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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow conservatives lie about government
From Social Security hysteria to "Obamacare" madness, right-wing propaganda is increasingly divorced from reality
One benefit of the prolonged campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has been the revelation that most of the 20 or 30 percent of Americans who describe themselves as conservatives live in a fantasy world. In their imaginations, Barack Obama, a centrist Democrat with roots in Eisenhower Republicanism rather than Rooseveltian liberalism, is a radical figure trying to take America down the path of European socialism. The signature healthcare reform of Obama and the Democratic Congress, modeled on Mitt Romneys insurance-friendly Massachusetts healthcare program and closely resembling a proposal by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, is described as statist, socialist or fascist (as though Hitler came to power with the goal of providing subsidies to private health insurance companies).
How can otherwise sane people believe such lunacy? The answer is that members of the right-wing counterculture are brainwashed that is the only appropriate term by the apocalyptic propaganda ground out constantly by the conservative media establishment. A perfect example is a recent essay by Philip Klein, a senior editorial writer of the Washington Examiner, the right-wing newspaper owned by the billionaire Philip Anshutz: The Welfare State Is Destroying America.
How can otherwise sane people believe such lunacy? The answer is that members of the right-wing counterculture are brainwashed that is the only appropriate term by the apocalyptic propaganda ground out constantly by the conservative media establishment. A perfect example is a recent essay by Philip Klein, a senior editorial writer of the Washington Examiner, the right-wing newspaper owned by the billionaire Philip Anshutz: The Welfare State Is Destroying America.
In the real world, of course, todays national debt has nothing to do with Social Security, whose trust fund has a surplus that will last for decades, with the precise date of the trust funds exhaustion depending on the rate of general economic growth. True, the federal government has to raise the tax revenue to repay the money it borrowed from the trust fund but then, the federal government has to repay all of its creditors, domestic and foreign. Whats wrong with that?
As if to concede that there is no Social Security crisis in the near future, Klein engages in three intellectually dishonest maneuvers typical of right-wing propagandists. First, he talks about medium-term and long-term problems as though they were present-day emergencies. Second, he blurs the distinction between Social Securitys long-term fiscal challenges, which are minor, and those caused by rising healthcare costs, in order to make Social Security seem worse off than it is in reality. Third, he implies that the growing debt burden of the United States is primarily caused by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, ignoring tax cuts, wars and the effects of a near-depression:
With health care costs rising and the population aging, Americas welfare-state obligations are bringing the country to its financial knees. If left unchecked, the growing debt burden will not only trigger runaway inflation and stifling taxes, but it will also threaten national security.
As if to concede that there is no Social Security crisis in the near future, Klein engages in three intellectually dishonest maneuvers typical of right-wing propagandists. First, he talks about medium-term and long-term problems as though they were present-day emergencies. Second, he blurs the distinction between Social Securitys long-term fiscal challenges, which are minor, and those caused by rising healthcare costs, in order to make Social Security seem worse off than it is in reality. Third, he implies that the growing debt burden of the United States is primarily caused by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, ignoring tax cuts, wars and the effects of a near-depression:
With health care costs rising and the population aging, Americas welfare-state obligations are bringing the country to its financial knees. If left unchecked, the growing debt burden will not only trigger runaway inflation and stifling taxes, but it will also threaten national security.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/how_conservatives_lie_about_government/singleton/
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How conservatives lie about government (Original Post)
liberal N proud
Jan 2012
OP
elleng
(130,861 posts)1. Why Politicians Get Away With Lying
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)2. that is an excellent article that should really be read in full