I'm done.
Absolutely, 100% done.
Part of my job as a Democratic activist is to try to persuade voters to vote for my party and my candidates. But on this health care issue, I'm just not going to do it for those that buy the wingnut lies and are wilfully ignorant of the facts.
Why? Because if you bother to even entertain this crap, you're not voting my way anyway. It's that simple.
In the face of concern many have about how we will craft our message in 2010 in the face of a Republican attack machine, my answer is simple: give people the truth. Find OUR voters. And get them to the polls.
In just the past DAY, I've been forwarded, or looked at, three different examples at how mind-numbingly bereft of any particular logic or critical thought has gotten into the conservative mindset on health care.
Example One: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, as a former Republican Congressman, praises the bill and says he would vote for it if he were still in Congress. LaHood takes the time to point out the facts of the bill, including the fact that it does not pay for abortions in any way, shape, or form, something important to this 100% pro-lifer.
Stupid person comments on his post:
"If this was such a good bill and not a debt to the country that it will never recover from, then why is it covering abortion with federal tax dollars??"
Note: reading comprehension is your friend. Like when the Teabaggers were screaming "Read the Bill!" last summer. All I was reminded of was that classic exchange in the movie "A Fish Called Wanda":
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy!
Wanda: Yes they DO, Otto. They just don't understand it!
Example Two:Conservative blogger tries to play "gotcha" with Senator Ben Cardin. Apparently, Cardin tweeted the following the passage of HCR:
"One of the first bills I introduced in the Senate was 4 universal health coverage. I'm proud we are finally reaching that goal."
The clever conservative blogger's response was:
Say what? For over a year now Cardin, President Obama, and the Democrats all told us this wasn’t a government takeover of healthcare.
Um...yes. It isn't. But if you don't know the difference between, say, "universal health coverage", "single payer", and "government run health care" (see Germany, Canada, and the UK, respectively), I can see where you might be slightly confused and say that our President and my Senator is a hypocrite.
But then again, if you aren't going to educate yourself on the difference, I have no time for you.
Example Three:This one is perhaps the most ridiculous of all. In a predictable spin on the amendments the Senate tried to attach to the reconciliation bill this week, one person tries to argue that voting against Sen. Coburn's amendment to deny Viagra to child molesters and sex offenders means...you favor child molesters and sex offenders:
Apparently, passing a health care bill nobody wants is more important to Maryland's Democratic Senators than ensuring very bad people don't get federally funded prescriptions that help them be very bad people.
How sad. How pathetic.
I'm sorry. But what I find sad and pathetic is that anyone would think that a child molester is somehow "helped" by being provided Viagra. News flash: you don't need Viagra to be a child molester. I'll take it a step further: you don't need an erection to be a child molester. You just need to be a sick puppy. And no amount of Viagra is going to help you along.
So, that's my line in the sand. If you want to buy the junk these guys are peddling, I really don't have time for you. The majority in this country who actually use our common sense and are willing to listen to reason: let's talk. The rest of you: keep spewing the crazy.
If you want to know why I support the new health care LAW, all I needed to do was turn on the Today Show this morning:
The young woman sat in a wheelchair, her feet swaddled in special bandages for burns, her right arm and hand also heavily bandaged. Snuggling under her left arm was a 5-year-old boy who looked up at her frequently and from time to time caressed her fingers.
This was Friday morning, three days since the boy, Aden Hawes, had last seen his nanny, Alyson Myatt. Which was just after she had run barefoot through a wall of flames to save his life...
Myatt, who does not have health insurance and doesn’t know how she will pay for medical treatment that may include skin grafts on her feet, said doctors have told her she could be well enough to leave the hospital by next Tuesday.
It's because of heroes like Alyson Myatt that we passed a health care law. She deserves coverage, as we all do.
And her story, and thousands like her, have more persuadable power than weird obsessions about Viagra to child molesters.