WilliamK

Well over 100,000? Largest in history? Really? Other right-wingers, such as Michelle Malkin, inflated this already ludicrous 1-1.5million claim to as much as 2 million. I'll give you credit, 2smart, for not repeating those bogus 1 million+ claims like many other Republicans such as Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. have done. But even so, your number is still highly suspect, and your claim of largest in history is just ludicrous. The protest yesterday was pretty big, but it was no match for the "Jobs and Freedom" Civil Rights march of 1963, in which Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. That was estimated at 250,000.

Liar. The NYT and Washington Post web sites both have articles about it, and there's a big photo on the front page of the print NYT (I don't know what's in the print edition of the Washington Post). CNN and MSNBC both covered it on TV, and both currently have links to the video on the main page of their web sites. I also saw it last night on the local ABC affilliate. Google News links to many articles about it. Some of the sources: ABC News, CNN, NPR, AP, Reuters, Dallas Morning News, numerous smaller papers and local TV stations representing all of the big networks. As for actual left leaning media (Huffington, Kos, Salon), their coverage was not neutral, but they certainly didn't ignore it. As for this being "The larget march on Washington in U.S. history", you're lying about that too. I can, however, at least give you an out for not inventing that lie yourself, but merely uncritically falling for the lies of other Republicans.

Why wouldn't they? They believe that Obama is a muslim communist Kenyan nazi terrorist bent on euthanizing their grandmothers. Were you expecting sanity?

Citation please. Google finds zero occurrences of that phrase. Numbers please, with credible citation.

That is your fanatical extremist idea. It's a gross misrepresentation of what has been proposed.

I think that it would help if there were more examples, and if more visibility were given to those examples, of what happens when the opposing sides do engage in calm rational discussion. It does happen. This would set an example that there is a better way, that it is possible to egage in discussion rather than shouting matches (or sometimes worse). It would counteract each side's demonization of the other by revealing that if you can get past the anger, and if you can ever see around or hear over the noisy "in your face" extremists, there are reasonable people to be found. I don't know whether the dearth of such examples is because they're genuinely rare, or just because lack of heated conflict isn't conducive to making the news or generating viral videos. Maybe this is something that, in the present political climate, can only happen in small gatherings where there aren't enough belligerent hecklers to feed off each other. But, regardless, here's one example of what can happen when people aren't shouting down the speaker or each other: I know that there are some who post here who pretty much despise Senator Franken, but they'd have to engage in some pretty serious self-deception to not acknowledge that he handled that with a good deal of class and intelligence. And the protesters deserve credit as well. That kind of dialog would have been impossible in a room full of hecklers.

Ah. Well, in that case, stupidly misattributing the quote is perfectly sensible. After all, accuracy and honesty are completely unnecessary when talking about people you don't like. Isn't that right, Guest?

If you're going to shoot the messenger, you should at least try to aim the correct messenger. The quote is from Derek Thompson, who writes for The Atlantic. The next time you use Google to look for the source of a quote, you might try following a few of the links from the results page to see what they actually say, and not just assume that whatever name appears at the top of the first result is the author. But it matters little who the quote is from. It expresses an idea that I intended to express, and had arrived at independently. I just just liked the way Thompson put it, and didn't want to misrepresent his words as my own. Have you figured out who the messenger is yet?

What Obama has is not "Socialist views", but merely the ability to judge policy choices according to their merits rather than fanatically rejecting anything that might fall within the definition of a word that is irrationally feared and hated. Barack Obama is very much a capitalist. He just isn't the fanatical extremist that you'd prefer. Ah. "Kool-Aid". That's clever. You must be one of them thar in-tuh-lek-chew-uls.

Imagine that. A president asking young citizens to think about what they can do to better their country. How awful. The reality of this hubub is plain to see. It is driven by hatred of the messenger, and has nothing to do with the message. As one commentator put it, "The controversy isn't that Obama has announced something controversial, but rather that he's announced something."

We fail to see those signs for the same reason that we fail to see unicorns and faeries.

Yeah, you sure wouldn't want 'em exposed to any of that liberal propaganda about staying in school, working hard, and making something of themselves, and how important that is for the future of their country. I can see why you'd be scared of that. A well educated populace with well developed reasoning skills would be a disaster for the Republican Party's "conservative base", who's ideology is wholly dependent upon ignorance and credulity. You really should be shaking in your boots over this, 2smart. Your dream of America as a backwards 3rd world theocracy could become a lost cause if Obama manages to inspire America's kids to achieve their full potential. Oh the tragedy. You've got the right idea about how to deal with it, though. But it's nearly impossible to protect your children's ignorance and credulity all the time, especially in places like schools and libraries, where they're certain to be exposed to subversive influences (science, for example). Perhaps you should consider locking them in your basement and not allowing them any visitors other than immediate family.

Though you intended that as sarcasm, you've inadvertently hit the nail square on the head. As the idea that healthcare reform would eliminate private healthcare and remove one's freedom to think is pure fantasy, I expect the founding fathers would have been above such foolishness and would not have given your scenario any thought at all. Which is not to say that I necessarily would expect them to have been eager supporters of nationalized anything, but just that even if they opposed it, it would be with skilled reasoning and analysis of actual facts, not knee-jerk emotional reactions and uncritical acceptance of a campaign of transparent lies, as is driving most of the current opposition. I also expect that the founding fathers, though they would apply the same core principles, would not always make the same choices for our time as for their own. The highly developed USA of today has different needs, different capabilities, and different opportunities than the frontier nation they founded more than 2 centuries ago. I rather think that they would have desired and expected that we, their successors, would think for ourselves and adapt to the world as it changes, just as they did.

Here's how freedom of speech works: Person A is free to speak his or her mind, with only a few practical restrictions such as slander or inciting a riot. Person B also has that same freedom, which includes, but is not at limited to, the freedom to criticize what person A says, to criticize person A's motivation for saying it, and to comment on whether person A was right to say it. Free speech wouldn't be very free without that, now would it? Person B's criticism of person A's speech does not in any way infringe person A's freedom of speech. Nor is it reasonable to assume that engaging in such criticism implies a desire to have person A's freedom of speech infringed. In a nutshell: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize. It does not include freedom FROM criticism. O'Reilly et. al. ARE dangerous fear mongers, spreading vicious lies. The way to counter that in a free society is not to take away their freedom of speech, but to use our own freedom of speech to call them out for it. Which is exactly what Paul was doing when you decided to counter his post with your utterly stupid remark above. See how it works? You used your freedom of speech to say something stupid, then I used mine to point out how stupid it was. Your speech has been criticized, but your freedom of speech has not been infringed. You remain free to continue saying things, stupid or otherwise.

Which "truth" would that be? The non-existent death panels? The non-existent elimination of Medicare? The non-existent elimination of private health insurance? The non-existent plan to have a non-medical panel deciding treatment? The non-existent removal of a patient's ability to choose their doctors? The non-existent coverage for illegal aliens? Or, the latest Republican invention (from an RNC push poll), the non-existent plan to check voter registrations in order to deny health care to Republicans? There are things about which people of intelligence and good conscience can disagree. Different judgments about the importance of one aspect vs. the importance of another. But this health care debate has been nothing like that. From the Republican side, it has just been one blatant lie after another.

Liar. Obama job approval poll numbers, current as of the time of this post: Gallup - 50% Rasmussen - 47% NBC - 51% ABC/Washington Post - 57% Pew - 51% Fox - 53% Source: RCP

Wow. An anonymous guest asserting in all caps that his previous far-fetched post was true, then admonishing us to "wake up". That's convincing. But, it hardly matters whether the anecdote is made up or not. More important is simply that it is an anecdote. In anything as large and complex as a country's health care system, there are bound to be a range of experiences. There are also biases that will color the retelling of those experiences. So, it is all too easy to paint a false picture by cherry picking anecdotes. It is also exceedingly common, and, unfortunately, fairly effective, even though it shouldn't be. The subject that I'd most like to see taught at every grade in the public schools is critical thinking. Our democracy would be much better for it.

Yeah. "Opinions are like Republicans". Or some close approximation.

I don't think the word "explicitly" is needed. "Implicitly" should be good enough, as I believe the purpose of the Constitution is to establish broad principles, not to enumerate the minutiae. I think that the important question is not whether this is explicitly mentioned, but whether it falls within one or more of those broad principles. I don't know the answer to that question, and my point is not to argue it one way or the other. My point is just that the idea that Scalia and Thomas' dissent was based merely on the lack of explicit mention has not been established. It may very well be that they aren't convinced that the constitution covers it at all, explicitly or otherwise. I'm no fan of Scalia and Thomas. But I think that they just called this as they saw it, and that the backlash over it is shooting the messenger for delivering bad news.

Good question. He doesn't. He's just pushing your buttons.

There's a big difference between a judgement about what the law is, and a judgement about what it should be. I seriously doubt that Scalia or Thomas would advocate carrying out executions of people who have proven innocent. But if they do not believe that the Constitution provides such a protection, they should not pretend that it does. I don't know whether Scalia and Thomas's stance on this is correct. Since it's a dissenting opinion, obviously other justices disagree with them. But, correct or incorrect, I see no reason at all to think that this is anything other than their reasoned analysis of what the law is.

I think you underestimate little girls.

Correction: Progressive, P&G, and S.C. Johnson did not purchase ad spots on Beck's show in the first place. However, it appears that some ads from Progressive and P&G have been run during Beck's show by mistake, and they have stated that they would take that up with Fox to keep it from happening again. I don't know whether this is the case with S.C. Johnson.

That's your response to a statement of verifiable fact? What an idiot. Geico isn't alone in pulling their ads from Beck's show. Here's the list so far: Men's Wearhouse State Farm Sargento Lawyers.com Procter & Gamble Progressive Insurance Geico SC Johnson ConAgra Roche Sanofi-Aventis magicJack That last one, magicJack, was at the request of Radio Shack, who's name was mentioned in magicJack's ad. According to the Wall Street Journal's Marketwatch, it's 2 million viewers. Are you completely incapable of speaking without lying?

Gregg Jarrett, Jonah Goldberg, and 2Smart4u does not equal "All Republicans", and whether Obama or other Democrats always tell the truth has no bearing on the specific claim that's being discussed. You're not too bright, are you, Guest?