Right Wing's "Kill Granny" anti-UHC agitprop

[18-Till-I-Die]

So has anyone come upon the latest GOP conspiracy theory...other than Sarah Palin's "death squad" quip, I mean. You know that political cartoon posted in this thread...it's actually relevent! No seriously, it's based on a "true story".

Supposedly, and I wish I was making this up, all the young people voted for Obama because he's going to have their parents and grandparents killed so he can give all the youngsters who voted for him their money and insurance payouts.

How?

Because of the living will part of the bill, which will force them to sign over their worldly possessions to their offspring, who naturally voted for Obama apparently, and who will recieve everything when they are executed by Obama's death squads.

I'm not sure what's more terrifying--the fact I've herad that several times this week from adults, or the fact that it's actually a pretty good plot for a political thriller novel and I may steal it for a story.

Email chain letters. Something Awful was right, truly the internet does make us stupid.

[Broomstick]

Supposedly, and I wish I was making this up, all the young people voted for Obama because he's going to have their parents and grandparents killed so he can give all the youngsters who voted for him their money and insurance payouts.

Um... isn't that basically the plot of Logan's Run? (The book, not the movie)

[SirNitram]

Ah, the GOP scaring people out of Living Wills.

Succeed or fail, this will results in many Terry Schiavo's in the years to come.

[Broomstick]

That's what they want - compliant women who won't talk back or participate in inconvenient demonstrations or express contrary views on morning talk shows.

[18-Till-I-Die]

The thing that gets me is that, if you were a supervillain, it seems like a very good plan. It's bullshit obviously. Of course it's not true (for way too many reasons to go into, the least of which being that Obama isn't Cobra Commander).

But...it actually seems like it could work. I believe one of the crazier Roman emperors did something similar, Nero was it? Made all the wealthy Romans sign over their "wills" or whatever to him and then had them killed.

It's ridiculous, but it would probably work too. By that I mean, I could see it functioning, if one is stupid enough to assume that the president is somehow a Marvel Comics villain.

I think that's kind of why it catches on, is that in the back of your mind, it SEEMS like something a crazed supervillain would do...you can, if you're afraid enough, totally see it happening.

[Chris OFarrell]

This is really making me think that the average American citizen is a fucking sheep.

Seriously.
I've always joked about the evil Republicans and their mindless followers, and the utterly spineless Democrats.

The number of Americans who are simply accepting the propaganda being shoved in their faces, the power and sophistication of the Republican spin machine, yet the utterly simplistic message its putting across that the average dolt of an American is clearly eating up. I mean I KNOW a lot of Americans, at least on a lot of web forums, I don't know very many in person. I know a vast majority of people on SDN for example are smart and see through this shit, but SDN is rather exclusive and eliminates idiocy as a matter of course.

The fact that so many utterly transparent ploys are being thrown at the US population, and a significant percentage of the US population is *listening* and being *convinced* of it, is really making me feel sick to the stomach. It doesn't help that this is actually a very complex issue, but impossibly easy to run out countless false but catchy lines all over the media claiming everything from THE REDS ARE COMING to OBAMA IS GOING TO KILL YOUR GRANDMOTHER, which can all be rebutted but require time and effort, and work because a lot of Americans are frankly dumb enough to fall for it.

Of course it doesn't help that the Democrats refuse to fight fire with fire. Its a fine thing to hold yourself above the mud slinging as a matter of principal, but when they keep hammering you for so long in that way, frankly, you have to return fire. They SHOULD be on every channel hammering the Republicians and digging up every bit of dirt that paints them as they are, using every single example on why they are complete hypocrytes, running adds on the worst case examples of the current US system (and hammer the fact that this isn't a few cases but Joe everyman getting fucked over)...


But we're getting NONE of this. We're getting the Democrats 'compromising' and 'fighting the good fight' and being 'pragmatists', as the Republicans systematically abuse the entire process to get the exact result they want, screaming about the liberal compromises they are being 'forced' to make...

So I ask IS there any hope for the US? There are so many problems in the future confronting the US that I just can't see the kind of rational, firm leadership needed to solve them coming any time soon...

[Darth Wong]

I feel the same way about US politics. It's deeply distressing that the world's most powerful nation seems to have such backward politics, but it has to do with the way political funding is handled and the enormous power of the media in determining how people think. Both of those are structural problems and cannot be easily rectified. The power of the media grows with each new generation that prefers TV over the printed word, and the funding formula means that each individual senator or congressmen is far more loyal to his campaign backers than he is to anything else.

Part of the problem here is that individual senators and congressmen can actually get up on the floor and state preposterous outright lies, with no apparent consequence. And why shouldn't they, when it makes their backers happy, who will give them money to fund their campaigns, which is all-important since the voters tend to vote for whoever spends the most money on TV ads?

[ray245]

Which is why the election of a president alone would not be enough to fix all these issues. Many people who are for reforms never seems to understand that fact.

Until the amount of people who suffered due to a lack of health care coverage reach a level that is too many for the news media to ignore, no healthcare reform can be achieved in the US.

There are times where the separation of powers within the state is bad, I would say this is one of them.

[Samuel]

Until the amount of people who suffered due to a lack of health care coverage reach a level that is too many for the news media to ignore, no healthcare reform can be achieved in the US.

There are times where the separation of powers within the state is bad, I would say this is one of them.

I don't think that the level will ever become too big to ignore though. After all, it requires people in the media to be aware of it and they all have health insurance. Best care in the world and all that.

[Tribun]

After seeing how this fear-campaign, which so so stupid that no one should fall for it, is so readily accepted by the masses, you shouldn't wonder why the outside world thinks that the U.S. consists to ~90% of total morons.

Really, what's wrong with that country? Claiming such a thing in my country, you'd be called stupid or insane, you'd lose your airtime and there would be numerous lawsuits.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I keep suggesting that "The Prince" should be required reading, however most people would just ignore it, and forget it's lessons as quickly as they put down and forgot the other books we were forced to read in school, either that or set up a home schooling or private school, where nothing but their propaganda was taught. It's almost like there's been a deliberate plan to dumb down the population.

[Stark]

The Prince isn't really that outlandish or interesting, and most of it would be seen as irrelevant. People who like being lied to won't change based on reading The Prince, and there are better ways of teaching critical thought.

[The Yosemite Bear]

True, but it's sad that those same tricks still work centuries later.

[Stark]

They'll keep working until people in general learn to think; this is extremely unlikely to ever happen.