Liberals Add Fresh, New Arugment to Health Care Debate: If You Oppose It, You're a Nazi Klansman

I did not know that.

This afternoon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) gave a speech in which he quoted Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" and accused ObamaCare opponents of inciting "vindictive passions":

"Far from appealing to the better angels of our nature, too many colleagues are embarked on a desperate no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, obstruction and fear. History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists."

In case you don't know (I didn't), tumbril is used correctly. It's a cart used to move prisoners to a place of execution. So give him one point for his SAT Word Builder usage!

And in case you also didn't know, "strange fruit hanging from trees" is a darkly poetic reference to lynched black men in the KKK-terrorized countryside.

We just got the latest CBO scoring on the Republican alternate plan and it says that "broken glass glittering in darkened streets" will save us $80 billion over ten years, and the key part of the conservative alternative -- "strange fruit hanging from trees" -- may save us up to $120 billion.

Pretty good, huh?! And they say we have "no plan." Nonsense! We're going to kill everyone who doesn't look exactly like us. That's like an awesome plan!

How come the leftists never talk about the good things that come from our KKKristallnacht agenda? All they do is dwell on the negative.

...

UPDATE: More from the Whitehouse speech, referring to Hofstadter's "paranoid style" thesis:

"Vindictive passions often arise, [Hofstadter] points out, when an aggrieved minority believes that America has been taken away from them their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. Does that sound familiar . . . in this health debate? . . . [Hofstadter] wrote of the dangers of an aggrieved right-wing minority with the power to create what he called a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible."

Video of this awful speech here.

Instapundit has some reaction, including from sometime AoSHQ commenter Rob Crawford:

One of the things that bugs the living shit out of me about this type of rhetoric is that it is, on the margin, a self-fulfilling prophecy. People with good-faith objections find themselves lumped in with nut jobs, cranks, and thugs, and after a few decades, the “as well hung for a lion as a lamb” attitude. If objecting to government running your healthcare, controlling access to your medical records, confiscating another 30%+ of your labor and effectively drafting the medical industry means you’re an Aryan, right-wing militia, “birther” type, well, maybe you should give those groups another look…

I’m not going to claim the Republicans are innocent of this type of rhetoric, but, well, at least when they pointed out that the primary organizer of “anti-war” marches was the Communist group ANSWER, they had evidence to back them up.

Rasmussen has it now at 41% supporting, and 55% picking out their Lucky Juden-Window-Smashing Rocks.

Even Lindsey Graham is so passionate against this plan he calls those offering it liars.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), using exceptionally heated language, called the health care bill on Sunday "seedy Chicago politics,” “backroom deals that amount to bribes,” “Enron accounting,” “the worst of Washington,” “phony,” and a “sham,” adding that Obama’s campaign slogan of “change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan.”

Asked it the Senate bill was a done deal, Graham, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," replied:

“This is far from over. The House and Senate bills are in many ways irreconcilable. But you know, I like David. He ran a brilliant campaign, but they're doing a lousy job governing the country, in my view. You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it's really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes.”

Host John King interjected: “Bribes -- that's a strong word.”

Graham defended his choice of words: “Well, it is, oh, absolutely, it's a strong word. It was meant to be strong; principled compromised -- I mean, a compromise sold as a principled solution to an emotional problem like abortion that's fallen flat; Enron accounting techniques -- everything that people were upset with about Washington has gotten worse. And this bill personifies the worst of Washington.”

“You and I know -- you've been around this town a long time -- that the Senate and the House is not going to impose those cuts. So when you put that into the health care mix, this thing doesn't save money; it costs money. And that's phony.”

“So it is Enron-accounting. It is a sham. You collect taxes for 10 years and you pay out benefits for six years, and the Class Act, which no one's talking about, is a completely new government entitlement.

"On top of that," the Senator continued, "No one's talking about the single-most important we can implement right now to reduce health-care costs -- lighting crosses on our front lawns and starting up 'health-care camps' where we can better take care of our neediest, most troublesome, most racially impure citizens."

I added that last bit, but the rest was real.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff for the latter tip.

Transpartisan Consensus: Ultrapartisan liberal Jane Hamster declares a left/right coalition of outrage can defeat the bill, and says that her complaints aren't so very different from those of the "tea party activists."

(She's quoting someone else, but endorsing the idea.)

Notice the quoted words: "tea party activists." Not "tea-baggers." Sounds like some Strange New Respect going on!

Kaus also wonders if lefty bloggers like Ezra Klein who previously chastised the right for being "willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order" will throw the same eliminationist slur against their non-selling-out erstwhile allies on the left.

Racism, Straight-Up! Senator Whitehorse endorses the Jeneane Garalo Paranoid style of politics:

“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

That's from Hot Air (actually Kerry Picket at the WashTimes has the fuller transcript.

As I've noted before, we racists did the same thing to our first (superior) African-American President, Bill "MC Slick" Clinton, and his nappy-haired wife, Hillary "Lil Hillz" Rodham-Clinton, and of course their whole "posse," including that degenerate octoroon Syd "The Ruckus" Blumenthal and that stupid Alarm Clock Necklace he'd wear all the time when he was shooting up DC clubs with his trusty "nines."

So, yeah, I do concede that, we racists do have a history of opposing black presidents and their black-as-the-ace-of-spades staffers like Mickey "Kid Menorah" Kantor and Howard "H Dogg" Wolfson and Lanny "DJ Nasssty" Davis and, well, all of those shiftless darkies we opposed in 1993.

Seriously, were these guys vacationing on Planet Xenon in 1993? When the race of the president and his whiter-than-white senior staff pushed a budget-blowing health care entitlement expansion, it was vigorously opposed. How is race necessary to explain the current opposition?

posted by Ace at 12:14 PM

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