I was hoping that I wouldn't have to dignify the ridiculous "death panel" rumors with a response, but once Sarah Palin starts making things up great ignorant hordes take it for truth and regurgitate all over their even less-informed friends. SO... to do my little part in dispelling some of the silliness (and downright dishonesty) I am reposting a summary from The Daily Beast, a news site, at the end of my post. You can find the post the site discusses at Talking Points Memo.
When members of Congress receive death threats for merely wanting to have a conversation, a dialogue, about Health Care, that's when I begin to lose faith in my country. You don't like the plan in Congress right now? Super, then first, actually learn what it says (instead of immersing yourself in far-right-wing hysteria) and then second, have a DEBATE about it. This is not a point-scoring issue, this is a legitimate problem in our country--we need reform and there should be an actual conversation about it.
To conclude, I will let our President make my point better than I ever could. Please read his recent Op-Ed article for the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=health%20care&st=cse
"In her first communication since officially resigning as Alaska's governor (and just days after telling the media to quit "makin' things up"), Sarah Palin stated Friday on her Facebook page that health-care reform, or what Palin calls Obama's "death panel," may kill her infant son, Trig. "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil," Palin writes. Palin's spokeswoman pointed to page 425 of the House Democrats' bill when asked what Palin was referring to, which contains a section that refers to "advance care planning consultation" for seniors, which includes voluntary discussions of living wills, power of attorney, or the decision to reject "extraordinary measures of life support." The proposal, which has nothing to do with euthanasia, has been widely circulated by conservative critics of the administration as part of a false rumor that health care reform would pressure senior citizens into killing themselves. As for Palin's description of mandatory Sparta-style murder of Down Syndrome babies, the paranoid vision doesn't match up with any component of any health care plan being discussed."
Read it at Talking Points Memo
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3 comments:
I'm glad to know you share my disdain for Sarah Palin (and her followers). ;) I hope life is treating you well. We just arrived in Dallas on Saturday and love our new little apartment!
I just realized you had a blog. It looks very interesting. I will make sure to stop by in the future. Hope you're doing well :)
One more comment. I agree with you. I read somewhere that the problem with today's world is that opinions are becoming facts. One of the reasons that this is true is because people will hear things and just take it as a fact without putting their own time and effort into figuring out how true it is.
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