# What's the solution to the hysterical right's shadow government? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752 "2009-09-19T22:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/61 "2009-09-20T21:34:48Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > This really isn’t all that complicated. At this point, it’s really incumbent on you to explain why the malign interpretation is the more reasonable. I can see taking it wrong at first blush if you’re inclined to want to think ill of Kerry. But that second blush makes all the difference. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/62 "2009-09-20T22:19:30Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And more images from the civil left: [Bush death threat gallery](http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html). Let me know when you start seeing these kinds of death threats and fantasies over killing Obama. > > Even John Kerry got into the act. From Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct 2006: > > ``` > Maher : You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone. > Kerry : Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone . > > ``` > > Yeah, the left’s problem is that its discourse has just been too civil. Keep telling yourselves that. You realize that by digging up these isolated tu quoques that stand out mostly as exceptions to the norm, you’re only indicating your own unwillingness to engage this thread constructively? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/63 "2009-09-20T22:24:21Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > If I lie to win my point, I lessen my point. This is only true if someone exposes the lie. Which is the heart of my OP. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/64 "2009-09-20T22:26:52Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > This is only true if someone exposes the lie. Which is the heart of my OP. No. It’s true whether I’m found out or not. If I can’t sell my ideas truthfully, I’m selling something other than my ideas. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/65 "2009-09-20T22:33:26Z")
I’m sorry, jsgoddess, but that’s just not _real world_. You seem to be suggesting that if someone gets elected to office based on lies, then THEY’LL know they lied, and will probably lose sleep over it, and that’s good enough, karmically speaking. Sorry. Karma doesn’t cut it when lies help achieve power over others. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/66 "2009-09-20T22:36:07Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I’m sorry, jsgoddess, but that’s just not _real world_. You seem to be suggesting that if someone gets elected to office based on lies, then THEY’LL know they lied, and will probably lose sleep over it, and that’s good enough, karmically speaking. Sorry. Karma doesn’t cut it when lies help achieve power over others. I’m saying if you lie to combat liars you’re just a liar and not worth supporting. I don’t care what your (this is a general you) goals are or how noble they are or whatnot, if they require lies to sell, they are shitty. If fighting Limbaugh and Beck requires lies, it’s not worth it. To be clear, most of the lying is going on by Republicans. They don’t seem to have a problem with lying, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t trust them. We can’t lie and still expect to be trusted. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/67 "2009-09-20T22:38:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Let me know when you start seeing these kinds of death threats and fantasies over killing Obama. [Have you forgotten already?](http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Fruit-of-a-Poisoned-Tree.aspx) No, wait, you’re right, that wasn’t the same kind of death threat as the ones against Bush. This guy brought his gun along when he was making the threat, which is an obvious and clear sign that he wouldn’t have actually gone through with it-- I know that if I intended to kill the President, I sure wouldn’t bring a gun along. Oh, and it’s also obviously different because a lot of folks in politics and the media have been proclaiming this guy as a hero, so he obviously must be heroic, as opposed to the Bush-threateners, who almost everyone regarded as just plain nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/68 "2009-09-20T22:57:03Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > You realize that by digging up these isolated tu quoques that stand out mostly as exceptions to the norm, you’re only indicating your own unwillingness to engage this thread constructively? It wasn’t that isolated. I’m sorry, but hearing about how coarse the conversation has become now that you guys are in power, is pretty nauseating. Especially to those of us who spent the last 8 years on the receiving end of your ‘civil discourse’. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/69 "2009-09-20T23:04:21Z")
Somebody definitely needs a hug. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/70 "2009-09-20T23:51:01Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I’m saying if you lie to combat liars you’re just a liar and not worth supporting. I don’t care what your (this is a general you) goals are or how noble they are or whatnot, if they require lies to sell, they are shitty. > > If fighting Limbaugh and Beck requires lies, it’s not worth it. I don’t think there’s a single post in this thread that has suggested otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/71 "2009-09-21T00:03:18Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It wasn’t that isolated. I’m sorry, but hearing about how coarse the conversation has become now that you guys are in power, is pretty nauseating. Especially to those of us who spent the last 8 years on the receiving end of your ‘civil discourse’. Can you point out some coarseness in this discussion? At any rate, here’s one of the major differences as I see it: Although you can, as always, ALWAYS point out a few fringe individuals on either side, the “discourse” from the Democrat side, over the last eight years, was overall characterized by an attempt to highlight and document the actual truth. It’s by now pretty well established fact that most of the Democrat positions in re: Bush’s justifications for the war–which is at the heart of almost all of the objections to his administration–were in fact demonstrably correct. The opposition during his tenure, in other words, though it had some shrill voices in the chorus, was not built on lies but on truths that continue to be justified with each new revelation. While on the other hand, the rightwing hysterics that this thread is trying to address are willfully and explicitly distorting the truth, up to and including whole-cloth fabrication, more in order to sabotage the current administration for purely political reasons than to achieve any actual positive goal: their strategy seems to be, NOT “let’s build this house together,” but “let’s tear this house down so we can build our own without them.” Your isolated examples, Sam, serve more to prove the rule as exceptions than to prove any systemic similarity of process. In fact, even you do not highlight them as examples of Democrat skullduggery so much as defensive examples of how some individual Democrats took their political cues from Republicans: you only say there are Democrats who are just as bad, which only emphasizes the bad behavior of Republicans, and in no way mitigates it. You seem to suggest destructive politics is just as good as constructive politics, as long as there are individuals on each side who practice them. Bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/72 "2009-09-21T00:04:57Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I don’t think there’s a single post in this thread that has suggested otherwise. Then why did you say my comments weren’t “real world”? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/73 "2009-09-21T00:17:24Z")
I’ll restate, since I’m not being clear. You can’t beat the current crop of Republican pundits at their game because their game is dishonesty. What you can beat them at is improving people’s lives. And that’s the goal anyway. The point isn’t to have so-and-so elected; it’s to have such-and-such goals realized. So, ignore the wingnuts other than to point and laugh on occasion. They aren’t all-powerful. They’re just dudes. Work on fixing the issues that are giving them traction–right now that’s the economy. The left is winning. It might not always look like it, but it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/74 "2009-09-21T01:08:26Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Can you point out some coarseness in this discussion? Sure, I’d be glad to: > [@Der Trihs](#): > > The Democrats need to realize that the Republicans are not honorable; they are not a “loyal opposition”. They care nothing for the truth, nothing for civilized behavior, nothing for the welfare of the country. > … > Can you see, say, Polycarp lining me up against a wall and shooting me? Or even just tossing me into prison for being atheist? Me neither; but I can see most of the Right doing that quite cheerfully. > … > [Republicans] are bigoted, fanatical, and dishonorable. The Left needs to realize that the majority of the people on the Right are not rivals; not people who just disagree. They are enemies; people who actively wish harm upon those who disagree with them. > [@Tony](#): > > Time to punch back, take off the gloves, swing to kill. Bill Maher said Max Baucus needs to wake up in his bed with an internist’s head in his bed. Obviously hyperbole, but a good point I stand behind, namely: no more Mr Nice Guy > [@Der Trihs](#): > > The Right has acted like a bunch of lunatics and bigots for years ( mainly because most of them are ). > … > No we call them scumbags and racists and lunatics because they are. Then there was **jsgoddess** es attempt to be ‘reasonable’ and ‘understanding’ of the right wing point of view. She grants that they may actually believe the stuff they’re saying, because you know, some are stupid and ignorant, some are racist or xenophobic, and some are simply ‘desperate’. I guess you’re so used to hearing your fellow liberals talk this way that you no longer realize just how divisive and coarse it really is. That you would challenge me to find examples of coarse rhetoric in this thread is really telling. > [@](#): > > Although you can, as always, ALWAYS point out a few fringe individuals on either side, the “discourse” from the Democrat side, over the last eight years, was overall characterized by an attempt to highlight and document the actual truth. Absolute nonsense. Even if I grant you the Iraq war debate, have you ever seen a protest against the WTO? Ever seen an animal rights activist throw paint on someone wearing a fur coat? Anti-globalization protests are just as spittle-flecked as the Iraq war protests were. When right-wing commentators are asked to speak at colleges, they are often shouted down by lefties who hate them. Conservative campus clubs have had their offices vandalized and their handbills ripped down and their newsletters stolen. You want to believe that the outrageous behavior on the left is coming from a tiny handful of extremists, but that the same behavior on the right is indicative of the mindset of everyone opposed to Obama. I would suggest that you stop getting your protest updates and pictures from Daily Kos, and try reading the right side of the blogosphere for another perspective. Because I’ve read lots of first-hand reports from the various tea parties, and they look like pretty damned normal people to me. Here, read this report from [Matt Welch](http://www.reason.com/blog/show/136041.html) at Reason. Welch HATED Bush. He’s not a Republican. I think he may have voted for Obama - certainly several editors at Reason did. He went looking for the crazies, and found a few. But only a few. Lots of over-the-top rhetoric and the typical bumper-sticker sloganeering you see at every political rally, but not much else. > [@](#): > > It’s by now pretty well established fact that most of the Democrat positions in re: Bush’s justifications for the war–which is at the heart of almost all of the objections to his administration–were in fact demonstrably correct. The opposition during his tenure, in other words, though it had some shrill voices in the chorus, was not built on lies but on truths that continue to be justified with each new revelation. And like I said, I can point to equivalently bad behavior from the left on many subjects having nothing to do with the Iraq war. > [@](#): > > While on the other hand, the rightwing hysterics that this thread is trying to address are willfully and explicitly distorting the truth, up to and including whole-cloth fabrication, more in order to sabotage the current administration for purely political reasons than to achieve any actual positive goal: their strategy seems to be, NOT “let’s build this house together,” but “let’s tear this house down so we can build our own without them.” First of all, opposing the spread of government can be an end to itself. Why would you assume that reasonable behavior must include some expansion of government, and that we just need to compromise on how much it should be expanded? The historical role of conservatives and libertarians has been to try to stand up against the ever-growing maw of government and yell ‘stop!’. It’s a perfectly honorable position to take. Second, if you want to talk about lies, how about we start with Obama’s claim that government health care won’t add to the deficit, won’t affect anyone’s coverage that they currently have, and that there will be no rationing of care for the elderly? Next, we could all have a good hearty laugh at his claim that the system will be self-financing through the reduction of waste, fraud and abuse. He’s said this AFTER the CBO said that it would in fact require a trillion dollars of new revenue. The left has its own lies, and plenty of them. To me, it’s shocking how duplicitous Obama has been - how many promises he’s broken, how many outrageous claims he’s made. Remember the administration’s original claims for economic growth, which pretty much every economist outside of the White House thought was outrageous (and which in fact turned out to be outrageous)? The whole ‘green jobs’ charade is an attempt to mask a huge wealth transfer as a technological economy improvement. The guy who promised the most transparent administration ever is running the least transparent administration in my memory. I could go on. > [@](#): > > Your isolated examples, Sam, serve more to prove the rule as exceptions than to prove any systemic similarity of process. In fact, even you do not highlight them as examples of Democrat skullduggery so much as defensive examples of how some individual Democrats took their political cues from Republicans: you only say there are Democrats who are just as bad, which only emphasizes the bad behavior of Republicans, and in no way mitigates it. > > You seem to suggest destructive politics is just as good as constructive politics, as long as there are individuals on each side who practice them. > > Bullshit. I do not think destructive politics are good. I’ve been fighting on this board for a more civil tone for almost a decade now. And I never said anything about how they were ‘just as good’ as constructive politics. My whole point was to simply dispute the characterization of Republicans as being uniquely mean spirited and coarse, and that what they’ve engaged in is somehow more virulent than what the left has practiced. That’s the real bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/75 "2009-09-21T01:19:23Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Ever seen an animal rights activist throw paint on someone wearing a fur coat? 😕 What does this have to do with lefty politics? > [@](#): > > Second, if you want to talk about lies, how about we start with Obama’s claim that government health care won’t add to the deficit, won’t affect anyone’s coverage that they currently have, and that there will be no rationing of care for the elderly? Next, we could all have a good hearty laugh at his claim that the system will be self-financing through the reduction of waste, fraud and abuse. He’s said this AFTER the CBO said that it would in fact require a trillion dollars of new revenue. I have a difficult time understanding these concerns. As I’m sure you’re well aware, we already spend a significant amount more than any other country with far poorer outcomes. Is our government just too grossly incompetent or irretrievably corrupt to manage the job that every other western industrialized nation has managed to pull off? Do all those countries just win at politics and health care management over the USofA? Also, maybe you’ll clarify a point for me. Some of your posts sound as though you’re speaking as a Canadian, and some as an American. Purely for perspective, where do you live? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/76 "2009-09-21T02:32:25Z")
> [@detop](#): > > Here you go [Death of a president](http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/09/03/death-of-a-president-controversial-new-movie/) Well from the info on the IMDB it does not seem to be a ‘Call to Kill GWB’, which is what people are implying. It seems to address they way we respond to terrorism and how would the country react if the POTS was killed by an Islamic Terrorist. To me it seems on par with Bill Clinton ‘appearing in’ Contact. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/77 "2009-09-21T03:15:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I can’t imagine the apoplexy you guys would exhibit if some right-winger ran out of a crowd and hit Pelosi or Reid or Obama or Biden with a cream pie. You’d probably want him tried for treason. But when leftists do it to right-wing politicians, it’s the height of hilarity. Um, no, cream pies would be nice. Civilized, actually. It’s the attempt to drum up an assassination attempt on false premises that’s worrying. There are those on the left who’d consider that sort of thing. (I’m one of them, but I’m a former rightie, a fan of Machiavelli, & a student of revolutionary politics. I think more like Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter than most of the left does.) But most of the modern left are more about big grandiose shows of statement than about Machiavellian ruthlessness. Actually, so’s most of the right. > [@](#): > > How about maybe a human chain or two blocking Democratic offices? I can imagine how you’d react if right-wing protestors chained themselves to the offices of Democrats and had to be cut loose with bolt cutters and dragged away screaming. As a former Teen for Life, I gotta say, the Religious Right has done this kind of thing (the country clubbers are too hoity-toity to bother, they just buy elections) & things worked out all right. As long as it isn’t violent, it’s just annoying, & we can complain about it without having to flee the country. > [@](#): > > Then if you really want to get down and dirty, we can start talking about union violence. Perhaps you need reminding that there have been two serious issues of political violence so far this year, and both of them were perpetrated _against_ the right. Last week, a pro-life protester was shot dead. Last month, a bunch of goons from the SIEU beat a black conservative protester so badly they put him in a wheelchair. Apparently you haven’t heard of George Tiller, who was killed by an anti-abortion extremist. Or is political violence not political if only the killer is political? ---
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/78 "2009-09-21T03:37:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And let’s not forget that there were _actual_ attempts on Bush’s life. Some lunatic fired shots at the White House three weeks after Bush was inaugurated. A live hand grenade was thrown at Bush in Tbilisi, but didn’t go off because a scarf that had been wrapped around the handle to act as a delay didn’t come loose. Some guy crashed his small plane into the White House when Clinton was president. It was during Clinton’s presidency that the block of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed to vehicle traffic because of a gunman. So what? There are always crazy people out there who attempt to assassinate the president. Bush’s presidency was unremarkable in that respect. > [@](#): > > The guy who promised the most transparent administration ever is running the least transparent administration in my memory. This is a credibility killer right here. Administrations since Nixon have generally gotten less transparent rather than more, but it is hard to imagine an administration more inscrutable, more message-controlled, and more secret than that of [George W. Bush](http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/03/03/bushmemos/index.html) and [Dick Cheney](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1636435,00.html). Don’t accuse others of viewing things through partisan-colored glasses when you’re making your own bifocals yourself. What’s going on now with the perpetuation of hysterical fear and suspicion is just more of the same from the election. Remember the crazy lady during the McCain rally who said that Obama was a secret Muslim? The old canards that he was born in Kenya, went to a madrassa in Indonesia or hates white people (a la Reverend Wright) are still around. Glenn Beck has been active and direct in perpetuating the last one. Unfortunately, all of these lies are coming together to form a perfect storm of bullshit that is driving some people over the edge. They don’t trust anything he says or any economic package he proposes or even supports because to these people he’s already pretty much become the anti-Christ. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/79 "2009-09-21T03:38:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And more images from the civil left: [Bush death threat gallery](http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html). Let me know when you start seeing these kinds of death threats and fantasies over killing Obama. > > Even John Kerry got into the act. From Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct 2006: > > ``` > Maher : You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone. > Kerry : Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone . > > ``` > > Yeah, the left’s problem is that its discourse has just been too civil. Keep telling yourselves that. OK, Sam, thanks for the cites. And you have a point. But Bush got us into war. What has Barry O. done to deserve this noise? (And I think Kerry was probably speaking metaphorically. Clearly he hasn’t killed W.) What should we do? We need to build an actual progressive party in the USA. The reason so few people self-identify as progressives is that they don’t know it’s an option. We should run progressive candidates, split the Democrat vote, & force the Blue Dogs left in Congress to pick between us & the GOP. We can replace the present leadership if we make that an objective. We need a Dem leadership that is ideological & committed. I don’t want it to be DeLay-style, where we start dictating to lobbyists. I’m thinking more like Hitler (or a bit like Gingrich), where we shut down Congress until we have the leadership. Yes, I just Godwined the thread with an approving reference to Hitler. It’s that bad. ETA: Or I’m overreacting. I just read post 50. **jsgoddess** makes good points. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-solution-to-the-hysterical-rights-shadow-government/510752/80 "2009-09-21T04:19:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And then you go completely off the rails. Can you not possibly conceive of reasons to oppose government health care that aren’t rooted in racism, stupidity, or fear? If you can’t, then the problem is with you, and not with the opponents. Because there are lots of very valid reasons. Among them: > > - it will cost far too much, at a time when the government is up to its eyeballs in debt. The CBO says it will cost a trillion dollars over ten years. And previous government estimates of health care costs have been way off, and always on the low side. The government is funded by the country. Taxes in the USA are too low for a welfare state, & it is politically easier to raise taxes to pay for this than to abolish the welfare state. The least we should be doing if we’re simply being conservative is expand Medicaid. > [@](#): > > - it will be horribly mismanaged and wind up doing damage to a system that is on balance very good but which has flaws. The cure may be worse than the disease. > > - it will result in the government controlling your life to an unacceptable degree. > > - it takes away autonomy from individuals and states. Bullhockey. You have no real-world basis for assuming that mismanagement of a new entitlement program would be worse than the present regime. You have no familiarity with US bureaucracy nor with the present health regime. As for losing your autonomy to an unacceptable degree, if socialized health insurance is so unacceptable, why do so many accept it, including you? Why don’t you move to Montana if UHC is unacceptable? Clearly, you are not using “unacceptable” clearly, because you accept a system far more radical than what is being proposed here, simply by virtue of staying in Canada. If you love America so much, Sam, why don’t you move here? If you hate socialism so much, Sam, why do you stay? > [@](#): > > - it will be used as yet another way to redistribute wealth, as the beneficiaries will primarily be the ‘working poor’ and the people who pay for it will be primarily the rich. That may be fine with you, but there are many people who have philosophical problems with this, or have practical objections to pushing ever-more responsibility for financing everyone’s needs onto the ‘rich’. Who are these ‘rich’ in British-form scare quotes? We have real rich in this country, Sam, they could buy & sell you six times before breakfast. The cold, hard fact of the matter is that in a capitalist system, the rich–not the ‘rich,’ but the **real** rich are enriched by the labor of others. A little socialism is the price they pay for stability. > [@](#): > > - it will simply trade rationing through financial means for rationing by political dictate, which will cause a further polarization and coarsening debate as people have to inject political squabbles into more and more of their lives. And also cut costs. Which undermines your first objection. > [@](#): > > - it will kill innovation and reduce investment in health care through private research. The NIH is perfectly capable of being the main source of research funding. It’s really government action that drives public science anyway. I’ve pointed this out to you before. > [@](#): > > - it will be yet one more thing that takes responsibility away from individuals and turns it into a ‘right’, which has the effect of infantilizing the population and divorcing adults from the consequences of their actions. > > - it creates a moral hazard in that people may not care for themselves as well if they are divorced from the cost of poor decisions. These are the same argument. It’s an excuse, & it’s not even quite true. People are still going to be responsible for taking care of themselves in an active sense–they’re just going to be subsidized. Much like students in school, who have it paid for by others but are responsible for studying themselves. Public health is like public education. It doesn’t take away individual responsibility, it just subsidizes those who want to take care of themselves. > [@](#): > > I could go on. There are reasonable debates to be had over all of these issues. They are all worthy of at least a discussion. But that won’t happen if you insist on characterizing your opponents as racist dumb hillbillies who are afraid of progress. Of course they aren’t all quite like that. But I’m from southern Missouri, putz. You really want to tell me that racialist undereducated hillbillies aren’t at least part of the GOP base? Why don’t you come down here & meet my rightie friends? They’re not really bad guys, just a bit bamboozled. I used to try to listen to Limbaugh (another Missourian) & got sick of his content-free, brain-dead noise. That he has a base says something disturbing about my friends & neighbors, & that needs to be acknowledged, though it hurts. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Then there was **jsgoddess** es attempt to be ‘reasonable’ and ‘understanding’ of the right wing point of view. She grants that they may actually believe the stuff they’re saying, because you know, some are stupid and ignorant, some are racist or xenophobic, and some are simply ‘desperate’. > > I guess you’re so used to hearing your fellow liberals talk this way that you no longer realize just how divisive and coarse it really is. That you would challenge me to find examples of coarse rhetoric in this thread is really telling. Desperation is real for some of us, friend. Frankly, though, few people on the right are really that desperate. They make stupid signs as a lark, they march on DC as an outing. But lynches were outings once too. > [@](#): > > When right-wing commentators are asked to speak at colleges, they are often shouted down by lefties who hate them. Conservative campus clubs have had their offices vandalized and their handbills ripped down and their newsletters stolen. College kids do stupid things. Note that the establishment left does not do these things. But what if the right were Mussolini-esque? Would it be justified? > [@](#): > > Here, read this report from [Matt Welch](http://www.reason.com/blog/show/136041.html) at Reason. Welch HATED Bush. He’s not a Republican. I think he may have voted for Obama - certainly several editors at Reason did. He went looking for the crazies, and found a few. But only a few. Lots of over-the-top rhetoric and the typical bumper-sticker sloganeering you see at every political rally, but not much else. That seems plausible to me. When I was in the pro-life movement, I was embarrassed by some the things my fellow protestors would say or draw. When I became active in the Democratic Party, I learned to deal with Truthers gently. But in between, I left the GOP partly because the crazies & bigoted asses were taken seriously as leaders, & by, “crazies & bigoted asses,” I really mean one man–Limbaugh. > [@](#): > > First of all, opposing the spread of government can be an end to itself. Why would you assume that reasonable behavior must include some expansion of government, and that we just need to compromise on how much it should be expanded? The historical role of conservatives and libertarians has been to try to stand up against the ever-growing maw of government and yell ‘stop!’. It’s a perfectly honorable position to take. Not all conservatism is Goldwaterian. But it’s a position. You call it honorable, Eisenhower called it stupid. I think it’s a bit simplistic, apparently self-serving, & short-sighted. But in any case, why isn’t communitarianism (along, say, classically Judeo-Christian lines) also an honorable position to take? How do you expect us to respond to those who call our attempts to help them “creeping Stalinism”? > [@](#): > > Second, if you want to talk about lies, how about we start with Obama’s claim that government health care won’t add to the deficit, won’t affect anyone’s coverage that they currently have, and that there will be no rationing of care for the elderly? Next, we could all have a good hearty laugh at his claim that the system will be self-financing through the reduction of waste, fraud and abuse. He’s said this AFTER the CBO said that it would in fact require a trillion dollars of new revenue. A trillion over how many years, Sam? That’s not a one-year number, now is it? The Bush tax cuts are set to expire anyway, that’s the only way W could claim to be moving toward a balanced budget. That’s the source of the funds, Sam, the surpluses we should have been running. I know you’re foreign, but try to keep up. 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