Quote:
Originally Posted by obijon80  I can't figure out if you're inferring that people who oppose more nationalized health care are racists, or if you're equating nationalized health care with desegregation; or both. Either way, your cleverness is stifling.
I think this is going to be my last post on this website. This kind of warped logic is disturbing and I'm just tired of seeing it; it's been all too common lately and it's boring. You're boring. Although I suppose it's my fault for venturing in here after seeing so much utter nonsense in the past. So, I'm going to exercise my right to get the hell outta here. Consider this camel's back to be finally broken. Have a good one. |
Lord forbid I stifle someone with "cleverness." Same goes for how utterly boring I am, Quagmire. During a break from an Oil & Gas CLE I came across the picture. Found it, posted it here for purposes of discourse. Disagree with my posting of the picture? Fine. Ignore the thread.
Hell, there was NO CAPTION to the picture, and not a word of text in the original post. Where you are imputing "warped logic" is clearly a faulty assumption on your own part.
(Although: Calling "race mixing" communism in one instance and then, 40-some-odd years later, protesters of the same political stripe using the same vocabulary to fight against health care reform
is telling. Of what is another thread, and the demise of another weak-backed camel.)
For the rest:
No; tea party protesters are not automatic racists. Not the point. No; all protesters and protests are not the same.
The point is that damn-near EVERY BIT of meaningful change has come about over and through such protestation as we're seeing now from Conservatives. Sure, definitionally there is to be expected some resistance to PROGRESS...hence the term conservative. I get that. But...
Slavery. The New Deal. Voting equality. Repeal of the poll tax. Civil rights. Integrated schools. Women's rights.
And now: Gay marriage. Health care.
It seems as though any time we're talking about domestic change that stands to actually better lives and improve the communities nearest to us, Conservatives protest loud and hard...yet not one of those sign-holding tea partiers bats an eyelash when another appropriations request comes down for $50BN (or more) for rebuilding Iraq -- a country whose new US-sponsored constitution spells out the terms of guaranteed healthcare for all Iraqis (Art. 31).
Interpret the picture as you choose...or dismiss it entirely. I promise: You won't break my heart if you ignore the thread, no need to threaten to leave the forum foreversies or jump from that ledge ("I'll do it this time! Honest!").
The picture just made me wonder how many modern-day Republican see the stark difference in
what the two parties protest. In 2003, Liberals protested spending tax payer dollars to
make war and kill others in a unilateral war since proven to be based on false pretenses. Now, the current version of the most "conservative" Republicans are protesting
national healthcare that would, at worst, cost a drop in the bucket of taxpayer money as compared to Oceania's war in Eurasia to help improve a catastrophically broken health care system. Want to protest the government's reckless spending of taxpayer dollars? Sounds great. Problem is, those "Rallies for America" back then (Glenn Beck again!) were promoting the very wars that have siphoned off the funds so desperately needed to fix the growing problems here in the US. Where have the
real conservatives gone?
So there's that picture. It was unsettling to me from the moment I saw it. Very unsettling. It was unsettling to see the fervor and intensity of protesters who are fighting against the creation of a system that
can set the world standard for health care
if done correctly. This should be a true bipartisan effort; this is NOT the issue to hope President Obama or the Dems screw up on. Jason pegged it right on: It's stirring up the same nationalistic fears from a bag of tricks that ought not work any longer. It's fearmongering, plain and simple. It's putting a forked tail and sickle on what seems to be a genuine chance at reform.
In my book, it's worthy of that same "bs" emoticon to see the "Obama is a socialist!" signs held high and proud by protesters who have never, not once set foot outside the "'merica" they just know to be the greatest and best at all things, beyond discussion. Set aside for a moment just how confusing it is just how the President can be a nazi, an Islamofacist sympathizer, a communist, an anti-christ, and a closet atheist--all at once. I've been sick in Germany--I lived there. I've used a German emergency room. It was UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE how smooth and inexpensive it was. I've had tonsillitis in Costa Rica. Emergency room. Same experience. Yes, upfront taxes are higher. You know what? We are
already paying a ridiculous amount for health care (not to mention all the sales, use, excise, and other taxes). Factor in what you're paying now, and my guess is a substantial net GAIN with an expanded national health care. Where exactly does it say that we have to have so comparatively crappy a health care system in order to preserve that myopic vision of "'merica"?
Because you know what: We can likely all agree that what we have now--Nixon's implementation of plan designed ONLY to increase provider profits--ain't workin' anymore, if it ever did. Instead of conservative obstructionism and protests, why not JOIN THE PROCESS and craft a piece of legislation that builds upon the working systems already out there, and adds that 'merican touch. Hell, the right should be saying, "We need this bill...but it has to be fiscally responsible." Set realistic targets, limits, and publicly shame Congresscritters from either side that try to slip garbage in the bill. You know...actually being conservative on an issue that could benefit from informed constituents demanding actual fiscal restraint. I'd love to see that.
Unfortunately, that's
not what I have been seeing. Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I'm just not seeing the whole picture. Maybe I'm getting too caught up with the communism garbage and the scores of prejudicial message hijacking with all the "Send him back to Africa!" and the "Lyin' Kenyan" posters, and I'm failing to see the more subtle, politically savvy messages that are coming from the right. Maybe
obi had a "clever" point of his own that, but for my
boring posting a single picture, we would have all benefited to hear. Maybe there is no historical connection in the conservative protests I mentioned. Maybe the Red demon-of-choice choice for each group of protesters is coincidental. Maybe these events are separate, distinct, and absolutely removed from each other instance such that any comparison necessarily requires the application of "warped logic".
I'm skeptical, but who knows.
What I do know is that the viewpoint from outside the teaparty is one that makes the loudest of the fringe, the hagiographical Glenn Beck crowd, seem like they are espousing the viewpoints of the majority of the right. That, my friends, could only lead to further defection and conservative party fragmentation.
(Pardon these tears...I just love this forum...so...much. -Sniff-)
And that's why that picture caught my eye.
/"warped logic and cleverness" of a fiscal conservative and social realist