why is it the GOP can only conduct arguments by lying?

[realthog]

As I remarked to pds_lit last night over our mushroom stroganoff (yep, I got a mushroom bargain in a local store so bought in bulk), the only political parties that conduct business primarily though lying are the repressive ones -- the Hitler regime, the Stalin regime, the Kim Jong-il regime, the Ahmadinejad regime, and so forth. Oh, and, uncomfortably close to home and embarrassing to admit, the modern US Republican Party.

Other politicians are of course not innocent: almost all of them fib on occasion, and/or "spin". But the deliberate use of outright lying as an everyday political tool is the province of politicians whose instincts are anti-democratic and repressive.

In no context could this be clearer than the current "debate" over healthcare reform. It's hard to pin the scabrous false scaremongering e-mail that's doing the rounds directly on the GOP leadership (according to some reports, it's a fabrication done by insurance-company lobbyists), but in many other instances the GOP -- and the GOP leadership, at that -- can be seen right out in the open lying in a manner to draw admiring gasps from the likes of Richard Nixon.

Our beloved media, of course, regard as "balance" the placing of these flat lies alongside the facts and the attempt to find "middle ground" between the two: how often does one have to repeat that the midway point between truth and a lie is still a lie?

Whatever: yesterday frostokovich sent me a copy of a statement given to the Canadian Senate by conservative Canadian Senator Hugh Segal on June 22 eviscerating the "facts" offered a week earlier to the US Senate by minority leader Mitch McConnell; in so doing, of course, Segal demolished another myth promulgated by the US right -- that the argument over healthcare is one between conservatives and liberals, because Segal's own political views exemplify the fact that all over the rest of the developed world national health services are supported with equal enthusiasm by left and right.

But that's an aside. Here's Segal's statement, taken verbatim from Canadian Hansard's transcript:

Kingston General Hospital

Hon. Hugh Segal: Honourable senators, a week ago in the United States Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican senior senator from Kentucky, made a speech opposing health care reform proposals advanced by the Obama administration. In that speech, he chose Kingston General Hospital as his example of all that is allegedly wrong with Canadian universal health care.

Perhaps unwittingly, Senator McConnell distorted, misrepresented and misstated how long KGH patients might wait for surgery. I have a duty as the senator from Kingston-Frontenac-Leeds to correct him on the floor of this chamber.

Thanks to Saskatchewan NDP Premier Tommy Douglas, Conservative Prime Minister Diefenbaker and Liberal Prime Minister Pearson, we developed a tenet of national health policy that has served millions of Canadians extremely well. Nothing is beyond improvement. However, Canada has a health care system that allows total access to every Canadian citizen or permanent resident, regardless of their province or territory, and regardless of their financial circumstances.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts. Unfortunately, Senator McConnell's facts and statistics were absolutely incorrect. He informed the United States Senate that there is a 196-day waiting period for hip replacement at KGH. The actual number is 91 days. He stated that it takes 340 days, on average, for knee replacement surgery. The actual number is just over 100. He maintained that cancer surgeries, including brain surgery, can take upwards of three months. At KGH, the waiting period is eight days for neurosurgical cancer, 16 days for breast cancer and 49 days for prostate cancer.

Senator McConnell said that patients in Ontario may wait six months for cardiac bypass surgery. The median wait time, thanks to the outstanding work done by Dr. Keon many years ago, is actually 16 days.

I am troubled that my American colleague, in his misrepresentation of a proud institution that has served Kingston for 170 years, has compelled me to remind him that, according to the American Institute of Medicine, there are 48 million Americans without health coverage of any kind, 9 million of whom are children. Without health insurance, a total hip replacement will cost, on average, $39,299 U.S., according to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Even with health insurance, the out-of-pocket costs for Americans for deductibles and co-insurance will typically be $3,957.

I am putting on the record accurate and current facts and figures relating to the same procedures referenced by my American colleague. I add that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average lifespan in his state of Kentucky is 75.2 years. According to Statistics Canada, that number is 80.4 years in Ontario and 78.3 years in Kingston. Furthermore, according to the Fraser Institute, in a recent study, the U.S. spent $6,714 per capita versus $3,678 in Canada in 2004.

Finally, while Canada is struggling to meet the ever-increasing demands and costs of our health care system, no Canadian will need ever declare bankruptcy to obtain life-saving treatment for their son or daughter. This fact makes the struggle worthwhile.

I regret that Senator McConnell found it necessary to "inform" the American public of the hazards of universal health care by maligning a most professional, dedicated and capable institution such as the Kingston General Hospital.

In light of this, it's not unnatural for us to expect some sort of retraction and/or apology from Senator McConnell. Okay, I'll pause a moment to let the hollow laughter subside.

And it's not just from Senator Segal that McConnell knows he got his facts wrong. Kingston General Hospital's chief of staff, Dr David Zelt, was moved to write to McConnell correcting his figures. The Toronto Globe and Mail gave the details:

..........................................................McConnell...........................KGH
Hip replacement................................... 196 days.......................91 days
Knee replacement.................................340 days.....................109 days
Cardiac bypass surgery........................6 months.......................16 days
Neurological cancer surgery.................3 months.........................8 days
Breast cancer surgery...........................3 months.......................16 days
Prostate cancer surgery........................3 months.......................49 days

In other words, you have to wait a bit for non-urgent operations -- but only a fraction of the time McConnell stated. Where McConnell was silent was on waiting times for urgent operations -- because, of course, in essence there aren't any waiting times for those.

(In the US, of course, the waiting time for an urgent operation can often be in effect infinite, in that you're dead by the time the insurance company gives the go-ahead -- or, if you don't have insurance, you're likely dead anyway.)

Initially, McConnell could have offered the claim that he had been misinformed or that otherwise he'd got his "facts" in a twist. He'd then have been guilty of only a B-Grade lie: presenting as a matter of established fact something that has not been established at all.

But to persist in the lie once the correct information has been made available to you, or simply to remain silent so that your original error is left to stand? That's a prime-time, Numero Uno, Grade-A SuperWhopper lie: the type of which Goebbels said, "If you've got to tell a lie, tell a big one."

Which brings me back to my original point: all politicians lie occasionally, but it's diagnostic of the repressive politicians and demagogues that they do so habitually, actually preferring the option of outright lying to the other political and rhetorical tools available to them. McConnell and his cohorts perhaps could present a coherent argument against healthcare reform; instead they choose dishonesty.

By their own deeds we must judge them.

Comments

[saycestsay.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I link to this from my lj?

And I disagree with your next-to-last statement. I do not believe that McConnell and his cohorts could present a coherent (assuming coherent includes honest) argument against healthcare reform.

As you say, instead they choose to lie (like the GOPers telling their dupes that healthcare reform translates to death for old people) because they assume no one will correct them; or correct them loudly enough to matter.

Thank you for this post. HOpe it reaches enough ears/eyes.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Would you mind if I link to this from my lj?"

Feel free -- I'm flattered.

"And I disagree with your next-to-last statement. I do not believe that McConnell and his cohorts could present a coherent (assuming coherent includes honest) argument against healthcare reform."

I cannot myself think of one. On the other hand, one assumes conservatives (high-ranking ones, anyway) have reached their conclusions through some process of reasoning. That reasoning would constitute a coherent (at least to them) argument.

Blame it on my interest in science that I refuse to discount a theoretical possibility!

[melindadansky.livejournal.com]

I've totally filched this for my LJ. I'll take it down if you prefer.

The worst part of McConnell's statements is that they pre-suppose that Americans never have to wait for the procedures listed, which isn't true..

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I've totally filched this for my LJ. I'll take it down if you prefer."

I'm very flattered that you've done so!

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I linked to this post in my LJ because I couldn't think of anything to say that you hadn't already said.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

As I just said to melindadansky, I'm very flattered that you've done so!

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

What's worse is not only that McConnell is willfully lying, but that he knows no US news venue will call him on it. Well, I'm talking about any news venue with more than 50 viewers. One of the many reasons why the GOP tries its damnedest to cut funding for the public television system is because of shows such as Frontline, which take the time to explain the lies and why the participants are lying. With everyone else, it's a "nonstory" when it's discovered that a leading US Senator was lying his ass off, if the producer or editor wasn't terrified of losing valuable medical advertising if any serious rebuttal was printed or aired.

When I was a kid, friends wondered why our local utility companies and hospitals were blowing so much money on advertising on television and in the paper, especially in cases of flat-out monopolies. It has nothing to do with public perception, and has everything to do with making sure that station managers and publishers are kept in line. Here in Dallas, the only time we get serious investigations into hospital quality, particularly in our sole daily or on television news, is when the hospitals decide that they don't need to buy advertising any more.

[melindadansky.livejournal.com]

Here in Dallas, the only time we get serious investigations into hospital quality, particularly in our sole daily or on television news, is when the hospitals decide that they don't need to buy advertising any more.

Wow. That's creepy.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. Nearly three years ago, I had to make an ER trip to our nearest hospital, for what turned out to be incipient pneumonia. The hospital was so tapped that I received a call later to report back in because someone spotted an "anomaly" on my left lung (my doctor discovered that this was a shadow from said pneumonia), and I even received further calls asking if I was willing to throw even more money at the hospital for charity. The reason? The hospital administration had wildly overspent on television and newspaper advertising, and figured that panhandling from former patients was better than cutting advertising and risking any negative coverage.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"What's worse is not only that McConnell is willfully lying, but that he knows no US news venue will call him on it."

Precisely. And it's genuinely frightening that, in essence, we don't have a Fourth Estate to protect us any longer.

A political party that uses lying as a major tool? The disappearance of an independent news media? Terrifyingly familiar . . .

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

To be absolutely honest, we never really did. We still have a news media organization run by and for the people who moved into journalism so they could get even for bullying in high school. What's changed is that you have a whole system produced by downsizing where everybody in a news organization is terrified of losing their jobs at any given time, and covering an embarrassing story is a good way to get cut in "regretful but necessary layoffs". (The reporters may want to go for those stories, but you're looking at a system where either the editors are violently reactionary or they're cowardly beyond words. You know why you never call a newspaper editor "weaselly"? It's an insult: weasels have a spine.)

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"The reporters may want to go for those stories, but you're looking at a system where either the editors are violently reactionary or they're cowardly beyond words."

That's the crux of the problem. As the wingnuts are so fond of reciting, reporters are on average a bit to the left of centre (as you'd expect from folx who can read without using their lips), yet every survey ever done of the US media shows the output of those reporters to be on average well to the right of centre.

The only solutions seem to be (a) ownership of news media by a trust, as per a couple of the UK quality newspapers, so that there's no "owner" to interfere politically or otherwise with the journalists' journalistic decisions, and (b) state ownership of a news medium provided that it's enshrined in the country's constitution (or equivalent) that government interference is not permissible, and indeed the whole legal architecture is such that is not possible (Blair's Administration in the UK, to its eternal shame, did its damnedest to exert some control over the BBC, and got hardly anywhere).

[realthog.livejournal.com]

This journalistic shucking of responsibility results in some of the comments to http://pds-lit.livejournal.com/172436.html?view=726420#t726420. I'm convinced people are losing the power of rational thought and their ability to evaluate the world around them.

[lonfiction.livejournal.com]

I would love to see the meat of that post forwarded around half as much as the craptacular lies I've been getting in my email box. Maybe even with some overly cute Precious Moments angels all around it, and a few animated skeletons dancing all around the scaaaaary facts!

PS Linked! And the answer to your question is No. They only apologize to Limbaugh.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"They only apologize to Limbaugh."

Saw this remark on your own LJ, and laughed aloud.

Didn't laugh so much at the thought of you stuck in the airport at a time like this. My thoughts are with you, buddy.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"the craptacular lies I've been getting in my email box"

Oh, while I was ranting, pds_lit was, unbeknownst to me, pasting into her LJ a lengthy demolition by healthcareforamericanow.com (sp?) of the main "craptacular lies" e-mail that's been doing the rounds.

Pam's even angrier about all this than I am. It's quite spectacular . . .

[lonfiction.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine! Thanks to both of you for keeping the light and heat on this debate.

[scottakennedy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. The only hope of anyone in the U.S. media calling McConnel on this would be Stewart, Colbert, Maddow, or Olberman, although whether one of their staffers might happen to read that Canadian paper seems doubtful.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"The only hope of anyone in the U.S. media calling McConnel on this would be Stewart, Colbert, Maddow, or Olberman"

Maher or Moyers too.

"whether one of their staffers might happen to read that Canadian paper seems doubtful"

Segal's statement seems to be getting picked up by a few bloggers at last.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Mitch McConnell is a piece of shit, if you'll pardon my Gaelic.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Ah, insightful political analysis at last!

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I was the beneficiary of a class-action suit against the biggest health insurance company in Kentucky (I got three bucks). The powers that be in the Bluegrass State have been screwing the poor and middle class for years, and keep being re-elected because they push the right buttons: Jesus, patriotism, and keeping the, ahem, Negroes, in their place.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"and keep being re-elected because they push the right buttons: Jesus, patriotism, and keeping the, ahem, Negroes, in their place."

It is absolutely pathetic that grown-up human beings should be susceptible to this sort of bullshit, isn't it?

I spose the problem is that, in any sense other than the chronological, they're not in fact grown-up human beings . . .