Ask Me Help Desk - Birthers

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Originally Posted by tomder55

aren't you even curious ? Forget the tin foil hat stuff like the speculation he got financial aid as a foreign student. I'd like to see his thesis ;his authored submissions to the Harvard Law School and as a professor in Chitown . It would give some insight ;

Insight into what? In college, I wrote a sympathetic paper on the stigmata. Does that make this Protestant a closet Catholic? In library grad school, I wrote a paper on how the traditional paper card catalog is a transitional object. Does that tell you more about me?

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It is outrageous that he is so guarded with things that should be automatic for a man who claims to aspire to a transparent administration. Let's have some transparency then.

Guarded? How do papers written when one is in his teens and twenties have anything to do with who he is in his forties?

If he produced them, then you would sit back in your recliner and say "Thank you. Now I'm happy"?

With all due respect;with the exception of anything from his Occidental days ;the rest of them are graduate thesis ; law school submissions to a major law journal that he was editor of ,and papers that most others publish in some form (many professors are required to publish often )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish

I think ;just like Elena Kagan's law school writings ;it would give tremendous insights into his thinking .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I think ;just like Elena Kagan's law school writings ;it would give tremendous insights into his thinking .

Those papers were written twenty or more years ago. We already know his "thinking," so what more would you hope to learn?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I think ;just like Elena Kagan's law school writings ;it would give tremendous insights into his thinking .

What revelation did you get after reading her papers? One headline -- "Papers reveal Kagan's lighter side." Had you watched the confirmation hearings, you would have picked up on that right away.

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

What revelation did you get after reading her papers? One headline -- "Papers reveal Kagan's lighter side." Had you watched the confirmation hearings, you would have picked up on that right away.

That means you saw the headline and not the paper ,or a serious critique of it .

“To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933”
http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/...cea7807a50.pdf

In it she attempts to understand why a radical socialist party never emerged in the US . Her conclusion I belleve reveals much about her at the time of the thesis .

"In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?"

She determines that the reason the Socialist Party never caught on in the US was internal conflict.

"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope."

From that one can conclude that at the time she was sympathetic to radicalism . From that one can look at her body of work to see if her position evolved .

We do not have a sufficient body of work from the President to make such an evaluation. He hides his past . We already can see his rhetoric is not consistent although when he is caught in a moment of candor it is very revealing .

Her conclusion I belleve reveals much about her at the time of the thesis .

And how old was she then? And how old was she when she was confirmed?

The best thing to do in school is to choose a topic that is so out-there or darned interesting and intriguing, so that you aren't bored with it by Day Two of researching and writing it. Just because I wrote a paper titled, "Is Jesus gay?" doesn't mean I believed it.

In her acknowlegement she said she was inspired by her brother's radicalism and was attempting to clarify her own. Now in my view there is evidence she did evolve . But we have that history for comparison. We don't with Obama.

Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness.

She is comparing apples and apples (glories of one system and greatness of another) in order to further the thesis. She couldn't very well have compared the "glories" to the "pitifulness," could she?

Did you ever write a college or grad school paper?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

But we have that history for comparison. We don't with Obama.

And we need that because?

I tried real hard not to disrespect Bush once I had read he was just another rich frat drunk. Why did that get shared with us?

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness.

She is comparing apples and apples (glories of one system and greatness of another) in order to further the thesis. She couldn't very well have compared the "glories" to the "pitifulness," could she?

Did you ever write a college or grad school paper?

Yes I did ;too many for my liking frankly . My Sr. thesis was a statistical comparison of the NY State legislatures votes to determine if there were a consistent regional blocks . This was in the early days of computers ,and I spent quite a few hours collecting the data and working with a programmer to feed these self typed programing cards into the computer . When we (he) final ironed out the program ,I was able to evaluate the data and write a 60 page thesis on it . I would've had a much easier time in school now with the resources available on the web. Much of my time was spent travelling to university libraries in the Kansas and Oklahoma area.

Now ; in my time at school I became aware of my fellow political science and history major's beliefs. I have kept in touch with some of them and can assure you that some of them have not deviated in their positions in 35 years. So to say that her positions then are irrelevant is speculation.

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She is comparing apples and apples (glories of one system and greatness of another) in order to further the thesis. She couldn't very well have compared the "glories" to the "pitifulness," could she?

Sure she could've if she believed one or the other was a pitiful position. I would never call socialism a great system.

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

And we need that because?

I tried real hard not to disrespect Bush once I had read he was just another rich frat drunk. Why did that get shared with us?

Real cute .

But by the time he ran for President you had 2 terms as a Governor ,his years in private business to evalutate his executive abilities... and yes his college records from Yale and Harvard business school. He was also very candid about his conversion from his wild past to becoming a born again who abstains from alcohol.

Again ;the most you have from Obama is a bunch of present votes in the Illinois Senate ;and a few party line votes in the US Senate while he was preparing for his Presidential run. We had NOTHING but the thinest resume to go by for the position he was elected to.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Yes I did ;too many for my liking frankly . My Sr. thesis was a statistical comparison of the NY State legislatures votes to determine if there were a consistent regional blocks .

So what kind of a rabble-rouser in the statistics or political field does that make you?

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Much of my time was spent travelling to university libraries in the Kansas and Oklahoma area.

At least by traveling from library to library to do research on note cards, you and I weren't tempted to plagiarize, as is the problem today.

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So to say that her positions then are irrelevant is speculation.

I said that?

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Sure she could've if she believed one or the other was a pitiful position. I would never call socialism a great system.

But that was the parallel to the first part of that sentence, "Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future." It leads into her thesis statement: "Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?"

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Again ;the most you have from Obama is a bunch of present votes in the Illinois Senate ;and a few party line votes in the US Senate

Hello again, tom:

Sounds like sour grapes to me. You knew this back in '08. He got elected anyway. What's new?

Look. If ANYBODY should be complaining about him, it should be ME. I BELIEVED him when he told me he was going to close Gitmo.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Sounds like sour grapes to me. You knew this back in '08. He got elected anyway. What's new?

P.S. And "present' votes in Illinois mean "Go back and work some more on it."

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What's new?

This time around we have a record to compare against .

Hello again, tom:

And, you'll take your best shot. The shooter, however, has yet to be revealed.

excon

When were the nominees in the 2008 contest determined?. in the spring of 2008 . I don't know what this rush is to find a challenger . Actually it's the Dems who are anxious to find a challenger to the President . What does that tell you ?

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Actually it's the Dems who are anxious to find a challenger to the President . What does that tell you ?

Hello again, tom:

I don't know what either side is trying to say... It doesn't matter.. The Republicans hung their hat on the wildly unpopular Ryan plan. THAT is the issue that will re-elect Obama and cause the Dems retake the House.

I don't know who will run against him. Does it matter? The birther thing is just a distraction... Will it go away after he's re-elected? Probably not.

excon

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So to say that her positions then are irrelevant is speculation.

I said that?

Here was your words.

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And how old was she then? And how old was she when she was confirmed?

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Those papers were written twenty or more years ago. We already know his "thinking," so what more would you hope to learn?

The implication is that what was written then is irrelevant in evaluating the candidate today.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The implication is that what was written then is irrelevent in evaluating the candidate today.

That's your implication, not mine. My words don't support your implication.