David Neiwert at Crooks And Liars highlights a video of Megyn Kelly and Alan Colmes talking about "freedoms". Alan poses the question - what "freedoms" have these people lost. Turns out Megyn can't answer, just like every conservative.
Colmes: I'd like to know exactly what freedom -- what freedoms are being taken away from people?
Kelly: People are worried they're going to lose their health-insurance coverage! They're worried the federal government is going to step in, take over, and they're not going to be able to see their coverage.
Colmes: I didn't see any particulars about exactly what freedoms people think are going to be taken away. I would like to know what they are.
Kelly: There is just as much in this survey about health care as there is the Patriot Act!
Colmes: Yeah, but nothing in this survey says particular health care, particular Patriot Act, it's just a general question, "freedoms". I mean, what particular freedoms. People call my radio show all the time, 'My freedoms are being compromised.'
All right, I ask them. What freedom is being compromised? What freedom have you lost under Barack Obama?
Kelly: You tell me, Alan -- do you think the Democrats on Capitol Hill are going into 2010 election thinking, 'The problem with numbers like this is the Patriot Act! It is the Bush administration policies.'
Colmes: They're also not going, 'The problem is health care. If we get health care, my freedoms are being taken away.' How do your freedoms get compromised?
Here are some answers that were given to me by members of my own community while attempting to discuss this on a local message-board.
You asked about loss of freedoms, let me suggest a few: 1) I cannot hunt unless I purchase a permit from the government 2) I cannot fish unless I purchase a permit from the government 3) I cannot improve my property unless I purchase a building permit, you guessed it, from the government 4) The law of the land requires me to wear a seatbelt in my car which is equipped with hundreds of safetly features including about 4 airbags that deploy in the event of a crash 5) Although I am not a smoker, we watched as locally a non-elected body passed legislation that essentially took away private property rights and then watched as the elected body tried to save face and modify the rules 6) We have recently seen the Obama administration expand the definition of streams to include any place that water will run off at all so they can essentially take away our right to make a living in the mining industry.
Here's some freedoms lost: Ever heard of assualt weapons bans? What about school choice? Christian symbols removed? Parental notification in abortions? Must you trust so much in a government that carves and carves away freedom? Taxes by their very nature take freedom from us. The Bush tax cuts gave us 5million jobs (that Obama has erased completely) despite a Democratic congress increasing spending by 42%.
You'll notice that there has was not one "right" listed in any of these responses to my question. People hunt, fish, buy guns, worship whatever God they want, can chose either private or public schools, smoke, refurbish their home, or do any of these things they think they can't. It's this mind-set that somehow, since Obama was elected, the country has changed in such a radical way that it is literally unrecognizable.
And while some will chalk this up to racial divisiveness, I think it has more to do with people's inability to understand that this isn't a country run by conservative law or liberal law. This isn't a country that ordained Bush as Monarch until his death. This isn't a country that is governed by the minority. Conservatives have literally wet themselves in abject fear over what they perceive, not what is real.
1 comment:
The freedom to consider themselves superior to black people, obviously.
Post a Comment