"Do You, as a Candidate for President, Really Believe..."

[paft.livejournal.com]

Susan Grigsby, who lost her brother, Steve, to cancer: What really horrified me about the debate was not the poorly phrased question, it wasn’t Dr. Paul’s answer, and it wasn’t even the scream after Wolf Blitzer asked, ‘Would you let him die,’ and somebody in the audience yelled ‘Yeah!’ That wasn’t as horrifying as was the silence from the stage, from these men and women who are running for office, not a word. Nothing.

This is the reality of the right wing libertarian attitude toward the sick. It is vile. It is inhumane. It is unworthy of Americans.

The question posed by Susan Grigsby needs to be asked of every Republican candidate. "Do you, as a candidate for President, really believe that if an American cannot get, or does not get insurance, that they should be treated the way Steve was?"


When they don’t answer it it needs to be asked again. And again. And again. They cannot be allowed to evade it. They cannot be allowed to look the other way.

Republicans are already trying. Here’s Mitch McConnell when confronted with that clip from the debate and asked if it troubled him:

(Brief chuckle) Look, we have a lot of people running for president, there are going to be a lot of debates, a lot of things said, a lot of audience reactions, I don’t have a particular reaction to what’s going on in the Republican campaign for president right now.

The silence that horrified Susan Grigsby continues.

Prominent Republicans are afraid of coming out in favor of saving the lives of the sick and uninsured.

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

How about you post an excerpt from this wonderful tomb of information? Cite a relevant passage--and then link to the whole book. Just linking to the book is not an argument--it's a citation without a quote.

And "Given the typical disdain for reason and reality that has infected the humanities departments I can understand that." that's a terribly uninformed and unjust description of humanities departments. You're charging at windmills.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Not just humanities departments. I can't imagine any reputable university faculty in any department, humanities or science accepting, "I read it in that book" as a viable cite.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You asked for information. I gave it to you. Read it or not, as you will, as will anyone else who is curious. You continue to pretend that the information does not exist. The link is not for you it is for anybody else who is curious as to why I think what I do and wants to ascertain for himself if the idea has merit or at least acquire a little more information on the topic. The fact is that I am not turning in an academic paper for you to grade, get over yourself. You are not any sort of "reputable university faculty in any department," at least not here, in this forum, in this context. If I were writing some sort of academic treatise, I would crank out some 200+ page thesis, fully footnoted, and complete with bibliography. I'm not writing a thesis, and nobody else in this forum does so, either. You don't really want one in the first place; you're just posturing in the vain hope that you can convince anyone who might be influenced by my point of view to dismiss the link posted without looking at it.

In case you haven't been keeping up with current events on this forum you have the wrong context if you really are expecting some kind of defended thesis. Typically, in these comments, people don't even post anything to indicate what substantiates their opinion, even they do understand the provenance of their own ideas, which is too often not the case. They post their "feelings" on some topic with no substantiation or link back to any reason why they believe (or "feel") as they do at all — and you don't complain or say anything to them at all, as long as they happen to agree with your particular beliefs and prejudices. I'd say that leaves me miles ahead of a lot of people who comment in here. Disagree if you want; text space here is practically free.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I've been following this conversation. I find it worth noting that you're getting flack about academic research from someone who a few weeks back posted an article whose main thrust, that Mises supported fascism, was wrong because she relied on a second hand editing of a quote by Mises.

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1142785.html?thread=90960385#t90960385

A classic tactic of sophistry is to use whatever argument structure suits the goal of victory with no regard for proper consistency. When you argue in detail they reply that you're being too detailed. When you argue in short lawyer-esque statements to keep your words from being twisted they reply that you're being evasive.

There is no debate tactic that can be used fairly against them because there's a way to deride any answer if you've the intellectual shallowness to go that route. Ultimately it results in an inconsistent ethos with all the scholarly vigor of a PT Barnum history book.

[paft.livejournal.com]

mc: You asked for information. I gave it to you.

No you didn't. I asked for specific examples of how you believe liberals were responsible for what happened to Susan Grigsby's brother. Obviously you can't come up with any, so you tried throwing out a reading assignment. Sorry, but no, I have no intention of reading an entire book in the hope that somewhere in there, something kinda supports your claim.

If you have a specific passage in mind, cite it. Frankly, I doubt you do.