The "Debate" and How it's Framed

This is another "Phil Got Carried Away In the Comments Section of Someone Else's Blog or Newspaper Article" post.

The truth is, Progressives object to the term “Death Panel” because they’ve got their heads in the sand about where this leads. That is the most misleading thing about this whole “debate”. We’re debating the effects with respect to human nature, sociology, and the nature of government power, and the philosophies of the people who want to implement this so badly.

They, as progressives believe, are trying to craft a bill to legislate responsibility, and human nature/sociology and the nature of government power are going to be dictated by what’s in the bill. Therefore, they debate only what’s in this bill.

If it doesn’t say “death panels” … if it doesn’t say there will be a body deciding who will get treatment or who won’t. Therefore, it’s “misinformation” (according to them) to say that it does.

But it’s completely disingenuous of them to point just to the language in the bill UNLESS there is language specifically stating that rationing and quality-quantity of life “triage” won’t be done as a part of it, ever, by law. And that’s not in there because they know it can’t be in there. They know it would restrict the government’s power to control every aspect of health care. And they wanna tinker.

See, Progressives — the leaders of the ideology, anyway, are academics at heart. They have these theories they want to try, and tinker with and somewhere deep down they really do believe they can make everything better for everyone. But academics in the “soft sciences” is theories built upon theories built upon theories and rife with circular arguments and incestuous self-reference …. and none of those theories can ever be proven in an ethical manner because they involve just the kind of experimenting … that Roosevelt and Obama and lots of other people wanted/want to do ON REAL LIVE PEOPLE’S LIVES AND LIVELIHOODS.

So they get around this little problem by focusing only on their intentions. And anyone who argues with them must, by definition in their pointy little heads, must have BAD intentions. Greed, power, whatever. Anything but a recognition that humans have their flaws and it’s best to let us all work things out for ourselves while having laws keeping us from killing or forcefully coercing each other to one or the other’s advantage. And if they failed, it’s because the Evil Ones foiled their plans, and anyway, their intentions were good so it doesn’t matter how many people were treated unfairly, or died, or had to be killed in order to get everybody with the program for The Greater Good™.

Of course, all of this was thought about and discussed extensively around 240, 250 years ago by some very bright men who happened to be male and white — which unfortunately means they’re on the outs right now and that’s no accident, either. We are not to “worship” their work … the work that founded the country that we all supposedly love (but some of us want to Change™ very badly, apparently) … after all, they are Old Dead White Men™.

But … I digress. As I often do. The deal is, the language clearly laid the foundation for a group of coercers, and Palin seized on it and used it to make the larger point that this is where single-payer health care will ultimately lead. I applaud her for it.

That language is now gone, now, thanks to her, but as I’ve said before… they’ll strike whatever language they need to from it to get enough popular support to pass it, and it will be a foot in the door to single-payer health care. And as I’ve said over and over and over again … EVERYBODY knows it. Everybody. The people pushing it will obfuscate and even deny it in public, but in private they’re rubbing their hands together in anticipation. The people fighting it will be called “___-mongers” and every name in the book in an attempt to dismiss them to short circuit any rational debate. In a debate, they lose. And they know it.