Right-wing paranoid delusions: We are better than that.

From the Progressive Republican's article Nightmares
and Dreamscapes:
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In a conference room. Maybe seven or eight government employees in their late 30s-early 40s. They’re wearing suits from Ann Taylor, or Men’s Wearhouse sitting on one side of a conference table that looks like it came right out of the Office Depot catalog In one hand they’re holding cups of coffee, or cans of Diet Coke (or some other caffeinated drink - they’ve been working late the last couple of nights) , the other hand busily hammering the keyboards of their mid-tier laptop computers, jotting down notes, trying to capture what the lady on the side of the table is saying.

Across the table is a woman in her mid 60s. Her blouse and pants recently purchased from the local Wal-Mart, her shoes from Payless Shoes. She’s nervously playing with her purse handles as she shuffles her feet. She’s not sure how to answer this last question. She should have been prepared for this question. She was…until just this second.
“We’d all like to get out of here today, Ma’am, so please answer as best you can,” the Committee chair sighs as she asks the question for the third time, “When you the government no longer finds you insurable…” she pauses, not for effect, but because she still can’t believe she has to ask the question.
“…how do you want to die?”
Chilling isn’t it? Cold, bureaucratic evil, like a scene out of the film CONSPIRACY. If certain right wing celebrities are to be believed this won ‘t be that far from the truth should Barack Obama’s health care plan pass both House of Congress.

But they are not to be believed. This is a a nightmare scenario crafted by self-styled leaders of the Republican Party. This is the kind of thing that has to stop.


Let’s be honest: Obama’s Plan is a bad one. It’s costly beyond comprehension. It adds bureaucratic roadblocks to an already excessively bureaucratic process. And, despite all the costs, it only provides additional care for a small percentage of the nation’s uninsured.
It’s a bad plan with any number of weaknesses that Republicans can point to as reasons we should be vehemently against it. Is it necessary to make things up about it?

Who is helped by devising scenarios like the one described above? Does Sara Palin making up spooky stories about Obama’s DEATH PANEL, really add weight to the argument against the real plan?

Does comparing the health plan to Nazis [limbaugh-20090806-hitler.flv] like friend of the blog, Rush Limbaugh, has done?

No. This type of rhetoric serves only to cheapen the debate.

Yes, Democrats spent a large portion of President Bush’s Presidency engaging in these very same tactics. Whether it was calling the President a Nazi for the War in Iraq or shouting down Republican members of Congress, the extreme left showed their true colors by acting insane on the public stage in support of their various causes. We justifiably condemned them for that behavior. We don’t need to turn around use those same tactics.

Not when we have the facts on our side. House Republicans have made some very clear arguments why they are against the current bill :

…was unnecessarily rushed through the Committee without proper understanding or even a reading of the bill by Members;
The massive spending and tax increases will damage an already reeling economy;
Americans will lose coverage they have and like;
The bill gives the government control over Americans’ personal health decisions
Clear, cogent arguments from the men and women we have elected to represent us in Congress. This is what we should be basing our resistance on. Not the overblown rhetoric of extreme right-wing celebrities. We have more sense than that.
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I couldn't have said it better myself. People screaming "socialism!" "Nazis!" "Communism!" "Death Panels!" or other such nonsense are detrimental to the cause.

Stick to the facts: this plan sucks. We need a better one, not false and crazy accusations.