Reality Unwound

THANK YOU ! ! ! I continue to be amazed — no — a better word would be AGHAST at what is going on in Washington — and I keep wondering: could there really??? be THAT many blind worshippers of a dishonest, repeatedly caught lying, socialist president who has quadrupled every criticism they ever had about Bush? seriously???

And they call US extremists!!

I really don’t even know where to start with this one. I wouldn’t have thought even you would attempt to defend the crazies who have been organized to run around yelling and disrupting these meetings but… once again I have underestimated you.
Issue 1: Its hardly a fringe idea to say that a group of people running around disrupting meetings of people who really want to discuss some issues, get some answers and find solutions is an angry mob. These people arent ones who become “frustated” at congressmen dodging questions as you describe, but are organized groups who show up at these meetings ONLY to disrupt them. Hence “angry mob” I like that you add a clip of a semi non-angry mob and compare it to what Chris Matthews was reporting. It’s like showing a clip about pit bull attacks and then showing a clip of a group of other pit bulls and saying “see, they’re not angry”
Issue 2: The misinformation being passed around the conservative world. You probably havent noticed because your a big proponent of this practice, but there is a ton of misinformation being passed around as fact in this healthcare debate. You posted a blog saying that private insurers wouldn’t be able to write new coverage after the bill passed which was completely made up. You have been arguing against “UNIVERSAL” healthcare like the have in Canada and the UK for months and nothing like that has been proposed. There have been claims that the plan includes forcing seniors to plan thier death and that healthcare will somehow be rationed under the program. In an effort to fight all this misinformation, the White House set up a place for people to send these e-mails and get answers to thier questions. It’s funny how it says exactly that in the quote you use, but then you translate it into the “anything against the party line” thing. You said that.. just made it up out of thin air and it becomes fact somehow.
Issue 3: The IP adress thing is from a completely different program and the nut job red state website says we should be afraid because the “government” did a study on broadband coverage which included individual IP adresses, and so if now they have people sending them the crazy chain emails then now they can put the two together and… holy crap this is the stupidest thing ever written and you just pass it along as if it were fact.
First of all, the avalanche of lawsuits that would come down from something like that.. second, it’s not as if the white house would have any trouble getting the emails and finding out who sent them through the justice department if thats what they wanted to do. They certainly don’t need some program for people to send things in to gather chain emails. Most of them are on Snopes.com anyway. This makes so little sense, it’s almost impossible to contradict, just because it is unreasonable on it’s face. The sad part is.. you probly have readers who believe it and will go tell coworkers not to forward conservative emails anymore… and the next person will tell someone that Obama is arresting conservatives for emails …
Wouldn’t you just rather do this the right way… I mean wouldn’t you just rather join the actual debate and talk about actual information…? The rest of us are having that discussion right now.. feel free to join in any time.

There’s a reason the filibuster is a shut down mechanism. This is going to end up right where it always ends up. You believe all the things Obama tells you, I don’t. But let’s go issue by issue in a concise manner:

Issue 1: These “mobs” aren’t people disrupting meetings, they’re people AT the meetings, voicing their opinions, and they feel passionately. These are only mobs because they disagree with the proposition, and they’re uncomfortable. People get hot when they’re dodged. Show me the congressman who answers the oft asked question, “would you put your family on this plan?” They don’t answer it. That’s frustrating.

Issue 2: It’s not misinformation, and you dodge the implications by saying, “Dear Leader says you can keep your coverage.” We’re arguing that the logical conclusion of the Senate & House plan (since Obama doesn’t really have a plan) is that there will soon be no private plans to choose from. So eventually, the Democrat plan will NECESSARILY be a universal plan. So that’s our contribution to the discussion, but all we hear from your side is, “you can keep your plan, you can keep your plan, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…”

Issue 3: Give us the names of your friends who disagree? I hope you’re right. I’ll be expecting an e-mail telling me about all the ways that I’m wrong about my beliefs on health care. I don’t expect that. Instead, I expect not to hear anything at all. It’ll probably never come to anything in my case, because I’m just a good, upstanding, tax paying citizen. The issue is that the same people who maligned Bush for gathering information on suspected terrorists is now asking the people it serves to turn in their fellow Americans. The government can find out through the IP program anything they want about computer & internet usage, down to where the computer is in the house. That (admittedly separate) program, combined with asking people to forward e-mails to the White House, just gives a lot of information without having to go through the Department of Justice.

Funny that nothing in this post has anything to do with anything Obama said, but you still open by insulting me with the line about going along with everything. It would be much more appropriate to point out that YOU belive everything that red state says because you’ve reposted so many things on here that have turned out to be patently untrue but I have to0 much class to point something out like that.
1. I find it hard to believe you know every person in every group that has been reported on. I am sure there are plenty of eager discussion oriented conservatives in the world. On a separate note, there are also a bunch of mobs going around yeeling a bunch of nonsense at town hall meetings. This seems to be the work of the insurance company lobbies who have organized them and sent out instructions on how to properly disrubt the meetings.
2. I am impressed that you seem to realize Obama doesn’t actually have even though you are against it. That is not the logical conclusion of the proposals and, in fact, the latest plan in the Senate finance commitee didn’t even include a government insurance option. Even so that is only one of the many misinformed ideas I mentioned. I assume this means your willing to grant that there has been a few incorrect ideas passed around. Hardly seems radical that the White House would allow peopole to send these in for clarifacation or that they would want to be able to answer these baseless charges.
3. Speaking of baseless charges. It is nothing other than a wild conspiracy theory that the white house is somehow tracking down conservative emailers and the more we talk about it the more it becomes fact on some readers crazy mine. This was invented by redstate and you posted it here as if it it happening. You write “give us the names of your friends who disagree” as if it happened with seemingly no conscience for the FACT that it didn’t happen. Feel free to delete all the names from the email if you wish, the comments and the website have nothing to do with people or tracking but you still say it as if saying it will make it true. The White House sets up a website to allow people to send in the crazy stuff so they may refute it and you spin off this wild tale about thier sinister motives. The truth is YOU are who they are talking about.
And the last part… I guess I’ll just throw up my hands… I’m sure the White House never had forwarded emails before and no means of getting emails, this is truly revolutionary.

Thanks for sparing the the humiliation of being wrong. I’m good with it though, if and when it happens. Take it for what it is. Rebut…

1. “There are a bunch of mobs running around yelling…” this would qualify for me like the “I’m sure the White House never had forwarded e-mails” thing is for you. I’m sure there have been mobs, but to characterize a movement based on the actions of a few is a patent attempt to de-legitimize a movement. It’s the same thing that happened with the Tea Party movement. They aren’t to be taken seriously because they’re just on the insurance company dole. That’s silliness.

2. Obama hasn’t proposed a plan. He has, however, advocated for a single-payer system. He has promoted and proposed the government option plan, and he is clearly the one driving this rapid, down your throat before the session closes, pass it before you read it approach to health care reform. For that reason, he bears a major responsibility if it is a travesty. So you can split hairs if you want, but whatever health care legislation that comes up is going to be Obama’s plan because ultimately it will have his name on it.

3. If they’re not collecting names, then why are they asking for them? If my name gets forwarded to them, will they contact me to let me know? The language at the WH website says, “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to…” It doesn’t say, “if you have questions, feel free to ask us. It asks you to send an e-mail to an an address called FLAG for crying out loud! If it were an info site, why not info@, or if it were a FAQ, why not FAQ@… it’s not. It says, send the “misinformative” emails to flag@.

The point isn’t that they never got them before, the fact is that they’re now asking you and I to send them in. If you can’t see it, you don’t want to see it. I’m good with that.

And I’m serious about the patently untrue. Bring it. If I’m posting a majority of patently untrue facts, then I’ll apologize and start posting about my life as a jam band junkie. It’s only fair.

for starters…the post above says “They’re going to be able to find out your IP address so if your e-mail gets forwarded by a brownshirt concerned citizen, they’ll know who you are and where you are.”
Thats patently untrue, and I only had to click your own links to find out that it was.

“the NTIA is now requiring internet provides to give the government ‘average revenue per end user and data regarding type, technical specification or location of broadband infrastructure,’ i.e. your home address, IP address, how much you pay, and where the connection is at your house.”

Next.

But you didn’t say that it is conceivably possible that through a huge illegal conspiracy, the obama administration could completely misuse a government study for political gain but most likely wont, you said, “They’re going to be able to find out your IP address so if your e-mail gets forwarded by a brownshirt concerned citizen, they’ll know who you are and where you are.” which is patently untrue.
I’ll simplify to help you out… (They’re going to be able to find out your IP address) This is untrue because they are not going to be able to find out your IP address unless they break about 70 privacy laws and face huge political exposure. If they were going to do that, there would be much easier and more secretive ways than this. (so if your e-mail gets forwarded by a brownshirt concerned citizen, they’ll know who you are and where you are.”) Also completely untrue, even if we grant that they COULD break all the laws necessary to find out Who you are and where you are, there is absolutely NO link between the two programs other than the paranoid one completely made up by red state and passed along by this blog. It is only a theory of yours that the one program might be illegally used with the other so the certainty that they WILL know who and where you are is unlikely.

Oh and your last post is patently untrue too. This part :”the NTIA is now requiring internet provides to give the government ‘average revenue per end user and data regarding type, technical specification or location of broadband infrastructure,’ does not mean “your home address, IP address, how much you pay, and where the connection is at your house.”
The second part you made up and doesn’t fit into any of the definitions of the words above it. You should remember most of these quotes are written in english and we can read them too, so your redefinition doesn’t work quite as well as it might with say … Polish.

I can’t tell if you’re willfully missing the point, or if you just don’t get it. things like “technical specifications” would include IP address. I can see how that would be difficult for you to pick up on.

This is how you roll, nit pick over trivialities and miss the gleaming, gaping hole, followed by a filibuster.

And don’t miss my point. I think they’re more than willing to break about 70 privacy laws if it suits them.

You must stay busy, what with that corner market on truth and interpretation.