Socialism Inadequate; Comparisons to Hitler Start

Originally Posted By DAR

What saddens me is with both parties it's the kooks that are the one's to get all the attention. There a plenty there that are just concerned citizens who have a right to ask their representatives of what's going on. Certainly nothing wrong with that.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

Agreed DAR. In this modern day with the technologies to be available, it would be good to have an electronic forum where people can post their questions (and constructive concerns with solutions) and then for REPs and the government to produce an FAQ.

 

Originally Posted By TomSawyer

I think what bothers me the most is how it just seems to be about winning rather than about an actual attempt to find common ground. Instead of saying, "We think the market can produce better results without government interference, and that if we are going to help people buy insurance through tax incentives for individuals and businesses" we get "They are gonna make mawmaw eat a cyanide pill!"

It isn't a game. People's lives and property are on the line.

 

Originally Posted By plpeters70

I was listening to NPR yesterday, and they interviewed a woman who was involved in organizing a group to go protest and interrupt one of the town hall meetings. When the reporter asked her about people holding signs that compared Obama to Hitler, her response "Well, it's not as bad as what was said about Bush."

Apparently in crazy-conservative land two wrongs do make a right!

 

Originally Posted By mele

According to an aol poll I just saw, 59% of people *agree* with Palin that Obama's healthcare plan is "evil".

These idiots are winning the argument!

 

Originally Posted By TomSawyer

It's sad that they have to resort to lies and fear. And it's sad that this is what their base responds to.

 

Originally Posted By TomSawyer

This isn't about health care or insurance for the GOP. It's about trying to derail Obama. It's about making him look bad so they can gain a few seats in 2010. They are putting their own lust for power ahead of the families that need health insurance in some form.

Everything that is coming out of the right, from the shrill whines of their media figures to the birthers to their bald-faced lies about health care is all about taking down the president. The GOP used to be better than that.

 

Originally Posted By skinnerbox

<<It's sad that they have to resort to lies and fear. And it's sad that this is what their base responds to.>>

What's really sad to me, is how critical thinking in this country continues to disappear. None of these people, from the tin hat birthers to the town hall crazies, are using their innate ability to reason and think logically. This is what separates us from the other primates. But these individuals have the reasoning capacity of a toadstool.

Seriously, what the heck are these people using for brains? These loonies are steadfastly against "socialized medicine" but are terrified that the government will take over their Medicare. WTF???

If you're 65 or older in this country, you're automatically enrolled in Medicare, a government based health care program. It becomes your primary health care, even if you're still working and receiving benefits from your employer. Medicare mails out annual benefits brochures, even if you never see a doctor and have claims filed on your behalf. And these mailings are clearly published by the federal government!! You'd have to be a blind moonbat to not realize this!

How are these people able to survive day after day without walking into oncoming traffic or electrocuting themselves in their homes? How can anyone be on Medicare and not know it's a government run program?

I fear for my country because of stupidity this deep. I fear that these idiots will continue to march lock-step to the ballot box and continue voting against the middle class and everyone who isn't earning at least $500K each year. I fear that the days of being able to find and keep a modest job with modest benefits and decent enough income to pay for essentials and still save for retirement are gone forever. I fear that our consumer based economy with its service oriented labor sector is doomed with the permanent loss of manufacturing jobs and stagnating incomes, with no reversal in sight.

Our country was once great but all that is gone. Unless jobs return from overseas and employers stop eliminating benefits and laying off middle aged employees and keeping everyone's wages frozen, nothing will ever truly change. And with the tin hat crowd swallowing the corporate sponsored swill flowing from their GOP politicians and MSM personalities, that change won't happen in my lifetime. We'll have to wait for the over 65 crowd to slowly die off and be replaced with the younger generation who isn't as racist and homophobic and entrenched in the mythology of our grandparents.

I doubt I'll ever see this change in my lifetime, but I hope our country and the world will last long enough for younger generations to experience it.

 

Originally Posted By Darkbeer

Here are some interesting statistics...

<a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/canadian-percent-patients-2520605-medicine-institute" target="_blank">http://www.ocregister.com/arti...nstitute</a>

>>Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: "Maybe I should pick up smoking."

While that response would be highly irrational, the fact that America is even considering government medicine is equally wacky. The state guides healthcare for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.

Look what you're missing in the U.K.:

• Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain, the Vatican of single-payer medicine, breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.

• Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.

• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data show that the UK's 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America's. This may correspond to angioplasties, which were only 21.3 percent as common there as here.

• The UK's National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) just announced plans to cut its 60,000 annual steroid injections for severe back-pain sufferers to just 3,000. "The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients," Dr. Jonathan Richardson of Bradford Hospitals Trust told London's Daily Telegraph. "It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky, and has a 50 per cent failure rate."

Things don't look much better up north, under Canadian socialized medicine.

• Canada has one-third fewer doctors than the OECD average. "The doctor shortage is a direct result of government rationing, since provinces intervened to restrict class sizes in major Canadian medical schools in the 1990s," Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute scholar, told the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on June 24.

• "In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment," Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, a Canadian native, wrote in the July 2 Investor's Business Daily. "That's 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the (Fraser) Institute first started quantifying the problem."

• Such sloth includes a median 9.7-week wait for an MRI exam, 31.7 weeks to see a neurosurgeon, and 36.7 weeks to visit an orthopedic surgeon.

Thus, Canadian Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps wrote in her 2005 majority opinion in Chaoulli v. Quebec, "…this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care."

A public option is just the opening bid for eventual nationalization of American medicine. As House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told SinglepayerAction.Org on July 27: "The best way we're going to get single payer, the only way, is to have a public option to demonstrate its strength and its power."

President Obama seconds that emotion.

"I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately," Obama told a March 24, 2007 Service Employees International Union healthcare forum. "There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision (single payer) a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out."<<

And why won't the Democrats release the proposed bill so the public can read all the fine print? I thought we were going to have an Open form of government, Heck the President did state when he campaigned that he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.".

 

Originally Posted By Darkbeer

And talking about promises....

<a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/517/health-care-reform-public-sessions-C-SPAN/" target="_blank">http://www.politifact.com/trut...-C-SPAN/</a>

>>To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."<<

And of course, this never has happened...

>>So no, there haven't been any round-table negotiations on C-SPAN. And there are plenty of questions still to be answered. To our mind, one of the most important questions will be the details behind what's known as the public option, which Obama has said he supports. It could be like Medicare for everyone, or it could be just another nonprofit health insurance plan, or anywhere in between. The details here matter a great deal, but we don't know which type of public option is likely to emerge from Congress or what specific stipulations Obama might have for the public option.

Obama promised — repeatedly — an end to closed-door negotiations and complete openness for the health care talks. But he hasn't delivered. Instead of open talks of C-SPAN, we've gotten more of the same — talks behind closed doors at the White House and Congress. We might revisit this promise if there's a dramatic change, but we see nothing to indicate anything has changed. We rate this Promise Broken.<<

If we had the Open, Transparent Government that the President promised, and that this Health Care Bill was allowed to be inspected and commented on by all sides there would be less "angry" people.

Instead, the President is trying to push this bill through congress without anyone really knowing what is in it.....

No wonder people are upset!

 

Originally Posted By skinnerbox

DB still refuses to post the GLOBAL LIFE EXPECTANCY INDEX which is the TRUE measure of a nation's health care status. Time for another recipe.


EASY CHEESECAKE

<a href="http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/PrintRecipe?RID=1080&radio=1" target="_blank">http://www.kingarthurflour.com...&radio=1</a>


Crust

* 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs OR zwieback crumbs
* 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
* 1/3 cup (5 2/3 tablespoons) melted butter
* 1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling

* 2 cups (2 large packages) cream cheese, at room temperature
* 2 large eggs
* 2/3 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping

* 12 ounce bag frozen raspberries, a scant 3 cups
* 1 to 3 tablespoons sugar, to taste
* 1 to 2 tablespoons Pie Filling Enhancer; use 1 tablespoon for a looser sauce, 2 tablespoons for thicker
* pinch of ground cinnamon, optional

Crust

* 4 1/2 ounces graham cracker crumbs (or 5 ounces boxed graham cracker crumbs); OR 6 1/4 ounces zwieback crumbs
* 1 ounce confectioners' sugar
* 2 5/8 ounces melted butter
* 1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling

* 16 ounces (2 large packages) cream cheese, at room temperature
* 2 large eggs
* 5 3/8 ounces sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping

* 12 ounce bag frozen raspberries, a scant 3 cups
* 1/2 to 1 1/4 ounces sugar, to taste
* 3/8 to 3/4 ounce Pie Filling Enhancer; use the smaller amount for a looser sauce, the larger for a thicker sauce
* pinch of ground cinnamon, optional

Directions

1) Select a pie pan whose inside top dimension is at least 9", and whose height is at least 1 1/4". Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2) Make the crust by stirring together all of the crust ingredients, mixing till thoroughly combined.

3) Press the crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan.

4) Make the filling by mixing together all of the filling ingredients till smooth. Use a mixer set at low-medium speed. If your cream cheese is at room temperature, this will go fairly smoothly (pun intended). If the cream cheese is cold, it'll take much more mixing to create a smooth filling.

5) Set the pie pan onto a baking sheet, if desired; this makes it easier to transport in and out of the oven, and also protects the bottom of the crust from any potential scorching. Pour the filling into the crust.

6) Place the cheesecake in the oven. Bake it for 20 minutes, then add a crust shield; or shield the crust with strips of aluminum foil. Bake for an additional 10 minutes (for a total of about 30 minutes). An instant-read thermometer inserted into the crust 1" from the edge should read between 165°F and 170°F; the filling won't look entirely set in the center.

7) Remove the cheesecake from the oven, and set it on a rack to cool while you make the topping. Once the cake is cool, refrigerate it, covered, till you're ready to serve it.

8) To make the topping, place the frozen raspberries in a bowl to thaw. You can hasten the process with a quick trip through the microwave, but don't let the berries cook.

9) Add 1 tablespoon Pie Filling Enhancer, and stir till well combined. Is the topping as thick as you like? If not, stir in another tablespoon Pie Filling Enhancer.

10) Add 1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, to taste.

11) Stir in a pinch of ground cinnamon, if desired.

12) Spoon the topping over the cheesecake, and cut slices to serve. Alternatively, cut slices, and top each with a dollop of topping.

Yield: one 9" cheesecake, 8 to 10 servings.

Recipe summary

Hands-on time:
12 mins. to 18 mins.
Baking time:
30 mins. to 30 mins.
Total time:
1 hrs 42 mins. to 1 hrs 48 mins.
Yield:
9" cheesecake, 8 to 10 servings.

Tips from our bakers

* You'll need 9 to 10 whole graham crackers to make 1 1/2 cups of crumbs; there are 11 crackers in one paper sleeve.
* Don't have Pie Filling Enhancer? Stir raspberries with 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar, to taste. Alternatively, top the cheesecake with fresh raspberries and a shower of confectioners' sugar.

 

Originally Posted By TomSawyer

Obama told the congressional leaders what he wanted to see in the plan. He's letting them work out the details.

It isn't "Obama's plan". He knows that he has to let them work out the details, even though he told them what he wants to see. It's up to them to send him the package, though.

 

Originally Posted By Darkbeer

<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574334310398020486.html?mod=djemEditorialPage" target="_blank">http://online.wsj.com/article/...rialPage</a>

>>Mr. Kratovil is an attractive, polished, likable guy, but his seeming support for President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals and his vote for cap-and-trade legislation put him out of step with many constituents. “You don’t get it,” one told him after he argued that increasing government’s role in health care would be a good thing if only Congress crafts the legislation language properly. “We don’t want it. We don’t want your help.”

The audience erupted in huge applause when a retired naval chief petty officer brought up government-run health care on Indian reservations and at Veterans Administration hospitals and then asked, “Why would we want that?” The audience booed when Mr. Kratovil said he voted for cap-and-trade because he thought it would actually lower Marylanders’ electricity rates.

The meeting was contentious, though civilized. Those at the meeting politely allowed Mr. Kratovil to make his points before responding, and the audience applauded when he noted that he voted against various spending bills, including the president’s budget. Many questioners thanked him for having the courage to show up. <<

>>
But the discontent is neither faked nor staged by the GOP. At the Mardela Springs event I attended, the parking lot was filled with Maryland license plates, the speakers made references to local areas and events, and everyone of the several people I spoke with lived in the congressman’s district. They were just upset and worried that the reforms Democrats were bent on enacting would hurt the economy and their ability to get the health care they needed.

This crowd was probably far more representative of the national mood than Mrs. Pelosi realizes. Mardela Springs is about 100 miles from the nation’s capital, on a strip of land that sits between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Chesapeake Bay to the west. The district is filled with farms and is populated by farmers, mariners and retired beach bums. “We are not very political people. We are just ordinary people with ordinary concerns,” said Salisbury businessman Earl Nelson, who told me he voted for Mr. Kratovil. “But we are very concerned. I just hope he understands that.”

While playing the Christian in the lions’ den is nobody’s idea of a good time, Mr. Kratovil took his ordeal in stride. He knew that he didn’t change anyone’s mind about supporting ObamaCare or other items on the agenda in Washington, but he did gain a few grudging admirers merely for facing the onslaught. “Listening to constituents is a big part of my job,” Mr. Kratovil told me. “This is part of the democratic process.”

Of course, so are elections, and Mr. Kravotil and his colleagues face the voters again in 15 months. Just how long the anger from this summer of discontent will fester remains to be seen.<<

 

Originally Posted By Darkbeer

And from the Wall street Journal's Best of the Web from Friday, August 7th...

(Sorry, no link available)

>>Now, let us say that we disapprove, on both rhetorical and moral grounds, of comparisons between Obama and Hitler or ObamaCare and Nazism. (It should go without saying that such expression is fully protected by the First Amendment.) One should never in earnest liken a political opponent to the Nazis if that opponent does not practice or advocate genocide or totalitarianism.

To do so is a rhetorical error because it calls attention away from the speaker’s message and toward his lack of perspective. It is a moral error because of that lack of perspective. There may be plausible arguments that ObamaCare is evil in intent or would be evil in effect, but it is insane to equate it to the singular evil of Nazism. The easy recourse to Nazi analogies--far more common on the left than the right--debases the currency of moral outrage and can only diminish moral clarity.

So was Nancy Pelosi right? Not a chance.

Let’s review her words again: “I think they’re AstroTurf. You be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” Who carries swastikas? Nazis. Pelosi did not complain that the protesters were comparing ObamaCare to Nazism; she insinuated that they are Nazis.

The most charitable thing that can be said about the speaker’s comment is that it was no better than the speech she was criticizing. She likened her political opponents to Nazis, just as a handful of them had done to their opponents.

But it is one thing for a citizen to say vile things about an elected official, quite something else for an elected official to say vile things about a citizen. As speaker of the House, Pelosi is not only the representative of her San Francisco constituents but a leader of her party and the leader of a branch of the federal government.

It is despicable for someone in her position to liken private citizens to Nazis. Nancy Pelosi owes America an apology.<<

 

Originally Posted By Darkbeer

More from the WSJ's Best of the Web from 8/7...

>>New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighs in with strong support for the Democrats’ campaign to discredit voters who dissent from ObamaCare. Even by the standards of former Enron advisers, however, Krugman displays an astonishing lack of self-awareness:

>The driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.

And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.

Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.

Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.<


While offering no arguments in favor of ObamaCare, Krugman equates its opponents with birthers, and birthers with racists, thereby reducing dissent to “the racial fears of working-class whites.” If you buy this--a big if--then the merits of ObamaCare are irrelevant. It has to pass, lest the “angry white voter” prevail.

The case for ObamaCare is so weak, that is, that the only defense a Nobel Prize-winning economist can mount is a blatant appeal to racial and cultural fear.

We did find Krugman’s concluding paragraph heartening, though:

>If Mr. Obama can’t recapture some of the passion of 2008, can’t inspire his supporters to stand up and be heard, health care reform may well fail.<

If that happens, it will show that indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.<<

 

Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt

I just had a confrontation with two wingnuts in front of Whole Foods here in San Francisco (of all places) who were distributing propaganda about "Obama's 'Nazi' health care plan". I explained that when you pull the Hitler/Nazi card it implies that you're desperate and you've run out of arguments. Note that all of the materials being distributed had Obama's face on the cover and the word Nazi in the headline above his image. Folks, this is some scary behavior we're seeing here.

 

Originally Posted By skinnerbox

Hans, which one of the stores was it? I shop at WF Potrero Hill and sometimes the one at 4th and Harrison. Fortunately, the parking garage allows me to enter the store through a separate entrance.

I'm really shocked that the nutjobs are targeting Whole Foods customers. Desperation is right. What's next, Rainbow Grocery? Good luck with that one.

 

Originally Posted By skinnerbox

DB still refuses to post the GLOBAL LIFE EXPECTANCY INDEX.

(For those keeping score at home... United States ranks 42nd on the index. Absolutely shameful for such a wealthy nation as ours.)

 

Originally Posted By mele

Weird, I drove past Whole Foods the other day and there were people out there with signs about the healthcare plan, too. WTF?

 

Originally Posted By TomSawyer

They know the can't win with the truth so all they have is lies.

Obama's side isn't the one acting like fascists right now.