ETA: Matthew Continetti is married to Bill Krystol’s daughter. So he’s a conservative all right!
So when people mock conservatives for saying “get your government hands off my Medicare” they really mean Matthew Continetti’s valid argument that even though Medicare is a government program they don’t want politicians messing around with things and they like the status quo?
Nah.
It’s Liberal porn, pure and simple. It fits right into all the stereotypes you wish were true of conservatives. It hits all the right buttons too. Kind of like “green jobs”. It’s like Liberal catnip.
I am going to agree with Debaser on this, actually. It’s a stupid meme that fits people’s stereotypes and does not contribute to any sort of useful debate. We’d all be better off if we could stop the meme-ification of national politics, though I realize this is neither a new problem nor one that will stop any time soon.
Are you pulling my chain, or are you not paying attention? I linked to the Weekly Standard. There’s nothing about Slate anywhere in my posts or the links I provided.
In any case, I knew that your next lame retort would be to question whether the article was written by a conservative. Would you like a picture of his eyes to tell if he’s right wing enough for you? Would it suffice to inform you that he wrote a book entitled, “The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star”?
You asked for a cite showing that conservatives say, “Get government out of Medicare.” Your actual words were, “Do you have a cite for conservatives saying these things?”
I provided you a cite from a conservative columnist for a conservative magazine who said that conservatives say “keep government out of Medicare” (and in fact provided a specific incident where a Republican congressman responded to that comment at a town hall), and the writer goes on to explain that the people who say that don’t deserve to be laughed at.
Why don’t you just back off, and say we should end the hijack? Just like you did when literally everyone responded that you were wrong when you claimed that insurance is an investment?
The issue isn’t whether or not it’s meaningful (which Richard Parker already addressed). It’s whether or not it’s true. Debaser is absolutely correct that it’s irrelevant, but he continues to claim it isn’t true (despite mounds of evidence to the contrary), so apparently he doesn’t really believe that.
Clearly, there are reading comprehension problems going on here. “some” is not “many”, and the part about the claim coming up “in just about every thread on this board” isn’t even worth rebutting, it is so over the top.
I know. I googled him and posted a link to his Wiki page which mentions the book.
You seriously are making this argument? That when people mock conservatives for being dummys and saying they want the government to get it’s hands off of Medicare they actually are referring to the thoughtful and logical argument that Continetti made?
That’s laughable.
It’s Liberal porn. As MsWhatsit points out it’s not helpful to any debate. It’s basically an insult without any basis. You might as well just post “Conservatives are poopy-heads.” That’s about as constructive and grounded in reality.
That’s my point. I don’t expect all of you to get it.
If anyone thinks that food inspections for non-meat products are not important, I wonder if they remember a restaurant chain called Chi Chi’s? Although that specific example actually involved onions grown in Mexico, and thus not subject to FDA or USDA standards at the farm anyway, it illustrates the dangers of non-meat, food-borne illnesses.
Or, courtesy of Try 2 B:
If anyone thinks that food inspections for non-meat products are not important, remember the salmonella contaminated spinach last year? The contamination was detected by a Department of Agriculture test.
In other words, what could have made it clearer was some indication that you were illustrating only produce-borne illness, not a specific example in which government inspection would have helped.
Actually, Debaser, I get it – but I think you’d be better off acknowledging the simple fact that you got what you asked for, and then distinguishing it.
By denying that you asked for a cite and you got a cite that was precisely what you requested, you’re looking intransigent or worse.
Perhaps you’d fare better by agreeing that the cite says exactly what you asked for, and then pointing out that what you SHOULD have asked for in the first place was an example of a conservative saying that in a non-ironic, and non-nuanced way; the jab is thrown in an effort to show that conservatives don’t recognize Medicare is itself a creature of government and that’s not actually the case. So, “Show me a cite where a conservative says that in a context that actually shows ignorance of the fact that Medicare is government.”
Of course it’s hyperbolic to say literally every thread. But you can’t deny that this is a meme that is widespread on this board and elsewhere. Obama’s even repeated it himself. It’s amazing they were all talking about Matthew Continetti, isn’t it?
There’s that fallacy again: “The reason you don’t agree with me is because you don’t understand me”. It is totally possible that we agree with you because we understand what you are saying. BTW, would you mind sticking to just one argument? Either “Conservatives don’t say things like that”, or “They say it, but they mean something else”?
“Conservatives” in the general sense don’t say it. Maybe one idiot at one rally might have said it once or twice somewhere, I don’t know. But the idea that it’s a perspective that any serious number of conservatives have is just silly.
On the other hand, Matthew Continetti did make a valid point which was quite different than simply not understanding that government runs medicare. That’s plain to see by reading what he wrote. As Bricker points out, this is obviously not what people have in mind when they accuse conservatives of believing that government should take it’s hands off medicare due to ignorance.