This is why I like Barney Frank

[smarriveurr]

On being asked why he supports "Obama's Nazi healthcare", he gives the answer we all know anyone asking that question deserves.

Click to view

[clip stolen from deathboy's journal]

Comments

[desh]

What I don't get is: Are these people full of hate and historically ignorant, or just full of hate? Is there some way that an uncharitable view of health reform is similar to a charitable view of the policies of Nazi Germany? Or are these idiots mixing up fascism and socialism?

[smarriveurr]

The former, IMHO. One could argue that if they honestly believe, despite all evidence, that there will be government panels to review whether people deserve health care, the parallel to Nazi medicine becomes vaguely apt...

But I think all that really sinks in to these people is "Nazis were supposed to be really bad + the people I dislike are really bad => the people I dislike are Nazis." This is how they can simultaneously claim that their opponents support communism, unchecked immigration, and fascism. It's also, of course, how you vote fascists into power, to fend off those communists

[desh]

Makes sense. Thanks.

Also, you have to check out this link.

[smarriveurr]

That about sums it all up. People have lost all connection beyond "I want to make my opponent look bad, so I reach for rhetoric". And the result is that we move closer to what we're supposedly despising. Of course, as mentioned, it's a bit hilarious to sit on the fringe of the right wing calling other people Nazis and fascists.

[femmetofarad]

"Your opinion is utterly ignorant and baseless, mine is based on fact and evidence, and you deserve no place in the national debate."

Let us not forget teaching both sides of the evolution "debate."

Alex Jones was on Fresh Air yesterday with a good talk about losing the news to propaganda (which is what he calls the willfully ignorant reporting). It's here if you didn't hear it.

Edit - html fail!

[smarriveurr]

*nod* I can't stand "intelligent design" supporters. And I know one, now, it seems. I'm sorry, your "theory" is based on people being too uninformed to understand the full ramifications, and poking occasional holes in what current science can provide.

Case in point: I remember when ID was all about the eye. The eye, they said, was "irreducably complex" or whatever bullshit term they used for "things we can't understand as having evolved." So a model was created showing the way an eye could evolve, with each step being an advantage over the last.

Don't hear about that much anymore, go figure. Now it's the butterfly. And nobody ever stops to go "Oh, hey, didn't your last argument fail spectacularly as science marched onward?"

Gah. I want to bash them over the head with Russell's Teapot.

[smarriveurr]

Wait, now I remember why this was nagging at me all day!

On NBC last night, local news, I think, covering the health care issue, they brought back a special feature they had trotted out during the election campaign last year. What special feature was this?

Fact Check.

I shit you not. Determining whether a politician's sound bite was pulled out of their ass is a comes-and-goes special feature on NBC's nightly news.