Posted on 07/09/2004 1:31:37 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Political campaigns are not usually good places to look for examples of pure truth. Indeed, they are famous as the source of all sorts of misstatements, evasions, wild accusations and other examples of near-dishonesty. So, normally, I wouldn't bother calling to your attention one particular falsehood, however egregious. OK, so John Kerry said something that wasn't true. So, no doubt, at one time or another, has President Bush. What else is new?
What makes this particular falsehood worth your attention, however, is its sheer cleverness, and the contempt for the intelligence of the average voter that it reveals. I have reported before on previous uses of it, but recently it surfaced in a speech by the Democratic presidential candidate himself, and you deserve to know just how slippery he is.
A week or so ago, Kerry was braying along before some crowd of enthusiastic Democrats, and told them in appropriately shocked tones that "43 million Americans have no health care." (I happened to hear him on the radio.) He let that awful statistic sink in, then added in righteous wrath that "health care" ought to be the "right" of "every American." The crowd roared its agreement.
Well, who wouldn't? The vision of 43 million Americans, out of some 275 million, roaming around without health care is enough, as Gen. Hugh Johnson once said of something else, to bring tears to the eyes of a brass Buddha.
The trouble is that the statistic is a big, flat lie, and Kerry knew it, and was betting that most of his listeners would be too dumb to realize it.
The truth is that every American is entitled, right now, to health care. It's as close as the emergency room of your nearest hospital, and by federal law it cannot be denied to anyone. What's more, if you are too sick to get to the hospital on your own, a call to 911 will quickly bring an ambulance that will take you there.
I know, because I have used it myself. One night in New York, I woke up about 2 a.m. with a pain in the middle of my chest that simply wouldn't go away. I phoned my doctor, who lived in New Jersey. Learning that I had a friend with a car, he told me to go to the emergency room of a certain hospital. I did, and it was quickly established that I was having a heart attack. I stayed at the hospital about a week, and recovered fully.
As it happens, I had medical insurance (including Medicare) that paid my hospital bill, but I would have received the same care if I hadn't had two nickels to rub together.
What Kerry's 43 million Americans lack isn't health care, but health insurance. And a great many of them lack it because they are young people in the prime of life who know they are unlikely to develop any serious illness for years to come and simply calculate that they can risk not paying the premiums. If they miscalculate and do suddenly get ill, they can simply pop around to the nearest emergency room. Health insurance is better, to be sure, because it pays for medical needs that are not urgent; but health care in an emergency is available to all.
Now, Kerry knows this perfectly well. And he would be justified in demanding that every American have a sacred right to health "insurance." But that wouldn't have the primitive resonance and sheer superficial reasonableness of a demand that they have a right to health "care." So he makes the latter demand anyway, and bets that his audience will be too stupid to know the difference.
Judging by the roar of the crowd the night I heard him, he won his bet. With a little luck, he may do just as well on election night.
And this candidate for the presidency accuses President Bush of lying.... I'm not sure I can keep my sanity for the next 4 months.
Then how did you survive '92, with the months of lies about "Worst economy in 50 years", when it had clearly been far worse a mere 12 years earlier during the dying days of the Carter administration? ;-)
I fear the '92 ordeal was only a prelude to what's coming.
"and bets that his audience will be too stupid to know the difference"
No surprise here. Same drop-outs that are raving about Micky Moore's film. Moore's claim that Americans are the dumbest people on the earth is the only semi-truthful thing he's ever said. Half of Americans... the Demwits.
Some of my neighbors are drop-outs or picked a BS degree in basket weaving. They blame Bush for all their troubles. Fanatical liberalism live in a dream world and lack common sense. I just shared my CD to my basket weaver friend...I hope I get it back...he needs a wake up call...Penn & Teller: BullSh**! The movie pokes fun at environmentalist. Very naive people believe in all the scare tactics and misinformation without question. Sounds like John Kerry campaign. My 17 year old daughter had a good laugh at the tree huggers. They spout slogans out but when asked a real question they become confused. I think my daughter got the message!
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