These People Are Becoming Violent and Scary

I'm hysterical then.



Which side has had to be prosecuted for acts of violence during protests? You talk a good game - but check your facts. Last summer, it was the left that committed crimes for prosecution. Last election day, it was the left that committed crimes for prosecution. Last president, it was the protesters on the left that committed crimes to be prosecuted. The tea parties and even the black guy carrying the assault rifle had no prosecutions. I'd say that your argument falls rather flat when you look at the facts from a legal stand point.... But you are quite right. Facts don't really matter to hysterical people like me.



And Stevester - I agree "Death Panels" are a bit silly, but which insurance company has the highest rate of coverage denial in America today? Please include Medicare in your research. You act like an intelligent man, yet I think you (like a righty) are too busy to do your own research.



... while you're doing a bit of research, check into which system of economics boldly declares (and has historically applied) the concept that those who are not producing more than they consume should forfeit their lives.



Class is dismissed – Like children at summer recess, you may all jump up and down and celebrate my withdrawal - I have no interested in teaching those who would prefer not to be taught and really don’t care how self righteous you are – party on and enjoy your pseudo intellectualism – because that’s exactly what this entire thread is.

So true the demagogues characterised by all right wing commentators, a la Hitler, prey on a common denominator. It doesn't matter about the facts, just keep teling the lie and the masses will believe it.



Death panels my ***. I never heard bigger bullshit in my life.

I think commenter Marriedtobf confirmed the “hysterical” accusation I charged most right-wingers with having.



The Left hated Bush, but we never brought assault weapons to any of his rallies to demonstrate that we wouldn’t be “intimidated” by his claims to have Imperial Powers that could not be limited by the Constitution.



(A point worth repeating: President Bush clearly and unequivocally proclaimed that during a time of “crisis” he, as President, could not be bound by the restraints of the Constitution or by ANY law foreign or domestic. Bush plainly declared himself to by above ANY law….and yet no liberal ever brought an assault rifle to any of his rallies in 8 years, did they? Obama was in office for less than 1 year, passed absolutely no legislation…and the right-wingers were so “enraged” by the “tyrant” Obama that they felt the need to display firearms in order to prove they weren’t intimidated by the power-crazed madman known as Obama. S’funny and revealing that this same hysterics had no problem when Bush declared himself so powerful that the Constitution of the United States could not lawfully be applied to him).



Is it fair to describe the right-wingers as hysterics?



Well, I think its revealing that Marriedtobf didn’t merely disagree with the Democratic approach to solving the healthcare problem, but insisted that the solution would be catastrophic! He was stocking piling silver(!) in order to buy goods and services once the Public Option totally destroys the entire country and collapses our currency. He is stockpiling firearms and food.



C’mon, seriously? As bad as Bush was no one on the Left believed that the entire country would collapse into a post-apycolpytic wasteland with hordes of cannibals feasting on a small band of survivors. Was Bush an *******? Yes. Were his policies idiotic? Yes. Did they make situations worse? Yes. Did anyone on the Left truly think it would lead to the complete and utter collapse of the United States? Nope.



The stark difference between the Left and the Right is that the Left debates the best way to solve problems and the Right views ANY solution other than the one they support as a death sentence. The Left can look at the current shape of the healthcare bill being hammered out by Dems and become frustrated at it because we don’t believe it will solve the fundamentally problems…the Right envisions mass graves, the collapse of the United States and our currency as well as roving bands of cannibals feasting on a few remaining Christians survivors who were not taken to heaven during the Rapture.



This is the kind of hysteria that separates the Left from the Right (imho) and why a healthy debate between the two camps is pointless. While the Left is debating the best solution to expand services and reduce unnecessary overhead, the Right is ranting about socialist takeovers, global climate change conspiracies, death panels, re-education camps and roving bands of post-apocalyptic cannibals.



How is a healthy debate on ideas possible when the Right is so hysterical with fear and overreaction?

I don't know what part of the country you live in but needing a gun to defend yourself against the ravening hordes sounds like downtown helmand. I think your use of Wal-Mart as any kind of model of economic efficiency is dubious. One of their lesser known business models is to pay staff such low wages they qualify for social payouts.

You guys are so CUTE! You're scared of right wing chatters! LOL A few civilized protests and you guys are wetting your pants with fear! The reason you are in fear is not because the right is a real threat - you are projecting the left's behavior onto the right. A thief is always the first to cry robbery when something is misplaced. You're afraid a righty will strap on some dynamite ... sadly ... maybe one or two maniacs will, but you stood fearless and proud when the left wing protests of a few years ago were hateful, violent, hurtful and disrespectful.



Health Care Reform isn't really capitalism vs. socialism thing. Your last commentator's bit about getting off of the economic gravy train is so ... interesting! :) I suppose you don't realize why the insurance companies were more ok with healthcare reform than the silent right. Shrug and giggle - Wal Mart trades margin for volume every single day! 30 million soon to be insured is volume dude! LOL at your economics degree.



But - I do tip my hat to you guys! The silent right has awoken and is beginning to grumble about insane economics. Since the folks on the right are usually quiet and go about their business being productive and making the profits the left needs for social equalities, they are not at all prepared to face down harsh criticism and certainly have no experience at all with being branded as trouble makers. If you shout hysteria loud enough - folks like me will shut up, buy some silver and let you socialists solve all our problems ... by implementing social and economic policies that will lead to the horrible standard of living, mistreatment and death of the very people you claim you have compassion for. Ask yourself, if your agenda fails, who will be the most hurt? Will it be those who are currently successful due to whatever reason or those who are currently most in need? That's the trouble with your hysteria - you refuse to examine the possibilities of failure, while capitalists, by their nature, consider worst case scenarios before investing.



There's no point arguing with you ... you are a socialist so all I can say is... Good Luck with that - I truly hope the worst case scenarios don't come to pass and your goals work out as well as your intention... but some of us feel that those who chose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it - and those of us who recognize the value of history will hunker down, buy our silver and feed our families when the stuff hits the fan. Unless of course you manage to convince everyone that my gun (in the hands of a truly mild mannered man) is a danger to you and you wrest it from me so that I won't be able to protect my family from the hungry mobs who would believe that we should all die together.

Too true leadership is more than good oratory.

The strength of the opposition is in the volume of their voice. the Dems are just awful at message delivery. Terrible. They stink! They need to communicate the courage and passion of their convictions! I was very worried about this during the Primaries. Clinton might have been a harder win for President, but once there, her constituency would have held her feet to the fire until the policies they love were enacted. Obama's constituency was all over the place, they wanted "change" but what? Not too sure of that. They loved the man, but had no real platform! Where is Howard Dean? He gave us our majority! Who's running the DNC now? Dean would have never let Massachusettes get away from us. Never in a million freakin years. Somebody get Dean in a position of authority again. You know, he wanted to just shelve the healthcare legislation and go back to the drawing board to get a public option. Maybe he'll get his wish. God save us from these Dem tide floaters! We need some more Captains to steer the ship!

Whilst you can say with some justification that Obama backed away from this issue in the face of the Republicans vicious rhetoric there is also the nature of the US process. it seems to me that the strength of the opposition is embedded in the process and compromise is inevitable. The UK has an opposition and also two houses but with a majority in the lower house the incumbent executive can pretty much do anything it wants. so although your guy has the title President and incorporates both executive and head of state powers the British Prime Minister has more executive power, assuming a majority in the lower house. I think Obama gave too much away to appease the Republicans. There was a small window of opportunity to face them done, but with the recent by election and loss of a Dem senator I think he now needs to move onto something else get a quick win and reestablish his popularity.

The simplest thing would be Medicare for everyone and to get the insurance companies out of the negotiations, but I'm pretty sure that isn't what the Republicans want! There are too many special interests helping to craft this bill. No wonder it is so long! I think we can achieve bipartisanship--bipartisan caving into the insurance and pharmaceutical companies!



Nice Guy, I second you. Obama is such a powerful orator. He became so hands off. Like "You kids just see if you can work things out." Once his invitation for bipartisanship was definitively turned down, he should have taken a stronger role.

We definitely need health care reform, but this 2,000 plus page night mare won't cut it. The American constitution only took 6 pages. I am hopeful that it will be worked out.

What is depressing about Obama Grfynn is that the bold intellectual Democrat that was going to take the fight straight to the Republicans....never showed up. He really displayed a failure of leadership on this issue.



At the time of the infamous "town hells" all the Dems were running scared. Fox news was spitting out crazy lies about Death Panels and how Grandma would be taken out and shot and people were going crazy.Where was Obama?



Nowhere to be seen.



Obama is one of the most masterful orators of our time and (at the time) of the most POPULAR Presidents in history. All he had to do was TALK to the people and DIRECTLY ADDRESS the lies Fox News and Michele Bachman was spitting out. He didn't.



All he had to do was personally outline what the current healthcare problems were, outline specifically why he thought a Public Option would best work to address those problems. He didn't.



So we had a situation where people were going insane and melting down inthe streets and bringing assualt rifles to town halls and the Dem politicans were scared out of their minds and looking for a little leadership and reassurance from Obama.Instead Obama just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, "You guys figure it out. I'm not saying a word until you guys come up with a bill. I'll be on the golf course if you need me."



So in the face of all the mob insanity, sadly, the Dems just lost their nerve and gave up.I truly believe if Obama had just STEPPED UP and became the "face" of the Public Option all the others would have rallyed around him. But he acted so distance and so hands-off during all the Town Hell madness that the others lost their nerve and gave up.

The Insurance Companies, whose investors get most of the money --along with drug corporations--from the so'called health care system we have are ever so bi'partisan....Money for actual health care for real people --is what's left after the Insurance companys and the Drug Corps take their cut LOL. Obama is just one man...what is refreshing about him, is, I believe, He is a decent, well intentioned human being.....No one with any brains ever expected him to be able to straighten out the mess created by the puppets of the corporations...Hope still exists in the hearts of many ---that well intentioned decent people will have some chance of survival in this War Mongering, Greed Oriented, Corporist--Brave New World.

Partisan? How much more partisan can you get than the Republican on this? NOT ONE Republican would vote with the Democrats on this issue... NOT ONE. In 1965 LBJ had some Republican who were willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, a national health care bill that would ensure coverage to the elderly might be a good idea.



But today? No. Today the Republicans are all too afraid of being tainted with ANY kind of cooperation with the Democrats -- too afraid that they will be targeted by the Right-Wing of their own party as RINOs and voted out in the next primary.



So, as far as the Republicans are concerned, to hell with the poor, the uninsured, the underinsured, ideological purity is more important.

Partisan? How exactly did the Dems get what they wanted? Obama was voted in because he promised a public option....but instead he caved into Republicans and gave them what THEY wanted (thus angering his base). That doesn't sound like the Dems forcing through a "secret deal" that is partisan, does it? Now if Obama and the Dems and forced through single-payer...you might have a point.



And which part of the deal bothers you the most?



Is it that people can no longer be denied healthcare on the basis of a pre-exsisting condition?



Is it that people can no longer be lose their coverage if they get sick and the insurance company decides they are too costly?



Don't get me wrong, I think Obama really, really dropped the ball on this and his attempts at appeasing Conservatives ruined any chance at real reform....but he did at least try to do a couple things right.



Do you think it's "bad" that people can no longer be denied based on pre-exsisting conditions?



Is writing into law that people shouldn't be denied insurance coverage because they were born with an illness a hyper-radical-ultra-Left-wing position straight out of Nazis Germany....or is that actually a good idea?



Granted a Public Option would be simpler, easier, provide more healthcare to more people and solve an innumerable amount of other problems...but so long as Obama is insisting on keeping private insurers in business (a hard Left ultra-liberal position?) refusing to allow these companies to ban people based on pre-existing conditions seems like a good idea, doesn't it?

America needs health care reform, but not the jumbled mess they've secretly worked out. It's a prime example of another of Obamas lies. He said no less than 8 times on the record that the health care reform would be worked out bi partisan and on C span. It has been partisan and cloak and dagger all the way since the onset.

So we "empower" people by handing over more power to private, totally unaccountable for-profit insurance industries?



There are literally millions of people filing for bankruptcy every year because the INSURANCE company (yes, they have insurance) only pays a fraction of their bill or nothing at all -- but the people who lost their homes PAID tens of thousands of dollars in premiums to these hucksters.



We empty out our wallets to Blue Cross and in return...all we get is a nice letter from them stating that they will be paying NOTHING on our latest hospital bill. Gee, what a great system! You get a better return on your incestment in Las Vegas! At least in Vegas there is a chance you might get something for your money.



Look at Frace. They have universal healthcare and you'll notice that there are not 50,000 citizens marching in the streets demanding that the government implement OUR system.



In fact, no industrialized nation on earth uses our system. None of them want to. The citizens revolt if their governments even suggest going to our system.



If socialized medicine is so horrible -- if people are literally dying by the thousands every day in Europe and they are building mass graves to accomodate all the dead bodies their evil socialist healthcare ystem created, as FOX News constantly tells us is happening -- why is it that NO ONE in France or elsewhere complains?



Probably because they LIKE their system and realize how ****** ours is in comparison.

The only violence at the town halls has been on the part of SEIU thugs, and those who want socialized medicine. I see some exaggeration here. Power to the people.

Well said, NiceGuy. If we had tackled healthcare reform years ago, we wouldn't have such a big problem to fix now. It works for those benefiting (at least now) the most from the current system, such as the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and those they contribute heavily to, to keep stating that it will cost too much and ignore the cost of not fixing our healthcare system. Our kids do deserve a better future. On that we can all agree.

Sometimes you have to spend a little money in order to get more money later.



Let's just grow up and realize that NO COUNTRY on earth (except maybe a few small nations like Finland) have a perfectly balanced budget and no debt.



Sorry, but healthcare reform is the best way to balance the budget in the LONG term.



Companies are going broke trying to pay health benefits...so they lay people off. Hmmm. If someone is laid off do they pay the same amount in taxes or less? Less, of course. And if that person is paying less taxes does government revenue to meet our current financial obligations (Iraq/Afghanistan/Etc) go up or down? It goes down.



If someone keeps there job, but goes bankrupt and loses their house because of medical bills....and then eventually lose their job because their HOMELESS...do they pay the same amount in taxes?



Nope.



So unemployment because of medical bills, once again, drives DOWN revenue going to the government and increases our national debt.



You have to stop taking such a simplistic look at our budget and acknowledge that a) almost no country on earth operates on a purely cash basis b) medical costs and medical bills are actually STARVING the government of money because unemployed/broke people don't pay any taxes and THAT is driving up the national debt far faster than reforming the system and creating a public option.



Again, since almost no country on earth operates on a purely cash/no debt financial model....let's stop pretending that our government is going to operate that way in the next 8 years.



And once we shatter the illusion that we can operate "debt free" then we can start making smarter choices.



And creating a public option to stop MILLIONS of people from going into bankruptcy seems like a good place to start.

niceguyinhell wrote:



"To pass very modest healthcare reforms that would expand coverage and lower costs."



=================================



What? Very Modest? Lower costs? I think you need to quit drinking the Kool Aid.



If everyone keeps arguing the Health Care issue as a Left v Right, Lib v Con, Dem v GOP debate, we will NEVER get it done.



The bill that passed the House, as well as the current bill before the Senate cannot possibly be paid for without MORE DEBT. Reid has even tried to do some creative accounting by not showing costs for 4 years. That means, 10 years of benefit, 6 years of paying for it. Do the Math - More Debt. Our kids deserve a better life than we have... not more debt. Debt got us all into the economic mess that we're in. Let's focus on getting OUT.



I am all for health care reform. I am not, however, for the current political agendas masquerading as health care reform.



Let's do it right... or not at all.

Thought you guys might enjoy this one:



http://www.experienceproject.com/uw.php?e...

There are -- they are coming out of the darkness they have been in... hoping that the economy does not recover... attacking insurance reform... defending torture... and now trying to blame the bad military situation on the current administration rather than on Shrub who effed it up in the first place.



There are plenty of unthinking reactionaries out there... attacking anything and everything they are told by Limbaugh and Beck to attack... rabid Brown Shirts who do not even TRY to think through their reptilian beliefs.



I'm not sure how we produced them here... but there are many more of them than we even think there are....

True, Obama is hardly a sociliast. He's barely a liberal!



But I suppose compared to the extreme right-wing hyper-authoritarianism of the Bush/Cheney Admin Obama might seem like a bomb-throwing Earth Firster in the eyes of the loyal Bush fanatics.



Waitaminute.



ARE there any Bush supporters left in America?

Completely absurd.

One of the few men I respect in Congress is Bernie Sanders. He's an independent from Vermont. Most of the time when people hear that a politician is an independent, it makes them think that they are somewhere between a democrat and republican. Not Bernie, he's independent because he's so far left that he considers himself a democratic socialist. Of course it goes without saying that he not only supports healthcare reform with a public option, he is a very vocal supporter of a single payer system.



Why can't we have more people like him in Congress? There is no liberal party, I'm forced to support Democrats, who all too often turn out to be like the 'Blue dogs' who are democrat-in-name-only.



These idiots think Obama is a socialist? He's barely liberal! He's a smooth talking left-leaning Christian pragmatist. If he was liberal, we'd have a single payer healthcare system, don't ask don't tell would be history, we'd be out of Iraq and Afghanistan, gay marriage would be legal, pot would be legal... the list of his failings at being a liberal goes on and on, and yet the right thinks he's this massive commie socialist.



It's absurd.

Good article

Looks like a great article, Alex. I am printing it out right now. We need to be addressing the right's arguments.

We need to be more vocal, and our democratic representatives need to get with it and be vocal. It shouldn't just be Barney Frank and the Speaker.

yep yep yep

I agree. Completely. I just keep wondering why the rable rousers are allowed to go unchallenged except from the speaker. But..that's just me...I know I know...when you politely remnd them they have no class and less brains they get the attentin they so depserately crave..yadda yadda. BUT.... isn't it time for all us "hippy, commie, pinko, ****, workers of the world unite!!" (RIP George Carlin...a man badly needed now)