Blogs Aug 12, 2009 at 2:25 pm

Comments

1
Do you think these people read Paul Klugman?

This is what happens when people are set free from high school without demonstrating the ability to synthesis critical thought. I have to turn off the news because it's all just so depressing to know that people around the world are seeing just how bright much of this country is. If you oppose government proposals, fine - but base your opposition on facts and deliberation.

What happened to a great nation of innovation? When did so many become mindless sheep?
2
I kinda want to believe that particular sign was a joke.

Please?
3
Oh, no way that sign was made sincerely. The teabirthers are getting trolled.

Of course, I suppose the possibility that it WAS meant seriously exists, in which case I need to start drinking much more heavily.
4
you girls don't get it.
it's all about the show at this point.
scream, rant; act indignant.
there is no way to counter it-
you can't out 'lunatik' them,
reasoning is pointless.
it is exactly like 'Act Up'.
deal with it.
5
Me thinks that sign is a joke.
6
I think the guy with the sign reads Paul Krugman, I think he was having a little fun at the wackos' expense, and I think Eli's political naivete is showing.
7
um, sign was a joke. haha...makes this post soooooo sad and stupid. good try though. might consider taking off those crazy-glasses that make everything you observe evidence supporting your doctrinaire white house talking points.
8
@7 the joke echoes the basic truth that Krugman's anecdote evokes. People are having a totally overblown emotional reaction to the idea of the government running something, and aren't, in their one-track small-gov't minds, even stopping to consider that there's likely a massive benefit to be had from health-care reform that includes a public option.
9
Ronald Reagan's policies and "NEVER trust the government" rhetoric did a hell of a lot of damage to this country. He was all about the short-term fix at the expense of destroying the future.
10
and does anybody else find the "guv'mint' spelling (whether on purpose or not) a bit rude and crass "buckwheat speak"?
11
It is so much easier to stop things from being done than to do things.
12
God, what morons. Everyone knows it's spelling "gummint".
13
Wow, clearly the irony has been lost on all (or most). Of course it is not a serious sign. I mean, really.
14
Maybe it's time for Barack Obama to dust off Nixon's "silent majority" speech.
15
If these guys want love in the NW, they should put marijuana in coffee cans and burn it.

Have a real "tea" party.

Then citizens, local officials and law enforcement would strew rose petals on their path.

Obama would be writing up the Medal of Honor certs that day.
16
yeah, get a brain morans, dont you know god hates signs?
17
@ Fnarf - no, it's "gubmint", like something you use to freshen your breath.
18
@13, if it's not a serious sign, why does it exactly represent the view of half of the people attending the Town Hall in Texas quoted in the article? I'm guessing the sentiment is an extremely popular (if extremely stupid) one.
19
They should keep out anyone already on socialized health care.

Which would exclude all the Medicare and Medicaid people.

After all, they aren't paying into the system, they're taking out from it, so who cares what they think?
20
Medicare? Wildly successful? Other than the fact that its debits to credits is about, oh, 30-40 TRILLION (yes, with a T) dollars in the red. For the amount owed to those who have paid in, there will be a deficit of a bigger number than anything you have ever seen.

After all, your GOD Barack H. Obama described that even with a monopoly over certain services, the US Post Office, unlike UPS and FedEx, can not do a damn thing right. Which one of those is run by the Guvment?

I forgot, Obama declared that there will be cost savings, even though HE is going to add 47 million to the government-run policy. Cost savings come from one (or more) of the following-each of which HE has denied:
cut services/ration care
increase taxes on everyone (or just on those who are not on the government plan)
cut payment to doctors, nurses, hospitals (who will, in turn, reduce care because they have to keep the lights on and pay the malpractice insurance so that John Edwards can keep paying his hush money to his mistresses)....

National Socialism IS un-American.
21
Yay! A Nazi reference! We can all go home now.
22
Wait, you claim we think Obama is our God and you want us to keep reading your argument? Seriously?

The Nazis started out as small, grassrooted movements of angry people who wanted to "take back" their country. They gained clout with influential conservatives in Germany who hoped to use these angry mobs to do their bidding. It backfired on them, because once legitimized and subsidized, the mobs couldn't be controlled. The mobs wanted to cleanse their country and culture and return it to it's traditional values and former glory.

Hmmmm, doesn't sound like Obama to me....
23
A thought about "gummint is stoopit!" knee jerking by these folks:

If you had doubts or concerns about getting the Saigon government to stop dicking around and actually try to fight for their own survival -- C'MON, GET WITH THE PROGRAM! ROOT FOR OUR BOYS IN GREEN! Amurrica can do anything it sets its mind to! Roll up those sleeves! "Can Do" spirit! Gung ho!! We're not the Old World, we're the New World! We can do anything!

If you had doubts about making the Shia, Sunni, Kurds, and a smattering of Yazidis all get along and make a nice democracy after we invaded Iraq - DEFEATIST! Armchair psychologist! Amurrica can do anything it sets it mind to!!

Oh, then there was that time we built tens of thousands of tanks and planes in a just few years, and fought a world war on two fronts, and won, and then there was that time we put people on the moon, and brought them back alive, too. Oh, and that time we saved everybody's bacon by inventing the atom bomb by working smarter, faster, and funding the hell out of the project, getting there before Hitler's folks...

But a system of universal health insurance like every other industrialized nation has had for the longest time? Phlllblblbt... gubmint's STOOPIT! That would never work! Get real! Mush-headed dreamer!!
24
I was at the Everett Larsen town hall. My money is on that sign being fake, I think a healthy percentage of the attendees were gawkers expecting to find right wingers to ridicule over dinner. Not necessarily excluding myself. I was actually a little let down that it wasn't more of a circus.

My sense is that the Democrats love all the opposition looking like fools. When a really weak bill is passed later this year it will simultaneously look like a big victory for Obama & the Dems and be not too distasteful for insurance/pharma. We're all giving more credence to the nuts in their tricorner Paul Revere hats than we should. Congress can now say they had to compromise in the face of public opposition rather than passing actually progressive health care legislation. Really the problem is that Democrats aren't progressive, not that the right wing is throwing a monkey wrench in the narrative by getting all quivery-screamy voiced at town hall meetings.

Also the posters of Obama with the Hitler mustache are the products of the LaRouchies. As cultish and scary as the "We're almost a militia!" conservatives were in Everett, I wouldn't do them the disservice of attributing to them anything the LaRouchePAC puts out.
25
What nobody seems to "get" is that not only does the government already run a public healthcare option, BUT we're already paying an additional healthcare tax to cover the uninsured in the form of exorbitant costs for services. I laugh whenever I hear people complain that universal coverage would be too expensive, because they don't seem to understand WE'RE ALREADY PAYING FOR IT!! and worse, we're paying far more than we need to because the people without insurance don't get preventive care or see a doctor when they first get sick, so they get sicker before the finally seek care, which makes them need more advanced (and more $$) treatment than they would have otherwise. AND they often end up in the ER, which is by far the most expensive place to get care! Giving coverage to everyone would bring our costs DOWN by treating people before they get really sick, and treating them in the context of an office not an ER.
26
All you have to do is look to Masschussetts and see failure in requiring people to have insurance. Giving coverage to everyone does not neccessarily make costs go down-it has made costs rise in Massachusetts. Medical Loss Ratios are over 100% for some insurance companies. That means they are paying more in medical than they taking in, and that doesn't even count admin. Forget about making a profit (and what's so horrible about that, they employee a lot of people) they'll be lucky if they don't go bankrupt. If Medicare is so good, why does the govt let private insurers provide extra benefits, that Medicare doesn't cover. The answer is, it isn't great (overbloated with tons of fraud). A lof of doctors don't take Medicare because they pay so low --only about 20-30% of a bill. You can't survive on that. What about frivolous lawsuits? There needs to be tort reform in any reform bill, but Obama won't dare take money out of his supporter's mouths (trial lawyers). It's funny, people keep getting health care and health insurance confused. There is no health care issue, it is not a right, but everyone knows if they are sick, they will get treated. How many billions do we spend on illegals who get sick and on anchor babies. Obama continues to villify the hard workers and companies who employ these people, yet puts illegals and frankly the lazy on a pedestal. One by one he is going after every industry. I for one, can't wait for him to go after the bloated salaries of entertainers and sports figures. Obama is the most corrupt politician I have seen in a long time. He is the one who organizes ACORN/SEIU (paid volunteers what are they) and they wear shirts/hats and proclaim their stupidity (they know nothing but show up here for $10 and since they don't work anyway, it's a bonus). He then villifies his oppostion-The people at the town halls dissenting see how the govt is creeping more and more into our lives. I don't need an idiot like Barney Frank telling me how to live. He can't even figure his own life out. And speaking of Congress, they have PRIVATE insurance. If govt run healthcare is so great, why don't they use it. They know it's not. This is a joke. Just wait all you who work in other industries and hope the insurance companies fail, I can't wait til Obama goes after your livelihood. Then you'll know what it feels like. And anyone who works in the healthcare industry and voted Obama, you should be ashamed and the first ones in the unemployment line.

Please wait...

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