So today, my family was at a Halloween party down here in red Georgia. Everything seemed to be going pretty smoothly, until I overheard two wingnuts bashing Obama.
I tried to listen in from my side of the room, and I heard this:
"It’s unbelievable. I just got an email today saying that Obama wants to combine your 401k with social security – so the government will own all your accounts."
At this point, I literally walked across the room and butted in.
Here’s my paraphrased exchanged:
Me: so what did you guys here?
Them: Obama wants to take away your 401k and have the government run it. It’s all about socialism.
Me: I haven’t heard the campaign say anything like that – you need to check your facts. That sounds like a chain email distortion.
Them: But this guy wants big government, and he won’t even put his hand over his heart during the pledge. He said the national anthem mentions bombs, so he won’t sing it.
Me: That’s completely false. We know that he does indeed put his hand over his heart during the pledge. With the anthem, sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t – just like many Republicans in photos all over the internet. George Bush Sr stood there with his hands down – I guess he hates America.
Them: Nope. I heard on MSNBC that he won’t say the pledge – that’s not an American.
Me: This is just a massive effort to smear the guy. Get the facts straight.
Them: I just want the government out of my business
Me: I can understand that.
Them: And I’m a small business owner grossing more than $250,000. It’s not fair to tax me on my gross.
Me: Actually, if you’re a Schedule C filer, it would be on your net, not your gross. And independent fact-checkers have concluded that we’re talking about the top 2 percent of such small business filers.
Them: And his plan is to launch us into full scale socialism.
Me: That’s just a bunch of empty redbaiting. Barack simply wants to re-apply the framework we had in the 90’s at the top. And McCain himself agrees – he voted twice against lowering the rates in the first place.
Them: No. McCain always votes for lower taxes...
Me: No, he doesn’t. He was for the framework of the 90’s, before he flip-flopped. And you know, we can probably agree that neither of us want the government nationalizing the banking industry. But that only happened because we didn't have a regulatory framework for nasty derivatives and other securities.
Them: I read about that. Bill Clinton started this when he didn't regulate Fannie and Freddie.
Me: Granted, Bill Clinton didn't do enough to regulate derivatives, but this wasn't caused by Fannie -- Fannie isn't allowed via its charter to buy toxic subprime securities. The big push came from unregulated private labels.
Anyway, there was just more of the same after this. These dudes would make some comment that was only one line deep, I’d confront it, and then they’d pivot to something else. There was no more political discussion the rest of the visit.
I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish. But it just reaches a point when bullshit has to be confronted directly.