Or, to paraphrase: “Being right isn’t as important as making the other guy look wrong.”
Thread won.
I’d believe you if what people were “genuinely upset” about were anything besides lies about “socialism,” “death panels,” providing benefits to immigrants, and Obama’s religion and birthplace (among other lies and deceptions), not mention the hypocritical absence of all these upset feelings when the previous president was busy creating this fucking mess we’re in in the first place.
Assholes set up strawmen, some idiots believe it and get really upset, regardless of reality.
“YOU LIE” was itself a lie. Get it?
That might go too far. Was in an inappropriate, assholish and unhelpful thing to do, yes. Was Obama’s statement completely truthful? It depends how you look at it. I grant that it is very easy to build the argument that he was being truthful. I also believe there is much to the claim that he wasn’t telling the whole story. Would I have called it a “lie”, no. But as it is, because Wilson caused such a flap about this, congress did go back and make corrections, which does support the argument that Obama didn’t have it 100% correct. But that is really fodder for another thread. This has to do with ACORN. But I will also quickly address some of the other stuff you brought up, because it needs doing.
I know most people on these boards cannot fathom what is going on, but millions of people are genuinely upset with the spending that’s been going on in Washington, and the apparent unwillingness of our representatives to listen. Take immigration. A large majority of Americans do not want amnesty or any form of it, yet Bush tried to shove it through. Another example is earmarks. This has been an issue for years, people make great speeches about stopping it, and what happens, they keep showing up. Obama had the misfortune of having a Democratic congress pack them into a stimulus bill! That sucks for him, really. But a President gets both too much credit and too much blame for things. No news there.
People are also upset with the direction the government seems to be heading. For people to argue “we are not a socialist country” or “Obama is not trying to create a socialist country” is to argue against a straw man. Especially when you can just pull out a definition of the word and see that we are not that. But that doesn’t mean the accusation is completely without merit. WHY are people even spouting it. The answer is that they see decisions being made the move us closer to a socialist model, and they just use shorthand. It would do people well, especially our elected representatives, to understand that that is what is happening.
As far as why this all coming to a head now and not under Bush, well, people are generally pretty apathetic. We expect that the problems will be fixed without us pulling our eyes away from ESPN and Dancing with The Stars. But the anger had started. Bush’s bailouts and stimulus package did not sit well with many people. But we were told it was needed. But then there’s another, and packed with very little actual stimulus. People get angrier and angrier. The comes healthcare and the public option. People have every right to be concerned about this. After all, they’re going to have to live with it. And it is very likely that a public option will‚intentionally or not—end private insurance as we know it. Now, we can argue as to whether that is a good or bad thing, but it does move us toward a more socialistic model. Again, whether that is good or bad is a different discussion.
Also there’s the sheer amount of spending and deficits it creates. Bush gets a pass on some of his spending due to the war. One can argue whether or not we should have gone into Iraq until the cows come home. But the fact is that once the leadership decided we were going to go in, the checks had to be written. And war is one of those things that you can’t really fight on a budget. You guess, then adjust, and readjust. That’s not to say that Bush didn’t spend like the proverbial drunken sailor. and that, I think, is what stoked some of the embers.
For Obama to come into the situation he was left and spend tons more, gives people pause. They wonder, is Washington capable of ANY restraint. When a stimulus bill is filled with pork and a ton of non-stimiulatin items, and then we’re warned we might need another one, and then by the way, we’re going to totally revamp health care, or health insurance, which will cost even more money, well, you get the kind of reaction you’ve seen at the town halls and you saw in DC and many other towns yesterday.
I hope that helps.
words
I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think, that the protests and tea parties and constant smear attempts are simply honest Americans expressing their frustration at an administration run amok.
What we in reality land are seeing, though, is astroturfed corporate-fed PR events, designed to get the GOP back into the offices they so willingly raped over the last decade or so. And when they don’t get the numbers they want, they just make up attendance and pretend it’s a “mandate”.
It’s just sad that so many are falling for it.
I attended two Tea Party Rallies. As did some of my buddies. I am not a Republican, nor am I affiliated with any corporation. We each went on our own accord. I had no reason to suspect the other attendees were any different.
I think the fact that we are *not *Astroturf scares the living crap out of the socialists.
If you want to see Astroturf, attend a rally put on by liberals. They bus them in. And the unions are well represented.
Wow, it’s a good thing Wilson did what he did then, because there’s NO other system in place for addressing such issues. Someone should devise a set of oh I don’t know say “rules of order” to organize the way large bodies of people discuss complex topics, so this kind of disruptive bleating isn’t necessary. Until then, Wilson is obviously a hero.
correct, insightful words
TL,DR
To further this tangent a little, this is equivocation. If, to paraphrase what you said, there is a much stronger case that Obama’s statement is accurate, the inverse of that is not to call the statement a lie or Obama a liar. Lying requires a deliberate intent to mislead. Merely because there is a weak argument that Obama’s statement of the bill isn’t accurate does not automatically make it possible that he was lying. There has been no demonstration whatsoever that Obama had such intent; only mere assumption. And this assumption has been shouted from the rooftops (or aisles of Congress) from the same people comparing Obama to Hitler or 1933 Germany or communism. They and their apoplectic nonsense have no credibility whatsoever.
Dude, you just made me spray Diet Coke. You owe me a new monitor, ya bastard.
You don’t scare “the living crap” out of us- we don’t take you seriously at all. Oh, and we’re not “socialists”, either- the real socialists seem to take offense at you trying to paint us with *that *brush.
The only reason you went to the Tea Parties is because you bought into the whole “Liberals are socialists” advertising slogan*.
*copyright Fox News ™
Sooner or later, you’re gonna see two of them duking it out over whether Obama is Hitler or Obama is Lenin.
So, you guys who are so hot about this stuff, tell me something: do you thing this chaotic outpouring of sputtering rage represents some change, or is it the same bunch of people who got the living shit kicked out of them in the last elections? Because if its the same bunch of people who just lost, why should anyone care?
Because from here it looks like great pains are being taken to give the appearance of a tidal wave of revulsion from the people, when in reality its just the same 20% of the populace who are devout minions of the Troglodyte Right.
In which case, the correct response is a fart and a chuckle.
I notice the GOPers seem to be terribly interested things scaring us. Nay, terrifying us. We’re shaking in our boots that our plot to unseat democracy is threatened by people with signs. It’s cute. Like baby turtle cute.
In reality, all I’m scared of is people quoting our jokes and acting like they aren’t jokes, as a joke.
Like this:
Knew it was working. Kuh’hur!
Platitude overload. No response appropriate other than :rolleyes:.
Glad you think so. Personally, as I said, I thought it was an assholish thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have an upside.
Glad to be able to explain very obvious things to you.
[quote=“Camus, post:131, topic:509754”]
To further this tangent a little, this is equivocation. If, to paraphrase what you said, there is a much stronger case that Obama’s statement is accurate, the inverse of that is not to call the statement a lie or Obama a liar. Lying requires a deliberate intent to mislead. Merely because there is a weak argument that Obama’s statement of the bill isn’t accurate does not automatically make it possible that he was lying. There has been no demonstration whatsoever that Obama had such intent; only mere assumption…/QUOTE]
I agree with this. Which is why I said that I would *not *call it a lie.
Very good. And what are these?
Nah, I’d say it’s more like many of the people who are philosophically conservative and pro-democracy and pro-capitalism but who voted for Obama anyway because of Bush (and let’s not forget that despite the Iraq war, the economy, eight years of non-stop Bush-bashing in the news and entertainment media, and an extraordinarily weak candidate, Obama still won by only eight percentage points, hardly a landslide or mandate), and who’ve watched in disbelief as an arrogant Democratic Congress engaged in a wholesale pork-and-spending bill that dwarfs anything in the country’s history (followed by proclamations that another may be “necessary”), now see what is clearly an attempt by an out-of-control Democratic government to foist government health care upon us and open the door to greater government control over us in the future.
So now they see what happens when you abandon the party of your own philosophies and beliefs and support the opposition because you’re unhappy with this or that aspect of what your own guys have done. You give ammunition and support (not to mention encouragement) to people whose ideas of governance are at complete odds with your own.
The country does not want what Obama and Congress are attempting to do and it would not have voted Obama into office if it had known what he would do once he got there. To gloatingly believe that all this is just what the country overwhelmingly wants Obama to do, or that the country has suddenly and miraculously decided to embrace liberal politics is not only premature but laughably wrong.