Palin Uses Trig As A Political Prop...Again

Why is the liberal media always making Sarah Palin's family an issue when discussing politics? Oh wait, they're not the ones doing it. Again:

Sarah Palin is accusing President Obama’s health care plan of looking to create a “death panel” that would weigh whether her parents or son Trig were “worthy of health care.”

"Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!" the former Alaska governor said in a post on her Facebook page late Friday.

In one of her first public policy statements since leaving office late last month, Palin discounted the administration’s view that the president’s plan would cut health care costs. The only path to lower costs, she said, was less treatment.

"And who will suffer the most when they ration care?" she wrote. "The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

Man, that kid just can't catch a break, can he? But she's absolutely correct: A system that forces the elderly and the handicapped to stand before a "death panel" and prove their worth to society in order to prevent their own demise at the hands of the state would indeed be downright evil, fascist even. So it's a good thing that Obama is not proposing anything even remotely similar to this dubious Logan's Run fantasy, and the fact that Palin and so many others on the right are claiming that he is indicates their level of respect for the intelligence of the average American (read: seemingly nonexistent). Of course there are organizations in this country that have such panels and their singular purpose is to decide who is deserving of health care coverage and who is not: They're called insurance companies.

Now many on the right have been complaining that their objections and cries of dissent against Obama's health care plan have been marginalized and even dismissed outright as illegitimate and they do have a point. There are several aspects of the plan which are rather vague and even some which are ill conceived and each of these aspects should be openly debated and discussed in order to arrive at the best solution for all Americans. But it has been their near unanimous tactic of also closely aligning themselves with the purveyors of this type of over the top hyperbole along with the increasingly erratic town hall shouters that has caused them to be portrayed in this manner. I don't mind listening to a rational argument that I disagree with but when the extremists are the ones driving your side of the debate you will inevitably lose respect and legitimacy:


Now before anyone says anything, no: I 'm not trying to equate health care opponents with the KKK or saying that they're all racists (although it's a fairly good bet that a small proportion of them probably are, because of age, geography, political affiliation or all three). My point is that all of this seemingly exaggerated and misplaced rage on the part of several real crazies is only hurting their cause with mainstream America.

Here's some video from a Patients First bus tour event in Pueblo, CO. Patients First is a project of Americans for Prosperity, one of the key conservative interest groups helping to organize the recent town hall protests:


Of course end of life counseling isn't going to make you attend a counseling session with "some federal airhead" or make you draw up a living will, it will only give you the option of doing those things if you so choose and it will even pay the tab for that service. In fact, the smartest thing that guy said was not to believe anything he said (which I find is good advice even when you're not dealing with wingnuts). But the most telling thing he said was, "Adolf Hitler issued six million end of life orders--he called his program the final solution. I kind of wonder what we're going to call ours." Godwin called, guy: You just lost the debate. As did these people:
One of the most predictable conservative responses to posting pictures like these is, "Well a bunch of liberals called Bush a Nazi all the time during most of the Iraq war..." They're right, and every one of those liberals was/is just as stupid and unworthy of respect as these people are today. That law applies to everyone equally. So continue to teabag each other and shout down your congressmen with obviously transparent fear mongering and lies, Republicans. You're only making our points for us and it gives me some free time to take my Grandma to the recycling cen...I mean, the retirement home. I'm sure gonna miss her.