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<\/div>\nIt’s either the most shameless example of demagogic fear-mongering I’ve run into in the last few months — and that’s in field that been euthanistically tough to beat — or else the Right has finally, definitively, gone bat-shit insane<\/em>.<\/p>\n Yes, I actually said “bat-shit insane” here. Because I can’t think of any better way to describe it.<\/p>\n So, the White House wants a health care plan. They’ve been giving speeches about it, exerting political pressure toward it, this, that, and the other thing.<\/p>\n But the Right has been hard at work in opposition. Not just opposition in a “allow me to rebut with some reasoned points of my own” sort of way, but opposition in a “allow me to pull some half-truths, misleading statistics, and made-up quotations out of my ass for a moment” sort of way. <\/p>\n I read this stuff a lot. The Obama Administation could hire a dozen people to troll the Internet full-time and they couldn’t keep up. So, they asked for help from health care supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can\u2019t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we\u2019re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Seems clever. Enlist the power of the internet to gather up new hot rumors and distortions at the speed of Twitter. Heard something off-kilter? Let us know, so that we can be ready to rebut it when it surfaces. <\/em>Straightforward, smart, and totally innocuous, right?<\/p>\n Unless, of course, you are bat-shit insane<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex)<\/a>:<\/p>\n Cornyn says this practice would let the White House collect personal information about people who oppose the President.<\/p>\n “By requesting citizens send ‘fishy’ emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email, addresses, IP addresses and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House,” Cornyn wrote in a letter to Obama. “You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And we all know the GOP cannot abide a data collection program.<\/p>\n Cornyn asked Obama to cease the program immediately, or at the very least explain what the White House would do with the information it collects.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Get that? It’s not a matter of learning about what’s being said out there — it’s all a vast conspiracy out to send all opposition to the re-education camps run by ACORN in the Nevada Desert.<\/em> <\/p>\n Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council<\/a>:<\/p>\n Fishy? If there is anything fishy it is the White House wanting people to help them keep track of those who oppose the government takeover of health care. Is the White House is simply wanting to keep a scrapbook of the emails that primarily quote the President and the legislation that he is pushing, or is it possible they are simply looking to use this information to intimidate and if possible silence their opponents?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That’s right! The request clearly asked for names, addresses, descriptions, and the best place to “disappear” the double-plus-ungood wrongthoughtspeaker.<\/p>\n The ACLJ<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very troubling attempt to stifle the free speech of Americans who have the constitutional right to express their opinion and concerns about health care,\u201d said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. \u201cThis move is an attempt to intimidate those who have legitimate concerns about the health care plan. And, worse, it turns the White House into some sort of self-appointed \u2018speech police\u2019 \u2013 urging Americans to monitor and report those who engage in \u2018fishy\u2019 speech. What will the Obama Administration do with those names? Who will be \u2018flagged\u2019 next? President Obama must reject this assault on free speech. It\u2019s not only wrong, it directly contradicts his repeated promise to conduct a more open and transparent government.\u201d<\/p>\n […] \u201cIn a nutshell, the White House is asking Americans to report on their neighbors, family, and friends who disagree with the President\u2019s policy choices on health care,\u201d said Sekulow. \u201cThe White House is also implying that you should think twice before sending an email disagreeing with the President, since it might end up being forwarded to them. The White House email address says it all \u2013 let\u2019s \u2018flag\u2019 those who disagree with us. This new White House reporting program strikes at the heart of the First Amendment and has no place in this important debate about health care.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Right. The White House wanting to hear what is being said is striking at the heart of the right of people to, um, say … stuff. Instead, the White House should put its fingers in its ears, smirk, and whistle “The Yellow Rose of Texas” really loudly.<\/p>\n The fact of the matter is of course:<\/p>\n A. There’s no indication in the request that information about “those who disagree with us” is being sought, let alone stored away and used for future covert black ops.<\/p>\n B. There is no indication that the Obama Administration is out to indimidate (let alone silence) its opponents. I did my “Well what if George Bush had” examination on this. “What if George Bush had asked: “If you get an email or see something on the web about our need to act to defend the world against Saddam Hussein that seems fishy, send it to cowboy@whitehouse.gov<\/a>” would I be treating it as innocuous? The main distinction I can see is that the Dubya White House (and its allies in Congress) were quick to brand as “traitors” and “allies to the terrorists” anyone who questioned the war. Show me where Obama or Biden have called folks traitors who oppose them on health care reform and I’ll reconsider this point.<\/p>\n C. Speaking of Dubya, there’s no need, if the Obama White House is out to “get” the opposition in some nefarious fashion, to solicit for public health in tracking this info. Thanks to the Bushies, the NSA and other security agencies can tap our phones, sift through our Internet, and gather up whatever info they need faster and more completely than any email box for rumors. And I’ve no doubt that it could all be spit out neatly cross-referenced by IP address, email address, and full passport \/ travel \/ tax \/ etc. info on the individuals who promulgated whatever was being searched on.<\/p>\n Granted, the Obama Administration has been more than a bit disappointing in how its treated all those keen intelligence toys and novel executive power assertions it inherited from Bush\/Cheney … but the fact remains that an email dropbox at whitehouse.gov is hardly the most effective (or covert) way that they could gather info to suppress any opposition if they put their ostensibly nefarious hearts to it.<\/p>\n So what’s the reasoning here? Why is the Right jumping all over this with such gleeful affront and wild-eyed fear? Is it simply another insidious attempt to sway hearts by fear? Or are they, actually, bat-shit insane?<\/em> <\/p>\n Whichever, be sure you report them to the Official Reporting of Treasonous Thought address the White House has set up. Because whichever is the reason, someone needs to send some black helicoptors to take them away to the slave labor pens built under Denver International Airport. That’ll show ’em, by cracky!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (via Right Wing Watch<\/a>)<\/p>\n <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
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