Monday, March 8, 2010

Week of 03/08/2010

A Leap of Stupidity over Healthcare
– by David Matthews 2

One of the continual claims made by conservative and neo-conservative talk show hosts is that they present logical and rational and reasonable claims. Of course their assertion has about as much weight as a certain media outlet claiming to be “fair and balanced”.

Logical and rational and reasonable arguments require a clearly-understood path. Point A must lead to Point B and then to Point C and then to Point D and so on and so forth. If you’re going from A to B to Q to X to M, then you lose credibility. You essentially create a logical chasm that a thinking person cannot follow.

So why is it that I cannot hear a sound counter-argument from a conservative or neo-conservative about healthcare that doesn’t involve a logical chasm?

Recently I was listening to the Neal Boortz program. Once upon a time he was a decent talk show host. Once upon a time he was an intellectual rarity… a reasonable person. Every so often there’s a bit of his old self in his shows. But in listening to him explain his opposition to President Barack Obama’s healthcare program, I was disappointed that he suddenly went off the deep end.

First there were facts. Boortz was very careful to point out how the president’s plan played fast and loose with Congressional Budget Office figures, essentially manipulating the numbers to fit the budgeted costs. Cuts in Medicare here, hidden tax increases there, all signs that the program would cost far more than being projected.

Okay, fine. How do you fix that? Let’s go back over those numbers and see where the costs are coming from and what needs to be done to REALLY make them work.

Unfortunately, Boortz didn’t go down that track in his commentary on healthcare reform. Instead he went from Point A and Point B to Point Q and said that this was just an ongoing plot to destroy the private sector entirely.

Wait… hold up, Mister Boortz. How do you go from point out flaws in the financing of reform to a tinfoil conspiracy theory to destroy the private sector completely?

Well he couldn’t answer that because it was time to go to a station break, and then to air snippets of his previous shows so he could make way for the next scheduled host to come in. For a person that claims to hate the hit-and-run tactics of his call-in critics, he certainly has no qualms doing it on his own show.

Okay, let’s get a few things out of the way…

First, I am not here to defend or explain President Obama’s healthcare program. He has a team of overpaid “experts” that are supposed to be doing that for him, and if they can’t do that then he needs to replace them with someone like yours truly.

Second, I DO know that the healthcare system, as it is right now, is maliciously flawed and that it needs to be fixed. There needs to be SERIOUS changes to the way that the healthcare business is being handled, and they need to make these changes as soon as possible, before the bulk of the Baby Boomer generation enter the extreme geriatric age when they WILL need that healthcare more and more.

And yes, I said the magic word… BUSINESS! I know that any kind of changes will directly affect the BUSINESS of healthcare. And it IS a business. It is a huge juggernaut of a business, and it is poised to hit the jackpot with an ever-aging population. That level of avarice is simply mind-blowing, and it probably explains the hysterical overtones when the discussion comes up of wanting to temper that jackpot.

So you tell me: how DOES trying to change that dysfunction, trying to temper that avarice, instantly translate into a tinfoil conspiracy to destroy the whole private industry itself? That’s like arguing that the hiring of a new police officer instantly translates into a death-spiral towards totalitarianism. You wouldn’t tolerate that kind of rationality from the liberals, so WHY are you essentially advocating the political opposite when it comes to healthcare reform?

Let’s get brutally honest here… we NEED to fix this maliciously flawed system called healthcare. People are quite literally DYING because it is not working the way that it needs to. People are having to choose between healthcare and food, or healthcare and a roof over their heads. And sitting there like a bunch of pompous French nobles prior to Bastille Day and pooh-poohing those that HAVE to make that hard choice does not serve your cause well.

You DO remember what happened to those French nobles, don’t you? Their arrogance went to their heads and then the huddled masses showed up and introduced them to a little invention called a guillotine. Oh, wait a minute, the conservative and neo-conservative talk show hosts KNOW all about history, don’t they?

You see, this kind of logical chasm from finding flaws into the tinfoil conspiracy to DESTROY the private sector shows an arrogant and pompous unwillingness to try to FIX the flaws. That you might as well see the problems continue as they are now, unchanged, and sending still MORE Americans into destitution, misery, and to an early grave.

I mean, you might as well save the tinfoil, guys, because the next progression is to start talking about those “New World Order” black UN helicopters and changing our currency over to the Euro and microchip implants with the numbers 6-6-6 on them and…well, you get the picture, don’t you? And if not, then you better hope that your insurance will cover straightjackets and padded rooms.

I understand that the conservative and neo-conservative talk show hosts have to occasionally stir the pudding to keep the myrmidons angry and fearful so they will continue to listen to their shows and patronize the sponsors that pay for their broadcasts. I wish that I had that kind of problem myself. But to willfully engage in the intellectual sabotage of an issue that affects MILLIONS of Americans, and to use intellectual leaps that even the late Evel Kinevel would dare not try to cross if he was still alive, does not reflect any kind of rational intelligence that you CLAIM to possess.

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