There have been two prominent conspiracy theories in the past decade. The first one is that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the Bush Administration and the second is that Barack Obama is not a natural born United States citizen. There are many explanations on both sides that can seem credible, but both are about as different as night and day. The downside is that despite that, most conservatives have elevated the latter one to same level of kookery as the former.
The 9/11 conspiracy theories are pure garbage for the most part. I have read up on them and I am not convinced. The most ridiculous claim is that it was a missile and not a plane that crashed into the Pentagon. I live on the rim of insanity and for several years my commute to work involved passing by the Pentagon. The building is not located in the middle of nowhere. There are hotels, offices, and residential buildings surrounding the Pentagon. There is an interstate, I-395, right next to it that goes straight into Washington D.C. It is usually backed up every morning with the morning rush. While I was away at college when the attacks happened, I know of many people who witnessed the crash and the debris flying onto the interstate.
Of course eyewitness testimony is invalid because there was a circular hole in the Pentagon. People claim that this proves that a missile was shot through the walls and not an airplane. This could not be more false of a statement. The airplane that was crashed into the building had it wings full of fuel. The wings exploded to pieces on impact (as many people on I-395 can attest to when the debris fell on them). The rest of the plane then proceeded to shoot through the walls, which just happens to be circular.
As for the rest of it, do you know how many people would have to be involved in order to manufacture that terrible tragedy? It would take several people to lay plan and execute the demolition of two very big skyscrapers, hijack four planes without the company’s consent or pilot’s knowledge, and hide and fire a missile in a well populated area without being seen. While conspiracy theories are usually remotely probable (except when they involve aliens), they are never practical and often devoid of common sense and obvious facts.
By contrast, the “birther” conspiracy theorists are much more grounded in reason. They know that there is no legitimate birth certificate that has been produced by the President, only a statement that says Obama was born, but not necessarily in the state of Hawai’i. Apparently, the certificate of live birth can be obtained by non-naturalized citizens. So this leaves us with a huge problem. With Obama failing to produce proper documentation of his birth in Hawai’i, and the possibility that he was born in Kenya, we have a legitimate constitutional issue here.
Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers never did lay the requirements for proof of eligibility within the United States Constitution, instead opting to keep the whole process left to the dictates of Congress and to the States when determining proof of natural born citizenship. With every system you set up, there will always be some loophole to exploit. The trick is to find a way to ensure that things are taken care of if the loophole is exploited. So the problem becomes the age-old “Who watches the watchmen?” If the system becomes corrupt to the core, then the United States Constitution is meaningless to those with the power.
I would like to urge the military to refuse any future orders coming the President until he provides proof of his natural born citizenship. There is no reason why they should continue to follow a man who is possibly an illegal President. This would not be a coup d'état because it is merely a reinforcement that our nation is ruled by laws, not by the mandates of the elected representatives, who believe themselves to be some kind of gods among us in many cases. The corruption runs deep though and I doubt the military remain untainted.
In any case, it would be nice to see many prominent conservative leaders say that there is some merit to this investigation, just as there was some merit into Clinton’s sexual escapades. We need to probe people to see where this leads because we need to restore our nation’s Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Unfortunately, many conservative talking heads would rather have an enemy to fight rather than an enemy they can defeat.