So here it is, proof that President Obama is a false prophet and is actually an alien and in no way should be president.  Not only is he foreign born, he is actually from another planet.  Obama is from Planet Quaoar and has come to America to take away our freedom.  Not through physical force but through mind control.  This science fiction conspiracy theory is just accurate as the other birther conspiracies concerning Obama’s birth certificate. It is simply not true and neither are the other claims. Let’s discuss a few of these birther claims.

An Island Far Far Away

Article 2, Section 1 of the US Constitution says that “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States” (1). There are three main birther conspiracy theories that are circulating. All have the same premise: Barack Obama cannot be president because he was not born in or is not a citizen of the US.

The first conspiracy theory is that Obama was born in Kenya and his birth certificate is a forgery.  The second is that Obama was born in the US, but moved to Indonesia and lost his US citizenship. Finally, some people believe because Obama’s father was born in Kenya, that Barack Obama holds dual citizenship with both the US and Great Britain.  If Obama has dual citizenship then he is not a natural born citizen.  Nearly 25% of Americans believe some of this hogwash, despite proof that these conspiracy theories are false (3).

The Proof

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In 2008, Obama released his official Hawaiian birth certificate.  People still did not believe him, so he released his so called long-form birth certificate, also known as the Certificate of Live Birth.  There are newspaper reports of his birth in August of 1961 (5).

Many people claim these birth certificates are forgeries.  Even a sheriff in a little town in Arizona, said he conducted a six month investigation to prove that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery and fraud was committed.  Sheriff Arpaio claims that the document was created digitally.  There is a video that says that the seal and other things about the document are in layers and can be moved around (6).

I am a photographer and I work with digital images.  Let’s say that this sheriff and his group downloaded the long-form birth certificate from the White House website. When that birth certificate was put on the website, it had to be converted to a digital image.  To digitize a birth certificate, you scan it. At that point you can create a document like a PDF or whatever file you choose. What Sheriff Arpaio claims is that the digital file birth certificate is a forgery because you can put the digital file in a program called Photoshop. This program, or application, can manipulate digital images through layers.  Think of a digital image or file like a layer cake: you have several layers and they are all stacked on top of another. At some point, you may decide you want to move on of the layers of the cake because it doesn’t look right. So, then you move it. It is very similar in Photoshop.  The base layer is the background.  Then you have some words that are typed on it. In the case you have the Seal of Hawaii on the birth certificate. They are all different layers. In Photoshop, you can move around these layers of an image and you can also add or remove layers. Now here is my question.  Why would President Obama have people do that?  I just don’t see it.  He has nothing to hide.

What does this ultimately boil down to?

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I think the point of this birther argument is race.  You have a black guy with a funny name and he is now President of the United States.  After a brief call to the NAACP, I discovered there are no statistics available on people who may be racists because that is really hard to quantify.  But, there are 25% of people who still believe that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. I do not think that it is really a huge leap to assume that there is a possibility that 25% of the population might also be racist.

So look, folks. If, and that is a big if, Obama’s birth certificate was forged, what can we do about it? We could remove him from office and maybe put him on trial.  But he had already been president for four years.  Right now he has a 50-50 chance of being president for four more years.  There is just too much evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii on August 1961. He is legally perfectly capable of being President of the United States.  Get over it and move on.  We have too many other things to worry about.

Reference List

1)      Constitution of the United States. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

2)      Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories

3)       A socialist? A Muslim? Anti-American? The Anti-Christ? Large minorities of Americans hold some remarkable opinions. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/223/Default.aspx

4)      Picture is from www.thechive.com

5)      See reference number2.

6)      Sheriff Joe Arpaio suggests Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57388911-503544/sheriff-joe-arpaio-suggests-obamas-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery/

7)      Picture is from Liberals are Cool Facebook Page