( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Yesterday, South Carolina Congressman Joe “YOU LIE” Wilson gave a speech condemning Health Care Reform as a “Greater Control” on American lives. The video can be seen here, but the main event is below the fold.
Fear mongering over health care reform is nothing new for Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC02), but the speech he gave on the House floor a few days ago that was mocked by Jon Stewart should stand in the Wingnut Hall of Fame of insane, disconnected rants that have nothing at all to do with the reality of the issues being discussed.
It is, in a word, Palinesque.
More below the fold.
“The Internet has been a profound tool and resource of advanced knowledge to connect families and friends around the world. Internet users and providers have improved upon and utilized a free marketplace. However, there is a real concern that the new proposed ‘net neutrality’ regulations may undermine or stifle innovation. There is a time and a place for government to promote transparency in the pursuit of good business practices. However, the government and bureaucratic agencies should not needlessly impose regulations when the cause for concern is not justified. Before we move forward with new regulations on the Internet, we must weigh the consequences. We need to ensure we do not disrupt the necessary flexibility that has led to a vibrant marketplace, one which continues to foster new technology around the world, helping liberate people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September the 11th in the global war on terrorism.”
Got all that? So, by Joe Wilson’s twisted logic, if Net Neutrality is passed, the free market will collapse, freedom around the world will suffer and the people America “liberated” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran (I guess?) will be subjected to torture and a loss of the freedoms they gained because of an unregulated internet, or something. Oh, and not the kind of torture Americans do to make the world safer, the other, bad kind.
Where Republicans like Joe Wilson come up with this stuff is a mystery to me. He might as well have gone onto the floor of the House and shouted “Net Neutrality is made of PEOPLE! PEE-POLE!!!!!!”
Needless to say, I want to throw Joe Wilson out of Congress in the worst way, not only for his heckling of our Commander in Chief Barack Obama, but for many other reasons, his personal War On Reality not being the least of his offenses.
Representative Ed Markey warned us yesterday that Net Neutrality is likely to be “Death-Panelled” by Republicans who are running out of rational reasons to say NO! to things. ThinkProgress.org quoted Representative Markey as saying . . .
It’s almost as though some people want to have their own equivalent of “death panels” that we had in the health care debate back in August. That was a red herring that took us off the main point of providing health care to everyone, for a month or six weeks. Now we’ve got that straightened out, but we have to battle hard to make sure the misinformation is responded and responded to in a very brief period of time.
And we know that the RightWingNoiseMachine would LOVE to turn Net Neutrality into another “Government Takeover”, which is a code word for fascism or socialism or something. Glenn Beck has already brough out his big blackboard of factless conclusions on the matter a couple of times, and the batshit conspiracy rhetoric is sure to intensify as the issue becomes more and more relevant in Washington.
But Joe Wilson is already sprinting to the head of the pack in the Republican race to say the dumbest and most outlandish thing possible in order to scare Americans about what Democrats have on their agenda. The only things missing are the “Death Blogs” and the chance for Wilson to scream “YOU LIE!” at someone.
Also crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
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