"Birther" weirdness shows how Republicans deny reality

I'm optimistic about the future of the United States. But one fact makes me cautious about being wildly optimistic: about half of Republicans (maybe more) won't accept facts.

Working together to solve our problems requires that both political parties look upon clearly evident aspects of reality with the same fact-accepting eyes. Then we can have a vigorous debate about how to change the way things are now, so they can be better in the future.

But when Republicans refuse to accept obvious truths, this creates a gulf between reality-accepters and reality-deniers which keeps them so far apart, policy discussions are carried out with both sides talking about wildly different subjects.

The "birther" weirdness is a case in point. A survey found that 51% of GOP primary voters believed Obama wasn't born in this country, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The facts is we already knew that President Obama was born in the United States beyond any doubt. We already had his certificate of live birth, not one but two separate birth announcements in local papers who printed birth announcements from hospital records, witnesses who had seen this original birth certificate, and of course also the fact that his mother was an American and his grandfather fought in World War II.

Now Obama has proven the birthers wrong by asking the State of Hawaii to release his long form birth certificate, even though what had already been released was an official document.

When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the document recognized by the Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That’s because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be seen here .

Any reasonable person would have recognized that Obama was born in Hawaii a long time ago. The fact that so many Americans, mostly Republicans, were wedded to being unreasonable is a disturbing symptom of what ails our body politic.

Reality acceptance dysfunction.

Being non-religious, I'm inclined to blame this largely on fundamentalist Christianity -- which loves to embrace blind faith and push away observable facts.

Other factors are at work here, though. Liberals and conservatives may differ in brain structure, with fear playing a bigger role in how conservatives see the world, and liberals being more comfortable with understanding complexity.

This could explain why Republicans who fear Obama are unable to comprehend simple facts about where he was born. Their brains filter reality in accord with primitive emotions rather than more evolved cerebral cortex functions.

Regardless, I'm hoping that reality-deniers will wake up to the danger this poses for not only the United States, but the entire world.

Global warming is another fact that gets denied by pretty much the same people who refused to accept Obama's American citizenship. Climate Progress has a post that lays this out, "The top 5 ways the 'birthers' are like the deniers."

Birtherism is a manifestation of the GOP’s embrace of anti-intellectualism and anti-science ideology whose “most harmful delusion” is climate science denial, as even Washington Post’s Editorial Page Editor — the guy who runs the disinformation of George Will, BJorn Lomborg and Sarah Palin — acknowledged.

So this seems like a good time to repost and update the 2009 CP post “The top 5 ways the ‘birthers’ are like the deniers“:

The people who refuse to accept the reality that President Obama was born in the United States share much in common with those who refuse to accept the reality that humans are dramatically changing the climate.

[Update: Politifact shows that the birthers aren't giving up on their craziness. Some people just won't take truth as the correct answer.]

Comments

[tucson]

Bill O'Reilly is often reviled by liberals. I frequently watch some of his show. Yes, he is traditional in his values, but he gives people of all points of view a chance to say their piece on his show unless they are complete wack jobs. Yeah, he bullies them sometimes and frequently dominates, but if their argument is strong enough, it gets through. He looked like a fool arguing with Christopher Hitchens.

I think most people who put the guy down haven't watched his show. Try it for a week, but you won't. The internet is full of distortions and lies. Most people who hate him have never watched his show for more than five minutes. Many have never heard him at all. Yet, he is one of the evil ones in their eyes. This is not to say I am a fan, but he is not some mad dog extremist liar. He presents the issues of the day responsibly even if he is a bit of an egotist.

Take the birther thing. Trump was on O'Reilly and was going on about the legitimacy of Obama's citizenship. At this point most of you are thinking O'Reilly was going along with it. Far from it. He nearly laughed in Trump's face and he did smirk. O'Reilly has been saying for years that the birther thing is bunk. However, I give Trump credit for finally forcing Obama's hand to show his birth certificate. Now the issue is dead once and for all except for a fanatical few who say it is forged. They will never give up.

I think it is fine to disagree with republicans, but this making all republicans out as extremists who want to abolish all government, starve the poor, let the sick die in the streets, let the corporations run roughshod over the planet, who are religious fanatics (who at the same time want the sick and poor to suffer), and who adopt all sorts of unhumanitarian views is plain wrong just as the stereotypes of liberals can be equally as wrong.

It's like kids at a foodfight at a party. Stupid and immature and that goes for you, Brian. Instead of name calling offer some practical solutions to the fact that this country is on the brink of financial meltdown. Quit the name calling and partisanship. Everybody has to get together and solve this mess in a bi-partisan way. If the ship sinks, both parties go down with it. Both parties have gotten us in this situation and now it is time to transcent the BS and get down to practical economics and get ot of this hole. Now.

But I'm under no illusions. That is not likely to happen. That is why I have been acumulating metals and other commodities for years. Gold has gone up 500% since I began buying back in 2003. Silver even more. Now it is approaching a blow off top that may go parabolic before descending as a new currency and hopefully a new financial system based on a new paradigm is born.

[Blogger Brian]

tucson, I give O'Reilly credit for his stand on the "birther" issue. And I don't mean to impugn all Republicans for the fact-impairedness of maybe half of the party.

However, it seems to me that the most egregious fact denials are coming from the GOP side of the aisle. In addition to the birther and global warming stuff, we have efforts to put creationism on an equal footing with evolution.

And Politifact has given many more "pants on fire" rulings to Republicans. See:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2011/02/selection_bias_politifact_rate.php

There's definitely truth-shredding happening in both political parties. It just seems to me that during the past few years the "R's" have taken the most liberties with facts.

It's bothersome that virtually zero Republicans in Congress publicly accept the reality of global warming, even though quite a few used to. There's a groupthink going on which isn't good for this country.

[Willie R]

This whole contrived "birther" issue has never been anything more than a rhetorical plaything for right-wing sore losers. They were hoping against hope that Obama's election would be invalidated. I would say "nice try", except that it really wasn't.
Global warming is a fact. Human activity is perhaps exacerbating conditions - to what degree may never be precisely determined. It does not matter in the least who believes what. You can bet your bottom dollar that human beings will never give up the comforts associated with the burning of fossil fuels.

Life itself, and not human ego, will determine when enough is enough. We will accomplish nothing by outlawing incandescent light bulbs and 10 MPG SUVs, or creating complex financial derivatives by the trading of hypothetical "carbon credits".