Gameplaying Re Obama Birth Certificate Reflects on Courts

A poster on this site has recommended Douglas V. Gibbs's Blog Talk Radio podcast . Doug's radio show is good and it would be worth your time to listen.

Doug's key point is that President-elect Obama's refusal to release his vault copy birth certificate reflects on his character. Even if there's nothing wrong with it, and that may or may not be so, a man of integrity would not play games. Barack Obama is a serial liar.

As well, the pissant propgandists at NBC, Fox et al. have refused to ask Mr. Obama to come clean. Without a competent media, which the United States lacks, democracy cannot function. Let us dust off our logic textbooks from college and do a modus ponens deduction.

1. If a nation does not have a competent, independent and honest media, then it cannot have a functioning democracy.
2. America does not have a competent, independent and honest media.
3. Therefore, America does not have a functioning democracy.

Moreover, the US court system is broken. The courts do not just interpret statutory law, which in this case is obscure and uncertain. Nor do they just interpret prior judicial decisions and dicta in what is called common law. Courts are also concerned with what is called equity. This is how wikipedia defines equity:

"Equity is the name given to the set of legal principles, in jurisdictions following the English common law tradition, which supplement strict rules of law where their application would operate harshly, so as to achieve what is sometimes referred to as 'natural justice.' It is often confusingly contrasted with "law", which in this context refers to 'statutory law' (the laws enacted by a legislature, such as the United States Congress), and 'common law' (the principles established by judges when they decide cases)... in general, a litigant cannot obtain equitable relief unless there is 'no adequate remedy at law'—that is, a court will not grant an injunction unless monetary damages are an insufficient remedy for the injury in question. Law courts also enter orders, called "writs" (such as a writ of habeas corpus) but they are less flexible and less easily obtained than an injunction...the plaintiff requests an injunction, declaratory judgment, specific performance or modification of contract, or other non-monetary relief, the claim would usually be one in equity...A final important distinction between law and equity is the source of the rules governing the decisions. In law, decisions are made by reference to legal doctrines or statutes. In contrast, equity, with its emphasis on fairness and flexibility, has only general guides known as the maxims of equity. As noted below, a historic criticism of equity as it developed was that it had no fixed rules of its own, with the Lord Chancellor from time to time judging in the main according to his own conscience. As time went on the rules of equity did lose much of their flexibility and from the 17th century onwards equity was rapidly consolidated into a system of precedents much like its cousin common law.

Now, why are courts reluctant to mandate release of the Obama vault copy birth certificate under equity? What principle at equity overcomes the public's right to know about the background identification of a presidential candidate?

The Obama birth certificate accentuates multiple problems confronting American democracy.

First, there is the probability that a manipulative liar has been encouraged and supported in manipulating and lying by pissant propagandists and the courts. Second, American democracy does not function because there is pissant propaganda, not mass media. Third, the court system is broken and corrupt.

Douglas Gibbs does a good job on this radio show.