Hodgman, you need to read that article more carefully.

The fact that Al-Qaeda was created by western intelligence and has always been controlled by these interests demonstrates that the Al-Qaeda threat is one of the greatest ongoing hoaxes in world history.

They're also big on the "vaccines cause mental retardation" thing. And basically any other bat shit crazy thing you can come up with. The U.N. is going to take my guns. Mind control chips and frequencies.

Or, I'm a person who doesn't think that you, the government, or those being reported on should get to decide who's viewpoints are valid or not, for me, and for the rest of the people of this country. If you want to ignore a particular report, you're free to do so. Its everyone's right to choose where their information comes from, its no one's right to choose for you.

If you don't like what you see on the television, you get to change the channel, not petition to shut down the station.

I do not, however, think government officials should answer any of their questions. The same way I don't think Obama should have fetched the governor of Hawaii to verify his birth certificate was legit, because some crazy racists think Obama was born in Kenya because look how black he is!

I don't think the John Birch Society was a good thing. I am grateful to William Buckley and the conservative establishment at the time for squashing it. Now it has been reborn as the Tea Party and everyone like you stood back and went "Who am I to suggest these people are unhinged"? Now these flakes have taken over a significant portion of government.

You have a serious problem with creating strawmen. Infowars is free to exist. I don't want them shut down. If for no other reason, it's better for them to post about their crazy little fantasies than to live them out like the Boston bombers and Timothy McVeigh.

I do not, however, think government officials should answer any of their questions. The same way I don't think Obama should have fetched the governor of Hawaii to verify his birth certificate was legit, because some crazy racists think Obama was born in Kenya because look how black he is!

I don't think the John Birch Society was a good thing. I am grateful to William Buckley and the conservative establishment at the time for squashing it. Now it has been reborn as the Tea Party and everyone like you stood back and went "Who am I to suggest these people are unhinged"? Now these flakes have taken over a significant portion of government.

Its good that Inforwars exists for no other reason than that it gives nut-jobs someplace non-violent to channel their energies? And I'm the one creating strawmen?

I'm no Birther, but there's something seriously off-kilter with the notion that would-be government officials should be free to ignore a question relating to their basic legitimacy, simply because they decide that the question is indignant. The whole hub-bub could have been avoided by simply providing the birth certificate. Surely it would have been less trouble, and less vulnerable to continued "conspiracies" than recruiting the Hawaiian governor. Last time I checked, being a citizen was a requirement for the job of commander in chief and, at least in theory, the POTUS was accountable to all of the American people. Why have the requirement if there's no need for proof? Whom did he prove it to that alleviates the need to prove it openly? When and how does any candidate prove their citizenship? Why isn't the birth certificate of every presidential candidate a public record as a simple matter of procedure?

I'm no Tea-partier either, I've said time and again that my qualm with today's politics is that you have to choose product A (conservative, but to the point of trampling basic rights, and pretending not to spend too much of your money) or product B (liberal, but to the point of trampling basic rights, and openly spending all your money--because its good for you), but its somehow my fault that the Tea-party grabbed some power, not because I voted for them (I certainly didn't), but because I didn't vociferously decide that they were illegitimate for everyone else who did? Maybe you think this whole voting thing is silly? Perhaps we should just stop and allow officials to appoint their own successors?

I mean, without being personal here, because its not -- I find the very notion that anyone would just throw up their hands and say "Well, this is what they tell me. It passes Occam's Razor. It must be true." is disturbing to say the least. If I ever ended up a defendant in a criminal, or even civil, trial, I certainly wouldn't accept someone like that sitting on my jury. I hope you wouldn't either.

Hodgman, you need to read that article more carefully.

Quote: The fact that Al-Qaeda was created by western intelligence and has always been controlled by these interests demonstrates that the Al-Qaeda threat is one of the greatest ongoing hoaxes in world history.

Without bothering to go hunt for articles, infowars is a 9/11 "truth" site, that believes Bin Laden was in fact working as a CIA agent in 2001. He died of kidney failure in 2002 and ever since, the NSA has been just been making fake bin laden tapes.
They're also big on the "vaccines cause mental retardation" thing. And basically any other bat shit crazy thing you can come up with. The U.N. is going to take my guns. Mind control chips and frequencies.

And since we're making accusations of logical fallacies, let me point out that this is essentially ad hominem -- You're attacking infowars itself, rather than the legitimacy of the "facts" they're putting forward in support of their thesis. Even then, the points you use to do so are tangentially-related at best.

What people like me? I said plainly that I'm not a Birther, and nothing I said should indicate that having provided a birth certificate isn't perfectly acceptably proof to me. I'm not standing on the street corner demanding it. Frankly I never questioned his place of birth, and I hold little sympathy for the question itself. I didn't follow the whole deal much as a result, I couldn't have told you whether it was ever actually provided or not. But that's besides the point, because I'm not trying to satisfy any Birthers with any of these arguments I'm making.

If you've read any more into my Birther diatribe than "what's wrong with asking" then you are reading too much into it. I'm not here to defend any theory, but I defend absolutely that we should never simply be patted on the head and sent to bed with a glass of warm milk. I did not raise the questions to defend the Birther worldview, I raised them because Blades' previous counterargument seemed to be that the question can, and should, just be ignored. And no, I don't believe there's any need to keep proving ones facts to whatever level is demanded by someone unwilling to accept reasonable proof, but then your response should simply be to redirect to said proof.

I'm trying my damndest here to avoid putting words in other people's mouths, I'd like it if I could be afforded the same courtesy.

I'm no Tea-partier either

Maybe you think this whole voting thing is silly? Perhaps we should just stop and allow officials to appoint their own successors?

My issue with the Tea Party is not that they're too conservative. It's that they are almost universally uninformed and paranoid about things that do not exist.

I mean, without being personal here, because its not -- I find the very notion that anyone would just throw up their hands and say "Well, this is what they tell me. It passes Occam's Razor. It must be true." is disturbing to say the least. If I ever ended up a defendant in a criminal, or even civil, trial, I certainly wouldn't accept someone like that sitting on my jury. I hope you wouldn't either.