The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

Ok, I've voted in the CSU vs CU poll (go Rammies!), used up all my stamina and energy in Mafia Wars, gone through my email and deleted all the spam, caught up with everything on the Facebook news feed…Now it's time to work on this week's Howl.

It's hard to talk about anything except the battle over health care. Things have gotten interesting this week as the American people seem to be waking from a slumber and they're cranky. They should be. Not only are We The People about to get a royal screwjie over health care, but for those who dare dissent, the media minimizes us as 'the fringe;' the elite snobbery that is the democrat-led congress says we're not sincere and are only getting angry because we're being paid to do so. Someone please beat Pelosi and Reid with the condescension stick and tell them we're angry not because we're getting paid to be angry, but because we want to keep our pay! What dolts.

We're going to play a game called 'connect the dots.' Ezekiel Emmanuel (Rahm's brother) has said that 'communitarianism' should guide who gets what health care. Why should we care what he thinks? Mainly we should care because he's been named by Obama (can you say 'nepotism?') to the Center Of Comparative Effectiveness Research (that's the first dot). What is the CCER? On page 501 of the House health care bill, the Center is described as (abridged) being responsible for conducting research "with respect to the outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care services." Appropriate is the operative word there (second dot). Emmanuel is on record as saying that he feels that a way to reduce health care cost is to deny care to those who are "prevented from being participating citizens…An obvious example is not guaranteeing services to a person with dementia." (third dot) Answers.com has a good definition of dementia. It even provides numbers like the following: "Dementia affects 5–8% of all people between ages 65 and 74, and up to 20% of those between 75 and 84. Estimates for dementia in those 85 and over range from 30–47%." Fourth dot. Chances of developing cancer if you're over 65 are double that of someone under 65. Fifth Dot. Cancer treatment can be very expensive. Sixth dot.

So…Emmanuel is part of the group who decides what treatments are appropriate under the proposed health care plan. Starting at age 65 and rising steeply after 75 the incidence of dementia increases dramatically, as does the risk of cancer. Treating cancer can be very expensive. Emmanuel feels a way to reduce costs is to not guarantee coverage to people with dementia. Are the dots connecting? Can you see the picture forming? Does this sound like we're being set up for rationing of care? It sure does to me.

The libs can see that we're onto them, and they're going all in on this one. Liberal columnist Froma Hanop, writing for the Providence Journal, penned a piece with the fair minded title "Republicans Looking Crazy On Health Care." In it she said that she didn't think it had to be said, but apparently it does: "No one is trying to kill grandma." Well, Froma, Republicans didn't say that. In a roundabout, connect the dots kind of way, Ezekiel Emmanuel did. Well, more accurately he didn't say he wants kill grandma; he just doesn't want to help her live longer; so she'll die sooner rather than later. On the bright side, we'll have lower health care costs, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to grandma's family.

Who's crazy here? Conservatives, for wanting to have freedom of choice in their health care? Or liberals, who are so desperate to control every aspect of our lives that they are telling us that this plan will give everything to everyone, it won't change anything already in existence and won't cost a nickel more. This plan sounds an awful lot like the Shmoo.

The name calling is typical of liberals. Liberals probably think that Hanop showed remarkable restraint by not prefacing 'crazy' with 'bat-shit' when naming her op-ed piece. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. And that brings me, finally, to my point.

Liberals operate from bizarre world, where everything is the opposite. Or maybe they've been brainwashed reading 1984 and think newspeak is a GOOD thing. In either case, what they're really practicing is called 'projection.' Freud coined the term to describe someone who, rather than deal with their own undesirable traits, motivations, actions, feelings or desires will assign them to someone else. Liberals do this with constancy and precision. Witness:

• Obama recently sent an email saying that the GOP would be resorting to scare tactics to stop the health care legislation from moving forward. He then used a scare tactic by saying that if we don't pass the bill, "health care costs will double, millions more will lose their coverage and state governments will go bankrupt."¹ In practically the same sentence he predictively accused (Minority Report anyone?) the GOP of using a tactic he himself used in the next sentence!
  
• People like Joy Behar say that Republicans need to get over the fact that we lost the election, but can't stop complaining about the President's actions. President Bush, that is. Um..Bush isn't in office any more. Who needs to 'get over it?'
  
• The recent town hall meetings that have been interrupted by people who are fed up with being lied to are labeled by the left as being 'planned disruptions' and that the people are planted by the evil insurance captains of industry (whenever a liberal needs a villain, they just use class warfare and conjure up a CEO somewhere. In their mind he probably wears a top hat and has a waxed handlebar mustache and walks around saying "you MUST pay the rent!" But I digress). They can't fathom that normal everyday people would take time from their day – at their own expense – to go voice their opinion. The reason they can't fathom people doing this without being paid is that they pay people to do things like follow the Americans For Prosperity bus from stop to stop, or bribe young people with college grants if they will be community organizers.
  
• The people disrupting these rallies are filled with hatred and violence…yet no one has been hurt and no windows have been broken. But there are plenty of examples of violent liberal protests.²
  
• Obama in a speech asked that Republicans not engage in 'revisionist history' – then went out on the Apology'09 tour, telling various nations that:
  
  • Russia 'helped us' get to space. If by helped he meant 'competed against' I guess he's right. Is he next going to tell the Germans that they helped us win World War II?
    
  • The cold war ended because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe decided it would end peacefully, completely omitting the Reagan 'peace through strength' doctrine or his speech at Brandenburg Gate.
    
  • America has an interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. Unless you mean in Iran. Or North Korea. Or Burma.
    

When you see the mass of things the liberals actually do that they imagine that the Republicans are guilty of, you begin to think that they actually are clinical in their projection. Saul Alinsky even taught this pathology. Rule number 5 of his "Rules For Radicals" states that "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions." Hmm….maybe they're not as crazy as I think….

Maybe they're more cagey than crazy. It's important that we recognize this tactic for what it is, and not be intimidated by it. Take ridicule away from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher or Janeane Garofalo and what do you have left? They have nothing else in their tool kit. They're just sad, angry people still punching at President Bush and looking for the next conservative boogeyman to lash out at. Just remember, it's all projection. They ridicule conservatives because they're intimidated by them. Use that to your advantage. Stand firm on a fact-based argument and all the projection in the world cannot save them in the end.

¹ I turned this 'fishy' behavior in to the whitehouse.gov snitchline.

² http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/left-vs-right/13087-documented-cases-liberal-violence-intimidation-vandalism.html