Let Me Count The Ways

You can easily tell when your opponent is struggling to maintain some degree of validity when they are reduced to sophomoric games like lambasting Obama for using the pronoun "I" rather than the editorial "we". It's this specific style of non-intellectual reasoning that the conservative movement loves to immerse themselves in.

The latest example of this is a piece by hogan over at RedState entitled Words Mean Things. His thesis is predicated on the fact that since certain words appear at a higher ratio than others, that this bill will likely mean that winged monkeys will descend from the hills and claw out your grandmother's eyes.

The word “shall” appears 3607 times, but “freedom” only twice. The word “penalty” and its various forms 163 times, but “liberty” doesn’t appear at all. The word “require” and its forms 1025 times, but the “Constitution” is absent both literally and figuratively. The word tax and its forms appears 183 times, fee 234 times, and “Internal Revenue” 104 times. Other words like apply, rule, culture, diverse, enforce, provide, authority - all words that appear repeatedly, while a word like “own” appears only 11 times. See the full list below. It is quite telling.

Other words that likely weren't in the bill:

Taint

Egalitarian

Goat-Fucker

Is the Senate version of healthcare reform any less important or more so because these words weren't included?

Media Matters decided that they would take a look at the Right's favorite document to see how many of these "objectionable words" they could find. The document - the US Constitution.

If the raw numbers themselves aren't shocking enough, consider this: by RedState's count, the words "Shall" or "Shall Not" appear 3607 times in the 2074 pages of the health care bill, meaning they appear 1.74 times per page. Those same words appear 337 times in the 20 pages of the Constitution, for an average of 16.85 appearances per page.

The evidence is clear: the Constitution of the United States is at least 10 times as socialist and tyrannical as the Senate health care bill. Thank you, RedState, for helping us to expose this founding document as the commie, Marxist, rag that it is.

But this is just another in a long line of misdirections from not only the twitchy folks at RedState, it is a continuation of years of obstructionist propaganda designed to distract, confuse, and disorient people when needed change is on the table.

And I have two words for Mr. hogan that perhaps he will find meaning in as it relates to his latest piece:

Rank Amateur