Ahistorical analogies taken too far...

Says who?

The fear-mongering over health care reform gets stranger and stranger. As I wrote in May, the crazy conservatives and the business interests who are actively working to incite them are delving into the cold war archives. Who needs debate when you can shout down your local Congressmen with cries of "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!" It has become clear that neither Republican leaders in Washington nor the rabble they are deploying in a desperate bid to derail reform pay any attention to facts. Republicans have determined that their best hope is to scare their base with lies.

As the picture above illustrates, many of the tea-baggers who have joined the fray are ignorant of the history they would cite to make their case. Stalin was no charismatic speech-maker. I doubt if he would make anyone's list of the 100 greatest orators of the twentieth century. If you have any doubts, listen yourself as he commemorates the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II). But who knows, maybe he could give a stirring speech his native Georgian.

More to the point, the accusations flying from the Republican right continue to baffle. Is Obama now supposed to be a communist or a fascist? Or some crazy new commie-fascist hybrid? Or a closet Islamic fundamentalist secretly born in Kenya? There is no doubt that there were those on the left who paraded reckless comparisons of Bush to Hitler. What's different is that the Republican leadership and AM radio circuit gleefully celebrate their crazies and warn of a socialist takeover of government.

Leaders of the Republican party have teetered into dangerous territory with their hyperbole. The more they say that the President wants to establish "death panels" to kill off "unproductive members of society," (see Gov. Palin's Facebook posts) the more likely that some ignorant, crazy person will believe that it is permissible to stop the President by any means necessary. The more that they call his reform agenda "evil," the more likely that some unhinged Glenn Beck viewer will pick up his gun and take matters into his own hands. There are already reports that right wing opponents of reform are advocating bringing firearms to townhalls and using violence against SEIU or ACORN volunteers. ProgressNow reports that the car of one of its staff members - with visible pro-health care reform paraphernalia - was vandalized after a right-wing protest against the reform effort.

Back in April of this year, a group of students at UNC Chapel Hill were arrested for attempting to interfere with a speech by former Congressman Tancredo on immigration. Conservatives, such as Fox regular Michelle Malkin, were appalled at the students' lack of regard for First Amendment principles on campus. But where is Malkin now that right wingers are shouting down members of Congress at public forums? She is proud to say that she is part of the mob. And she is not alone. Red State was equally aghast at the student protests of Tancredo and is now furiously whipping up the "I am the mob" mentality.

Maybe the best hope for passage of the President's health care plan is for truly independent, middle of the road voters to react against those who are shutting down town hall meetings by shouting down elected officials. Organizing and protest are essential ingredients of a democracy - nobody is saying otherwise - but hostile intimidation and jeering at your opponents are not.

It is one thing to lie to the people about what is in the bill. It was predictable that those with something to lose in this debate would not attack the bills on their merits, but would instead make up slogans untethered to reality. In place of a debate on the merits, we get warnings of "government takeover," "rationing," "forced euthanasia," and the most quaint, "Keep The Guvmint Out Of My Medicare!"

These lies are dishonorable, but the Republicans have shown no hesitance to lie in order to advance their agenda (see Iraq). Working overtime, however, to convince people on the fringe that the President wants to kill American citizens is a new low. Let's keep working to reach reasonable people out there who will not believe the hype.

And let's hope that fair reporting of this rotten campaign will keep reminding voters that the Republican party is not run by reasonable people.