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The Nation's Pulse
And Not a Fear-Monger Among Them
Friends and enemies of Obamacare talking past each other.
We live in interesting times. Back before special weekend sessions, when presidents power-napped through Cabinet meetings and Congress kept bankers’ hours, March Madness was confined to college basketball. But now that we’re saddled with a self-consciously progressive young chief executive and a Speaker of the House who thinks of herself as “capo di tutti capi,” bipartisanship is a shadow of its former self, and one-sixth of the economy is now set for an extreme makeover. As a result, tea parties have outgrown the American Girl set, radio hosts warn about dangers to the republic, and the global village seethes with indignation from allies who have been told to acquaint themselves with the torn upholstery on seats in the back of the bus. Democratic operatives, many of them avowed secularists with an impoverished understanding of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, daily give the rest of us more than a few reasons to pray harder.
Meanwhile, the friends and enemies of Obamacare talk past each other. The current scene reminds me of a joke about a grasshopper that springs into a bar. “What’ll you have?” asks the bartender, who is quick on his feet. “We don’t get a lot of your kind in here, but we actually have a drink named after you.” Then the grasshopper says, “Really? You have a drink named ‘Bob’?”
A similar disconnect bedevils arguments with my friend “Boris.” He knows the arcana of health care better than I do, so his Facebook notes on that subject are tinged with polite exasperation. I hold my own in our occasional arguments by exploiting his weaknesses as a debater, the most glaring of which is his fondness for hyperbole. On March 15, for example, Boris informed all who would listen that “Every single poll that digs into what people actually want confirms that people want all the things that health care reform is going to begin to deliver to them. And the Republicans know that.” Consequently, he added, “Fear-mongering, demonization, and outright lies are the only tools [Republicans] have in their arsenal to fight health care reform; and they’re totally fine with using those tools.”
The best response to that might have been a shrug and the kind of “ho ho ho” that sounds like it came from Inspector Clouseau. Instead, I bookmarked the tirade. I did not expect Boris to explain why early versions of the legislation over which he pants got nowhere until Democrats resorted to bribery and parliamentary sleight-of-hand. I’m sure he would say that the “Louisiana Purchase” and the “Cornhusker Kickback” were just the price of doing business with obstructionists. But If anyone ever asks me what a defensive crouch looks like, and whether it can be transposed from the sparring floor of a dojo to the paragraphs in an essay, I’ll know exactly what to show them.
Note the line of attack Boris used. He’s certain that anyone who has strong reservations about Obamacare is “fear-mongering.”
Had Boris shouted that from a park bench in Chicago, I’d be more inclined to overlook it, because there are certain precincts in the Windy City where people still think of President Obama as a favorite son rather than an eloquent-but-unhinged nephew. Yet overlooking those insults might be uncharitable, because Boris is flirting with something that sounds very much like libel.
May I extend the grasshopper gag for educational purposes? Suppose a doctor, a politician, an economist, a writer, and an archbishop walk into a bar. The doctor is cousin to President Obama, and the politician is a ranking member of the budget committee in the House of Representatives. None of these people supports Obamacare, and none of them is hypothetical.
Can they all be fear-mongers? They’re not even all Republicans. Dr. Milton Wolf, Congressman Paul Ryan, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Ms. Megan McArdle, and Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, I’m looking at you (I have to do the looking, because friend Boris is holding his hands over his eyes).
Someone off his or her meds might be thinking that the archbishop would “demonize” people with whom he disagrees, on the theory that broad-brush rhetoric tempts men of the cloth. But Chaput seems an amiable chap, and anyone who answers to a rabbi famous for saying “Be not afraid” makes an exceedingly poor excuse for a fear-monger. Worse for Boris, it’s not like everyone else opposed to President Obama built a career on lying, either. Democrats are not the only ones with access to figures from the Congressional Budget Office. Representative Ryan, for example, was widely praised for his impressive command of subject matter at the president’s Potemkin “health care summit.”
As for the idea that Republicans criticize initiatives from the Democrats but do not propose serious alternatives of their own, the fact that even a professional provocateur like Ann Coulter has a health care reform plan ought to give pause, if “Democratic math” (that is, not counting when possible, and double-counting when necessary) had not already.
All this is anecdotal evidence, to be sure, and yet the people I’ve cited are routinely ignored by progressives because listening to them would interfere with progressive ability to make sweeping pronouncements. This weakness in logic does not confine itself to Boris, or to arguments over healthcare reform. Nearly every progressive outlet seems rife with attempts to pass insults off as arguments.
Earlier this month, for example, the free weekly tabloid serving my town published a cover story saying “Wake County Goes to Hell.” Sure enough, the editor who smelled sulphur found something diabolical about a “right-wing school board” whose new majority threatened to “eliminate diversity as a factor in student assignments” and “adopt a strictly neighborhood (or ‘community’) schools approach.” Imagine the horror. Imagine the non sequitur. Who knew that busing low-income students miles from their homes was so wonderful? Would a real champion of diversity have decided that hell is other people? And how is this any different from screeching about Sarah Palin as a symbol of everything wrong with the world?
Angst about alleged conservative heartlessness runs deep in the progressive worldview, and of course the conservative counterpart to that angst is worry over progressive brainlessness. Monster legislation throws these opposing camps into high relief. But this weekend’s trillion-dollar question was and still is for Democrats: Do you see anything even a little implausible about “saving” money by extending mandatory health insurance and a retinue of new regulations to at least 32 million more people?
About the Author
Patrick O’Hannigan is a writer in North Carolina.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) | Leave a comment
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Tenn Slim| 3.23.10 @ 8:47AM
Opine
In my travels across the Net, I encounter many such articles. This one is simply the Best.!
I enjoyed the humor, the metaphors, yes, the hyperbole. I like to write, especially to read my own thoughts. So, this article hit me between the eyes.
Contentwise, any real life Conservative has to agree. Liberals, Friends of the Left etal, obviously will have many gas pains with the content.
SO. What are we to do. Veit Nam days had NVA Fronts. In my opine, we are entering a phase of the Political Wars, that will later be thought of, just as were the VC days of Nam. Liberation Fronts, here they are DEA, Education, SEC, FCC, EPA,USDA, all Czar offices and the list goes on. Each and every one of these entities has an ax to grind across the USA Landscape. Pelosi has laid out a stretch of scars deep, festering and infected across this land. The entities mentioned will pour thier invective into this scar to the detriment of us all.
We must act as antiseptics, cleaners of words, parser of meaning, use our keyboard talents to inform, educate, corece and guide the USA Electorate past the battlefields into secure sites of Freedom, Liberty and Justice.!!
However, We Will Prevail.
Recall this day in November
Semper Fi
end
MACON OGLETREE| 3.23.10 @ 8:56AM
GOOD ARTICLE. WE MUST BE ABLE TO SIT DOWN AND TALK TO OUR NON-CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS IN A FRIENDLY MANNER. WE MUST ALSO POLITELY POINT OUT THE ERRORS IN THEIR FACTS. WE MUST ALSO EDUCATE OUR FRIENDS TO THE CONSTITUTION AND WHY THERE ARE LIMITS TO GOVERNMENT POWER (OR SHOULD BE). IT IS THE STATE WHO HAS BEEN THE GREATEST THREAT TO LIBERT!
Woodsman| 3.23.10 @ 6:06PM
Macon your otherwise salient comment is lost in the ALL CAPS SHOUTING. Some friendly advice: Tone it down, man. It will be much easier to digest and far more effective.
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.23.10 @ 9:58AM
Patrick,
Thank you for that.
Slim,
as always, I enjoy your thoughts on the screen as well. Please break up your paragraphs with a space for my old eyes. (smile)
MACON,
As much as it pains me to say it, I no longer have "non conservative friends". In fact, I don't enjoy friendship with any wishy-washy disconnected folks any longer either.
One of the columnists I read this morning sorta' crystalized my thinking in that regard. He wrote something to the effect that we are now "engaged in a Civil War".
I could not help casting my mind back to a famous author who wrote in the 1860s, ..."brother against brother, father against son..."
I can pity those enemies. I can pray for them. I can be, heh, more or less "civil" with them. I will continue to attempt to reason with them until the folly of their fantasies becomes clear to them.
And then there is the hardcore 20% who are communists, (pardon the shorthand), who want to enslave us free men and women, one sneaky evil step at a time.
See, Sir,
If November 2010 does not produce a majority of conservatives in Congress, the lights.....literally start going out across this "heaven rescued land".
In my mind there must be NO doubt in those folks' minds...about what they have wrought.
The wishy-washies? Hopefully they will at least slink down to the polls and vote with their secret ballots....and vote Republican straight tickets.
Why straight tickets?
Because you can bet your boots and your guns that our enemies and their "useful idiots", will vote a straight Demo. ticket.
Third party idiots?
Well they will throw their votes to the communists out of default. Their little personal utopian agendas simply cannot allow reasonable, rational thought. They can express their little tantrums on election day....but like a Peanut cartoon character once said..."you can pee in dark pants...and no one can notice."
God bless America
Flee| 3.23.10 @ 5:02PM
Well at least you can talk with the other side. I find it too difficult to handle and simply avoid it. Even my siblings are off limits on these topics. It's sad but true.
Keith I| 3.23.10 @ 8:57PM
Ken,
I must echo your comment about non-conservative friends, or your lack thereof. I have a good friend that owns a struggling one-man business. I have sent him work which he has capably performed for many years. He is black and when starting his business got caught up in the trappings of success, with a nice office, a receptionist and a bunch of high-end computer stations. Of course, the entire endeavor was financed by an SBA loan and other debt.
Fast forward several years to his inevitable bankruptcy and business collapse. OCarter is elected and my friend is justifiably proud, being black himself. However, he is completely blind to the headlong march into the abyss of the One's collectivist utopia.
Late Monday afternoon after several icy business phone calls he asked what the problem was. I could contain my anger no more and launched a fusillade of invective toward HIS President and TitsPelosi. He stammered on about how my company would be entitled to subsidies under the current legislation...balh, blah,blah. The most intelligent response that could get past my clenched teeth was that "I want absolutely NOTHING from those Mother F___ckers!" Not one of my prouder moments but the truth none the less.
Brother against brother, friend against friend. I ask in total seriousness, How will the Republic survive this man?
C.K. Amos| 3.23.10 @ 9:59PM
This is exactly what community agitator Obama and his thugocracy desires. When the people are pitted against one another, then these sleazeballs can do things such as we've seen in the so-called healthcare monstrosity.
Tim| 3.23.10 @ 10:34AM
He's got the banks, the auto industry and now the hospitals.He's got 20 zillion illegal aliens waiting in the wings to become grateful democrats.
We're gonna need a bigger boat.
speedstan| 3.24.10 @ 5:15AM
Well, I'm at least glad that people are understanding the ultimate goal of this huge push for amnesty by the Left. I have been trying to point this out to friends and acquaintances for nearly 10 years now and have been regarded as the kooky white guy with the conspiracy theory...
Peter McGrath| 3.23.10 @ 10:34AM
I suppose if we were living in the 1920's, or 1930's, when the idea of Big Government Solutions to Big Problems was novel, the thought of a nurturing Federal Program to hold our hands while we waited in the lobby of our government doctor's office would seem kind of plausible. After all, these are smart people, those folks in dark suits, and surely they have our best interests at heart.
Well, guess what, it’s the second decade of the new millennium and the barest thought that the Federal Government could effectively command and control a sector of our economy as large as healthcare is, well, cringe inducing. Only a complete fool could believe that government bureaucracies will "bend the spending curve" and "control costs." What are these idiots inhaling?
Of course, the apparatchiks are inhaling the intoxicating blend of power and ego. They've promised to deliver "healthcare" to the masses, and masses of indolent ninnies (around 35% of American adults) have, well, believed them. And, of course, they'll get their healthcare, and a dollop of government school education (Federal student loans) to boot.
As more and more people shift their lifestyles (hide income), to qualify for the new "benefits", the system will become progressively more insolvent. Those who can’t hide their income will be pummeled with higher taxes and premiums and will eventually beg for a “single payer” solution to the whole mess. That, of course, is the goal of these collectivist gangsters: seizure of the private economy. Placing control of the “means of production” in the “hands of the people” (i.e., the nomenclature elite who run the system). The under-educated masses get their crumbs, and their crumby lives, but we’ll dose them with pain-killers and legalize dope to dull the pain of their misery. Don’t worry about being self-sufficient, or responsible for your lives, we’re from the Government and we’re handle that for you.
Good News! Folks are starting to get it. They’re looking at government-run healthcare in places like Canada, France, the UK, and they don’t like what they see. Forget about “heartless” conservatives - they’re not trying to tell your doctor who and how to treat patients and how much to charge. It’s the liberals in Congress who are doing that and their hold on power is crumbling before our very eyes, as more and more Americans conclude that they prefer freedom over serfdom.
Hey, Barry, we the people don’t buy the crap you’re peddling. We’ve learned, and won’t get fooled again. Your days in power are numbered. You are rapidly devolving into an irrelevancy, and just don’t realize it yet.
Curtis Rasmussen| 3.23.10 @ 3:25PM
Well said.
harry| 3.23.10 @ 10:56AM
Good article.
The USA will always be a country divided. When have the lot of us agreed on anything? Even during WWII, people complained about FDR.
When some group gets an idea (i.e. global warming) they will find all kinds of "facts" to back up their position. And of course, the other side will find more facts to counter the other guys and so on.
There are so many different kinds of people out there and their agendas don't always mesh with the group they suppossedly support. On the bus to the Tea Party Rally last Sept., I wanted to distance myself from the rude, ignorant, name calling bullies who only seemed to be there because it was a place they could vent their dislike for the president. I know people who smoke pot and can't wait for the government to take care of them. But they want their guns and states rights, so call themselves conservatives.
What do we do about them?
It was a hard struggle, but I was finally able to turn some close friends around to realizing the truth of what the health care bill will do to our country's bank account. Their prior resistence was people like I just described. Conservatives need to be informed, truthful, respectful, and calm. More flies with sugar at the poles in Nov.
Scott| 3.23.10 @ 6:27PM
Well said sir. A country of 300 million+ is going to have views that are all over the board, anywhere from full scale communists, to full scale anarchists. The best argument conservatives can ever make is to be just what you said, "informed, truthful, respectful, and calm".
While constitutional principles are of the utmost imprortance, to win in the battle of ideas you MUST have solid, grounded, practical and acheivable public policy solutions.
While I oppose the HC bill because it doesn't adequately REFORM our health care system (still a reliance on employer-based insurance), I sometimes question the philosophy the GOP took during the last year.
By outright opposing any and all forms of the Dems proposals, we have be saddled with a bill that is much to the left of what was possible. The GOP could have greatly improved the bill and given the country a better end result if they had been willing to show at least some tacit support for something. The subsidies could have been lowered, the reliance of investment taxes would have been eliminated, the overall cost of the bill could have been made significantly lower.
Alas, by sticking to "principle" (which is fine when your impact is irrelevant), the American people now have a worse bill - the most liberal bill that could have passed Congress. For that, I'm dissapointed in the GOP leadership.
Troll Finder| 3.23.10 @ 8:53PM
Troll alert!
Balderdash! Slick way to try and get away with blaming the GOP for this travesty, but your BS isn't going to get past me.
Try it somewhere else, nimrod.
C.K.Amos| 3.23.10 @ 10:03PM
Bull puckies! Obama and his thugs/thugettes NEVER wanted bipartisan relationships--unless, that is, bipartisan meant that everything Obama and his crew offered would be accepted by the GOP, with or without their prostrating themselves before Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
Thank God, someone is attempting to stick to principle.
What America has with Obama and his administration, plus the Democrat-controlled Congress, is a rogue government lacking moral anchor, respect for the Constitution and, thus, the law.
Pingback| 3.23.10 @ 12:41PM
The American Spectator : And Not a Fear-Monger Among Them Staff links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Tony in Central PA| 3.23.10 @ 3:43PM
Great article, its best feature is that it points out the obvious : if this bill is everything everybody wanted, why did the Dem's keep its provisions such a secret ?
Louis Jenkins| 3.23.10 @ 4:44PM
The line is being etched in the sand, just like at the Alamo. We may not win, but it may just depend on how hard we want to fight. The liberal slime isn't fighting fairly, and if you're in one why should you? Why should we be polite? I have written and e-mailed the Demodopes until I'm blue in the face. Never again do I want a liberal acquaintence, or those arses in power, to speak in an ill manner about conversatives or conservative policy. They've been hurling off color names for years and demonizing my beliefs. Debate is useless. The will of the people (69%) were against this sham of a health care reform bill and those people refused to listen. I've often heard that the Devil is in the details, and that being the case there's a hundred Devils in this Godzilla of a bill. Their hands are so deep in my pockets and getting deeper that I've got a wedgie and my socks are getting tight. I'm angry and getting madder by the minute.
Jeff Perren | 3.23.10 @ 6:07PM
"avowed secularists"
Religious conservatives need to cut out this kind of crap. I have been an atheist my entire life. I fully support the ideals of the American founding, the Constitution, the values of self-responsibility, and many others that conservatives share.
I am an American who believes in individual freedom - including freedom of religion. Stop trying to insinuate that all secularists are socialists. There are literally millions of secular libertarians, conservatives, Objectivists, and philosophically un-self-categorized individuals who believe in freedom and individual rights.
Ronald Reagan did not pull that kind of nonsense and neither should you.
Scott| 3.23.10 @ 6:32PM
AMEN!! (pun intended)
There is a very large (and growing) contingent of secular libertarians in this country. Those that ALWAYS believe in the power of individual freedom - not just when it suits their 'moral code'.
The GOP has been completely stunted by this reliance on religious right, too many secularists turned off.
Troll Finder| 3.23.10 @ 8:59PM
Aha! You're doing it again.
The Religious Right, aye?
Slick try indeed! AS IF the GOP is stunted by Religious people. Ha! You lie!
The GOP needs MORE, not LESS Religious people who will stand on principle and guide it back to freedom loving policies just the way it was originally intended.
Secular libertarians that have your attitude are not wanted because you LIE about Religious people and with your codes of conduct will bring an anarchistic society.
No thank you.
speedstan| 3.24.10 @ 5:20AM
"Secular libertarians that have your attitude are not wanted because you LIE about Religious people and with your codes of conduct will bring an anarchistic society." - Not all of us LIE about religious people, nor do we have any animus towards people who attend church or hold strong religious beliefs. The conservative movement needs all the allies it can get right now, and the Randian/Objectivist/Libertarian types are a lot closer to the principles of our Founding Fathers than the mushy fair-weather RINOs a la McCain and his ilk...
Pingback| 3.23.10 @ 8:14PM
Public Speaking Extraordinaire Series | Zone Oxygen links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Blackwatch| 3.23.10 @ 8:47PM
Your "get in the game" strategy for the Reps and HCR is akin to holding the map for Thelma & Louise as they drive their car off the cliff.
Bankruptcy and/or civil war are what will finally repeal the allure of Progressivism. They can't help but over extend and control. Sooner or later they will pull the house down around themselves or they will bankrupt us. Maybe both at the same time?
C.K. Amos| 3.23.10 @ 10:07PM
"Bipartisanship is a shadow of its former self"? Shadow, my you-know-what. With abortionist Barack "We won!" Obama and his rogue regime, it died before it got a chance to be born.
Pingback| 3.24.10 @ 1:23AM
Theory of constraints consultant Causes Of Panic Attacks Pos | Panic Attack Symptoms, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Diamonds| 3.24.10 @ 1:28AM
We are faced with a true conflict of worldview.
Conservatives live life with the expectation that what is attained is obtained; responsibility and self-determination are expected traits while laziness, sloth, or entitlement are evils that pollute one’s moral code and lead to the disintegration of the wider society.
Liberals, on the other hand, seek social justice, want EVERYONE to have a chance at what is out there in our economy, and strive to imprint their idea of “how to live” on the rest of us.
The reason that either side can’t talk to each other, and why we have either “non-conservative” or “non-liberal” friends, is that conservatives and liberals have ENTIRELY different world views.
And the shame of it all is that we ALL love our county – USA – and mostly share the same values with those who voted for Obama or McCain.
We all need to get a grip!!
This is AMERICA! And we ALWAYS figure out how to make a more perfect union.
The passion, vitriol, anger, rage, hopelessness…it is all part of democracy!!!!!!
We engage, support, vote....REPEAT….REPEAT…
TRUE AMERICANS AND BELIEVERS IN FREEDOM AND LIBERTY TRUST THE PROCESS OF OUR REPUBLIC.
ELECTIONS…IT’S TIME TO GO TO WORK.
speedstan| 3.24.10 @ 5:23AM
"And the shame of it all is that we ALL love our county – USA – and mostly share the same values with those who voted for Obama or McCain." - Maybe the misguided old-school FRD types do, but I can assure you that the psychotic hard-left products of our public educational system and academia have been so throughly indoctrinated into the proto-Marxist world view that they have nothing but hatred for this country.
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