Check this out:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Think it’s a joke? It isn’t. It’s a direct quote from whitehouse.gov. I promise. It’s here (as of this writing).
OK, so y’all Obama apologists all right with that? Is that just a sensible and prudent measure against the radical right-wing menace? Or is it, you know, something like…I don’t know…an increasingly powerful central state seeking to chill the free flow of information, and inviting you to report your fellow comrade American?
Who’s on board? Who’s behind this 100%? Who thinks this is a really neat thing to appear on the web site of the President of the United States? Speak up. Let me hear from you. Tell me it’s all right with you for you to read on an official U.S. government web site, essentially: “yeah, if you see anything that doesn’t sound quite right to you, maybe you just better let us know about it, and we’ll get it all straightened out for you.”
Can’t you feel that comforting arm, which would never hurt you because it is the arm of Your Benevolent Government, slide around you as those words flow into your ear?
Do you even have a “too much government” threshold? If so, how close are you to it?
You want to babble to me some more about how afraid you were of the Bush administration?
You might also like:
- Obama’s new story on government health care
I’m going to hit Obamacare again tonight. Apologies to those looking for something lighter, but I’m … - Kudlow nails it on Obamacare
Larry Kudlow had a great post on his blog this morning about Obamacare. After convincingly arguing t… - Crackling fire? Eggnog? Let’s talk about government!
I have this crazy idea that a properly scoped and functioning federal government ought to be somethi… - You can only do two of these three things
Understand Obama’s health care reform Support Obama’s health care reform Believe in American values… - Only filthy, rude hippies can possibly be real protestors
The airways and intertubes are awash with stories of what are obviously the staged, insincere, destr…
Of course no one is commenting because they don’t want to be reported.
I am writing a paper letter to my congressmen and senators. My outrage grows the more I mull this one over. It’s quiet, but outrage, nonetheless.
I’m alright with it if it means they’re just gathering rumors so they can address the misinformation or answer the tough questions it raises. Kind of like a snopes version on the health care debate.
But I’m not naive enough to think that’s all they’re gathering … or that they’d be as non-partisan as snopes.
And yes, I was still more afraid of Bush than Obama … so far …
Anyone “truly” all right with this deserves what they get. Anyone just saying they’re all right with it to cover themselves and still try to stay true to the decision they made in the voting booth last November is a coward.
It’s wrong on so many levels, yet in a way, I’m glad this has surfaced. It shows these people and their grand scheme for what it is.
Where was all the outrage from the Conservatives about the Patriot Act enacted by the Right’s savior: Bush? He started us down this path by taking away rights while wrapping it up in God, Country, and the Fight Against Terror.
I went out and read the entire page and still don’t see what’s got everyone so riled. Bo’s post is based on his reaction as seen through his own filters. Doesn’t necessarily mean the request in question has nefarious connotations. I don’t see it as an attempt to chill the free flow of information. I read it as an acknowledgement that there is much misinformation out there and that if you want, send a questionable report about the health care deal to them. What they don’t say is if they’ll reply to the conspiracy theories with facts as they see them.
Sometimes I think the Right just wants to be offended. Like they said about the Left for the last 8 years.
Plenty of us on “the right” spoke out loudly and vocally about the Patriot act and issues like it, especially Bo. He’s consistent on issues of gov’t invasion into our private lives.
I got news for you: you’re no libertarian. You’re a republican, a neocon in fact, a supporter of war, an imperialist. Asking people to e-mail the whitehouse is nothing, nothing, nothing compared to the crap the last guy pulled. You know, the lying secretive torturing jackass whom you voted for twice.
wxchick: so, you have a problem with sacrificing some of your freedoms for the sake of national security, but you don’t have a problem with sacrificing some of your freedoms for (supposedly) less expensive health care?
Everybody’s got their own priorities, I guess…
Who’s determining what is misinformation? The people who haven’t even read the bill? People like Obama, who, when questioned about whether or not Section 102 of HR 3200 basically says you will eventually lose your current insurer, can only say (and I quote) “You know, I have to say I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.“
That provision is only 16 pages into the bill, btw.
The people who are spouting off this “misinformation” are people who have actually read the bill. They know what’s in it. They know what it’s going to do. If this bill goes into effect, you WILL eventually lose your current insurance. You WILL eventually lose your current doctor. If you choose to not be insured at all, you WILL be fined 2.5% of your gross income (gross, mind you, not net. Before taxes, not after).
Go here: http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm
to find out more about the freedoms you’ll lose under HR 3200.
Go here:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf
for HR 3200 itself.
Go here: http://nhfalcon.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/i-am-not-a-doctor/
for my take on the current health care issue.
Bo – so glad you blogged this. When I first heard it, I thought it was just completely crazy and couldn’t possibly be true. So, I just went to the WH.gov website myself. Holy cow. I was floored. I am hoping, hoping, that their “flag” email got flooded and not in the way they were expecting. I’d like to snitch out all the folks in the current admin. that have been spreading falsehoods for the past 6 months. I mean, Christ, that Gibbs dude should be locked up by now! A friend of mine, conservative and Republican, and I were talking today and neither of us was thrilled with crap from the last 8 years. And as he said, “Bush may have been screwing us, but he was doing it incrementally. Obama wants to just get it over with in less than a year.”
Yes, I did read the entire page and yes I had your reaction to it. And I do believe it has nefarious connotations. I believe the WH will use the information much to the detriment of the person(s) being snitched on.
wxchick: It takes an extraordinarily selective reading of my writing to determine that I was just peachy with an intrusive government when there was an R after the guy’s name, and now I’m all histrionic with a D after the guy’s name. I recommend the Liberty category. You can choose it to the left. If you notice any difference in the tone and content before November, 2008 and after, please let me know.
‘seester, NHFalcon, Terri: Thank you.
kemtee: Welcome! And thank you.
Jack: ‘Preciatecha, bud.
Senator Cornyn wrote an outstanding letter to President Obama today on this issue.
My problem with the statement is that if I substituted any divisive topic from any presidency into the first sentence, I still have a problem with the idea of the *very top level* of our government trying to collect that kind of information in that manner.
At the very least it’s a dumb-ass political move on the part of the Democrats. Did they seriously think that was going to generate GOOD publicity for them? Especially on the heels of accusing people in these town hall meetings as nothing more then angry mobs duped by special interest groups. It comes across as anybody that disagrees with them is unable to think for themselves. That’s not a very smart thing to say to somebody if you want them to vote for you again. Furthermore, if they aren’t going to collect data and address the concerns of the people in these meetings why should anybody believe they are actually going to do that in the “fishy” e-mails?