Rep. Virginia Foxx: Health care reform is greater threat than terrorists

[BrainGlutton]

Story here. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/virginia-foxx-health-care_n_342583.html)

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. ... I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room -- this very room -- and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

Offered without comment.

[Euphonious Polemic]

Fear. Fearful. Be Frightened. People are afraid.

Terrorists. Health Care.


Is the entire Republican platform simply "OOOGAA BOOOGGAA!!!!" now?

[Jack Batty]

Funny how Democratic hyperbole (hello, Alan Grayson) is deemed beyond the pale while shit like this is SOP as Republican talking points ... with straight faces, mind you.

[silenus]

Haven't you heard? Winning two governorships yesterday means the Right is on the rebound! It was a stunning defeat for the forces of Socialism Liberalism and a nationwide rejection of Obama, his wife, his children, his friends and Kenyans in general.

[Gfactor]

Offered without comment.

These go in MPSIMS. Moved from The BBQ Pit.

Gfactor
Pit Moderator

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Not that I would expect any sort of dispassionate analysis on this, but there are two things that are worth noting:

1) The Republican argument that health insurance reform could end in disaster is not entirely incorrect. Though it is larded in absolutely absurd levels of hyperbole, this has the potential to be an extraordinary fiscal disaster if it fails. Given that we have never implemented a program of this magnitude or expense, it is indeed a considerable risk. Of course, the argument that it will be worse if we do nothing is reasonable as well. It remains to be seen. I'm of the mind that we should, and will, implement some sort of health insurance reform, but I still have some apprehension about it.

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001. In spite of the previous administration's penchant for describing every activity in terms of terrorist threats, that threat is nearly nonexistent. Therefore, she is right when she implies that the economic issue at hand is much more of a danger than any potential terrorist activity.

But hey, why think about it when you can offer something without comment?

[Bookkeeper]

This is clearly a shamefaced confession that the danger of a terrorist attack was grossly overstated by the previous administration!

[Jack Batty]

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001. In spite of the previous administration's penchant for describing every activity in terms of terrorist threats, that threat is nearly nonexistent. Therefore, she is right when she implies that the economic issue at hand is much more of a danger than any potential terrorist activity.


I sincerely doubt that was the theme that Ms. Foxx was going for. It's more like this:

You know what's bad? Terrorists.
You know what else is bad, besides Hitler? Health care reform.

[Euphonious Polemic]

I sincerely doubt that was the theme that Ms. Foxx was going for. It's more like this:

You know what's bad? Terrorists.
You know what else is bad, besides Hitler? Health care reform.

and

#3 OOOGAA BOOOGGAA!!!!

[Euphonious Polemic]

But hey, why think about it when you can offer something without comment?

As usual Airman Doors, you make some intelligent points. Economic decisions should be made carefully, and it's logical to be apprehensive about large programs that might entail risk. It's also true that terrorism in the US has been vastly overstated in the past.

Do you think that Rep. Virginia Foxx was making reasonable points like yours? Was she employing the device of hyperbole? No, she was merely shouting OOOGAA BOOOGGAA!!!! to frighten people into voting for her party.

[garygnu]

More Americans died in 2001 from not having health insurance than from the terrorist attacks. Where are the Republicans announcing that lack of health care results in greater loss of life than terrorism?

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Do you think that Rep. Virginia Foxx was making reasonable points like yours? Was she employing the device of hyperbole? No, she was merely shouting OOOGAA BOOOGGAA!!!! to frighten people into voting for her party.

I think that the vast majority of people who oppose this legislation have thought this through in this fashion and are being lumped in with bubbleheads like Virginia Foxx and vocal idiots like those you find at "Tea Parties". I think that the hyperbole that these people use are tapping into the concerns of well-reasoned people and co-opting them.

Did she mean it this way? Actually, I bet she did. As a general rule, people in Congress are not idiots (there are exceptions, of course). But as with any politician (or any other attention-seeker), put them in front of a camera and they act the fool. Hyperbole gets attention. Well-reasoned arguments do not.

[ElvisL1ves]

I sincerely doubt that was the theme that Ms. Foxx was going for. It's more like this:

You know what's bad? Terrorists.
You know what else is bad, besides Hitler? Health care reform.

And gun control, and buttsex.

[Euphonious Polemic]

Hyperbole gets attention. Well-reasoned arguments do not.

More's the pity. I think you just summed up the main problem with the political system as it stands.

[BrainGlutton]

Not that I would expect any sort of dispassionate analysis on this, but there are two things that are worth noting:

1) The Republican argument that health insurance reform could end in disaster is not entirely incorrect. Though it is larded in absolutely absurd levels of hyperbole, this has the potential to be an extraordinary fiscal disaster if it fails.

Perhaps, but, in most people's minds, and by no means irrationally, the risk of fiscal disaster is of a completely different kind than the risk posed by terrorists.

Given that we have never implemented a program of this magnitude or expense . . .

What about Social Security and Medicare?

[BrainGlutton]

As a general rule, people in Congress are not idiots (there are exceptions, of course).

Indeed. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=520775)

[Blalron]

Amazing how pundits and politicians are wringing their hands over 90 billion dollars a year and how we can't afford this extravagence (which amounts to about 0.7% of the national income of 14 trillion), but nobody (at least nobody in the mainstream) ever questions whether we need to 925 billion a year on military spending (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Emergency_and_supplemental_spending). It's apparently a sacred cow that can't be touched.

[Maus Magill]

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001. In spite of the previous administration's penchant for describing every activity in terms of terrorist threats, that threat is nearly nonexistent. Therefore, she is right when she implies that the economic issue at hand is much more of a danger than any potential terrorist activity.
Of course Cliff Clavin was right when he said that Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur were three people who had never been in his Kitchen.


Did she [Virginia Foxx] mean it this way? Actually, I bet she did. As a general rule, people in Congress are not idiots (there are exceptions, of course). But as with any politician (or any other attention-seeker), put them in front of a camera and they act the fool. Hyperbole gets attention. Well-reasoned arguments do not.
Actually, I would consider Rep. Foxx one of the exceptions. She really is not one of the sharpest spoons in the drawer. I think she was going for the scare tactic, pure and simple.

[garygnu]

That $925 billion can be appropriated to specific projects in particular states, and so creates/maintains jobs in a campaign-toutable way. That is in addition to the OOOOOGA BOOOGA 'Pubs can sell by claiming to be big on national security.
Once they figure out how to game a universal health care system to disproportionally benefit their constituents, GOP politicians will start to favor it.

[Long Time First Time]

.

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001. In spite of the previous administration's penchant for describing every activity in terms of terrorist threats, that threat is nearly nonexistent. Therefore, she is right when she implies that the economic issue at hand is much more of a danger than any potential terrorist activity.




Cough.....anthrax.....cough


Several people were killed, but the anthrax in letters thing has somehow sunk down the 'ole memory hole.

[Giles]

Cough.....anthrax.....cough


Several people were killed, but the anthrax in letters thing has somehow sunk down the 'ole memory hole.
In addition, the anthrax was successful in causing the federal government to put in place some very expensive mechanisms to screen mail coming in to various federal agencies. I don't know how much they cost, but I'd guess hundreds of millions of dollars. But this goes unnoticed, because it does not directly affect the general public.

[Hal Briston]

Is the entire Republican platform simply "OOOGAA BOOOGGAA!!!!" now?For the record, "OOOGAA BOOGAA!" is going to my new response to every rightard facebook posting I see.

[BrainGlutton]

Perhaps, but, in most people's minds, and by no means irrationally, the risk of fiscal disaster is of a completely different kind than the risk posed by terrorists.

Likewise, of course, both are very different from any threat to "freedom," which is what Foxx seems to think she is talking about.

[E-Sabbath]

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001. In spite of the previous administration's penchant for describing every activity in terms of terrorist threats, that threat is nearly nonexistent. Therefore, she is right when she implies that the economic issue at hand is much more of a danger than any potential terrorist activity.


Bull, we've had two recently I can think of. A: James von Brunn, US Holocaust Memorial Museum. B: Scott Roeder, murderer of George Tiller, Abortionist, in Church.

They just haven't been _muslim_ attacks. And we did, apparently, just avert a big one of those in NYC just now.

[Maus Magill]

This Editorial (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/story/1037798.html) sums up Rep. Foxx nicely.

[Gyrate]

Bull, we've had two recently I can think of. A: James von Brunn, US Holocaust Memorial Museum. B: Scott Roeder, murderer of George Tiller, Abortionist, in Church. B) is just straight-up murder - the intent was to kill a specific individual. Shooting up a public place certainly qualifies as terrorism, though.

[BigT]

Bull, we've had two recently I can think of. A: James von Brunn, US Holocaust Memorial Museum. B: Scott Roeder, murderer of George Tiller, Abortionist, in Church.

They just haven't been _muslim_ attacks. And we did, apparently, just avert a big one of those in NYC just now.

I assume he was referring to external terrorism, i.e. that coming from somewhere outside the States. Those would have happened no matter how much we spend on the military anti-terrorism efforts.

Though we do need to look into handling terrorism better at home.

[Maus Magill]

B) is just straight-up murder - the intent was to kill a specific individual. Shooting up a public place certainly qualifies as terrorism, though.

I would have to disagree. This was classic terrorism. It was politically motivated to cause fear to affect change.

Just because it wasn't massive doesn't make it not terrorism.

[DanBlather]

1) The Republican argument that health insurance reform could end in disaster is not entirely incorrect. Though it is larded in absolutely absurd levels of hyperbole, this has the potential to be an extraordinary fiscal disaster if it fails. Given that we have never implemented a program of this magnitude or expense, it is indeed a considerable risk. Maybe we should wait for another country to try it first and see if it can work. Even if there were just two or three countries to look at I'd be a lot more comfortable.

[Really Not All That Bright]

B) is just straight-up murder - the intent was to kill a specific individual. Shooting up a public place certainly qualifies as terrorism, though.
They shot him up in his church. I think that qualifies as a public place.

Anyway, there was a clear intent on the part of the murderer(s) to effect social change by scaring abortion providers out of the business. There's a reason they all have metal detectors at their office doors, you know.

[Larry Mudd]

Shooting up a public place certainly qualifies as terrorism, though.I'm curious to find out what the motivation for the shootings at Fort Hood (http://www.abcnews.go.com/m/screen?id=9007938) were.

[Really Not All That Bright]

I'm going with PTSD.

[BrainGlutton]

Just today from The Nation: (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/493400/ft_hood_drowns_out_the_tea_party)

In the end it [Thursday's "Tea Party" protest in DC against health-care reform] didn't matter--the shooting of 43 people at Ft. Hood in Texas by an Army major with an Arabic name drowned out the Tea Partiers and just about everything else.

The mass murder reminded us that, while Bachmann's flock were arguing hysterically about "death panels" and taxes to pay for "other peoples' health care" (as one Tea Partier complained to NBC), George Bush's two unfinished--and unfinishable--wars are taking an unimaginable toll on American soldiers and their families. Not to mention that those hopeless quagmires are siphoning off more money than this mild bill could ever cost, while destroying the morale of the last national institution, the military, with anywhere near the resources it needs to function.

<snip>

The massacre at Ft. Hood does put the threat posed by the cost of a poor person's colonoscopy to an insurance company's bottom line in a raking light. But the people who gave us the wars that just came home to Texas can't see the connection: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), for instance, warned us last week that, "we have more to fear from the potential of that [health care reform] bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country."

[rbroome]

Story here. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/virginia-foxx-health-care_n_342583.html)



Offered without comment.

shes right. For the Republicans. Obama proved terrorists don't have the draw they once did. But health care reform is big and new. So it can be made to sound scary. This makes HC reform more important to the republicans than terrorism. Can't think of a two similar issues that do the same thing for Democrats, but I am sure there are a couple. Same old Same old politics.

[Onomatopoeia]

Obama proved terrorists don't have the draw they once did. What?

[Really Not All That Bright]

I think he's saying Obama winning the election proves that people aren't that worried about terrorism, since the Democrats are "soft on terror" - not that Obama's a terrorist.

Well, I hope that's what he's saying.

[Argent Towers]

I can't trust anyone with a name containing back-to-back x-es.

[Robot Arm]

I can't trust anyone with a name containing back-to-back x-es.Exxon still loves us, right?



Right?

[This_Just_In...]

2) We have not had a successful terrorist action in the United States since September 11, 2001.

What would you call that little fiasco at some Texas military base I seem to recall hearing about on the news this past week?

Equating health care with terrorism is just as senseless as equating it with murder and rape. Terrorism is a crime. Or is Foxx really implying that health care is like the Taliban? Watch out - Obama bin Health Care is going to get you!

[Really Not All That Bright]

That little fiasco had not occurred when AD posted. Anyway, I'm not sure that really counts as a terrorist attack - the shooter was a Muslim, but he was an Army psychiatrist who was upset about being deployed to Iraq.

[Onomatopoeia]

That little fiasco had not occurred when AD posted. Anyway, I'm not sure that really counts as a terrorist attack - the shooter was a Muslim, but he was an Army psychiatrist who was upset about being deployed to Iraq.You'll never convince the loyal republican base of that. It doesn't matter to them whether or not the person was actually trying to instill terror. If he were a white Christian he'd be considered someone who simply snapped under the pressure of a seemingly imminent deployment, but he's Muslim, and the rules are different for him solely because of his ethnicity and religion. How's that for racism exemplified?

[LouisB]

And gun control, and buttsex.Gun control is too stupid to contemplate. Buttsex ain't so bad so long as the participants ain't married. It's that Gay Marriage that is the real threat to American Values and I think that Gay Marriage is a Terrorist / Republican plot designed to put fear into the hearts of right thinking Christian Americans.

[Revtim]

shes right. For the Republicans. Obama proved terrorists don't have the draw they once did. But health care reform is big and new. So it can be made to sound scary. This makes HC reform more important to the republicans than terrorism. Can't think of a two similar issues that do the same thing for Democrats, but I am sure there are a couple. Same old Same old politics.I came in to post pretty much this. If health care reform passes and works, that will be a HUGE threat to the GOP. A great boon to the American people, but that's a much, much lower priority to these people.

[lissener]

Of course Cliff Clavin was right when he said that Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur were three people who had never been in his Kitchen.
I know who these people are, but your meaning is too subtle for me.

[BrainGlutton]

I know who these people are, but your meaning is too subtle for me.

There was an episode of Cheers where Cliff (who is alway talking everybody's ears off with his knowledge of trivia) gets to be a contestant on Jeopardy. He is tearing up the boards until Final Jeopardy, when the answer/question is about what Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur have in common. Cliff bets all his winnings on the question/answer, "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?" Alex Trebek admits that is perfectly true but he can't give Cliff credit for it.