A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
- William Shenstone
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich von Schiller
I can understand when an ideologue may have managed to convinced himself that something demonstrably true is unquestioned fact. Still, if one is going to lie about something, would it be too much to expect that one puts at least a modicum of effort, creativity, and originality to it?
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) clearly has a great deal invested in the narrative that last year’s Health Care Reform Act is an evil, nasty, job-killing abomination that will suck the life from the America we know and love. The reality, though, is that is just ain’t so…no matter how often he repeats The Big Lie.
Even worse, if Boehner thinks that citing articles from da Interweb is going to buttress his “argument”, he might just want to actually READ the article first. Even if he can’t be bothered to read the article…Jeebus, would it be too much to check the title of the article?
Really? “Job-crushing ObamaCare remains as unpopular as ever”?? That’s the best Speaker Boehner has to offer? Are he and his fellow Republicans are so deep into the pockets of the health care industry that they’re feel obligated to spout whatever propaganda they think will stick in order to keep the money flowing their way? Regardless of the truth…or lack of same?
(CNN) - One year after President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law, a new national poll indicates that attitudes toward the plan have not budged.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, on the one year anniversary of the signing of the law, a majority continue to oppose the measure, but some of the opposition is from Americans who think the law is not liberal enough.
Never mind the fact that no Republican, in Congress or out, has produced any credible evidence that HCR will kill jobs. There have been studies showing that some jobs will be eliminated due to effiency gains, but those studies also show that many other jobs will be created to replace any losses. To call HCR “job-killing” is both dishonest and just plain wrong…never mind the fact that “job-killing” has been part of Republican talking points for seemingly half of forever. The phrase “job-killing” has been invoked so often and in so many iterations as to render it completely without meaning.
IF you remain opposed to health care reform, that’s certainly your right. What you simply don’t have the right to do (without being called out) is to invoke arguments that substitute catch phrases, propaganda, and talking points for actual supportable evidence. HCR is now settled law; repealing it is something that should not be undertaken lightly, especially in light of the fact that once people learn what HCR actually does, support for the law increases tremendously. Knowledge, information, and truth are powerful things, no?
IF your argument is to replace HCR with something even more effective, efficient, and capable of providing quality, affordable health care to ALL Americans, I’m all ears. If you simply want to return to the “good old days” because you’re beholden to the health care industry, you don’t have a leg to stand on. HCR is, without a doubt, imperfect and flawed, primarily because of the ridiculous compromises made by the Obama Administration in an effort to appease Republicans. Much of the opposition to HCR came from Liberals like myself…not because we opposed the idea of reforming America’s Third World health care delivery “system”, but because we felt that reform without a single-payer system was no reform at all. Quality, affordable health care should be a human right, NOT available in direction proportion to the size of your bank account.
The Health Care Reform Act of 2010 isn’t perfect. In fact, I would argue that it’s largely composed of half-measures and compromises. Even so, it’s better than nothing, and it’s a step forward. Now Speaker Boehner proposes to drag us backwards by using lies, propaganda, and meaningless talking points to muddy the waters and sow fear and disinformation? THIS is principled leadership??
WE DESERVE BETTER.
