’re white (and not any of those other scary colors) it’s all good and none of them care where he was born. My head hurts with the twisted logic of it all. Seriously, these morons need to get a life.

Only commenters who who hurl empty characterizations such as “boring” or “stupid” or “wacky” without addressing or offering any arguments should be banned :)

I’ve established without contradiction that:

(1) The 1961 original birth certificate is the best evidence of Obama’s birthplace, and that it hasn’t been made public despite its availability.

(2) No baby pictures depicting the newborn Obama in Hawaii are available on the internet or elsewhere.

Those who have actually offered arguments have either (1) provided strategic reasons for withholding the certificate or (2) argued that 2007 certificate is sufficient because it was stamped and sealed (an appeal to authority). So the paranoia on the left on this issue seems at least equal to that on the right.

I also point out that some of you are “sure” that the birth certificate “is sitting in a file somewhere in Hawaii” (William”) or”lost” (Pega). This sharp factual dispute doesn’t mean that one of you is “wacky”– it just mean that one of you is wrong. In this case it’s Pega, because it is undisputed that the state of Hawaii has a copy and Obama mentioned finding it in his “Dreams” book.

Finally, you should note that barely a year ago a bunch of right-wing crazies were peddling nonsense about the origins of another baby — John Edwards’. After all, why would a man announce for the presidency knowing that his wife and others knew about his affair, and then rekindle the affair in the middle of his campaign and impregnate the woman? Why would he put himself up for the Vice Presidency just weeks before the Democratic convention? Ridiculous, yes, but true. The appeal must always be to the facts, not what you wish them to be.

Simple. The available “official, state-issued copy” was created from a computer database in 2007 and contains limited information, whereas the 1961 original was prepared by contemporaneous witnesses to his birth and contains additional, verifiable information such as the name of the hospital and delivering doctor.

Suppose a collection agency was coming after you for a speeding ticket issued ten years ago. You know were never issued one, but somehow there’s a notation on your DMV records. You demand the original summons identif

What you originally characterized as tinfoil hat territory was the notion that the 1961 original could be scrubbed from the Internet. Now, however, you’re making a very different point. You seem to be acknowledging that the original is completely unavailable online (is it?) and claiming that Obama’s side rather than the right wing, is suppressing it for strategic reasons. So it seems either way it’s tinfoil hat territory.

You seem to be missing my point entirely. I don’t think the 1961 certificate has ever been on the internet. I’m sure its sitting in a file somewhere in Hawaii, but that seems kind of irrelevant. What is the point of going through the effort of finding, scanning, and posting a document that you know won’t satisfy anyone? Why bother? Sure, theres a paper document somewhere, but the state of Hawaii moved over to a computer system long enough ago that getting a copy of a birth certificate no longer requires fucking about with paper and a notary public.

Continuing to whinge about the paper copy because someone doesn’t like the…well…paper copy from a computer (!) is like arguing that my driver’s license doesn’t seem valid because the photo is printed out from a computer rather than laminated on. Its a bullshit argument. A birth certificate is a government body certifying a live birth. The form they issue the certification in is irrelevant.

Even then, thats completely beside the point. The birth certificate argument isn’t really worth addressing because his mother was a citizen. Any discussion about the birth certificate then starts to become delusional. Thats really all there is.

Finally, lets not forget what this is about. A black man with a funny name won an election. Now white people with a poor grasp on the law are desperately trying to find some way that it was a mistake. It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to work out whats going on here.