Of Birth, Death & Tinfoil Hats

The Birthers and Deathers (yes, that's apparently the term) have had a field day the last couple of weeks. If they aren't going off about Obama's citizenship, they're ranting about "Death Panels." It's more than one can possibly take in.

Although the birthers have fallen a little on hard times of late as even Bill O'Reilly has called them out, they continue to scream. A recent poll of North Carolinians showed that only 25% of Republicans polled believe Obama is a citizen, but even better than that, 8% of them don't even believe that Hawaii is a part of the US. The Prez can't win with them, regardless.

Orly Taitz, the lawyer/real estate agent/de facto Birther movement leader sported her tinfoil hat last week in an interview on MSNBC. She came unhinged in the extreme which led to a viral video as entertaining as it was enlightening. Sadly, with all the focus on her birth certificate issue we missed some her better conspiracy theories. Those showed up two days ago in Esquire. Among the other things she believes:

Goldman Sachs runs the treasury.

Obama is a puppet.

There's a cemetery somewhere in Arizona where they just dug 30,000 fresh graves, which wait now for the revolution.

Baxter International — a major Obama contributor — developed a vaccine for bird flu that actually kills people.

Google Congressman Alcee Hastings and House Bill 684 and you'll see that they're planning at least six civilian labor camps.

Google an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about train cars with shackles.

The communist dictator Hugo Chavez way back in 2004 purchased the Sequoia software that runs our voting machines and the mainstream media won't report any of it — not even Fox because Saudi Arabia bought a percentage of Fox in 2007.

Ummmm, ok.

This week Ms. Taitz has been buried under an avalanche of Deathers - the anti-healthcare reform faction that believe that any change in healthcare will lead to euthanasia, and socialism, and gulags, and tainted clams, and whatever else Zoltar tells them through their tinfoil. Prompted by Palin's ballyhooed "Death Panel" quote (that she walked back the next day, and then reiterated today), they have swarmed the townhall meetings to vent their rage at the proposed changes.

Heathcare reform is a tricky subject and a reasoned debate regarding solutions is not only desired, but required. Most people can agree that costs must be contained and that waste and fraud are unbelievable (doctors, clinics and hospitals spend $400 billion just administering the billing for their services - that works out to $80,000 for each and every uninsured person in the country.) Obviously something must be done. There are informed and thoughtful people on both sides of the issue. The Deathers, sadly, aren't part of that equation. Their fear of forced euthanasia of the elderly and disabled is groundless and filled with nonsense. Their baying over socialised medicine is even more absurd since... well what the hell is Medicare or the VA?

The sign above speaks volumes about the ignorance of these folks.

It's enough to give you hives, or a heart attack, or depression, or an ulcer.

Nonetheless, they will continue to scream about presidential illegitamacy, or socialism, or euthanasia, or tea bags, or God knows.

But if this level of "dialog" keeps up one thing is certain: somebody is going to end up needing medical attention.