The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rhetorical Escalation

Posted on | July 11, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

After President Trump announced Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to the Supreme Court on Monday, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) spent all day Tuesday engaged in a competition to demonize Kavanaugh. If you believe what Democrats tell you, Kavanaugh is the most extreme extremist in the history of extremism. How extreme is he? Extremely extreme! He’s not just a right-winger, he’s “far-right.” How far? Extremely far! He’s so extremely far right as to “threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades,” to quote Clinton crony and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. (Hat-tip: Hogewash.)

The reader who isn’t tuned into the CNN/MSNBC/Democrat hysteria may wonder, how does a federal judge threaten millions of lives? On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Chuck Schumer said: “I will oppose this nomination with everything I’ve got. . . . This man should not be on the bench. . . . I believe he is far, far right on so many issues.” Schumer repeatedly asserted that the Kavanaugh nomination is somehow a threat to ObamaCare. Exactly how the Supreme Court affects healthcare legislation, Schumer didn’t specify, but he said that coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” which he described as “very popular” with the Democrat Party’s base, would be jeopardized if Kavanaugh is confirmed.

 

Because I don’t pay much attention to the paranoid fears of Democrats, it’s possible that Schumer is actually right about this. For all I know, there are cases pending in lower courts challenging elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which Democrats rammed through Congress on a party-line vote just a few months before they lost their majority in the 2010 midterm elections. The ACA’s mandate of coverage for “pre-existing conditions” was one of the worst job-killers in the bill. Requiring employers to provide insurance that covered whatever health problems the employee might have had before being hired meant that a lot of people simply couldn’t get hired, and this measure also sent health insurance rates skyrocketing, as insurers sought to compensate for the (often very expensive) treatments they were now required to cover.

One reason the economy started booming — and unemployment started declining — as soon as Trump was elected was that he promised to repeal ObamaCare and, by executive action, was able to limit the job-killing impact of this badly constructed legislation. If somehow the Supreme Court could render the entirety of ObamaCare null and void, good, although as I say, I’m not aware that this is likely, or even possible.

Employer-provided health insurance is a benefit, and not a “right.” Does saying this make me an extremely extreme extremist? Maybe, by Chuck Schumer’s standards, but do we want to permit the leaders of the Democrat Party to set the limits of acceptable political beliefs? Do we want to make “pre-existing conditions” such a burden on employers that it drives up unemployment because millions of people can’t get hired?

Ask yourself why this “pre-existing conditions” aspect of ObamaCare is, as Schumer says, so popular with the Democrats’ base. What “conditions” are so prevalent among Democrats that they don’t care about the harmful economic impact of imposing this mandate on employers?

My extremely extremist readers are free to speculate on this subject, and I won’t specify my own far-right suspicions, except to point out that behavioral problems (e.g., promiscuous anal intercourse) sometimes cause medical problems (e.g., HIV infections). It’s homophobia to mention this, and it’s transphobia if you suspect that Democrats want to make gender dysphoria one of the “pre-existing conditions” that employers must cover, so everybody pays higher insurance rates to provide some people with free hormones and sex-change surgery.

There were reasons, you see, why Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress without permitting debate. There was a reason why Nancy Pelosi (whose constituents have a lot of pre-existing conditions) said “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”

“Free” methadone for heroin addicts! “Free” gastric bypass surgery for fat people! “Free” psychotherapy for neurotics! Everything must be “free” —free! free! free! — and employers must be required to provide insurance coverage for all these “pre-existing conditions.” That was the basic idea of ObamaCare, a piñata full of “free” benefits for every hypochondriac and malingerer in America, and if you’re concerned about the impact on the economy, this makes you a right-wing extremist, according to Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and their Democrat buddies.

Democrats don’t want to talk about the costs — in terms of taxes and lost jobs — of all the “free” stuff they give their constituents, and so they engage in rhetorical escalation, accusing their opponents of racism, sexism, homophobia and other kinds of “extremism.” This is true not only of healthcare, but of every issue, from immigration to education. Whenever common-sense suggests Democrats are wrong, they come up with some new way to label common sense “extremism.”

If Americans ever wake up and smell the aroma of bovine excrement exuded by Democrat rhetoric, Chuck Schumer will be out of a job. Compulsive dishonesty is a pre-existing condition for Democrats.



 

Category: Democrats, Supreme Court

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One Response to “Rhetorical Escalation”

  1. News of the Week (July 15th, 2018) | The Political Hat
    July 15th, 2018 @ 6:14 pm

    […] Rhetorical Escalation After President Trump announced Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to the Supreme Court on Monday, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) spent all day Tuesday engaged in a competition to demonize Kavanaugh. […]