Earlier this month, Steven Pearlstein wrote in the Washington Post, “As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don’t agree. Today, I’m going to step over that line…”
I was late to the party; comments on the Post site are already closed.
Mr. Pearlstein propagates three significant falsehoods in stepping over his critical line.
(1) It may be true to say the recent attacks by the ideological right … [are] a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation, but Mr. Pearlstein ignores the fact that the recent attacks by the ideological left … [are] the same lies whose only purpose are to scare the public and stop political conversation.
(2) The vast majority of Americans will likely not be able to to buy health insurance from private companies when, as happened in Vermont, the ever tightening rules run private insurers out of town.
(3) The centerpiece of all the plans is not a new health insurance exchange. The centerpiece of all the plans is a new trillion dollar tax, a fact Mr. Pearlstein calls “Another lie.” The fact is, Mr. Pearlstein, that health care in America is a TWO trillion dollar annual expense. If the government raises that amount in taxes and dispenses it for health care, that makes it a TWO trillion dollar annual tax.
I agree that “Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society.” One that both sides have failed. It is a test, in fact a war, that so far only the media, the lawyers, and the politicians have won.
Sorry, Mr. Pearlstein, but fighting a war with fiction isn’t right no matter which side of the angels you think you are on.
Read all about ObamaCare here.
Dick wrote: “Sorry, Mr. Pearlstein, but fighting a war with fiction isnt right no matter which side of the angels you think you are on.”
Ach! George muss einmal fragen: Wohin ist dass alter Gemeinplatz gegangen dass steht: “Alles in Liebe und Krieg gerecht ist”?
All IS fair in love and war; and this is, after all, a war of words. Such verbal warfare is predicated on propaganda, and propaganda has no mandate in truth. In fact, propaganda entails the spreading of rumor and disinformation for the purpose of winning the war (of words or otherwise).
If we are going to chide our enemy for lying and then hold ourselves to that Christian standard then it would not be war but a discourse conducted under oath, *So Help Me God*.
As Coach Fritz Wilhelm Geheimer once said on ESPN. “It is not ‘how you won’, but ‘did you or didn’t you’?”
Liars win as often as not and go on to reap the rewards of their forked tongues. Losers lose because theirs were not forked enough.
If men can no longer tell lies in times of war, then must we also come clean with fair lady and admit to all those past indescretions? Heaven forbid.
— George