Do You Also Believe in the Flat Earth Theory?

By Tom Kando

It is difficult to remember a presidency which has elicited more venom within its first few months. The Obama-haters are trying to discredit him in some amazing ways. Come to think of it, I do remember that Presidents Kennedy and Clinton were the recipients of similar hate campaigns early in their terms...

1. There are, for example, the birthers. This is a grass-roots (largely Internet) movement of people who claim that Obama was not born in the US. According to columnist Eugene Robinson, 28% of Republicans believe that Obama was not born in the United States, and another 30% are “not sure”! This despite the fact that the President’s birth on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu has been incontestably established.
2. Then there are the town hall meetings, organized by the administration to discuss the President’s Health Care plan. So far they have backfired, because many of the people who come to these meetings are hostile, disrupting and opposing everything that administration spokesmen try to discuss.

I am not sure what happened. Opponents of health care reform - various interest groups - may have orchestrated something here, I don’t know.

But I just want to give you one example of the level of discourse of some of these protesters: At a recent town hall meeting somewhere in the Midwest, an elderly gentleman in the audience stood up and shouted, emotionally, to the administration spokesman who was trying to answer questions: “I want the government to keep its paws off Medicare!”

What does democracy mean, when people are so embarrassingly ignorant? Democracy becomes mobocracy. Maybe that’s what happened in California, where the state has been run by referendum for many years. People pass propositions without the slightest understanding of their consequences.

3. Another asinine catchphrase heard a lot in the health care debate is, “do you want the same people who run the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles, to run your health plan?” - the obvious insinuation being that nothing is more inefficient than government bureaucracies such as the USPS or DMV.

4. So now Obama’s poll ratings have declined. No duh! There is nothing mysterious about a President’s popularity or lack of it. There is nothing “inherent” in public opinion polls. They just reflect how the people have been told to feel, that’s all. Subject a president to a barrage of criticism in the media for three months and, lo and behold, his ratings go down! Or let the media praise him for six weeks, and his ratings go up. Is this a miracle? No, it’s called indoctrination through spin.

5. The cornerstone of our health insurance system is that it goes via your job, your employer. A majority seems to believe that this cornerstone must stay untouched. But there are millions who do not have jobs, who don’t have an employer. There are the unemployed, the unemployable, the retired, the self-employed, the very young and the very old. And of course everyone switches jobs at one time or another. The immutable link between one’s job and one’s health insurance is another piece of nonsense.

6. So for all those of you who believe that Obama is not American-born, that the government should stay out of Medicare, and other similar theories, I have an organization which might interest you:

The Flat Earth Society International
P.O. Box 3543, Lancaster, California, 93540
Membership, Certificate and Map of Flat Earth: $20.00leave comment here