Odd thing about this is that despite your attempt to pretend otherwise, in this thread you’re the guy who seized on Boehner’s remarks for a tu quoque, and I’m merely responding to your distortions.
But if you can misrepresent Boehner you can misrepresent yourself too - either you use that MO or you don’t.
Back the horse up, dude. Here’s how it went down:
Why would you choose this hill to die on? By flogging this dead horse, you’re embarrassing yourself and turning the thread away from a legit discussion of Democratic distortions. Do you really think anyone but you sees Boehner’s words as reasonable? Go back and look at them. Do you want cites to Politifact, to Factcheck?
You’re wrong on this. I wasn’t Tu Quoquing, and I wasn’t distorting anyone. The more you continue to insist otherwise, the more you distract from the thread’s focus on Democratic distortions. I laugh at you because, what a bizarre thing for a conservative to do, but at the same time, I recognize that it’s probably not a good thing to let continue.
A substandard policy for you might be the perfect policy for me.
You’re right, it’s not a tax. The ACA was written in a way that specifically made it not a “tax.” But it is a “fine” collected by the IRS, so it’s pseudo-tax.
And to the OP - No, lawmakers shouldn’t deceive the public in order to attempt to pass laws.
Swing and a miss. My point was that our two opinions, mine and the Speaker’s, do not carry equal weight.
Honestly, I’m rather astounded by the words you insist on putting into my mouth, and the emotions you are imputing upon me for, AFAICT, no reason whatsoever.
In any case: Factcheck lists Boehner’s claims under “False Euthanasia Claims”:
Politifact includes Boehner’s claim under its 2009 “Lie of the Year” umbrella [edit: they don’t comment specifically on his claim except to include it in the overall set of claims about government-sponsored or encouraged euthanasia and death panels; the commentary I quote below is about all the claims, not Boehner’s specifically):
They go on to mention other prominent Republicans who used language similar to Death Panels.
But by all means, defend these claims if you think it makes your side look better.
The other thing is that “death panels” isn’t the only lie told by the right about ACA: I can pull up plenty of other politifact and factcheck.org articles showing other lies. I mention this only to rebut claims that the truth is sufficient to persuade people that ACA is a bad idea: people who have staked their careers on such persuasion seem to rely heavily on lies to carry the load.
I understand your point. And my response is that this fact is irrelevant to the issue at hand. My prior post explained this more fully.
#5 is incorrect and a false dichotomy. All I said was that what Boehner said was not about death panels (and not factually incorrect), and contrary to your false claim that it was.
Whether what he said was a reasonable prediction is not beyond the scope of this discussion and not something I took a position on.
IOW, you’ve got nothing.
This “hill to die on” jive reflects your mindset, in which you’re fighting the good battle for your side. This is probably also what leads to your choice to tactics and lets you feel good about yourself despite your lack of integrity when such is helpful to your side.
For me, I’m just amusing myself here, and one discussion can be as good as another. Republican distortions, Democrat distortions, Left Hand of Dorkness distortions, they all have their points of interest.
No, the original “death panel” claim was about Section 1233 of H.R. 3200. Which, basically, allowed a Medicare patient to sit down with their doctor and discuss Living Wills and Advanced Directives every five years (sooner if their medical condition changed) and the doctor would be able to bill Medicare for that office visit. Without this change in the law doctors had the choice of trying to fit a two hour discussion into a thirty minute office visit of fraudulently bill Medicare for their time*. Boehner’s statement had everything to do with that.
Shortly after Betsy McCaughey embarrassed herself on The Daily Show (despite the numerous sticky bookmarks she had in her copy of “the law” she just couldn’t find the “death panel” section . . . even though Jon Stewart gave her all the time she wanted to find it (look it up, it should still be on The Daily Show site and YouTube)) the “death panels” morphed from a specific part of H.R. 3200 to some nebulous claim (panels to deny end-of-life care aimed at prolonging the lives of terminally ill patients) that no longer required any evidence at all.
*Most people have no clue just what they actually do want in a Living Will/Advanced Directive. “You can ‘jump start’ me at least once” sounds reasonable until you learn how often that results in very bad outcomes. Going over all of this can’t be done in a short time.
CMC fnord!
(my bold)
This doesn’t rebut the claim that the truth is sufficient to persuade people that the ACA is a bad idea. It doesn’t support that claim either. In other words, the truth could be sufficient to persuade people that the ACA is a bad idea, but in reality that’s not what happened so we don’t know. The fact that ‘death panels’ were used as a distortion, among other honest criticisms, does not necessarily mean that the truth would not be sufficient to persuade people that the ACA is a bad idea.
This “false claim” is backed up by numerous cites.
…right. Yep, that’s in other words. You got me.
[edit: I’ll point out that the bit that you think means “I got nothing” is the bit where, in an excess of caution about being honest, I clarified exactly what my cite did and did not do. The other cite I gave was significantly stronger; you chose not to respond to that one, which is interesting, especially from someone so terribly concerned about being forthright.]
Technically, you’re right. The claim, of course, is a ridiculous claim, and comes from a pernicious perspective, that one’s ideological opponents are either liars or simply misinformed, and that if everyone knew The Truth, everyone would agree with one’s own view. I first encountered this perspective from a diehard Maoist I knew when I was a teenager, and it sounds no better coming from ITR Champion than it did from him.
Technically you’re right–but if the truth was so self-evidently persuasive, one would predict that informed opponents of the law would not have resorted to falsehoods in order to attack it. The fact that many influential and informed opponents of the law did so strongly suggests that, even when folks understand the truth of the law, intelligent, good-hearted people can disagree on its wisdom–that knowing The Truth is not sufficient to turn everyone to ITR’s view.
Just 'cause I’m bored,
Now if you’re writing your Living Will/Advanced Directive who do you think is more likely to know about the value of CPR and whether you really do want it, you or your doctor?
CMC fnord!
In extreme, rare, dire situations where the public does not know what is good, or refuses to accept what’s good, and the government can only resort to deception to get the societal good passed, then I can see some justification for deceiving the public.
But I could easily see politicians abusing this philosophy and using deception for every situation.
The problem with this view is that the “government” is made up of members of the “public.” What’s really happening in your scenario is that the folks who make up the government disagree with the folks who don’t make up the government about what is good, but because they’ve got all the power, they force everyone else to accept their version of what’s good.
Now, if I were the government, that’d be okay, because frankly I’d be an awesome Supreme Dictator. But I don’t trust any of the rest of you schmuckos (term used in general, not for anyone in this thread specifically) to be a good Supreme Dictator, so I’m not down with you pushing your version of what’s Good over my version, using deception or other tools.
Not specifically related to the ACA, but this type of attitude I find in all circles.
I think there would be some portion of folks that would feel differently about the ACA had they known then what they know now. And that difference would go both ways. Just becuase many influential and informed opponents chose misleading tactics doesn’t suggest that these were required. It could have just been demagoguery. I think drawing conclusions about what would have been sufficient regarding presentation of information, at this stage, is more linked to ideology than anything else.
Agreed on all counts. My point was made snarkily. To review, I was responding to this:
That’s a ridiculous point, and it fails on many counts:
This last point, as you say, could be due to demagoguery. But it could also be due to their suspicion that people secretly would like the plan if they had an accurate picture of it. We don’t really know.
Where I think the administration went that extra mile to deceive was by claiming that those who said that you couldn’t actually keep your plan were “spreading disinformation”.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/
Normally, a political debate involves one side saying some stuff, and the other side rebutting that stuff. The Democrats wanted to pass ACA so badly that the normal rules of political debate were thrown out: opponents had to be discredited, not just rebutted. All criticism of the law would be labelled “Scaremongering”, whether it was true or false.
Coming from someone championing the crew that kept talking about “death panels” and similar stuff, my Irony Meter has just been destroyed.
Those who promoted ACA had no right to lie about their proposals. But pretending that only one side lied to get their way is ludicrous.
ENOUGH!
This continued dancing around your efforts to call each other a liar stops now.
= = =
Personal insults directed against other posters in a thread are also prohibited in Great Debates.
Knock it off.
Gruber is a liar and a con artist. Gruber met with the other Obamacare advisors, in the Whitehouse and elsewhere, to plan this ACA scam to fool the stupid voters (the voters stupid enough to support the Obamacare bill without knowing what was in it).
Gruber was also involved with creating the so-called Cadillac tax to punish large companies who might not otherwise succumb to WH and Democrat pressure. Gruber is scum and he’s been laughing at Democrats and Obama supporters for being too stupid to realize what he was actually doing.
Transparency for everyone unless they actually start asking questions.
So one has to be stupid to support Obamacare, is that it? :dubious: Many millions disagree, and more do so as they become aware from persona experience what it really is, not what Fox *tells *you it is.
If it sucks so bad, why d’ya s’pose the Dems worked so hard to enact it, huh?