can't... resist... politics

[gfish]

I'm beginning to think that the term "birther" is far too silly and easily dismissed. This is turning into some deep ugliness, and letting them hide behind a quirky conspiracy theory name isn't helping. Maybe we should all just start calling them crypto-racists instead.

Comments

[eleventoes.livejournal.com]

Disagree, as "Birther" is appropriately silly for what they are and what they're up to. Even by evil crypto-racist standards. I love these guys. The fact that we're not taking them seriously lets them feel free to identify themselves, which let's me give them wide berth without having to listen for the normal special code that's used.

Look. "He waddent born heres." is far more useful and less damaging than "He ain't really people." which is where we were 50 years ago.

We shouldn't take them seriously. We should mock and cajole and eventually ignore them, and they'll go away.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

How has ignoring the LaRouche people and the 9/11 Truthers worked out? And moon landing conspiracy theorists? Birthers are winning sympathizers because their crypto-racist message appeals to people who are looking for a pseudo-rational outlet for the discomfort and cognitive dissonance they feel about having a black president, or even just a president they didn't vote for. If nothing else, treating it as kind of goofy and harmless makes it more acceptable for people to associate with, defend and give audience to them. If nothing else, treating it as kind of goofy and harmless allows people to go along with it "for fun" without being confronted for the racist rhetoric that they are mindlessly spewing.

[eleventoes.livejournal.com]

I think that ignoring the moon landing people and the 9/11 truthers has worked out reasonably well. They're not taken seriously. They're jokes and even they know it. I think if you take a bunch of crazies seriously then they're craziness gets serious cred. Once they throw a rock then I'll be the first one there with a bat breaking bones, but until then laugh at them. They can't be reasoned with so throw a pie or something. Treat them like clowns and they'll be relegated to that role quickly.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

By giving moon landing people an acceptable place in the mainstream, their ideas remain relatively accessible and acceptable, and they exist in an environment in which their rebuttal is not a given. Is it any surprise, then, how many Americans question the moon landing? Sure, people believe all sorts of shit, even in the face of facts, but doubting the moon landing is not something that a person is going to come to on their own very often; it is a meme, and one that is alive and well and dismissed as harmless to the extent that it exists uncontested except by trivial assertions that are the first thing to be rejected by anyone questioning the moon landing. And given their critical ideological mass, they set the terms of the debate. Likewise for the birthers and the truthers. So to accept their terms of debate and to not call them what they are on their face, to laugh them off and see them as harmless, is to leave the things that are really drawing people to the birther movement unquestioned and unchallenged.

[eleventoes.livejournal.com]

Not a bad case at all, and worth more thought on my part, but I feel that we can and should attack the things that are really drawing people to those beliefs without addressing those crazies in particular. You can't force logic and reason on anyone, and you can't really de-crazy someone either. Send the biggest skeptic to the moon? His friends and allies will just say he was compromised in some way. They aren't beliefs formed based on evidence, they're beliefs that are latched onto and then evidence is found which seems to support it. A structure that can't be reasoned with. Still, worth engaging with even if just to keep them from dominating the debate.

That or invite the other crazies along too, just to get their opinion. Ask the Birthers what they think, then cut to the flat Earthers and the people who believe that sausages should be the world currency for their equal input.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Trying to argue with people who believe things that contradict reality is pointless. Making public fun of them at least forms an association with ridicule in the minds of people who don't know enough to make an informed decision.
I think it's great to see the Wall Street Journal referring to birthers as lunatics. People are going to hear about stupid, crazy ideas. Might as well link them emotionally to words that are associated with stupid and crazy. Rational argument obviously doesn't work.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

Agreed, any attempt at seriously addressing them only adds legitimacy. Can't argue with folks who have no logic. (This is similarly why I refuse to take solipsists or moral relativists seriously, they have declared themselves outside of rational discourse.)

-B.

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Crypto-racists certainly implies more than the birther. The thing that gets me is that they're not only racists, they're xenophobes as well and have very little grasp of the concept of "facts". It's like taking the worst of what I grew up with and making it mainstream. My head hurts from the whole thing.

I agree with Juli that just joking about it actually makes it more acceptable. It's also became acceptable for people who would *NEVER* SAY anything RACIST think that it's okay to let all their racial issues out to fly under the cover of being skeptics. *sigh*

Why, yes, this IS a hot button topic for me.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

They're criminally ignorant and blatantly racist. There is a mountain of facts that they're ignoring in favor of shadowy truths. I agree, they're a pernicious force that should be called out and exposed.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, whaddayamean "crypto"?

On the other, contemptuous names suitably belittle them.

[feylike.livejournal.com]

i kind of doubt that crypto-racists deliberately use cryptography to further their political goals.

[feylike.livejournal.com]

and what would qualify as "unbirthers"? seriously, i suspect that the right approach is to refute them without engaging them, if such a thing is possible, as outright ridicule can be trivially dismissed. i hope that it is feasible to discredit them without stooping to their level.