President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961.

I wish I could end the column right there. I’d close my laptop, climb into bed and drift into a calm, dreamless sleep where the world makes sense and the country isn’t going completely insane.

Unfortunately, there are people in this country who don’t believe that statement. A lot of people. A sickeningly, disturbingly large number of people.

Prepare yourself for some sobering, brain-explosion inducing numbers.

In a poll released last week by Public Policy Polling, only 62 percent of Americans are sure that Obama was born in this country. Fourteen percent aren’t sure and 24 percent think he was not born in this country. Twenty-four percent!

The “birther” controversy has been going on for years now, “birther” being the term given to the conspiracy theorists who don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S.

Questions about Obama’s citizenship were raised at the very start of his bid for office and lawsuits seeking to disqualify him as president have continued into his presidency. Support for the movement reached a fever pitch in recent months, leading Rep. Bill Posey, R-FL, to propose a bill demanding that Obama prove his citizenship, which 10 other Republican congressmen have signed on to.

In response to the controversy, the Obama administration organized a Web site on which they posted the offending birth certificate in June. News outlets also joined in the debunking, reproducing birth announcements that ran in the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1961.

Yet here we are, with 38 percent of the electorate unsure of the president’s origins and our own congressmen fueling the fires.

Numbers aside, let’s think about what would have had to happen for this theory to be true. At the time of Obama’s birth, his parents would have had to organize a vast conspiracy involving agents in the State Department, as well as in the local newspapers.

These criminals would have then printed false documents for the family and broadcasted fake information to the public — all so the newborn Barack could trick America into illegally voting him into office 48 years later.

There are some people for which no amount of evidence, reasonable, educated argument or common sense will sway their opinions. They believe what they want, putting their undying faith in ideas that have no bearing in reality, where the rest of us live. This would be fine, except such people now make up nearly a quarter of the electorate.

The “birthers” do nothing to add to the public discourse. They don’t spur intelligent debate. When we should be arguing the merits of important issues, we’re stuck debunking ludicrous ideas with stubborn, gullible idiots. It’s insanity. It’s a waste of time.

And I’m sad I had to waste a column explaining it to you.

Zach feels like he’s taking crazy pills. Talk him back to sanity at zachary.fowle@asu.edu.