Posted on 09/10/2009 2:53:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I'm a Marxist. A limp-wristed, freedom-hating, baby-killing, tofu-eating, plastic-recycling, Prius-driving, pagan vegan Commie. All because I believe that the health care system could use a little improvement.
At least that might be the blind assumption for those who vehemently oppose congressional efforts to upgrade health care vis-Ã -vis what some quarters derisively call "ObamaCare." If you regularly use that phrase (or "death panels" or "Palin/Limbaugh 2012") in daily conversation, I'd strongly recommend updating your rabies vaccination. Alas, it may not be covered by your current insurance policy as it's probably a pre-existing condition.
The current health care "debate" has become untenable simply because it's gone far beyond a reasonable exchange of opinions into the realm of partisan hyperventilation and adolescent name-calling. You suck. No, you suck.
Children, please.
You'd either have to be the healthiest person alive or an insurance company shareholder to think the system is just fine as is. But the discussion has slipped away from simply addressing medical and economic concerns toward something more divisive and sinister.
The enraged folks who've flocked to health care town hall meetings in recent weeks to voice their paranoid regurgitations on the Vast Liberal Conspiracy are missing several things, the point only being the most benign. I'm all for democracy. Let people have their say. But a basic requirement should be that they pause to think before they speak.
I'm afraid of folks like Osama bin Laden only in an abstract sense. We're the "Great Satan," death to us, blah, blah. We get it. Yet I have deep, visceral fear of people like Gayle Quinnell, the Minnesota septuagenarian who declared "Obama is an Arab" at a John McCain election rally last year. Quinnell is just one of the millions of pliable knee-jerk conservatives who transform from Bruce Banner into The Incredible Hulk whenever Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck give the word. And you wouldn't like them when they're angry.
Let's not kid ourselves. Just because we live in Oregon and occasionally buy organic lettuce at our local farmers market doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of people in this state who sincerely believe that Barack Obama is a resident alien.
I spent the Fourth of July -- that magical day when even liberals can enjoy gaudy displays of patriotism without irony or guilt -- at a barbecue in rural Lake County quietly choking on grilled chicken as I listened to people grumble about Democrats and taxes when they weren't cracking jokes about the president.
Did you hear that Obama is trying to ban aspirin?
Really?
Yeah, because it's white and it works.
Ah, nothing says modern-day America quite like fireworks, potato salad and a little irrational fear garnished with light prejudice. Forget health care. I can't recall much rationale discourse on any contentious topic between Democrats and Republicans in the last decade. Ideological entrenchment on the right and befuddled cowering on the left is only partly to blame. The biggest obstacle is the fact that moderates -- who comprise the bulk of the population -- have been pushed to the margins while the loudest, nastiest partisans seize center stage. It is fear and anger -- fed by a voracious supply of misinformation, half-truths and ignorance -- that dictate the current political climate, not democracy -- or even civility.
I blame the Bush administration for leaving a devastating stain on U.S. history, but there are times when I feel willing to shed my resentments in order to engage in a new spirit of conscientious cooperation. Then I turn the channel to Fox News.
There's a reason why a program on Comedy Central ("The Daily Show") consistently has some of the most salient and succinct observations on American politics. Only comedians seem to have the levity and perspective to see the underlying (yet patently obvious) absurdities lying beneath.
There is nothing wrong with questioning the merits of health care reform, but the resistance seemingly has little to do with any practical concerns (cost, implementation, etc.) raised by the proposed legislation. In fact, it seems to have as much to do with the 2012 election and undermining Democratic control as it does trying to improve health care.
I'm a child of the '80s. I remember gaping at Mikhail Gorbachev's oil-spill birthmark, memorizing terms like "mutually assured destruction" and ducking under my desk during those air raid drills we did in elementary school. But I also remember the Berlin Wall fell about, oh, 20 years ago. Yet I get the distinct impression that most of the protesters at the town hell forums sincerely believe the Soviet Union still exists.
I have grave doubts that most of those folks have read "Das Kapital," let alone have spent any time analyzing the legislation they so fervently resist. Instead, the rhetoric is boiled down to I say "public option" and you say "socialism." Somewhere, Joseph McCarthy is smiling.
The lack of coherence from Democrats is frustrating, but it's the hypocrisy of the conservative brain trust that is truly staggering. Or at least it would be if they had any shame or humility. Years of gluttonous spending under Republican rule are conveniently forgotten. Two terms of devastatingly ignorant policy is swept aside.
Not so long ago, any critic -- no matter how tepid -- who dared voice reservations about a war in Iraq was burned alive as a spineless pinko traitor with Dixie Chicks on his iPod and un-American sentiment in his blood. Supporting the inevitable bloodshed of fellow citizens under the pretense of "protecting freedom" is apparently acceptable. Supporting efforts to help protect fellow citizens from unnecessary death and injury for want of health care is not. The mind, it boggles.
There is still optimism that some strain of health care reform will survive to see the light of day. But how diluted will it be and at what cost to the national psyche? Politics -- if not healthy debate -- is not easy. But it also shouldn't be this hard.
Well, Duh! No wonder you support Obama.
Doing too much acid wrecks one’s perception of time and era.
My kids didn’t, maybe they were deprived because no one cared if they were nuked.
It must be nice to be able to file away any debate in such neat cubbyholes and refuse to see that we all want the same thing — we just don't agree that a complete dismantling of our current system and the chaos that will occur is necessarily the brightest idea in the portfolio. The author of this piece really needs to get away from his commune.
Yeah. Just because the guy surrounds himself with Marxists, Black Nationalists and Liberal control freak lunatics doesn't mean we should be afraid of the direction he wants to take the country. We'll get used to calling each other Comrade soon enough.
This individual is a dumb ass. So because the current “private system” isn’t perfect we are going to put in place the stepping stones to a forced no opt out public system? We are going to trust the same group of morons who crashed the economy and are spending like drunken sailors in a redlight district to not only fix the system but bring down the cost of health care? The current bill may not require you to join a public plan but it sure as hell requires us all to pay for it and has the clear intent of eventually forcing private insurers out of the market. Yes that makes the writer of this piece of drivel a marxist and his lame attempt at creating an apologetic for Obamacare.
Notice how they don’t talk about how great this reform will be in any specific sense that is measurable? They talk about how bad everything is that anything would be better. Well that just isn’t true and we have had enough of being talked down to and ridiculed because we don’t trust the federal government. Doesn’t the left realize it isn’t working? Don’t they realize that the cage is falling apart?
If they don’t they soon will.
This is a PERFECT example of liberal argumentation!
You take your opponents real, reasonable position and exaggerate the living CRAP out of it, then shade, cloak, spin, sweeten and rephrase your own position in such a way as to make your opponent sound absolutely insane, dangerous and unbelievably wrong.
That's all this hundreds-of-pages-long legislation is, folks, "a little improvement" to the health care system. Why all the overblown hysterics and name calling? Doesn't EVERYONE believe it needs "a little improvement"?
It's "a little improvement" in the same way an atomic bomb "kicks up some dust" when detonated.
I think it was Rush who read an article by an economist who said the reason our health care (in America) is more costly and intensive is that Americans are in the frame of mind of saving lives. Not so with most countries that have nationalized health. When all of this talk of health care reform started taking shape, I realized that there would no longer be any point in further health research, because the system wouldn’t be able to afford either the research or the implementation of programs as a result of research. We must not let them get away with changing our health care attitudes of the importance of life and saving lives. I fear this attitude is changing because of all the abortions that have occurred these past nearly 4 decades. We must insist on saving lives.
Hey, he’s a journalist and has degrees from Portland State and Syracuse U. in journalism and has written for 30 publications and has gotton awards and has his own web page, so, therefore he knows everything about everything and you had better acknowledge your betters...just ask him((all said with tongue planted firmly in cheek). Portland is full of fools like this who so desperately want to become part of the elite that they no longer can think for themselves.
These people are becoming unwound.
bin Hussein al-Kenyata at the Joint Session of the Kremlin, "There is $600 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare right now. Please give me another trillion for Socialized Medicine so I can fix that."
yitbos
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