I don't know if you've ever run into the LaRouche political activist campaign, but they are convinced that Obama is the new Hitler. I wrote them a letter today which outlines the basic problems with the only argument I could find on a website that claims to have "infallible evidence that Obama is a modern day Hitler."
The topic is Obama's health care policy, but this is really just an effort to dispell sophistry by calling it out whenever you see it.
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To whom it may concern @ the Larouche Activist Committee:
I respect free speech and would like to engage someone in a meaningful dialogue.
I’ve seen you guys in the streets and read a bit through your material. I’ve also perused your website, and I must say, for the amount of content that you guys have generated, I’m finding very little substance.
I get that you don’t like Obama; I understand that you think his proposed solutions to the healthcare crisis in our country (and you are deluding yourself if you do not think we are currently in a state of crisis with over 40 million people completely uninsured), but I think your comparison of Obama to Hitler is anachronistic, incorrect, and misleading.
Here’s why:
I only found one real argument on your website; the rest is empty rhetoric. You claim that Obama's proposed "universal healthcare" solution is analogous to Hitler’s ‘T-4’ proposal whereby a panel of doctors selected by the executive office will decide who will be covered until a universal healthcare plan and those who will not be covered (or condemned to die as you put it).
Does this mean that every political figure who has proposed a universal healthcare policy - with doctors informing his or decisions - is also like Hitler?
Here’s a brief list of countries who instituted universal healthcare policies for its citizens, which were instantiated by a list of government chosen doctors:
• Brazil
• Canada
• Colombia
• Mexico
• India
• Israel
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Finland
• Germany
• England
• Netherlands
Shall we accuse all of these county’s leaders of Hitlerian economics? I think Israel might take offense.
Ostensibly, what this says to me is that your argument, the only somewhat-rationally based one I could find on your website, is based in a false analogy. And if your premises are false – as the analogy is no good – than the conclusion, that we should “call for the impeachment of Obama based on his embracement of a Nazi policy” is also false.
I am not an economic scholar, but a simple understanding of the logic reveals inaccuracy and misrepresentation in your logos. It is almost as if you are saying Hitler was the leader of a powerful country and Obama is the leader of a powerful country :. Hitler is Obama. It is these type of empty arguments which distract our attention and unnecessarily confuse important issues.
So now that I’ve said that, I have only one question for you, and I would appreciate an answer. Obama’s proposed universal healthcare system would definitely insure people who have no coverage today, but it would not mandate those who have private insurance to switch over.
Perhaps the new public plan will not be as effective, as extensive, as comprehensive, or as efficient as private insurance plans (I'm willing to give you that with 90% certainty), but who is coercing anyone to accept the public plan? For those who have no insurance, it can only help. For those who have insurance that they are happy with, nothing will change. For those who don’t like their current insurance, they now have a new option – that could be better, or could be worse.
So my question is simple:
How can providing the public with yet another option of their OWN choosing ever be a bad thing?
How can you say that people who have no healthcare should continue to have no healthcare when Obama’s proposed system can only benefit those without healthcare whilst not necessarily changing those that have it?
In a democratic-republic, we are entitled to as many options as private and public can offer us. Why is one more bad?
Sincerely,
Aaron Krivitzky
The topic is Obama's health care policy, but this is really just an effort to dispell sophistry by calling it out whenever you see it.
_______________________________________
To whom it may concern @ the Larouche Activist Committee:
I respect free speech and would like to engage someone in a meaningful dialogue.
I’ve seen you guys in the streets and read a bit through your material. I’ve also perused your website, and I must say, for the amount of content that you guys have generated, I’m finding very little substance.
I get that you don’t like Obama; I understand that you think his proposed solutions to the healthcare crisis in our country (and you are deluding yourself if you do not think we are currently in a state of crisis with over 40 million people completely uninsured), but I think your comparison of Obama to Hitler is anachronistic, incorrect, and misleading.
Here’s why:
I only found one real argument on your website; the rest is empty rhetoric. You claim that Obama's proposed "universal healthcare" solution is analogous to Hitler’s ‘T-4’ proposal whereby a panel of doctors selected by the executive office will decide who will be covered until a universal healthcare plan and those who will not be covered (or condemned to die as you put it).
Does this mean that every political figure who has proposed a universal healthcare policy - with doctors informing his or decisions - is also like Hitler?
Here’s a brief list of countries who instituted universal healthcare policies for its citizens, which were instantiated by a list of government chosen doctors:
• Brazil
• Canada
• Colombia
• Mexico
• India
• Israel
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Finland
• Germany
• England
• Netherlands
Shall we accuse all of these county’s leaders of Hitlerian economics? I think Israel might take offense.
Ostensibly, what this says to me is that your argument, the only somewhat-rationally based one I could find on your website, is based in a false analogy. And if your premises are false – as the analogy is no good – than the conclusion, that we should “call for the impeachment of Obama based on his embracement of a Nazi policy” is also false.
I am not an economic scholar, but a simple understanding of the logic reveals inaccuracy and misrepresentation in your logos. It is almost as if you are saying Hitler was the leader of a powerful country and Obama is the leader of a powerful country :. Hitler is Obama. It is these type of empty arguments which distract our attention and unnecessarily confuse important issues.
So now that I’ve said that, I have only one question for you, and I would appreciate an answer. Obama’s proposed universal healthcare system would definitely insure people who have no coverage today, but it would not mandate those who have private insurance to switch over.
Perhaps the new public plan will not be as effective, as extensive, as comprehensive, or as efficient as private insurance plans (I'm willing to give you that with 90% certainty), but who is coercing anyone to accept the public plan? For those who have no insurance, it can only help. For those who have insurance that they are happy with, nothing will change. For those who don’t like their current insurance, they now have a new option – that could be better, or could be worse.
So my question is simple:
How can providing the public with yet another option of their OWN choosing ever be a bad thing?
How can you say that people who have no healthcare should continue to have no healthcare when Obama’s proposed system can only benefit those without healthcare whilst not necessarily changing those that have it?
In a democratic-republic, we are entitled to as many options as private and public can offer us. Why is one more bad?
Sincerely,
Aaron Krivitzky
When I get a response from these guys, I'll be sure to post it.
Posts
Generally well put, to the point, and best of all RATIONAL.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a similarly reasoned response from these LaRouche creeps, but we all know that the pro-corporate right is completely unattached to facts or rationality. Hence the downright farcical comparisons of Obama to Hitler.
I think the central points of this letter are completely valid:
How can you compare Obama's healthcare plan to Hitler's without condemning the long list of 'developed' nations who have already instituted government-run universal healthcare?
And even if you do, how is this comparison relevant or substantiated by logic?
Furthermore - and more fundamentally - how can providing a public health insurance OPTION be construed as coercive?
And whose freedoms would be curtailed except perhaps the freedom of the private insurance industry to raise the price of health insurance without any meaningful competition?
You're asking a lot of the right questions, in my opinion.
That being said, I have to nitpick on one point because I think it's an important one.
You say, "Perhaps the new public plan will not be as effective, as extensive, as comprehensive, or as efficient as private insurance plans (I'm willing to give you that with 90% certainty)..."
Really?
Private insurance companies are more EXTENSIVE when 47 million Americans can't afford coverage?
More COMPREHENSIVE when untold millions more can only afford plans that don't include coverage for myriad devastating conditions?
More EFFICIENT when doctors, patients, and hospitals have to get through the endless bureaucracies of competing for-profit insurance companies (whose only job is to minimize what their companies have to pay out in order to maximize profits) in order to figure out who - if anybody - is going to pay for a necessary surgery or a routine check-up?
And yeah, I said bureaucracies. Funny how the enemies of reform never seem to recognize the irony of using that word to characterize government-run healthcare as inefficient, when corporate bureaucracies are similarly complex and deliberately obstructionist, being motivated by profit rather than the public good.
Furthermore, virtually all the top countries on the World Health Organization's list ranking health care (i.e. France - #1) have public SINGLE PAYER systems: Nazis according the folks at LaRouche.
By the way, we're ranked 37th, not first, no matter what Rush Limbaugh says.
The evidence of the world around us demonstrates that public single-payer systems, NOT private industries, provide both comprehensive and efficient care.
So I see no reason to concede (even to 90% concede) the point that private health insurance companies somehow provide a superior "product" in any way.
Health care is not a commodity. It is a right. It should be protected by the government, not bought and sold on the market.
Otherwise, great letter!
You know I am in complete ideological agreement with you on this one, but as a direct beneficiary of privatized health care (I get to see the Docs I want, when I want), all this comment was intended to do was to recognize that those who are lucky enough to have policies which cover "all" of their medical expenses need not be concerned about an additional option.
ReplyDeleteIn essence, private health care potentially (and potentially is a key word here) offers more comprehensive coverage for the individual, not for the collective.
And I'm not going to defend my words, because I think your point is well-taken; indeed comprehensiveness ought not to be a goal of health-care until INCLUSION is met first.
I am coming to your party, Ike, by the way...