Not only is dissent racist, and no longer patriotic — it’s downright Un-American.
Just when was it that opposing socialism became un-American? Are Nancy and Steny going to revive this?
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way to win the hearts and minds of the American people. They seem to be just desperately flailing. I can’t take them seriously of course, in their sudden interest in discussing the issue. If they’d had their way, the bill would already have been a fait accompli, with no public discussion at all. But we’re the ones who are “un-American.”
[Noon Pacific update]
Geraghty has similar thoughts to mine:
I understand that the House of Representatives has done this before when Democrats were running the show.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., could chair with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as the ranking member, except we would need some sort of catchy nickname for the idea of looking through the American population for those who dissent from the line of the White House and holding them up for public demonization and ridicule and shunning…
Beyond that, I would have someone who’s not in Congress right now put together a list of people who ought to be shunned and public persona non grata for their un-American behavior and views. We could get some prominent Democratic state legislatior to run it — say, Wisconsin Democratic Assembly Member Spencer Black — and we could name that list after him…
It would be ironic on multiple levels.
[Afternoon update]
So, do Nancy and Steny think that the SEIU is un-American?
Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.
The logical and hypocritical knots into which these creatures twist themselves is a sight to behold.
When they find clips of George Bush, or Denny Hastert doing that [describing anti-war protesters as unpatriotic], get back to me.
How about Tom Delay, ex-GOP House Majority Leader, on Meet the Press 3/18/07:
He knows more about economics than you or I.
Much of what he “knows” about economics seems to be wrong, and driven by his political ideology.
When they find clips of George Bush, or Denny Hastert doing that [describing anti-war protesters as unpatriotic], get back to me.
Here’s Hastert talking about Pelosi and Murtha (who weren’t protesting the war, they were just voting to set a withdrawal timeline):
It is clear that as Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenant on armed services, Rep. Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut and run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans.
What he said was patently true. And he didn’t say they were un-American.
Rand, your HDHP will be “superfluous” once the feds put everyone on an HMO with this beast. Good luck keeping it after that. And if you do, you’ll still have to fork over another 2.5% of your AGI (still way cheaper than HMO).
But don’t worry, Obama said you won’t pay more in taxes, “not one dime.”
What he said was patently true.
Please show me where Murtha said he would prefer we surrender to terrorists who would harm innocent Americans.
And he didn’t say they were un-American.
Preferring surrender to terrorists who would harm innocent Americans is practically the definition of treason.
And again: Pelosi and Hoyer did not say that their political opponents were un-American; they said that drowning out discussion is un-American.
Please show me where Murtha said he would prefer we surrender to terrorists who would harm innocent Americans.
He didn’t have to say it. It was quite obvious.
Preferring surrender to terrorists who would harm innocent Americans is practically the definition of treason.
No, just political stupidity.
I have catastrophic insurance with a high deductible.
Good for you. I do too, and in fact I paid for my MRI; but we’re both in the minority in that department, as high-deductible policies don’t make sense for people living at the edge of their means.
Now you get a serious medical problem that costs >$100,000 to treat. Are you really going to comparison shop to save the insurance company’s money, or are you going to focus on what’s best for you and let them worry about paying? Your deductible is gone no matter what you do.
A lot (most?) medical spending happens in the land past $10,000, when it’s only the insurance company paying. You can’t make the patient responsible for those costs without rationing based on wealth, and you can’t use insurance without having the patient’s interests and the insurance company’s interests diverge.
It isn’t like buying bread.
Good for you. I do too, and in fact I paid for my MRI
Then your story was bullshit. What a surprise.
He didn’t have to say it. It was quite obvious.
Only to people with your special mind-reading powers. Murtha himself has no idea that he prefers surrendering to terrorists. But I guess you and Hastert know what he prefers better than he does.
Meanwhile, we’re pulling out of Iraq just as Murtha recommended (just later, having spent more and lost more lives). Are we surrendering to terrorists now? Will they harm innocent Americans because of what we’re doing?
Murtha himself has no idea that he prefers surrendering to terrorists.
It was exactly what he (and Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama) proposed when they demanded an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and declared it “lost.” Obviously, they are unhappy when it is so accurately characterized.
“Meanwhile, we’re pulling out of Iraq just as Murtha recommended (just later, having spent more and lost more lives). Are we surrendering to terrorists now? Will they harm innocent Americans because of what we’re doing?”
What a load of tripe. Those three wanted us to leave before the job was done. We leave now with a functioning government in place, much more cooperation between factions and a country with a chance to keep democracy. If we left when they wanted to, all would have been lost. I’m surprised you didn’t add a “Bush lied, people died” too.
Jim, I got bad news for you. Sometimes the Law of Supply and Demand (and the rest of Economics 101 that “liberals” are either ignorant of, or would like to wish out of existence) doesn’t result in things being the price we would like, or can afford. But if you legislate things so that a good or service is coercively forced below its market price, you’re going to have shortages, and if you legislate so that the good or service is coercively forced above the market price, you’re going to have surpluses. Ignore that at your own peril. Oh, never mind–our beloved leader “Il Dufe” is doing just that,at all our peril. But you’re not worried. There’s no one you’d rather put your life, health and money in the hands of than a poltician or government bureaucrat.
I’ve just been reading MINORITY REPORT, a collection of writings by H. L. Mencken, and it’s amazing how many of his statements on poltics seem like they were written decades in the future, and describing ObamaNation. This one reminds me specifically of Jim:
“The thirst for liberty does not seem natural to man. Most people want security in this world, not liberty. Liberty puts them on their own, and so exposes them to the natural consequences of their congenital stupidity and incompetence.”
There’s another Mencken quote that pertains to the health-care debate (imagine that: in the United States of America, there actually has to be a debate whether anything’s better than liberty) and other issues: “The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.”
I would contend that any “remedy” that involves increase of State power and the corresponding diminution of liberty is by nature flawed.
“Dissent is one thing. Shouting down Town Halls is actually another.
Apparently at a panel on the Science of Global Warming on Monday, somebody physically set up their own presentation to run against the panel to disagree with them.
That isn’t dissent, it’s plain old fashioned rudeness.”
So, where was your prim concern for manners when, say, left-wing students broke through a window to disrupt a speech by Tom Tancredo? Or when Tancredo was disrupted by a couple of students unfurling a banner directly in front of him, on the stage, while he was speaking? Or how about Code Pink activists interrupting State of the Union speeches, convention speeches, and Congressional hearings? Do you wring your hands over the rudeness in those actions, Miss Manners?
All this tut-tutting by the left over the center-right’s boisterousness at town hall meetings would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. What, exactly, were “Progressive” activists doing from 2002-2008?
It was exactly what he (and Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama) proposed when they demanded an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and declared it “lost.”
Withdrawal is not surrender, and withdrawal from Iraq has nothing to do with surrender to terrorists.
Those three wanted us to leave before the job was done.
Where Iraq is concerned there is no such thing as “done.”
Withdrawal is not surrender, and withdrawal from Iraq has nothing to do with surrender to terrorists.
Withdrawal while fighting an enemy, and leaving the battlefield and nation to them without defeating them, is indeed surrender. The Iraqis whose children were baked by Al Qaeda in Iraq would be very surprised to learn that they weren’t at war with terrorists.
You and the Democrats can continue to live in a state of denial (or lies), but it doesn’t change the reality that withdrawal would have been a de facto surrender to Al Qaeda in Iraq, after Al Qaeda made it the central front in the war, by their own statements.
Osama Bin Laden:
We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America — the United States — that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.
Withdrawal while fighting an enemy, and leaving the battlefield and nation to them without defeating them, is indeed surrender.
So we surrendered in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos? And to North Korea? And Somalia? And Hezbollah (Lebanon in the 80s)? And Saddam Hussein (in 1991)? And Saudi Arabia?
We must have surrendered dozens of times in Latin America. How can we stand the shame?
So we surrendered in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos?
Yes.
And to North Korea?
No, that was a truce.
And Somalia? And Hezbollah (Lebanon in the 80s)?
Yes.
And Saddam Hussein (in 1991)?
Again, that was a truce.
And Saudi Arabia?
We were not fighting anyone in Saudi Arabia.
Some of these things are not like the others.
And to North Korea?
No, that was a truce.
Your criterion says nothing about truces, so lets modify it to:
Withdrawal while fighting an enemy, and leaving the battlefield and nation to them without defeating them or reaching a truce, is indeed surrender.
And Saudi Arabia?
We were not fighting anyone in Saudi Arabia.
We were using bases in Saudi Arabia to fight terrorists in Iraq, terrorists who in many cases came from and/or were funded by extremists in Saudi Arabia. We withdrew from that nation without defeating the enemy we were there to fight, and without reaching a truce.
But even leaving Saudi Arabia out you’re saying we surrendered in Somalia, Lebanon, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, Chili, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Colombia, Syria, China, and the Soviet Union (and no doubt I’m forgetting others).
You really believe that? Do you think anyone else does?
I think your definition of surrender is so broad as to be meaningless.
We withdrew from that nation without defeating the enemy we were there to fight, and without reaching a truce.
What a stupid analogy.
Actually, that isn’t an analogy, it’s a statement of fact.
Jim, a truce implies that the war has not in fact ended – and in both the cases of Iraq after the UN-Iraq War of 1991, and the Korean War, troops were left in the theater to engage in combat should the truce be broken. Troops are still deployed to Korea, in fact, and should the leadership of the North ever get it into its collective mind (which is as broken as the rest of that collectivist nation, the ONLY nation on the planet one can identify from shadowed orbit) to invade or otherwise attack the South, then our troops will in fact go to war. Many will die, and we will then be faced with a choice – whether it is worth the lives spent before and since to honor our obligations to defend our allies, or whether we should surrender the field to the enemy. That isn’t a good decision to have to make – I hate it pretty much about as badly as anyone else – but that IS the reality that a leader of a sovereign nation must face. And history will judge them for the outcomes of their actions – not the intentions.
Your willful ignorance is not amusing. It ceased to be so many a blue moon ago. Mr S. has not decided as yet to toss you from these fora – but as you are an active impediment to these discussions pursued here, were it my site you’d have met the banstick months ago. That is not suppressing dissent. That is refusing to pay web fees to create a soapbox for deliberate and willful mistruth, distortion of fact, and general jackassery.
Your willful ignorance is not amusing. It ceased to be so many a blue moon ago. Mr S. has not decided as yet to toss you from these fora – but as you are an active impediment to these discussions pursued here, were it my site you’d have met the banstick months ago. That is not suppressing dissent. That is refusing to pay web fees to create a soapbox for deliberate and willful mistruth, distortion of fact, and general jackassery.
I have been criticized for my overtolerance of trolls like “Jim.” I’ll probably continue it, but it’s nice to see other commenters point out his asininity. And trolldom.
Jim, a truce implies that the war has not in fact ended – and in both the cases of Iraq after the UN-Iraq War of 1991, and the Korean War, troops were left in the theater to engage in combat should the truce be broken.
True, but not relevant to the point at hand. The question is whether Rand really thinks that “surrender” is the right term for what we did in Somalia, Lebanon, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, Chili, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Colombia, Syria, China, and the Soviet Union (and perhaps others). In all of those countries we withdrew troops without a truce and without defeating our enemy. So either they are all examples of surrender, or Rand’s definition — the definition by which a withdrawal from Iraq in 2007 would have constituted surrender — is faulty.
I think it’s a lousy definition. We sent troops to Bolivia to help against drug cartels. Later we withdrew those troops without having defeated the cartels. Did the United States of America surrender to Bolivian drug gangs? Really?
In point of fact Jim, it’s quite relevant, as your ignorance on matters military is what caused you to ask about surrender.
In the case of your Bolivian strawman, et al, I don’t know about Rand, but I’d define those instances each as a failed mission. Not as bad as an outright surrender – but certainly not something to be emulated. It gives rise to the notion that the US is a paper tiger, ineffective at responding forcefully to those who would cause it harm, which is quoted above by Leland as being the DIRECT cause of the attacks on US soil 8 years ago. In short, treachery is the rule of the day in international relations, unless you’re strong enough to make a credible threat that crossing you will result in dire (though not always necessarily fatal) consequences.
“International relations is the art and science of one nation fucking another.” That’s how it’s always been, and when humans are involved that’s how it will always be.