Met my first real life BIRTHER today.

[Mz Pip]

A bit of background on this. I do volunteer animal rescue and received a call from a guy who need help trapping a litter of kittens that he'd been feeding on the grounds a local church. The church pastor didn't want him feeding the cats and was threatening to have him arrested for trespassing. The kittens were living in the bushes and although he managed to grab a couple of them he needed help with the rest.

So I arrive at the church this morning and a very unpleasant security/custodian/caretaker comes out asking me what I was doing and I explained the program I worked for and he grudgingly agreed to let me and the guy trap the cats and get them off the property. So he followed us around as we set the traps and seemed to be warming up a bit to the process. the guy I was with engaged him in conversation so he wouldn't get all hostile again about the cats.

I was busy with the trapping and the man started going off at the guy I was with about Obama. What triggered it, I have no idea. He started with some rant about some Muslim plot to take over the country, then moved on to how Obama wasn't even a citizen and how even if he was born in this country it didn't matter because there was some law that made you lose your citizenship if you left the country and lived somewhere else for any length of time. It was like he had a tape of Oily Taints in his brain. Conspiracies gone wild.

I was about ready to explode, but couldn't because we really needed to trap the kittens and needed his cooperation so I just shut up and let him rant and kept out of his range as much as possible. We only trapped one of the kittens so will have to come back later next week.

Maybe I had some stereotypical idea of who a birther would be - Southern, white, ignorant, racist. This one surprised me. He was an older African-American man living in the SF Bay Area. Learn something new everyday.

I'll wait until I trap all the kittens and then, if he is still ranting about Obama I will probably say something. Or not. He seemed pretty hopeless.

Mz Pip

[donco6]

1. I think you summed it up with the last sentence.

Well, that and he hates kittens. I mean . . . really.

[KingFlorez]

2. You did better than I would have, I probably would have called him crazy

You handled it right though, you had a task to do and you did it without confrontation.

[MadMaddie]

3. Mz Pip my bet is this guy is a fundamentalist black Baptist

church member. They too watch the Faux news even though it's blatently racist. These people are angry at Obama because he is a success.

I call it the crab pot effect....when one crab starts to crawl out others pull it back down into the pot. These type of people make excuses for what they do or don't have, what they have or havent' accomplished etc.

I have met many in my life and I never cease to be amazed at how angry and hateful they are but they will be the first group to scream racism....:grr:

[Mz Pip]

5. Interesting

It was a Baptist Church. I don't know what the racial make up of the congregation is because I'm not real familiar with that particular area of the east bay, but it very well could be a black congregation.

This was a first for me and I must say it surprised me.

[Warpy]

7. Thanks for the insight

and the analogy to the crab pot. I've been thunderstruck when I've seen it at work with any successful minorities, not just black folks.

Fundies are fundies are fundies, no matter what their origin or which god they blame. They're all unpleasant.

[DFW]

4. Look on the bright side

America is the land of equal opportunity to be a right-wing whacko.

Not only can people without health insurance go out and demonstrate against health insurance,
but blacks in the Bay Area can be Birthers. This is one great county we* live in, isn't it?

*Disclaimer: I'm here for another two weeks, but then I'm off back to Europe until Christmas.

[liberalmuse]

6. The Obama haters are like a pressure cooker right now...

they are ready to blow. I know a few and have noted the facial expressions and body language when anything Obama-related comes up. I give it a couple months, mid-November at the most, before they all go off half-cocked and start shooting the shit out of everyone.

[MadMaddie]

9. Something will happen

A guy at work who I actually like actually wanted to see harm come to Pelosi. They think Pelosi is the most evil vile human that walked the earth. For the life of me I don't understand the hatred of Pelosi, she is mild compared to the previous Repugs that held the position of Speaker of the House. New Gingrich, Tom Delay these guys were nastier, meaner and broke all kinds of rules. Nancy has not been as rude as the Repugs....

[Mz Pip]

11. Initially I was worried

he might do something to the kittens, he was so annoyed by their presence. It was sort of hard to fathom how he could both be annoyed by the animals and annoyed by the people who were trying to remove them. As diplomatically as I could, I told him I wasn't there to pick a fight with him, just to remove the cats from the property.

It seems he's just in some ongoing state of annoyance. He did say he liked dogs, for what it's worth.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

13. Probably the same way Mike Vick likes dogs

I swear, I don't know what bible these people are reading but as a confirmed Atheist who was also a confirmed Lutheran and spent 6 years in Lutheran private school, I have spent a reasonable amount of time studying King James and his version and I'm pretty sure that the kind of behavior I see from his followers is not what Jesus had in mind. Of course, the so called followers of Christ have been acting like assholes since Constantine and the Consul of Nicea but I'd be willing to bet that 80% of the current so called Christians have never heard of Constantine and have no idea how their religion evolved. The other 20% are probably UUers who actually seem to get it..

All I can say is that I am embarrassed by the goobers who seem to represent the U.S. in great numbers. The world must think us pathetic. I do.

[phantom power]

8. People like that don't need a reason to get out their axes and start grinding...

My neighbors are like that. Hard-core rightwingers. I avoid discussing politics with them, but typically they'll bring it up if you wait long enough. They'll find a segue, smooth or awkward.

I think it's a form of insecurity. They feel a need to reinforce their tribal identity by spouting talking points. Like they aren't good 22%-ers if they don't at least try to pick a fight with a liberal at every opportunity.

[CurtEastPoint]

10. Well, assholes come in all varieties. THANK YOU for doing good

for the kittens. From a fellow kitty-lover.

[Ikonoklast]

12. "Arrested for trespassing"?

Nice friendly church they got there.

"All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small..."

[Mz Pip]

14. Yeah, really.

Here we have a church on a very busy street. We have a litter of kittens with no momcat to be seen being fed by a nice guy in the neighborhood. All he wants to do is get the kittens out and fostered out to good homes. Should be something that would be welcomed.

It is somewhat mind boggling.

The kitten I caught is really cute. I think he/she has bright prospects down the line. The guy who gave us grief with his anti-cat and anti-Obama rants - not so much.

"All things wise and wonderful..."

[Yunomi]

15. Huh. Sounds like Uncle Ruckus. nt