A Special Kind of Stupid

[FOTD]

Just keeping everyone on this forum  up to date about their news feeder...

Fox News viewers overwhelmingly misinformed about health care reform proposals.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/19/fox-news-viewers-misinformed/

"In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly."

Americans, mostly idjits.

[cannon_fodder]

Maybe you need to link to some contrary info, but what I have been told is:

1) illegal immigrants already get care under Federal law.  You can't just tell someone to take their broken leg back to Mexico.  Under this bill medical providers that are required to provide such services can be reimbursed. Hence, coverage for illegals.

Juan won't be able to walk into St. Francis and get a checkup on Uncle Sam, but it will end up with more Federal money flowing to pay for cost incurred due to illegal immigrants.

2) If you wanted to orchestrate Universal Governmental Health Coverage, would this not be a large step in your plan?  The bill certainly does not authorize a governmental takeover of health care, but it is a move in that direction.   "Will lead to" is an open ended phrase evoking the slippery slope argument.  In that regard, I can see where ~80% of FOX viewers would think this could/would lead to a government takeover of health care.

Hell, for that matter medicaid/medicare/prescription drug/grants/government funded hospitals/public employee health insurance/a billion other rules and regulations have already started the ball rolling pretty well.

3) This bill does fund abortions more liberally than currently allowed.  In some circumstances an abortion procedure could end up being paid for by the new health system.  Hence, it will lead taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions.

You won't be able to march into Abortions-A-Plenty for a quickie before church on the governments dime, but more abortions will be paid for under this plan by the government.

4) The government will be able to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.  It isn't a "death panel" any more than we already have, but certainly guidelines will be put in place saying a 85 year old man doesn't get a heart transplant and other standard measures.  It won't say that procures cannot be done, but that it won't pay for it.  Which will generally be the same thing
- - -

Is the hyperbole espoused by many opponents spot on?  No.  But each on of those elements in based on reality.  I could just as easily ask readers of the Huffington post the same question and then prove them idiots but pointing out that in some circumstances illegal migrants will be covered, this is a move towards a governmental "takeover," it will pay for more abortions, and the government will necessarily make decisions about what services will be provided.

[FOTD]

Maybe you need to link to some contrary info, but what I have been told is:

1) illegal immigrants already get care under Federal law.  You can't just tell someone to take their broken leg back to Mexico.  Under this bill medical providers that are required to provide such services can be reimbursed. Hence, coverage for illegals.

Juan won't be able to walk into St. Francis and get a checkup on Uncle Sam, but it will end up with more Federal money flowing to pay for cost incurred due to illegal immigrants.

2) If you wanted to orchestrate Universal Governmental Health Coverage, would this not be a large step in your plan?  The bill certainly does not authorize a governmental takeover of health care, but it is a move in that direction.   "Will lead to" is an open ended phrase evoking the slippery slope argument.  In that regard, I can see where ~80% of FOX viewers would think this could/would lead to a government takeover of health care.

Hell, for that matter medicaid/medicare/prescription drug/grants/government funded hospitals/public employee health insurance/a billion other rules and regulations have already started the ball rolling pretty well.

3) This bill does fund abortions more liberally than currently allowed.  In some circumstances an abortion procedure could end up being paid for by the new health system.  Hence, it will lead taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions.

You won't be able to march into Abortions-A-Plenty for a quickie before church on the governments dime, but more abortions will be paid for under this plan by the government.

4) The government will be able to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.  It isn't a "death panel" any more than we already have, but certainly guidelines will be put in place saying a 85 year old man doesn't get a heart transplant and other standard measures.  It won't say that procures cannot be done, but that it won't pay for it.  Which will generally be the same thing
- - -

Is the hyperbole espoused by many opponents spot on?  No.  But each on of those elements in based on reality.  I could just as easily ask readers of the Huffington post the same question and then prove them idiots but pointing out that in some circumstances illegal migrants will be covered, this is a move towards a governmental "takeover," it will pay for more abortions, and the government will necessarily make decisions about what services will be provided.

1) Doctors should not be reimbursed (even if it is for an illegal human being)? And FOTD thought Randy Terrilble had stopped this "issue."

2)Nixon. He started that ball rolling. If you are over 65, you get medicare which should be the administrator for all insureds doing away with the Insurance mafia....you may prefer paying these "agents" commissions for their conflict of interest. And, how do you know Faux viewers "might think." That's a ridiculous analysis. The government already took over health care for everyone over 65. So why not just put it in the category of Public Safety for all and shift all that enormous waste from the military that you never complain about over to health care?

3) Could end up? Come on Sparty, that's nonsense. Maybe the Republicans could write some belt and suspender language to prevent such if they weren't so caught up in organizing tantrums and just saying "no."

Besides, an abortion pill will kill your "coulda woulda shoulda" baloney.

4) No matter what the government says, a hospital rules. That means even with a directive like a living will, the institution may find the idea of ending a life unacceptable. Medicare will reimburse these hospitals for life support until code blue.

You are talking party politics not health care.

Yours is the politics of ignorance. Just follow it down C Street...




Never miss a good chance to shut up show your true colors.

[FOTD]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-19-2009/fox-news--the-new-liberals

Stewart Again!!!!!

[cannon_fodder]

I wasn't advocating for any position, so how you glean my "politics" from that response is somewhat amusing.  I merely read elements of the bill and reported how they could be construed as to correspond with the questions posed in the survey you copied and pasted.  The bill will have compensation for services rendered to illegal aliens, it will fund abortions to some extent, in effect the government will make decisions about end of life care, and the bill may be a step leading towards a governmental takeover.

Often times not in the manner Fox News presumably claims those things will occur (I'm afraid I haven't seen their coverage on this issue) , but it doesn't make the answers less accurate.   To briefly address your retort:

1) I never said providing care for illegal immigrants was a bad thing.

2) I know what Fox Viewers "might think" because the poll you posted stated as much.  No one can deny that this is a step closer to a governmental takeover of health care.  Ergo, extrapolating that it might lead to such a thing is a stretch of logic but not out of line.  I say that not as a doom and gloom scenario, just as a logical extension to support the poll data.

3) Abortions are legitimate medical procedures in a number of situations in the eyes of the AMA and the government.  It stands to reason that they would then be funded.  I did not indicate that this was a good or a bad thing in any way, just that it is.

4) It is undeniable that the government will dictate what procedures will be covered.  Just like we currently have with insurance policies, they do not cover every procedure.  To do otherwise is just not practical.  Again, I didn't pretend it was a doom and gloom death squad; but the government will be making health care choices that include care at the end of life.


Party politics?  My party isn't represented in the State.  I've endorsed and volunteered for a select group of candidates in Oklahoma and most of the Democrats.  My voting record is probably pretty evenly weighted.  Party politics is not my game.

Sorry Devil, but it seems you are emotionally invested in this issue.   I'm merely analyzing the stats you posted and explaining why the majority answer could be right.  Similarly, what % of viewers of other networks had such views?

Finally, and incidentally, I agree with you assessment that most people are idiots.  Not stupid, but often uneducated and suffer from a refusal to think.  One doesn't need the magic trio of being intelligent, educated, and willing to think. . . but one or two of the three is helpful.  Failure to apply the third item in the trio is fatal.

[USRufnex]

[we vs us]

They've actually been pointing to the passage in the healthcare legislation that says, in big bold letters "WE WON'T COVER ILLEGALS."  (cf. Barney Frank, et al.)  No, no hospital will deny care to a person who's ailing, legal or illegal (the whole Hippocratic Oath thing is the trump card), but no illegal can take part in the insurance regime being proposed, which is really what we're discussing. 

Heh.  I said "regime." 

The death panel argument is just a more pungent way of expressing the argument that government control will result in rationing of care.  Because what is a death panel if not the ultimate denial of service based on need. ("Sorry.  You're too old and/or sick to waste any more money on.  Get on this ice floe.")

Of course, we ration care now based on ability to pay, so while we think our current system vs a reformed system with a public option is an apples and oranges comparison, it's actually gala vs. granny smith apples.  But it's still apples all the way down. Rationing happens either way. 

So in the end, all of this discussion comes down to how you want your healthcare rationed.  Do you want private business to control all the rationing -- the way it currently stands -- or do you want the government involved? (And because single payer was never on the table, the government will never "control all the rationing" . . . it will only ever be a mitigating element of the rationing).

I would also like to say, since I've been drinking and writing most of the night and why stop now, that I think modern conservatives rely entirely too much on the slippery slope argument as a primary proof of ideology.  Meaning, "we object to a public option because it is just one more step closer to single payer"  is only slightly legitimate as a public policy argument.  The slippery slope is just like grandma wagging her finger at you and saying "One day you'll regret what you're doing, sonny!  You just wait!"  That day may never come, and there's simply no proof -- other than deep seated suspicion -- that the public option is only a waypoint to the destruction of Modern Capitalism As We Know It.  Or to single payer.

[FOTD]

Say hey to the anarchists amongst us!

[FOTD]

A few more republicans in action!

[FOTD]

Notice in the above pics there are no non whites to be found anywhere...Rushpublic American Racists!

Here you supporters of Dick Armey and your fellow republicant revolutionaries....why don't your leaders denounce this hatred?


Thousands Rally in Capital to Protest Big Government
By JEFF ZELENY
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html?_r=1&hp

Published: September 12, 2009
WASHINGTON — A sea of protesters filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall on Saturday in the largest rally against President Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government.

On a cloudy and cool day, the demonstrators came from all corners of the country, waving American flags and handwritten signs explaining the root of their frustrations. Their anger stretched well beyond the health care legislation moving through Congress, with shouts of support for gun rights, lower taxes and a smaller government.

But as they sang verse after verse of patriotic hymns like "God Bless America," sharp words of profane and political criticism were aimed at Mr. Obama and Congress.

Dick Armey, a former House Republican leader whose group Freedomworks helped organize the protest, stood before the crowd and led the rallying cries in nearly the same spot where Mr. Obama took his oath of office eight months ago.

"He pledged a commitment of fidelity to the United States Constitution," Mr. Armey said, suggesting that Mr. Obama was in violation of what the founding fathers intended the size and scope of the government to be.

"Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar!" the crowd shouted back, echoing the accusation that Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, hurled at the president three days earlier during his address to Congress.

The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands, though the police declined to estimate the size of the crowd. Many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group. But the magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours.

The atmosphere was rowdy at times, with signs and images casting Mr. Obama in a demeaning light. One sign called him the "parasite in chief." Others likened him to Hitler. Several people held up preprinted signs saying, "Bury Obama Care with Kennedy," a reference to the Massachusetts senator whose body passed by the Capitol two weeks earlier to be memorialized.

Other signs did not focus on Mr. Obama, but rather on the government at large, promoting gun rights, tallying the national deficit and deploring illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Still, many demonstrators expressed their views without a hint of rage. They said the size of the crowd illustrated that their views were shared by a broader audience.

"I want Congress to be afraid," said Keldon Clapp, 45, an unemployed marketing representative who recently moved to Tennessee from Connecticut after losing his job. "Like everyone else here, I want them to know that we're watching what they're doing. And they do work for us."

As Mr. Obama traveled to Minnesota on Saturday to rally support for his health care plan, he flew over the assembling crowd in Marine One. The helicopter could be seen flying overhead as the demonstrators marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.

"This is not some kind of radical right-wing group," Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview as dozens of people streamed by him. "I just hope the Congress, the Senate and the president recognize that people are afraid of what's going on."

Mr. DeMint and a few Republican legislators were the only party leaders on hand for the demonstration. Republican officials said privately that they were pleased by the turnout but wary of the anger directed at all politicians. And most of those who turned out were not likely to have been Obama voters anyway.

Protesters came by bus, car and airplane, arriving here from Texas and Tennessee, New Mexico and New Hampshire, Ohio and Oregon. The messages on their signs told of an intense distrust of the government, which several people said began long before Mr. Obama took office.

For the most part, Democrats stayed silent on Saturday, with the exception of a small group of counterdemonstrators who gathered behind a roadblock to protest what they called a "right-wing rally." Many were members of the clergy, who said they were concerned about misinformation propagated by opponents of health care legislation.

"We'd like to have an honest debate," said Chris Korzen, director of the nonprofit Catholics United. "I don't see a lot of substance here."

While there was no shortage of vitriol among protesters, there was also an air of festivity. A band of protesters in colonial gear wended through the crowd, led by a bell ringer in a tricorn hat calling for revolution. A folk singer belting out a protest ballad on a guitar brought cheers.

In conversations with demonstrators, people identified themselves as Republicans, libertarians, independents and former Democrats. Several speakers denounced the Obama administration's health care plan as "socialism." A few Confederate flags waved in the air, but there were hundreds of American flags and chants of, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" A young girl held a sign saying, "Don't redistribute the wealth of my Barbies."

Ruth Lobbs, 57, a schoolteacher from Jacksonville, Fla., said she flew to Washington on Saturday to protest how she believes the government has violated the Constitution. She said she did not vote for the president, adding that her anger has been building for years.

"It's more than Obama — this isn't a Republican or a Democratic issue," Ms. Lobbs said as she held a yellow flag that declared, "Don't Tread on Me."

"I don't know if anything will come of this or not," she said, "but this is a peaceful way of showing our frustration."

Theo Emery and Ashley Southall contributed reporting.

[we vs us]

This came across the transom this morning and I thought it was worth a repost.  Newsmax thinks Obama is risking a coup:

Obama Risks a Domestic Military 'Intervention'

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM

By: John L. Perry    Article Font Size 

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

# Officers swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to "obey the orders of the president of the United States."

# Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

# They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

# They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.

# They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.

# They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America's troop strength is allowed to sag.

# They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.

# They can see the nation's safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.

. . . . .

There's more, but you get the drift. 

I don't think a coup is imminent just because some douchebag from Newsmax is telegraphing that he'd like it to happen.  But I think we can all agree that this kind of talk isn't helping form a more perfect union. 

[Red Arrow]

This came across the transom this morning and I thought it was worth a repost.  Newsmax thinks Obama is risking a coup:

There's more, but you get the drift. 

I don't think a coup is imminent just because some douchebag from Newsmax is telegraphing that he'd like it to happen.  But I think we can all agree that this kind of talk isn't helping form a more perfect union. 

Hey!  "We" got rid of Bush and his buddies.  What more could "we" ask for?

[cannon_fodder]

lol.  Imminent coup.  If the military didn't rise up to oust Carter or Clinton, Obama is probably safe.  Particularly when the military is busy killing people over seas. 

It would be hard to imagine even die-hard redneck gun toting Republicans supporting a violent coup barring something severe.  If Obama starts detaining opponents in camps, taking over TV stations, and executing citizens en mass . . . then I could see it.  Pretty much short of that and yeah, it's a worthless article.

[we vs us]

lol.  Imminent coup.  If the military didn't rise up to oust Carter or Clinton, Obama is probably safe.  Particularly when the military is busy killing people over seas. 

It would be hard to imagine even die-hard redneck gun toting Republicans supporting a violent coup barring something severe.  If Obama starts detaining opponents in camps, taking over TV stations, and executing citizens en mass . . . then I could see it.  Pretty much short of that and yeah, it's a worthless article.

Absolutely worthless. But it's not often you see someone talk so openly about overthrowing the sitting American president.  And, you know, OVERTHROWING HIM, not voting him out or anything like that. 

[sgrizzle]

Eugenics? But where's Khan?



/End Nerd Joke