Oct 15 2007
Why Should Dems Stop Using Child Props On Healthcare?
Why should Dems stop using child props on healthcare when the far right is doing such a bang up job of crashing and burning by missing the entire point of the debate? Don’t attack the people used to front for the programs, show how screwed these same people would be if they had to live under socialized medicine! Describe the lines to get treatment and the fact mothers-to-be with challenging pregnancies are being shipped across the Canadian border to the US where they can get care. Then the Dems would be the ones imploading in the media. The fact the Dems keep going this direction is clear evidence it is paying off for them. Geez, how hard is this?
Senators and House spokes people have not attacked the messenger but the message as far as I’ve heard. That’s a good thing.
Senators and House spokes people have not attacked the messenger but the message as far as I’ve heard. That’s a good thing.
Don Surber has already been following your advice.
Well the dems are doing it again, they are milking more mileage out of it , the Frost kid is supposed to be on CountDown tonight.
I am sure that will explore all of the merits of the legislation instead of being a paint a target on all the big bad right wingers.
I really don’t expect any hard questioning of this self proclaimed victim of the machine.
Stop heck they are using even more of them
Couldn’t agree more, AJ… Sent the following to Michelle Malkin
[one of my fav bloggers, btw but she’s wrong on her approach to this]
“YOU and the the rest of US [bloggers, Conservatives,
Repub politicians, etc etc…]
got SUCKERED HOOK LINE AND SINKER and
swallowed the bait all the way down.
——————–
Shame shame shame on us.
Attacked the messenger… [Graeme Frost][Y, I know you
didnt attack the kid himself … BUT, surely you are smart
enough to have anticipated that your comments would be
construed that way by Dems and Liberal types.]
Come on, Michelle… ANTICIPATE the reactions of others!!
then
Dems & Libs & bloggers attacked Michelle
& others for “attacking” the messenger…
and
Michelle and Mark respond
and
blah blah blah and on and on and on… and
Guess What?
——————-
No one is debating the issue anymore. It’s just
name calling and “ooooooo, Michelle went and
investigated the family…how awful!”
and
“They have 3 cars…oooo”
———————-
It’s called “Ad hominem” as you well know…
and I can tell you from Logic 101 at Stanford…
It’s BS and you should know it.
Whether Frost [family] does or doesn’t qualify is irrelevant
to the merits of Schip. Just ignoring
that little stunt and concentrating on the merits of
the bill would have been far more productive.
I opine that you have unwittingly increased the possibility
of a veto override by your [the collective opposition “your”]
actions.
I imagine there’s abuse in every single welfare program
but each case should stand on its’ merits or not.
————————
Sigh. It’s too late. I have been going back and forth
on this with my Preacher niece for awhile and she keeps
giving me really good examples of how **cked up the
system is but never debates the particulars of
THIS PARTICULAR BILL.
————————-
Dunno if this makes any sense of even if you read my emails.
I am going to make some
substitutions in this argumentative fallacy that you
and all of us make from time to time.
——————
Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English,
“Ad Hominem” means “against the Frost Family”
or “against the qualifications of the FRost Family. ”
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.
Typically, this fallacy involves two steps.
First, an attack against the character [Yes, I understand you
didn’t attack the “character” of the FRost family]
of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim).
Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of “argument” has the following form:
1. Graeme Frost reads a statement written for him by Dem staffers
about S-chip.
2. Michelle questions the qualifications of the Frost Family.
3. Therefore Schip is a bad bill.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
So my analogy isn’t perfect. You get the point.
———————————-
Anyway, we’re not debating the Schip bill …
We’re debating whether Michelle & Mark are jerks
and whether one nice family qualifies [or should qualify]
for it…and lots of other side issues.
The Democrats might be wrong on a lot of things, but that does not mean they are stupid. And yes, I think they suckered the right on this.
Dafydd at Big Lizards has a good post on the program and he says he thinks that Bush’s veto will not be over ridden in the House. I hope he is right.
BTW, so far at least Dafydd has made a point of arguing the policy on its merits, or lack thereof. No gratuitous personal stuff.
I think what really bothers me the most about all this is that I do not want to see the Democrats win in 2008 and I am afraid that this sort of controversy will alienate the Independents and moderates to such an extent that the Republicans will lose.
Dan Riehl has a post up about this today with the letter from Sen Cornyn on the program.
I find it interesting so many have been calling for the conservatives to grow a pair and then when they do they are slammed as attacking the children just like the kool aide drinking left is when they never attacked the children at all.
A lot of the same people doing the slamming are saying we should debate them on the merits of the SCHIP program, but are totally silent for the most part on engaging in that debate by doing posts or articles about the merits of the program.
From the HuffPo another post that shows it’s all about the right thing to do if only those big meanies just wouldn’t stop us from Nirvana
How can we not insist that all of our children have healthcare?! It boggles the mind. We’re making a huge mistake if we don’t deal with our healthcare issues decisively, creatively and swiftly, and we need to get over the concept that it feels too much like socialism or federalism to tackle it as a nation as well. Healthcare is not for the back-burner, and it applies to us all. Yes, we have other pressing issues on the table, most notably, the fate of our military servicemen and women on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and other international addresses around the world. As a country we must fight the advance of terrorism, shore up our emergency response system (as in rebuilding New Orleans), address global warming and the ongoing abuse of our environment, and we desperately need to rebuild our international relationships and friendships – and obviously, I’m skimming the top of the surface here, because there is much more. It takes enormous diplomacy and level-headed thinking to manage a country with close to 300 million people living in it, but at this juncture in our country’s lifespan – we should not still be pondering how to handle healthcare, especially as it concerns our kids. Yet here we are – with our lawmakers and our sitting President dithering over how many children to cut from healthcare rosters. There must be another solution.
Merlin:
That is not true. I have said time and again that I do not think the program should be expanded, but since the only thing some people want to talk about is what kind of car the Frost drive who has time or energy?
This is not about growing a pair. Harassing this family takes no courage at all. It is just stupid.
What did they do wrong? Besides utilizing a program that is available to them? And so what if they came forward and said they supported the program? We have people coming forward for the snow flake babies as well as family members supporting the troops in Iraq, should those people be “exposed” by the left? Would that be right?
I am sorry, I just do not think this is tough or brave or anything like that. These people could have lost their children, whatever Dan Riehl might think of them, accusing them of pimping their kid after something like that makes him look like an ass.
This is part of Dafydd’s post over at Big Lizards . Notice how he manages to discuss the program:
This element fits a growing Democratic-Party pattern: The use of taxes to force social change. Now, this is not the exclusive property of Democrats; consider the home mortgage interest tax deduction, the purpose of which is to get more people to buy homes instead of rent. Its origin in shrouded in mystery, but no Congress or president since, Democrat or Republican, has actually pushed for its abolition (several have talked the talk).
However, rather than use tax incentives to encourage good behavior, Democrats have made a fetish of using punitive taxation to punish behavior they don’t like, such as smoking. But not just cigarettes:
* Many Democrats (Mort Kondracke, for one) have argued in favor of huge taxes on gasoline to “force” people to drive less; similar ideas include a “gas-guzzler” tax or specifically an SUV tax.
* The proposed “carbon tax” is suppose to punish people for using energy.
* Democrats have also proposed taxes on fatty foods and transfats;
* Guns and ammunition;
* Luxuries (including the infamous yacht tax that led to a collapse of the yacht-building industry, resulting in mass layoffs of middle-income workers — and the swift repeal of the yacht tax);
* A proposed tax on houses larger than 3,000 square feet;
* And taxes on alcohol.
In each case, Democrats have proposed the tax primarily for the purpose of controlling behavior, not raising revenue. (And except for the proposed taxes on fat or transfat, these nanny-state taxes are aimed squarely at Republicans.)
Punitive, behavior-modifying taxes distort the market, thereby damaging the economy. But that’s not the worst market distortion caused by the Democrats’ proposed expansion of SCHIP.
The program was originally intended to cover the gap between children below the poverty line, who can get health-care through Medicare, and children whose families earn up to 200% of poverty (twice $21,000 per year, or $42,000) but still have a tough time paying for health insurance. But when it came up for renewal, Democrats forced through a massive expansion of the program to cover children whose families earn far above the previous ceiling — in some cases, up to four times the poverty line, or $84,000 per year — as well as covering these “children” well into their twenties. Thus, they took a program aimed at helping the working poor and transmogrified it into a new middle class entitlement program.
What I am trying to say is that there are hundreds if not thousands of people on this program. If all that is needed to make a case for it is the perfectly vetted family…then what happens if the Democrats find them? Will the entire case against expanding the S-SHIP program collapse?
Terrye
Rick Moran has a couple of new posts up today about this including the link to a politco post today with Bethany Wilkerson being touted.
You can be sure they vetted her family much better than they did the Frost family.
Moran makes an excellent point
Funny how we don’t see any poster families who are 400% above the poverty level being pushed forward as examples of the kinds of people the $35 billion expansion of S-CHIP will help. Why not? Since the original parameters of the S-CHIP program enjoys the overwhelming support of Congress and the President, why trot forward families like the Frosts and the Wilkersons who qualify under the current rules? Why not bring to the fore those families at the high end of the expansion requirements and let the American people decide if they want to subsidize insurance for them?
The answer is obvious; a family living 400% above poverty are not as sympathetic as those, like the Wilkerson’s, who couldn’t get by without S-CHIP. In fact, pushing forward people who make more than 40% of all the families in America as the poster family for S-CHIP expansion would probably torpedo the bill then and there.
I note that this time around, the Democrats were careful to push a family forward whose choices regarding health insurance couldn’t be questioned. In that respect, if they’re waiting for conservatives to attack the Wilkerson’s, they are going to be sorely disappointed. The Democrats just don’t have a clue about the true nature of the opposition to their S-CHIP expansion. For that, they would have to give a fig about the tradeoffs we make between dependency and freedom every time they get some not so bright idea about “helping†those who can usually be counted on to help themselves.
More from Moran
Of course, the strategy of using children as human shields in a political fight received scant attention thanks to the outburst of fake outrage on the left over anyone daring to question anything about the program. Watching them falling over each other trying to outdo one another in the level and originality of their invective for “smearing 12 year old Graeme Frost†– where no smear ever occurred anywhere at anytime by any blogger, pundit, writer, or spokesperson – actually became something of an entertainment – sort of like a bad episode of Days of our Lives where every scene was horribly melodramatic and overdone.
Exactly why those who buy into the Frost kids or even them being smeared or swiftboated are wrong. It has always been about how the Frosts got into the program from choices made long term by the “adults” in the family.
Merlin,
They qualified. Under Bush and the Dems proposals they qualified. Any attempt to say they should not have plays into the Dems hands. Not only did they qualify they were not rich poseurs. They needed the assistance and their kids needed the medical treatments.
Move on and stop digging.
So what is the ultimate goal in going after the Frost? To take their kids away from them? Ruin them? Publicly humiliate them? Make them an example? Get Dad thrown in jail for fraud? In the end, what will all this accomplish other than making the right look mean and petty?
If the Bush administration did not think this family deserved the help, they should not have given it to them.
I just think the president has a good case without all this.
USA TODAY Poll: Mixed feelings on kids’ health insurance
Fifty-two percent of respondents say they have more confidence in Democrats to deal with the issue, compared with 32% for Bush.
Majorities back two positions at the core of the president’s opposition to the expansion:
• 52% agree with Bush that most benefits should go to children in families earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level — about $41,000 for a family of four. Only 40% say benefits should go to families earning up to $62,000, as the bill written by Democrats and some Republicans would allow.
• 55% are very or somewhat concerned that the program would create an incentive for families to drop private insurance. Bush and Republican opponents have called that a step toward government-run health care.
Taken together, the results show that while Bush may be losing the political battle with Democrats, he may be doing better on policy.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-15-poll-schip_N.htm?csp=34