Larry and I have decided to continue a discussion we were having recently. Our objective is to understand each other better because Larry and I have a difficult time communicating. It doesn’t really matter what the subject is because it happens no matter what we talk about. We just happened to be discussing the Obama eligibility issue on Sandy’s recent post, and we were specifically talking about the forensic evidence that has been presented by a couple of anonymous analysts claiming to be forensic experts on the subject of Obama’s birth certificate that has been posted on the WWW on sites like Fact Check.org.
I decided that Larry’s response to me needed to be taken apart so that I could be sure that I understood what he had written. We haven’t actually gotten very far. We both agreed that we would take the discussion to a separate post.
This is the comment Larry made that I am deciphering with his help.
Larry M. Nov 30, 2010, 2:34pm EST
"If I am not mistaken this is an anonymous report (I have no idea who "techdude" is) on a 2007 document from Hawaii. The document purports to be a certificate of life birth. The report claims that the document is a forgery.
Let's assume that the document is a forgery for the moment. What does that have to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961? I should think the best evidence would be that Obama was born somewhere else. Evidence that Obama was not born in any of the hospitals or clinics on Hawaii during the early 1960s would be second best.
This is evidence of neither. At best it shows that someone created a fake record from Hawaii that purported to be a certificate of live birth in 1961. But that tells us nothing about whether Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.
Now concerning the quality of this evidence. The fact that it is anonymous takes away considerable credibility. The fact that we have no idea where "techdude" got the document still further lessens credibility. He could have created it himself for all we know. The point is that this is hardly evidence that one would go to court with and certainly not evidence that one would put any faith in.
Do you have any evidence that would indicate Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii? Do you have evidence that his mother was not a U.S. citizen at the time?"
So far, Larry has agreed that the anonymity of the analysts about whom we were speaking, Techdude and Polarik, who both use screen names instead of their own names because they wish to be anonymous for security reasons that they have given, has nothing to do with judgment of the content of what they have reported. This can be verified from the last comments to the issue by Larry and me on Sandy’s post.
Sue B. to Larry M.: “Okay, so you're saying that you are basing your judgment on the material purported to have come from their writing despite their anonymity. Is that correct?”
Larry M. to Sue B.: “That is correct.”
This covers Larry’s first paragraph in the comment quoted above.
The comment thread below will start with Larry’s second paragraph.
I would ask that anyone else who wishes to contribute in this post would not interrupt the thread where Larry and I are discussing. If you wish to leave any comment, please start another sub-thread, and do not continue in ours. If anyone does interrupt our thread, I will delete the comment and repost it in another thread. It is not my intention to censor anyone’s comments. You can write whatever you want to say, and it will remain, but it cannot remain in the first thread of this post’s comments that is reserved for Larry and me. Thank you for your cooperation in advance.
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Comments: 100 ( 3 removed by Sue B.© The Sting IS Worse Than the Buzz )
"Let's assume that the document is a forgery for the moment. What does that have to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961?"
Do birth certificates show where and when a person was born or do they not, Larry?
Your summary of our thread which is the body of this post is excellent. You have presented it without bias, with accuracy, and complete.
"Do birth certificates show where and when a person was born or do they not, Larry? "
Yes, they do.
Birth certificates show where and when a person was born and include information on the parents where known. I believe some also include a footprint of the infant.
Sorry to be so late. I had computer problems last evening and the email notification must have gotten lost. :-(
"Why might it NOT have anything to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii or not?"
I am afraid I will not parse your question correctly in this case but here goes.
We don't know where the forgery came from, why it was produced, nor anything else about it except that it is not a valid birth certificate. This is why it might NOT have anything to do with where Obama was born. We only know that this document, being a forgery, is NOT evidence that Obama WAS born in Hawaii. In fact, it is not evidence of anything except that forgeries of birth certificates are possible.
Someone could create a forgery of a birth certificate for anyone and have the information on that certificate be completely correct and the document would still be a forgery. It would provide no evidence at all about where the person it purported to describe was born.
A forged document says things about the forger but nothing about the truth it supposedly contains.
If we are assuming for the moment, as you said you wanted to do, that the document is a forgery, nothing else matters for this moment except that the document is a forgery. If you were my employer and you saw a document with my name forged on a test someone else completed for me to get the job, does it matter for that moment that you know not from where the forgery came, why it is forged, or anything else about it except that it is indeed a forged name?
Stop getting ahead of the issue and answer the complete question as it was posed, please.
Response to the 3:48 pm comment from December 6.
If I were your employer and "saw a document with your name forged on a test someone else completed" (so far you are not involved because you have done nothing) "for me to get the job," (this is still not necessarily your action but the action of another it just provides their motive) "does it matter for that moment that you know not from where the forgery came, why it was forged," (you have told me why it was forged) "or anything else about it except that it is indeed a forged name?"
What I would be concerned with is who did the forgery and how you were involved if at all. If that document (test) was crucial to my giving you the job then it would depend on whether I had given you the job yet and if you had been working for a while how well you did the job.
If you had nothing to do with the forgery, I would not hold it against you. If you were doing badly at the job, I would replace you anyway. If you had arranged the forgery and were doing well at the job I would fire you for being untrustworthy.
So my answer is that it matters in some circumstances and not in others but I would have to know those circumstances to say.
My response to your comment of December 6th at 4:26 PM.
The testimony of the two who examined the document (certificate of live birth) was that it was not valid, not that it met the requirements for forgery because they provided no evidence and no testimony as to the intent or intention behind the production of the document.
Therefore if we assume that the document was created with the intent to defraud we have assumed that whoever produced the document had some fraud in mind. But there is no evidence produced concerning who created the document nor what their intention was.
I regret having missed this. Now that I know I am not getting notified when you comment here I will try to check it far more often.
My fault entirely.
As I said, I don't get email notifications from Gather. If I'm in the middle of a discussion with someone, I have to check back. If they don't reply in a day or so, I pretty much assume it's over. Now they might come back after that and respond, and I'll miss it, but that doesn't happen often. What I would never do is rely on technology for which there is solid evidence that isn't working to alert me that someone has responded in a timely manner to a comment I made. The main thing it shows me related to what we were talking about here is that evidence is not significant to you. That could very well be one of the underlying reasons we disagree on this issue and others. Interesting! I'll have to refresh myself on where we were with this and get back to you.
We are still at the point where you said you wanted to assume for a moment that the document is a forgery. You said, ""Let's assume that the document is a forgery for the moment. What does that have to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961?"
If we are indeed assuming that the document is a forgery, that means that the document is illegal because forgery is illegal. At this point, we haven't discussed what makes it a forgery so we don't know at this moment what it has to do with whether Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii or not.
Right at this moment, assuming the document is a forgery because that is what you said you wanted to do, all we have derived at this moment is that the document is illegal but not why, so at this point it may or may not have anything to do with his birthplace or year of birth, just as my example of the forged name on the test doesn't show anything about who did it, why it was done or anything else about it, except that you know it was a forged name.
As I said, you got way ahead of where we were. When there is an illegal act committed, it is not until later that we examine what the intentions may or may not have been and we often do not also know who was responsible. That all remains to be discovered.
Since you did jump ahead, you said, "The testimony of the two who examined the document (certificate of live birth) was that it was not valid, not that it met the requirements for forgery because they provided no evidence and no testimony as to the intent or intention behind the production of the document."
Let's just take a minute first to examine the contradiction in that statement that you made and then we'll examine the other blatant errors in it as well.
First you say, "The testimony of the two who examined the document..." Then you say, "they provided no evidence or testimony as to the intent or intentioon...
Either they did or did not provide testimony as to the document being a forgery. They did, and one of them, Polarik, provided an actual exhibit to the court to testify that the document was a forgery. Here it is. Once again, the intention is not important at this moment. The importance lies in the fact that the document that is being used as a valid and not forged document on the Internet is not a valid document and it is indeed forged. That is only to the point at which we are.
Sorry for the delay again. I think the reason for my not being notified is that I am responding to your comment, not the other way round. Thus I will continue the conversation from a "first level" comment to your post below.
(Computer mother board crashed and that has delayed my response. :-( )
I read the "here it is" document. Though he uses the word "forgery" in the document he does not address the issue of intent. He talks about the sources of the documents he examined but never specifies who created the faked documents. (I don't think he claims to know.) Therefore, though he concluded that the documents he examined are not valid and uses the word "forgery" with respect to them, he is not using "forgery" in the legal sense you provided above.
Again, it is perfectly legal and not forgery to fake a document, what makes that action illegal and "forgrery" is the intent and use of that faked document.
Second, the document does not indicate who created the faked document.
What do you not understand about intent not being an issue as to whether or not the document was forged? I gave you two very good examples of how a crime can be committed without knowing the intent. Let’s give a different example since the above examples seem to have completely left you lost. If someone breaks into your house, and they steal all your belongings, was a crime of theft committed? It appears that one was committed.
Do you know who the thief is? Do you know what his particular intention for stealing is other than that he wanted what you had? Do you necessarily know whether he plans to sell your things, use them for himself, give them as Christmas gifts, or whatever else his specific intention may have been? Does it matter at that moment when you realize all your possessions gone, whether or not you know what his exact intention was? Does it matter that you don’t know who the thief is? Are you still going to report a theft, an illegal act, was perpetrated? A crime of theft was committed and that’s all you know right now.
Polarik is not a private investigator, a police officer, nor is he an FBI agent. It’s not his job to determine intent. It is his business to examine the legitimacy of the document, and he says that the document is a forgery. He explains in detail why that document on the Internet is a forgery.
What do you mean that he’s not using it in the legal sense I provided above? Do you not understand that a forgery is by its very nature illegal? There is no other way to use the word but in a legal sense. It doesn’t matter whether you’re defining murder, theft, arson, kidnapping, or rape, they’re all illegal acts and their definitions include legalities. From that criminal law definition: “the counterfeiting of a seal or die with intention to defraud.â€
Let’s not let that word intention get in the way here. If a forgery is committed, there is intent to defraud because there would be no need for a forgery if the intent were not to defraud. We do not know the specifics of that intent. We know the thief intended to take what did not rightfully belong to him, but we don’t know specifically why he did. That doesn’t make it legal, though.
Polarik said, “I collected a great deal of additional evidence, that the scanned image alleged to be a true copy of Obama's original COLB was forged, and that this altered image of an official state-issued document is nothing less than a false identification document as defined by Chapter 18, Section 1028 of the United States Code." So if you want to forget about the dictionary definition, you can go right here to see what the “legal sense†of forgery, as you put it, means.
You gave me a definition of "forgery" which included "intent." That was the basis on which I examined the testimony you provided.
Concerning the stealing example in your last comment:
If my goods were stolen that is a crime by definition. Therefore, yes a crime was committed. This is a crime which does not involve "intent" in its definition.
In the next paragraph you say that Polarik's job is NOT to determine intent. Therefore he cannot testify that the document is a forgery, only that it is not a valid document. The definition you gave of forgery REQUIRES intent. Yet you have provided no evidence of intent.
Therefore, if Polarik used the word "forgery" he cannot have been using it in the legal sense because he did not establish intent.
The word "intention" cannot be "in the way" because it is an essential part of the definition of "forgery." It is NOT and essential part of the definition of "theft" or "stealing."
Just because the document is fake does not mean it was created nor used with the intent to defraud. That is a separate determination to be made.
(The "right here" link returns "Tag Unavailable".)
Please note what I was willing to assume the document was forged for purposes of our discussion. Can we move on from that point? Or is it too soon?
PS: I did get the email from your comment on this thread.
Yes, that definition includes the word intent, but only because that is inherent in the definition. If it were a reproduction and not a forgery, it could be reproduced and presented with no intention to defraud, but that is not forgery; that's a reproduction. Once there is intent to defraud, it is a forgery. That statement by Polarik above says that it was an intent to defraud. "...that the scanned image alleged to be a true copy of Obama's original COLB was forged..." That scanned image was only alleged to be a true copy, but his forensic analysis proved that it was not a true copy, but a forged copy, and so the intention was to defraud.
But as you say, Polarik provides no evidence of intent because it isn't his job to establish intent. And also as you say, intent is inherent in the definition. Therefore, Polarik is not qualified to testify that the presented document is a forgery, only that it is a fake, not a valid COLB.
His analysis cannot prove that the scanned image was a forgery since it does not include any evidence of intent. He provides evidence that it was not a true copy but no evidence that it was a forgery.
I seem to understand it quite well, indeed. I am not sure you do. Where is the evidence of intent? So far I have seen no evidence at all of intent. Being an invalid document does not demonstrate anything at all about intent.
Larry, if a document is a fake document, not a valid COLB, and it has been put out on the Internet to defraud people into thinking it is a valid document when it isn't, that is called forgery.
He doesn't know whether Obama put it there, Michelle put it there, whether Sasha and Malia were practicing uploading documents on the Internet, or whether the DNC put it there, so it's tough to figure out these intentions when we don't know exacly who did it, but it is a forgery that is up there because it remains there posing as a valid document when he has shown why it is not. Do you get that much?
Your statement "if a document is a fake document, not a valid COLB, and it has been put out on the Internet to defraud people ...", well, that't the whole point, "to defraud people", that's the intent. If that was the intent then that was forgery. If that was the intent.
Who put it there is the next question and it has to be answered before the intent question since the person who provides the false document is the person whose intentions are in question, as you say.
We have assumed that the document is false. I am not qualified to say. I am not an expert on such matters.
Can we move on now?
Larry, you cannot have a forgery wthout intent to defraud. That's what I meant when I said intent is inherent in the definition. You can't even call it a forgery if there is no intent to defraud. It's like you can't call it theft if there is no intent to take what does not belong to you. He clearly showed that there is a document on the Internet that is a false document. There is an intent to defraud. What don't you get about that?
I well understand the conclusion you want me to reach. What I don't have is any evidence that Obama is not qualified to be President of the United States. In what sense does Obama control what others do with his birth certificate? How could Obama know whether someone else has produced a false document? All we know from the testimony of Polarik is that a certain document (or several) was not a valid birth certificate. How would Obama know where he was born. He is just like the rest of us. We are told by others of our place of birth because we were not mentally able to discover that for our selves at the time of our birth. You have provided no evidence as to where this false certificate comes from nor who produced it nor any evidence concerning where Obama was actually born.
If Obama does nothing, that is not fraud nor the intent to deceive. (Just ask any libertarian.)
If a false document is produced with the intent to defraud that is forgery. I understand that. But you have not provided any evidence that this false document was produced with the intent to defraud nor that Obama was involved if fraud was involved.
Sue, "you cannot have a forgery without intent to defraud" because that is part of the definition of "forgery." But you can have a false document without forgery. That is also a part of the definition of forgery.
One can call something forgery without it being forgery. Anyone can do that.
You say tere is an intent to defraud. What is your evidence. There must be more than a false document. There must be evidence of intent. What don't you get about that?
In the meantime, don't you at least want to question why Obama allows a document evidenced to be false remain on the Internet as a true copy of his birth? Don't you wonder why there has been an intent to defraud the public? Do you wonder why every single case brought before a court has never been thown out on substantive evidence that was deemed to be unsubstantial or frivolous, but only because of formalities?
I thought you were the one of the wonder boys. You didn't even wonder why a discussion was dropped four times that wasn't at all dropped, but because you didn't get an email norification, you assumed it was. If you had never figured out that the reason you were not getting email notifications is because you were not the one who started the thread to be advised that someone had replied to your comment, you never would have checked back here as I suggested you might the three times it previously happened that you thought the conversation was over. Wow!
"In what sense does Obama control what others do with his birth certificate?" Obviously, you didn't read that affidavit. You read it and tell me why. He fully condones that birth certificate to be on the four websites that claim it is a true copy. He has said himself that the birth certificate is on the Internet.
How could he know that someone has produced a false document? Do you think his attorneys may have advised him as to what the testimony of Polarik was going to be in the Hawaii lawsuit? That's if you want to assume he didn't know already, and I'm not saying he didn't, but you obviously want to assume he didn't know, so we'll play that game., but be real. There's your answer.
We cannot know any of those other answers until a case does not get thrown out of court on some stupid procedural issue. Every single one of these cases and more since that was published, were thrown out on procdedural issues, not a single one on substance.
Larry, you don't get the defintion of forgery. The intent is to defraud if it is a forgery or you can't call it a forgery. I suppose you can call it a cupcake, but that isn't what it is. You can call it something else, but that is not what Polarik did because it was an intent to defraud, and it was cited as a forgery according to the US code noted.
That's forgery, right from the US Code that Polarik cited. There has been evidence presented to a state supreme court that he has intended that document to be used to defraud the United States. It cannot be proven that he has until the case is heard.It can't also be proven that he hasn't unless he provides the document that is evidenced to be a true copy.
Concerning the President "allowing" anything on the internet. He has neither the technical knowledge nor the authority (as President or Senator) to prevent nor prohibit what appears on the internet. No one can control that. (See Wikileaks.)
Obama did not manufacture any birth certificates. (Unless my knowledge of his background is really off.) Someone seems to have produced a fake Obama certificate of live birth. I saw no evidence concerning who that was.
People produce fake items quite frequently. Not every one of those items is and attempt to defraud. The difference is in the intention. To make even a prima facia case you need to link this particular fake to Obama in some way. His name being printed on it is not enough.
Courts throw cases out because of the rule of law. Unless you want to do away with due process I would not treat it lightly.
I like you and approve of you even though you choose to insult me from time to time. Is there something wrong with me? Why do I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt?
Yes, there is rule of law in the courts that is according to procedure or protocol, and rule of law based on substance of the subject matter. When did I ever say or imply that I would like "to do away" with due process? Fact is, I didn't, so your assumption that I treat it lightly is just because of your misinterpretation of what I said. I said that the cases that have been thrown out of court were only thown out based on procedure and not on substance because we are talking about the subject of the issue here and now, the substantive issue of his elgibility, and not the procedural protocols. I just wanted to emphasize to you that the matter has not been thrown out based on the substantive issue about which we are speaking.
With regards you 4:59 comment. I followed the link and that source indicates that the birth certificate image provided was not of a forgery nor a fake. It indicates that it was valid. I assume that is not the point but rather that the image was provided by the Obama campaign. (Not Obama personally but Candidates must assume responsibility for the actions of their campaign.)
The following are quotes from your comments above.
"I thought you were the one of the wonder boys. "
"No, Larry, you don't understand or you don't want to understand."
"Larry, you don't get the defintion of forgery."
It was his campaign website, Larry. He paid for whomever managed that website. That's where part of his campaign funds go. IF he didn't want it there, it wouldn't have been there. I may not be Snopes, but you can believe that much from me, I promise.
There you go again telling me what I think and how I do things. :-) (Reagan reference.)
I read and learn from all sorts of things. I read on rare occasions at Snopes but I learn what they say just as I learn what you say. I neither believe nor disbelieve. I try to avoid deciding until I have to decide. That means I take in information without coming to any conclusion about it.
You might note that I merely reported what they said, I did not say they were right or wrong. Did you expect me to believe part of what they said and reject the rest? If they are cited as an authority on who provided the information should I then reject everything else they say? I choose to do neither. I choose to merely learn that they said it. I have no idea whether what they say is the truth or not but then I don't need to decide that at this time.
Just because Obama must be held responsible for everything his campaign does, that does not mean he necessarily knew what they were doing in this case. Certainly he could not have known everything they were doing.
The intent to defraud is inherent in the definition of "forgery" but it is not inherent in a fake document. Polarik provided evidence only that the document was fake. Polarik provided no evidence at all for the intent of the creator of the document. Polarik did not even address that issue.
"All of my findings pertain to a single source image from which the Obama Campaign made four (4) copies. These copies were posted to four different websites: FightTheSmears.com, DailyKos.com, FactCheck.org, and Politifact.com, as referred to and described above. These images are still posted on these websites, and are described in my Final Report, which is attached hereto and incorporated in by reference as Exhibit 'A.'
Slightly more than two months after the publication of the COLB image on the Daily Kos and Obama's Campaign website, Factcheck published a story, Born in the U.S.A., in which they presented nine digital photographs that they allegedly made of Obama's 'real, paper COLB' at his campaign headquarters - the same COLB used to make the document image they posted on June 16. Without a doubt, the COLB image that Factcheck posted is a forgery, and that Obama's real COLB, as proffered by Factcheck, is a nonexistent document.image Factcheck posted is a forgery of a nonexistent document, then how can any genuine photos
be made of it? The answer had to be that both the document image and the photographs were all forgeries...With my experience and specialization in document imaging, my findings are conclusive and inefutable, as outlined in EXHIBIT "A that the COLB images posted by Obama to his campaign
website, fightthesmears.com, to the dailykos.com, a pro-Obana blog, to FactCheck.org, a pro- Obama political research group, and to Politifact.org, are, in fact, image forgeries, created with the intent to defraud the American People into believing that these images were digitally scanned from Barack Obama's genuine, 'original' birth certificate, and that Obama had satisfied the requirement of being a natural-bom US citizen."
I agree he called it a forgery. But he provided no information as to intent. Thus, he tried to show the document was false but did not provide evidence of intent. That does not prove forgery. Where is the evidence of intent?
I suggest that we go on. That we assume that the COLB was, in fact, a forgery created at the request of Obama with the intention of fraud.
What difference does that make? What do you infer from that?
He did provide information of intent to defraud. Read the affidavit, ot at least the excerpt I quoted. Once again, he cannot call it a forgery if there is no intent to defraud because there is no such thing as a forgery without such intent. He has provided substantial evidence that the birth certificate posted on those 4 websites is a forgery.
Now we're back to the part about who intended, why it was intended, and all the rest, that will only be proven so or not so if it gets to court.
The courts would be able to determine, among other things, whether or not the part, or one of the parts of the birth certificate intended to defraud is the part that states the place where he was born.
I'm back from vacation and the mother board issue seems behind me now.
If the document is a forgery, what does that tell us about where Obama was born?
They seem to link to the same article.
Are we ready to move on to the question "if the document is a forgery, what does that tell us about where Obama was born?"
I just answered that question, Larry. That remains to be seen. Read the comment I posted at 6:16 PM. Where the hell are you?
"That remains to be seen." "The rest would need to be uncovered in court."
The rest of what? A court case would have nothing to do with were Obama was born. It would not even have to do with whether Obama was born in the particular hospital indicated on the forged certificate of birth.
A court case would have to do with damage done to someone (typically financial) based on the use of the forgery. We have assumed that the document in question is a forgery so presumably someone made money somehow buy fooling somebody about something. That is what might come out in court. None of that tells us anything about where Obama was born.
If one brings a case to court and that case is a forgery case, it isn't a trial of where Obama was born, it's a case of some kind of fraud in which someone must show harm or loss from the fraud.
The only way to show that Obama was not born in the U.S. is to provide evidence that he was born in some other location. Showing that this document is a forgery does not do that.
For example, let us say that I want to get a U.S. passport but I am too lazy or too hurried to send to the county officials in Maine to have them send me a valid copy of my birth certificate. So I use my computer and printer and make a forgery of my own birth certificate. I send that to the government and they spot the forgery and charge me in court with forgery. Now I actually was (in this hypothetical case) born in Maine and everything I put on the forgery was correct information, but it was just a fake of the real document. That's a forged birth certificate but the fact that it is a forgery says nothing about where I was born nor about who my parents were.
Questions may well be raised in court about whether the information on the forged document is valid but that is irrelevant to the case and would be ignored by the court.
The question in court would not be about Obama's eligibility but about the use that was made of the document in question. If it were used to commit some fraud in which someone could show harm done to themselves (money taken under false pretenses for example) then the case would revolve around that, not whether the information on the document were correct or not.
What damage is being claimed in these court cases?
You know, last night, after I wrote that last comment, I was going to add this, but then I thought, no, it just couldn't be that's what he thinks. I know we spent a lot of time on this evidence, but he can't possibly thinl that this case is about the forgery. I guess I was wrong.
Of course, you know, intermittently I keep wanting to get back to the theme here, improving our communication and attempting to understand how your mind works because it is very interesting to me. I'm thinking about how you have assimilated the information here. I could be wrong, but since we've been talking about this forgery for so long, it seems that it has become the focus of the whole issue for you. All that I was doing was showing you that this sworn affidavit was supposed to have been one of the pieces of evidence in the Alan Keyes case to show that there has been some intent to defraud the public. We did spend an inordinate amount of time on the forgery portion, though. Maybe that is what is causing your confusion.
When you say, "We have assumed that the document in question is a forgery so presumably someone made money somehow buy fooling somebody about something. That is what might come out in court. None of that tells us anything about where Obama was born," it seems to me that you somehow disengaged from the essence of the issue and turned your focus on the forged document, almost seeing it as the only thing this case is about. It's like you're saying that the main thrust of the case is to prove that this document that is posted on the Internet is the thing that the plaintiff is claiming to have caused the damages and not the ineligibility.
"someone made money somehow buy fooling somebody about something"
That just isn't what damages are about. It's not about what money anyone made, but about the damages. (in this case, I suppose the monetary damages might include the cost of campaign money that Keyes put into his campaign against an illegitimate candidate, though if he could prove he was a strong contender, perhaps he might even claim potential loss of income as President.) Damages can also be emotional, physical, and don't necessarily have to be monetary, though the awards are based on money so that's why damages do involve money. They do not, however, have anything to do with someone like Obama making money by fooling him about something. That just doesn't make sense.
I have no information on the case except what you have provided. Thus, since we were concentrating on the forged (we are assuming) document, that is what I thought the case was about.
Was Keyes a candidate for President? I don't recall him at all. If he was referenced in this thread (or the previous one where this started) could you give me the date or link? I don't seem to find him on this post or its comments. Is it important that I know about Keyes?
Damages must be proved (I believe) for a case of fraud. From your last paragraph above it seems that what constitutes the damages is somewhat vague.
I think the main thrust of this issue (not the thread) is whether Obama is qualified, by birth, to be a candidate for President of the U.S. If that isn't the case, please let me know.
Linda Lingle was the governor of the State of Hawaii and Keyes maintained that she could release the records.
Yes, Keyes ran on the Constitution Party ticket, but I believe he was beaten by Chuck Baldwin.
You keep calling it a case of fraud. This was one more time, and one more time only, not a case of fraud. It was a petition to the governor to release the birth certificate. He had information from that forensic expert that showed that the birth certificate on the Internet was a forgery, so his attorneys were going to use that as a reason for her to come forth with the birth certificate, holding her resposible as the governor.
The main thrust of this post was to take apart what you said in that comment on Sandy's post so that we could learn to communicate better. We didn't get very far because we continue to have communicastion problems. Read the body of the post if you've lost track of that too, and maybe it ring a bell for you.
As I mentioned on Marilyn's post, I had hope for the Lakin case because it appeared to me that he did have standing to claim damages since his refusal to deploy was given because the Commander in Chief was ineligible to give such orders, so if he were indeed ineligible, it would have resulted in damages to Lakin's career. The military court did not see it that way because his orders were not coming firectly from Obama, and also they said that only Congress has the right to question the credentials of a sitting President. As I also said there, if the ruling sets a precedent, then any individual from here on in that files a direct claim against Obama in this eligibility issue will not have his case heard because they will cite the ruling that only Congress can do that.
From your comment on December 20 at 10:01 PM you wrote:
"Larry, you cannot have a forgery wthout intent to defraud."
In the comment just above at 3:53 PM you write:
"You keep calling it a case of fraud. This was one more time, and one more time only, not a case of fraud."
Perhaps that first quote is what led me into thinking that the forgery in question was a case of fraud.
The affidavit does not state what the case concerns. It is only one (presumably small) part of the plaintif's case.
From your comment above, I take it that the Governor said that she did not have the authority to release anyone's birth certificate. I assume that only the persons directly involved (the parents and the person born) have the authority to do that. But perhaps I infer too much.
From your comment of 4:43 pm I take it that potential plaintifs are having difficulty showing some direct injury.
I am tempted to ask a question (make a point) that would lead us astray but I will not. I mention this to show that I really am trying hard to stay on point and cooperate as well as I can. :-)
So can we move on from this particular case and assume that a case was successfully started and the forgery was presented in evidence. How does that contribute to showing that Obama is not constitutionally qualified by birth to be President?
Let's say someone's dog got hit by a car and the driver hit and run. Somebody saw that car and they say they will testify to that. They track down the person, but he's since then washed his car and there are no traces of evidence on the car to be sure he was the person, but the person who saw the dog get hit was able to get the license plate number too. The perp does not want to admit to this, and won't. He is, however, called to court because they have investigated where he was coming from and with the testimony of the witness the dog onwer thinks he can sue him for damages. The dog died and the owner loved that dog like a child. He is now going through all kinds of emotional stress, had to take two weeks off from work, and is getting grief counseling that he has to pay for out of pocket because it's not convered in his insurance plan. So he has damages to claim from work loss, emotional stress, and counseling in the suit that he is filing.
The problem is that the guy he is suing is saying he didn't do it. In order to get awarded his claim for this lawsuit, his attorney needs to prove that this person he is suing actually did hit the dog. I can only speculate how this will be done, but it has to be done. He's going to call the witness who has the license plate number and saw the accident to testify. He might even have had an investigator find out where the driver was coming from and where he was going, and what possible routes he might have taken. All of this will be presented to determine whether or not he actually hit the dog. If the judge decides that he did , and the witness is a credible person who testifies under oath that the car that he saw is the one that hit that dog, unless there was someone else driving that car, he's probably going to have to pay the damages.
In Obama's case, it isn't necessarily whether or not he is qualified by birth. There may be other things considered like dual citizenship. Whatever it is, anyone who is going to make a direct case against him (and as I already told you this can't even probably happen since the military court ruled that only Congress can question the credentials of a sitting President) because of his eligibility would have to prove first that he is ineligible. I'm not a litigator so I wouldn't know where to begin. You're asking me to make up a hypothetical case, and all I can do is come up with a simple case to show you how it might work, but you're being ridiculous now.
You write:
"In Obama's case, it isn't necessarily whether or not he is qualified by birth."
But at the beginning of this post you wrote:
"We just happened to be discussing the Obama eligibility issue on Sandy’s recent post, and we were specifically talking about the forensic evidence that has been presented by a couple of anonymous analysts claiming to be forensic experts on the subject of Obama’s birth certificate that has been posted on the WWW on sites like Fact Check.org."
It seems to me that you are contradicting yourself here. Perhaps I just don't understand.
We went over the document and I was willing for purposes of our discussion to consider it to be a forgery. Where do we go from here? What is the next subject of our thread here?
It would seem that we are up to the sentence in the original comment of yours we are parsing, "I should think the best evidence would be that Obama was born somewhere else."
Yeah, that would be nice evidence.
If you say so. Actually there is such evidence that is in question.
Are we making any progress?
My own subjective view of it is that I tend to take what is written and interpret it somewhat literally and narrowly rather than interpreting it broadly and generally. I think most people use that broad approach.
For example, if I support some action of the Administration (Bush or Obama) other people tend to see that as complete support for everything that (Bush or Obama) ever did and a guarantee that they now understand my positions on all issues. (I overstate the case here.)
On the other hand, when I read something they have written in support of some action I take it as support just on that one issue and don't go beyond that. Even when the other person "self labels" ("I am a liberal" or "I am a conservative" or some such) I kind of ignore that so far as their position on any particular issue is concerned. I don't assume that I know what their position will be on any issue just from that labeling.
(My ex-wife used to call me over analytical and very exasperating to argue with. :-)
I've got a lot on my plate today, and though I could interrupt what I'm doing intermittently to come back and do this, I think that because my focus is going to be concentrated elsewhere, it might tend to make me snappier than usual if I also pay atttention to this now, so we'll have to put this on the back burner for a bit so that doesn't happen. Okay? Thanks.
You're in charge. I await your convenience. :-)
Right now, you're awaiting my analysis of the communication thus far, and what you say about it after you have read it continues the communication function. I want to sort of disable the communication function for a minute and try this exercise instead.
What I suggest is that you write your assessment and I'll write mine. We will not post them, however, until we're both finished and can determine a time when we can post them simultaneously. I think it would be fun to compare our separate analyses. What do you think about that?
I think it would be fun. Let's do it. I will need to give it some thought and do some mental sorting. I have not tried to analyze your "style" so that will require some work. I will be interested to see what I can get right. :-)
I finally got time to work on this. I expect to have something later this morning. I will post my analysis as an article rather than as a comment on this post. In that way, you can know it is available without having to read it before posting your own analysis. (What do you bet we "analyze" different things. :-) But that's part of our communication problems. )
I have submitted my analysis post under the title "Conservative, liberal, other, can we communicate?"
I await your notification that you have posted your analysis.
Sorry that I didn't see your comments above until after I posted. Again a misunderstanding on my part. I will post the article as a comment here.
You see you said "post it here" and I interperted that to mean "post it on gather" as opposed to "include it as a comment on this post." This is an example of my communication problem. I thought you were indicating that this particular post thread was getting too long. Sigh.
Sue and I have been commenting on posts in various exchanges over the years and we have sometimes experienced difficulties in properly understanding one another. (At least I have been misunderstanding what Sue has asked of me or what point she was making. I am not sure that Sue has been misunderstanding me.)
In understanding communication between two parties, one is helped by understanding each of the parties separately as well as by examining the messages they send to each other. Now I cannot say that I understand Sue since I don’t actually know her except through her posts and comments. Anything I say about Sue will be strictly my perception of Sue and may be completely wrong in many ways. In fact, I can be certain that I will not accurately describe Sue so if Sue corrects me or finds my perception to be wrong you can be sure that Sue is right and I am wrong about her.
To begin with the easy part, a brief description of how I tend to think with an emphasis on how I differ from the norm. I must say right at the beginning that I do not think and perceive things as most other people do. I was an only child and both my parents worked full time by the time I was in school. I spent quite a lot of time alone reading, playing, listening to radio or, eventually, TV. We moved a lot (21 times that I can remember in my first 21 years) so I did not have long term friends. This combination of circumstances led to my developing my own ways of thinking and looking at the world which involved a lot of reading.
When age 4 I was distressed by an experience and began talking (in my mind, not aloud) to an imaginary little (4 inches or so tall) man about what had happened to me. I realized at the time that this man was not real and after a couple of days I no longer pictured him when talking to myself in my mind. This has continued ever since. The huge benefit I got from this ongoing conversation was that it enabled to treat myself and what I was thinking as something external to myself and to judge the thoughts and ideas having presented them to myself. I could criticize myself and praise myself as someone else. It made me relatively objective about myself. It allowed me to see the same failings in myself that I saw in others. (And to see merit in myself as compared to the actions of others.) It allowed me to detect tendencies in thought and to try to think better.
One of the benefits of this conversation was increased when, as a young teen, I read a simple introductory book on psychology. I decided to try to say to myself as exactly as possible what I meant. That is, to accept no approximations in my descriptions, conclusions, ideas, and evaluations but to say exactly the truth as precisely as possible.
The combination of these ways of thought did have a down side, however. It meant that when I read test questions or essay assignments I would “over analyze” the question and rather than answering what the teacher intended to ask I would answer what the question literally asked. Rather than interpreting the question as the regular student would interpret it, I would interpret it as some kind of computer would interpret it. It took a while for me to learn to say, “this is what the question says but that is what the teacher intended for it to say so I’ll answer that instead of this.” Even then I didn’t always get the intended meaning. Science subjects were much easier because there, I could use as much analysis as I liked and I would get the intended meaning.
This habit of mind, of taking things literally, of “parsing” the statements I read for exact meaning of the words in those combinations rather than following the general flow of what the writer is trying to get across, is, I believe, a significant part of my communication problems with “regular folks,” and Sue as well. (I think Sue is far more near other people in her ways of communicating than I am.) And because when I write I try to say exactly what I mean and to use exactly the right words for it, I tend to assume (wrongly) that those who read what I write will read it that way. That is, they will accept what I write as a precise statement, no more and no less than exactly what the words say. But that isn’t the way the average, normal, usual, common, regular human being reads things. They don’t “over analyze” what they read. They don’t take the words as having precise meanings. They detect a tendency, a trend, an expectation for what’s coming next in the writing and that’s what they will understand from the words, even if that isn’t what the words say. Therefore, if the reader identifies me as “liberal” (which I believe Sue and many others on Gather do) then whatever I write they will interpret in that context regardless of what the words say. So even some rather simple statements I have written which made a sharply limited point, have been interpreted as a complete position on diverse issues. It’s sort of like how a word processor tries to finish some of your words for you as you type them or how it capitalizes some words you don’t want capitalized and you have to go back and correct it. Now for the normal, usual author this works for the normal, usual reader just fine and they are, in the main, quite correct to do this. But when reading my writing, that approach doesn’t work. I sometimes try various ways of solving this problem since as the author, and as the unusual thinker, it is up to me to find better ways of communicating my thoughts. I repeat myself in several different wordings. I try to imagine how the reader might take my words the wrong way and deny that meaning for my words in some sentence or two that follows shortly. But my mind is so conditioned by its history that when someone comments in such a way that I think they have not understood me, that I tend to get even more literal and exact and that does not help since it was what caused the problem in the first place.
On the other side, my reading of questions on gather, I often can see a variety of possible meanings for the question and I have difficulty in deciding which meaning the writer had in mind. I am confident that the questioner had some specific type of answer in mind to ask the question and that it seemed to the questioner that the meaning was obvious. So when I fail to understand the question the right way (that is, I have answered the wrong version of the question or misunderstood) the questioner thinks I am being annoying on purpose. This also raises barriers to communication.
Now to the specifics of communication between Sue and me, how I see Sue’s mode of communication. So far as I can tell, Sue is pretty normal in her expression and way of approaching presenting ideas. She is well organized, coherent, uses good grammar, and presents her overall ideas clearly.
Where I have problems is in her presentation of argument. (I’ll need to explain that one.) Sue presents a case for some conclusion. She provides information in a well organized fashion and states clearly the conclusion that she draws from that information. Sue is reading and understanding that information as normal, usual, common, ordinary, regular people do. This is just what one would expect from the more successful gather participants. But I do not understand that information in that fashion since I am not any of those things (normal, usual, common, ordinary, or regular) in the way I think. My background in the social and other sciences encourages my mind to approach these statements of conditions and conclusions as if they were theories, hypotheses, and evidence rather than the way the average person approaches them. It is easy for me to say “I don’t know” about some particular conclusion because, to me and my way of thinking, there is insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion. But that is not the normal, human way of looking at such things. Therefore, when I fail to agree with a conclusion that Sue has reached ( and I think that disagreement is usually of the “we don’t know yet” type), her natural feeling is that I am denying reality or are simply being disagreeable or acting really stupid. It is difficult for Sue to believe that someone thinks as I do because she has little or no experience in dealing with such as me.
There is another component to my usual way of thinking and that is the technical definitions I learned and used for many years as a demographer and research sociologist. Words like “minority” have a different meaning to a sociologist than they do in ordinary conversation. My habit of mind is to use the sociological meaning rather than the common meaning. Also, when one creates a theory, it is extremely important to have precise definitions for the terms in that theory. Thus, I interpret words by their rather precise meanings (like the word “socialist”) rather than by their common (to my mind “sloppy”) meanings. This, too, contributes to misunderstanding.
At this point I would like to encourage any who read this (in addition to Sue) to comment on their observations of communicating with me in comment threads or in reading my posts. Have I correctly interpreted your comments? Have I responded properly to any questions you may have asked? Do you find it easy or difficult to determine what my points are in comments or posts? But mostly, how would you describe what is different about the way I communicate?
Thanks for any help you can provide to my greater understanding.
The forgery was a tough point in this communication. The idea of what a forgery actually is was something I probably should have defined more completely. You said, “Someone could create a forgery of a birth certificate for anyone and have the information on that certificate be completely correct and the document would still be a forgery.” If I had defined that in order for a document to be a forgery it must be an attempt to defraud as a result of altering the material in some way, because that is indeed what it is, perhaps we could have eliminated erroneous ideas such as that one I quoted. It’s not an issue of whether the information is correct or incorrect, but that something has been changed from its original form. It may be that information that was correct was changed to being incorrect, or vice-versa. It could even be that the information wasn’t changed, but was put into a different format. The factor of alteration, however, must exist.
The only thing I could imagine you meant by saying the information could all be correct and still be a forgery is if someone reproduced a certificate of identification for someone else to use that was not his. I believe that is what you thought/think as indicated by that statement. I tried to explain the difference between a reproduction and a forgery because I thought it would make you see that what you were thinking a forgery is and what it really is are two different things. It didn’t work. I used a poor means of communication to explain, partially because I was still assuming the given that you would know that the material itself must be altered for it to be called a forgery. I somehow still wanted to believe you had to know that, even though your statement indicated pretty clearly that you didn’t.
Now, you say your ex-wife thinks you’re over-analytical, but I think you analyze from wrong concepts sometimes. Yes, reproducing a valid document with correct and true information with intent for someone else to use it as his identification when it is not his own identification would be a fraudulent thing to do, both on the part of the individual who reproduced it, knowing it was going to be used for deception, and on the part of the person using it to deceive, but in such a case it doesn’t mean that the document itself is a forgery; it means that the valid document is being used for fraudulent purposes. That is something else entirely from a forgery. It’s still fraud, but not fraud as a result of a forgery.
A forgery is defrauding with a document or material that has itself been altered in some way with intent to deceive, and I failed to communicate the concept to you.
So this covers a good part of our communication which was based on erroneous assumptions and because of that, never had any chance to go anywhere. You were in one mode of thought, and I was in another realm, feeding that erroneous thought even more. The communication on that issue ended up being nonsensical.
Then we see that I had provided a link to the affidavit of the forensic scientist, and somehow you thought that was the case itself when it was only a sworn testimony that was submitted in this case. I assumed, once again, that you knew what an affidavit is. That expunges any kind of meaningful communication we might have had that was associated with that term. Once again, you were talking on a different plane of understanding and I was assuming you were on the right page. You cannot have communication with that kind of disparity. Then you say that you didn’t know what the case was about. Do you think I knew what it was about the first time I saw that the case was supposed to be heard? I gave you the information. I can’t do everything for you.
We come down to damages and what that means, and we see it all over again, but this time there was no doubt fairly quickly that you had an erroneous idea of what damages are. By this time, T was also cured of any state of denial I might have found myself in the beginning as to your understanding of the terms too, so that also helped. It wasn’t completely evident to me until you said, “A court case would have to do with damage done to someone (typically financial) based on the use of the forgery. We have assumed that the document in question is a forgery so presumably someone made money somehow buy fooling somebody about something.” I still have no idea how you came up with that idea that someone making money fraudulently is what damages are, but I am glad you pointed it out. I think my explanation of damages must have been clear to you since you didn’t seem to indicate that you didn’t understand it after I explained.
Because of all this confusion, It was difficult for me to even know how to answer some of your questions because I didn’t know where your head was at to be able to answer them in a way that would really be meaningful to you, and I sort of just gave up, or at least was very disheartened to think that any attempt I made would be less than futile. I just came to a point where I didn’t know what else might be a misconception, so I finally found myself at a loss for words.
I was glad I reminded you of the focus of the post, that being to improve our communication, and then shortly thereafter, you came up with the idea to recap the communication. As I saw it, that was the only thing left to do at that point. I came up with another idea that I thought would be an interesting way to do this. You agreed. The next thing you know, you’ve changed the whole idea. I have no patience for this kind of stuff.
I pointed out to you at the onset, and also on Sandy’s post, that evidence obviously means nothing to you. There were two instances there where I thought the discussion had ended because you were relying on technology to inform you that the ball was in your court. So you didn’t know at that point why you were not getting notifications, but you had to know that something was wrong. Still, you relied on believing that you should trust the notifications. I had a suspicion that it was to do with who started the thread but, since I don’t get e-mail notifications, I couldn’t be sure. You finally figured it out. If you hadn’t figured out a specific reason you were not getting them, I doubt we would have ever even gotten this far. Something was obviously wrong, but it wasn’t obvious to you so you refused to use my suggestion and check back in a reasonable amount of time to see whether I had replied. That’s simply ridiculous.
Definition of terms is crucial to any discussion. No matter how basic you may think those terms are, they just may not be, and if we don’t do that before engaging in discussion, it renders the whole thing a useless waste of time. If I think we’re talking about dogs, and you see cats the same as dogs, and you’re replying with information that I know is not related to dogs, I might not understand that you think dogs and cats are the same, so nothing you say will make sense to me. I’m glad we went through this post, Larry, because it really does bring the point home about assuming people are on the same page in their communication.
I regret the stress I have given you. I hope you find it only a minor annoyance.
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You should see CindyB's little feet, they are so cute! They have little wrinkles and everything on her birth certificate! Took Momma a whole week to get that ink off. I don't think it worked, cuz they all wrinkly again now. =/
The following have been deleted and reposted below according to the request.
Jim Marshall Dec 23, 2010, 8:25pm EST
"Larry, that sounds like low power rather than surges. In my 40 something years in electronics I have found as many problems caused by low voltage as by surges. Multiple mother board failure though is weird. Mother board failure usually are caused by power supply problems."
Larry M. Dec 26, 2010, 3:49pm EST
Jim,
"My experts here at work agree. That's why we're monitoring the power."
Jim Marshall Dec 26, 2010, 6:39pm EST
"Science behind this long distance deduction is: Low voltage with the same load equals high current which destroys circuitry."