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Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

MattusMaximus said:
Why are ACA critics here suddenly talking about Harry Reid? I thought it was Obamacare.

Oh, that's right. Obama's not running again :rolleyes:
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It's called demonizing your opponent. Spread enough lies and the hard core right wingers will be frothing at the mouth whenever they hear Harry Reid's name. Once they reach that state, they become immune from fact based arguments.
 
You call criticism of Reid over attacking distortions with more distortions related to the ACA "demonizing the opponent"? That's a low bar for considering criticism as over the top.

Kestrel said:
The fact checkers have verified that it's the Obamacare opponents that are lying, presenting phony stories of suffering caused by the Affordable Care Act. So instead of an argument about facts, we now have a personal attack on Harry Reid because he commented on the disinformation in ads from AFP and similar groups.
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There are clearly lies told about the ACA and it's intents, and considering my own bias I have the humility to admit that I can't criticize the law on everything I thought I could. I also came to believe some aspects of the law are good ideas and I hope they succeed in one form or another. Having said that, calling a politicians liars because they actually lied is not a personal attack, its a fact and I think it should be called out. As it relates to certain issues related to the Koch Brothers for example democrats have been factually challenged as well so I suppose if there's any criticism I would levy it's that there's a stunning lack of reciprocal humility in that not every criticism of these people is so baseless as you all claim. I realize that false claims should be called for what they are, but I don't think the same behavior helps the situation.
 
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Kestrel said:
It's called demonizing your opponent. Spread enough lies and the hard core right wingers will be frothing at the mouth whenever they hear Harry Reid's name. Once they reach that state, they become immune from fact based arguments.
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OK.

But...

It's called demonizing your opponent. Spread enough lies and the hard core left wingers will be frothing at the mouth whenever they hear the Koch brother's names. Once they reach that state, they become immune from fact based arguments.

I briefly tuned in to MSNBC on my car radio today. I was informed that Republicans are, by and large, racist - or at least their policies are.

Cuts both ways.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
OK.

But...

It's called demonizing your opponent. Spread enough lies and the hard core left wingers will be frothing at the mouth whenever they hear the Koch brother's names. Once they reach that state, they become immune from fact based arguments.

I briefly tuned in to MSNBC on my car radio today. I was informed that Republicans are, by and large, racist - or at least their policies are.

Cuts both ways.
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Read this.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9973521#post9973521

"The GOP: not racist, just preferred by racists."

If the Republican party doesn't clean house with the militia paranoids, the crypto racists, and the sovereign citizens, then you guys can't really complain when you get tarred with the same brush, can you?

When Cliven was spewing his nonsense about not recognizing the US government even exists, why would it surprise anyone that he's also racist? That's where the whole Posse Comatatus movement comes from. It's the confederates push to keep the northern soldiers from telling them to stop terrorizing former slaves. So why did Rand Paul, and Fox News, and Dean Heller embrace this guy? Because as long as it's not overt, they wink, wink, nudge, nudge the racists to keep them voting GOP. So maybe Hannity doesn't really hate black people. But he surely knows that Cliven Bundy does. Yet he gave him a platform and here we are. And as ABC10 shows, a good portion of the far right agrees with him.
 
Grizzly Bear said:
You call criticism of Reid over attacking distortions with more distortions related to the ACA "demonizing the opponent"? That's a low bar for considering criticism as over the top.



There are clearly lies told about the ACA and it's intents, and considering my own bias I have the humility to admit that I can't criticize the law on everything I thought I could. I also came to believe some aspects of the law are good ideas and I hope they succeed in one form or another. Having said that, calling a politicians liars because they actually lied is not a personal attack, its a fact and I think it should be called out. As it relates to certain issues related to the Koch Brothers for example democrats have been factually challenged as well so I suppose if there's any criticism I would levy it's that there's a stunning lack of reciprocal humility in that not every criticism of these people is so baseless as you all claim. I realize that false claims should be called for what they are, but I don't think the same behavior helps the situation.
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Your link about "democrats have been factually challenged as well" leads back to this/your own post. Mistake?
 
wareyin said:
Your link about "democrats have been factually challenged as well" leads back to this/your own post. Mistake?
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To understand recursion, you first need to understand recursion.
 
Is it a lie to claim the Koch brothers provide most of the funding of AFP?

In the 2010 election, AFP blanketed the airways with an ad claiming that my Congreessman voted to give Viagra to convicted rapist. This was a complete fabrication, but rather typical of AFP tactics.

The Obamacare horror story ads also came from AFP. When the facts were checked, they didn't support the claims in the ads. These ads were not designed to inform, they were designed to spread misinformation and fear. The resonse to the debunking is also classic. Claims that the fact checkers are in league with Obama and an appeal to emotion. These people's lives have been devastated by Obamacare, how dare you call them liars?
 
wareyin said:
Your link about "democrats have been factually challenged as well" leads back to this/your own post. Mistake?
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I do believe you found a mistake. My link should have directed to this article:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...-wars-koch-brothers-dems-fight-falses-falses/

Apologies for the confusion.

Kestrel said:
The Obamacare horror story ads also came from AFP. When the facts were checked, they didn't support the claims in the ads. These ads were not designed to inform, they were designed to spread misinformation and fear.
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It is correct to point out that their ads aren't entirely truthful and that they embellish the horror stories by cherry picking facts to make the points hit home. They take cases of legitimate horror stories and balloon them beyond applicable context to state that the ACA as a whole is a disaster.

In the case of Reid, he counters their claims by saying:

"there are plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue. But they're being told all over America."


LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSJOLivL-NU#t=29

He continues exemplifying his point using an ad that was made about a leukemia patient, stating that it was "absolutely false", and it was an ad by the "billionaire Koch Brothers" and another ad after that about a woman's premium going up $700, claiming it's "false".

It is one thing to point out that the Koch brother ads are deceptive, it is another to counter political ads with more deceptive context distortion, especially the "absolutist" qualifier which is prone to alienate the individuals that actually have undergone some of the problems. He only slightly backpedaled from that statement later. While people may go further to qualify their criticisms as demonizing, I do not believe it's unfair to conclude that Reid was being hypocritical in his attempt to discredit the Koch ads. There are winners and losers with the ACA because of how it's structured, I'd describe my personal situation as somewhere in between, at least for now... neither ideal nor the worst case.
 
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Let the conservatives whine. This way we can have plenty of documentation so that, by this time next year when they're claiming the ACA as their masterpiece, we can call BS on them.
 
More specifically they will start talking about how bad it is and how some changes are needed to ensure its not the train wreck they've been claiming it will be. They will get some changes through and claim all the success is due to the changes they made.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Let the conservatives whine. This way we can have plenty of documentation so that, by this time next year when they're claiming the ACA as their masterpiece, we can call BS on them.
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You'll know this moment arrives when they start calling it the "ACA" and not "Obamacare", as in "get your government hands off my ACA!"
 
Unabogie said:
You'll know this moment arrives when they start calling it the "ACA" and not "Obamacare", as in "get your government hands off my ACA!"
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You never know... our politicians have a knack for wanting us to wait until the bill is passed to know whats in it ;)
 
Yeah, probably cherry picking of snippets.

But of course, sometimes these talking points are orchestrated, so there may be something to it.

Georgia is a red state, and most of the political flyers we've gotten in the mail attack "Obamacare".

It will be interesting to see if Democratic candidates run on or from "Obamacare".
 
An enormous amount depends of what happens to rates going forward.

If they go up substantially, it would demonstrate that at the very least the goal of "affordable" health care had been missed.

I sincerely hope there are market forces at play to keep rates down. For largely selfish reasons when Karen has to shop for coverage in August.

We'll just have to see.
 
Peephole said:
Lol, Republicans are still counting on Obamacare to fail? Even after the past months?
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Democrats are still running away from it. You can pretend all you want to that it's all peachy, but the people whose jobs are on the line because of it think it's a liability, not an asset.
 
Ziggurat said:
Democrats are still running away from it. You can pretend all you want to that it's all peachy, but the people whose jobs are on the line because of it think it's a liability, not an asset.
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Yes, because any political unpopularity of Obamacare is due solely to an accurate and truthful assessment of the legislation, and not the 24-hour disinfo machine the GOP has been grinding the gears off of.

But the real question is, what is the GOP's long game here?

Suppose they manage to turn unpopularity of the law into concrete political gain.

Then what?

Repeal? Reform? Replace?

What does the dog do when it catches the car?
 
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