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Scott Lehigh from the Boston Globe takes a stab at assessing how the debate over health care has been demonized.
His essential argument is that this movement is just another part of the fringe conservative effort to find relevance. By enlisting the passions of wackos who have no clue what they are talking about - but somehow know that Obama is a Muslim or not a natural born citizen - he feels the conservatives are just blowing steam.
Well I'm sorry Scott, but your analysis couldn't be more wrong. (See Story) If you were writing about the pathetic "Tea Party" reenactments from a few months ago, you would be dead on. That most certainly was a scattered and ineffective attempt on the part of conservatives to rally the troops. And by listening to their own analysis, you would have thought it a resounding success. But it had no traction, made little sense, went nowhere, and has since died its rightful death.
What conservatives have in this debate however is much deeper and may very well quash this latest attempt to reform health care. The irony of course is that the reform will actually help all these idiots who are screaming against it. But that is the ongoing legacy of all this - the way in which conservatives and the wealthy elite have convinced people that their interests and those of the lower middle class are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth - and until Democrats better argue this point - they will continue to come up short with this group.
Yes, many of those doing the loudest shouting are extremists. But you fail to recognize that we have been here before. This argument is about more than just health care. It is about the conservative fable that any government program aimed at HELPING people is not only socialism, but FASCISM. The conservatives, as exemplified best by people like Glenn Beck, have twisted the meaning of fascism and have convinced many in America that government bodies (made up of well meaning civil servants) are somehow less desirable folks to set policy then what currently exists - the fascist rule of the power elite (Insurance Company lobbyists, executives, Wall Street Executives). It is insane that they can even still make this argument after Enron, the .com collapse, and this latest epic collapse of the housing market. Seriously, who do you trust more - all those business people who were so caught up in the greed of the market that they blatantly violated the public trust - or a President trying to make good on decades of evidence showing what just may help us all.
You also fail to realize that this debate has re-ignited (or made it ok to foster) the latent racism that has always been out there about Obama. Now I know my conservative friends will say this just isn't true. But come on. We fear what we don't know and we fear who is not like us. Who is more unlike and unfamiliar to many of those on the fringe, than an educated black man who just won the white house.
People, people, people. If only Scott Lehigh were correct. If only there weren't hundreds of thousands of people secretly (and often not so secretly) harboring the same views as the people he is calling out.
People - get a clue. The Glenn Becks of this world are not working in your best interest. They are fomenting hate. They believe in a radical individualism that would today be rallying against Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and thousands of other programs that help millions of Americans every day.
Join me and please spread the word. Health Care reform is not evil and the government is not always evil by default. And conservatives - you know this because of how much you love it when Republican administrations want to violate your civil rights for your own good.
If we don't start to turn the tide, these wackos will be the conservative heroes who helped to derail yet another attempt to reform health care.
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Agreed. There are crazy conservatives running around calling Obama a fascist or a socialist. However, you forget about the liberals who called Bush a fascist or a dictator throughout his presidency.
ReplyDeleteProtesters who marched against the Iraq War in 2003 (such as I) had a valid argument even though crazy people in the protest standing amongst them had pictures of Bush with a Hitler mustache. And today, conservatives have valid arguments regarding HOW we go about reforming health care even though there are racists in the crowd at some of these town halls.
Thanks for the comments. It's not so much that I "forgot" about Liberal extremists. For this particular post, I was actually countering the contention that opposition to Health Care reform was all coming from the extreme right. But I was most definitely saying that it is some of these extreme - and false - views that are influencing unwitting, uninformed folks in the middle.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Obama is no more a socialist than Bush was. That being said, Obama chooses to use Public Policy to assiste the underclass and those in need. Bush's actions after 9/11 were without question about consolidating more power under the executive to carry out a war against civil liberties and dissent. That, my friend, is closer to totalistarianism than Obama or any Democrat will ever come.