48% Of Iowa Republicans Don’t Believe Barack Obama Was Born In The U.S.
The mainstreaming of insanity inside the GOP seems to be nearly complete:
Donald Trump’s birther crusade could be a boon in Iowa, and “Romneycare” could dog the former Massachusetts governor in the first-in-the-nation caucus, a new poll shows.
A whopping 48 percent of Iowa Republicans said they don’t believe that Obama was born in the United States, according to the automated survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling out Tuesday. Another 26 percent said they weren’t sure whether or not the president was born in America as the Constitution requires to be eligible to serve in the nation’s highest office.
Trump has driven the widely discredited “birther” issue into the national spotlight as he flirts with an entry into the White House race, placing at the front of the pack in several national polls.
In Iowa, Trump comes in third with 14 percent of the vote, just two points behind Mitt Romney with 16 percent. Mike Huckabee is currently leading in the state, with 27 percent support from Iowa Republicans.
I’m honestly not sure what to say in response to things like this other than to observe that it appears that the inmates have taken over the asylum.
This makes me sad to be an Iowan.
How long till Romney goes birther?
Again shocked, shocked to learn that Republicans are idiots.
Yea Michael, it’s too bad the other party can’t bring itself to advocate sensible policies that don’t involve taking my money and giving it to someone else.
Guess I’ll be voting third party for awhile
How old are you?
Seriously, you’re going to try to find a party that advocates ending all taxes? That’s juvenile.
Oh my, such a legitimate comeback to Michael’s point…by the way, when you can find any party that advocates policies that don’t involve taking your money and giving it to someone else, do let us know…
Remember, we’re dealing with Doug here.
Self proclaimed Libertarian who voted for Bob Barr. Barr is also a (recently) self proclaimed Libertarian with an interesting past.
Ardently anti abortion (except for his wife).
Believes in the sanctity of marriage except for when he’s skipping around on his second wife with his soon to be third wife.
Totally against medical marijuana before he landed a job paying him to lobby for medical marijuana.
Taken as a whole, not the most serious guy in the room. And I’m not talking about Bob Barr.
But by all means Doug, vote third party! It’s no more confusing than any of your other positions.
Davebo,
I disagree with virtually every domestic economic policy the Democratic Party takes. Unless they change, I can’t be one of them. Live with it.
Or alternately, Doug, you could advance your politics beyond freshman dorm, understand that you’re a grown-up now, part of a complex society where we need government, and where we have to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and then need to pay the bills for that.
That might work, too.
I kind of suspect that Obama and his advisers are thinking this is great – nothing like being able to present your opponents as wingnuts. I suspect they would love to be running against something like a Bachman/Trump ticket.
Hey, I can live with it forever!
No one is asking you to be a Democrat. And despite his inconsistencies lets face it, a vote for Barr is the same as staying home.
Hell you could parlay this libertarian bent into a front page posting job at Hit and Run. They love confusion!
It’d be nice for him to advance them to freshman dorm.
So Doug is for ending Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? And all taxation?
Sounds like he’s an anarchist. Freshman dorm would definitely be a step up.
And I’d be perfectly fine with staying home if I found no compelling reason to go to the polls. The idea that voting is some kind of sacred civil duty is something I find to be rather absurd.
Do you guys generally find that telling people they’re childish for disagreeing with you is an effective way of convincing them you’re right? Because I’ve never seen that tactic actually work on anyone.
Stormy,
Yea I get hit from both sides of the so-called left-right divide with that argument. I’ve never understood why they think it will convince me to agree with them.
Stormy, it’s not necessarily that anyone that disagrees is childish. But the “taxation is theft” talking point that libertarians and the various anarcho-whatevers push IS patently childish. Unless you think Tyler Durden’s vision of his idyllic future is a serious political viewpoint.
Of course, Doug never made the argument that taxation is theft. Putting him among that group is pretty much the same level of exagerration as people who call Obama a Marxist.
I found it fascinating to watch the clip of Ann Coulter on Sean Hannity’s show talking about the birther issue. Normally the combination of that much anti-liberal blowhardery would make me want to stab myself in the face, but it was fascinating to watch Coulter denounce birtherism (and Hannity nod along) and blame the liberals and the liberal media as the ones who were pushing birtherism as a way to make Conservatives look stupid. I felt like they were missing their tin foil hats for that segment, because it was a giant conspiracy against conservatives (who are the victims, dammit!) to make them seem stupid and gullible in the media.
Stormy:
Actually, ridicule has its place.
Libertarianism is to politics as the mullet is to hair. Guys think it makes them look cool, but everyone else is rolling their eyes and wondering how long it will take before they get a clue.
Stormy, just in this very thread, Doug said:
How is that significantly different from “taxation is theft”?
In the same way that “advocate sensible policies that don’t involve burdening the poor to give tax breaks to the rich” is significantly different from “property is theft”
Namely that the current political debate over a three percent swing one way or the other in the tax rate isn’t neither Marxism nor Anarchism; if anything is worth ridicule it’s the people on either side who can’t see that.
Stormy, you’re missing the point. ALL policies that involve a taxation above 0% “involve taking my money and giving it to someone else”. That’s what taxation is.
A) I don’t think he’s childish for disagreeing with me. I think he’s childish for espousing political beliefs that I once had — and then realized were very short-sighted, selfish and simplistic — when I was literally a child.
B) I’m not interested in convincing him of anything. He doesn’t believe in taxes, which means he doesn’t believe in government. Why bother discussing politics with an anarchist? It’s such a blinkered, benighted worldview that I can’t imagine wasting my time trying to lead him to the light.
“it’s too bad the other party can’t bring itself to advocate sensible policies that don’t involve taking my money and giving it to someone else.”
Funny, you seem to have far less problems with the party whose policies involve taking your money and giving it to the the wealthiest few. Why is that?
“sensible policies that don’t involve taking my money and giving it to someone else. “
Unless you live in a perfect meritocracy, a percentage of the money you earn comes from the fact that you never had to compete with many other citizens on the labor market, getting a good education etc.
Sorry to break your heart, Doug, but lowering taxes can actually be anti-meritocratic and economically idiotic.
Since some of the money you earn would not have been in your paycheck if you had been getting a bad deal from birth, you SHOULD pay taxes to help those who are systematically hampered, and NEVER waste our time and insult our intellects with your complaining. You are asking for class warfare at your benefit, Doug.
I know how good it is to be Caucasian, and I have lived in excellent and awful environments so I know the importance of that as well. I also know the value of luck and being born into a family that values education – my family members have helped me plenty while I was getting great grades and applying for great schools etc. So when I make money I do NOT act as if almost all of the money I get comes from my hard work – it also comes from privileges, luck, being born by the right woman and other factors outside of my sphere of influence.
YOUR obsession with paying less taxes is not only juvenile, unimpressive and saddening (money is just a score system for wage slaves and fodder-people) but it is also economically and philosophically ignorant. I am constantly surprised by how much smarter I am than many adults – I thank Nozick and the other glibertarians for creating all these acolytes that make me so much smarter by comparison.
tl;dr – taxes are not intrinsically unfair or injust. It all depends on how easy it is to be socially mobile and how much of the average paycheck is earned via hard work rather than luck, privilege and other factors outside of individual control. Also, I am smarter than Doug and more intellectually curious.
So is Doug only going to support anarcho-capitalism? After all, any other form of government, even those that are considered mainstream libertarian thought, would involve taxing him and paying someone else with it.
And what about the health care issue? Reality is that sometimes people will need care they can’t afford in order to live or remain as productive citizens that can pay taxes and work.
So, in order to pay for their care, taxes will be required. So they don’t die.
Are those taxes also going to make Doug sad :(?