Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Res Ipsa Loco


Given the bilious blather and purple prevarication heard on Fox News and coming from the mouths of Republican politicians regarding health insurance reform, this is just funny. But it does come from an article in a presumably credible magazine, Investor's Business Daily. I am, of course, among many who've pointed it out. Still, it's a perfect signpost along the path to destruction.

The key statement is this:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

I trust readers will be able to discern two teensy problems with that declaration... The second is that nothing in the current plans for reform is remotely like the UK system.

Evidently there's no end to the stupidity that passes for discourse in this, one of the most important and difficult of issues we face. Given the fact that there's no desire to be honest, nothing anyone says, no pointing out of error, will unslime the rhetoric. Facts are unwelcome: facts get in the way of the deliberate deception. Reality, as has been said, has a liberal bias.

It's really hard to be an optimist.
.

4 comments:

  1. wow. perhaps that can explain the lunacy that i have seen on the news. your country has been profoundly let down by its media, and this has contributed to the mind-numbing idiocy that is holding your country hostage. obama should have rammed his ideas through as quickly as possible. his ideals and sense of decency have not served your country. such a shame. . .

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  2. I don't get it? Whats the other teensy problem?? And who's Stephen Hawkins?? And are you really an Author?? Your writing makes more twists and false starts than John Edwards in viagra withdrawal... You need short direct statements, with Action Verbs like Hemingway in "Hills like White Elephants"...took me 30 years to realize they were talkin about abortion...

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  3. I am sad, Frank. For you I will try to use small words. I know you know who Steve is. And where he lives. He is smart. He knows stars and black holes and time. I will start a new blog just for you, where I use words with just one.. ... uh ... well, there is a word that means more than one part in a word. And I will make groups of words that start and end in a straight line. This will make you glad. It will help you know. I will do this for you.

    Not.

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  4. Eh, I'll do it and explain for Mr Drackman.

    Stephen Hawking is a physicist who suffers from a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (though he has survived far longer with the disease than most). He is confined to a wheelchair and is totally dependent on others for his personal needs. He cannot even speak, and relies on a speech synthesizer which he controls using a clicker operated by his one slightly-functional hand.

    The two teensy problems with the the statement:

    * Stephen Hawking has lived in the UK all his life.

    * The entity which paid for the extensive medical care which he has required was none other than the National Health Service.

    So Stephen Hawking's continued existence is actually a great example of how the NHS would *not* consider his life worthless.

    I'm not sure I could say the same thing about many private health insurance plans in the US, unfortunately. I knew a man (American) who died of ALS. His family was bankrupted by it.

    ReplyDelete

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