Mythusmage Opines

Over at PZ Myer’s  Pharyngula I read a posting under the title, Megadittoes! In it PZ speaks favorably of a video produced by a fellow known as Conceptual Gorilla giving CG’s impression of people opposed to the Federal government’s health reform plans. For your enlightenment I present the video in question below.

Ordinarily Professor Myers is a sensible fellow. When he speaks on evolution, biology, and creationism you can trust him and what he says. But, when he’s talking about people who disagree with him regarding liberal causes he has a bad tendency to belittle and demean the opposition. Note the use of the belittling term, “tea bagging”. I don’t know anybody in the Tea Party movement who use the term, and I have to ask why those opposed to the Tea Party people use it, unless it is to dehumanize the other side.

The video in question was produced for one purpose, and one purpose only. It was taped and edited to put opponents to Obama’s policies in the worst possible light. It was framed as it was to stereotype conservatives and their allies, presenting them as a bunch of stupid niggers.

And PZ Myers expressed agreement with this. A man who usually speaks out against this sort of bigotry, when expressed by those on the right. Paul Myers, be it wrong for World Net Daily to blather on and on about 9/11 conspiracies, why is it not wrong to lump everybody who disagrees with you into one lackwit group?

The video I’m writing about is not balanced, not by any means. It isn’t meant to be. It is framed as it is to give you, the viewer, the worst possible impression of what the videographer purports to be the opposition. It is a lie. The equivalencies it creates are nowhere near as bad as that found in Nazi anti-semitic propaganda films—where Jews were compared to rats, but in his treatment of legitimate concerns and those expressing them, Conceptual Gorilla comes close.

The one thing CG does do that has any honesty is show us what he thinks of conservatives and the Tea Party movement. It’s thinking that governs what many liberals think, that the opposition is a mass of fools who haven’t the wit to understand what they’re doing. It is plain, and rather disgusting bigotry. It doesn’t occur to many Obama supporters that the President’s opposition have legitimate concerns. That people opposed to the current health care bill are certain they don’t need what the bill offers, don’t want what the bill offers, and would much rather do without thank you so very much.

There are people who do need help with their health care, but not everybody. I’m one of those who relies on the government to pay for my medical treatment. Trouble us, I’m denied medical treatment because of the government, because here in the state of California government regulation restricts how much health care providers get paid for their services, and at a rate that does not compensate doctors and dentists and therapists for their work, and the work their staffs must perform in order to keep up with the paperwork government bureaucracy demands.

I will make this simple for people, Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) does not cover the cost of even a straightforward medication visit to my doctor. The shortfall has to be made up charging patients relying on private insurance or cash payments more for their treatments. Ever get charged $100.00 dollars for a pair of aspirin during an emergency room visit? That’s your Medicaid supplemental tax. Your involuntary donation to help that hospital cover the true cost of Medicaid patients.

That is why I’m against people like Conceptual Gorilla. They are cruel, crude, bigoted, and vile. They dehumanize the opposition, and place their own cause in a bad light by their stereotyping of people who disagree with him. Not everybody who disagrees with you is an utter fool. Not everybody who agrees with you knows what he’s talking about. Conceptual Gorilla and people like him poison the discourse, and estrange people from one another. His motivations and the actions that arise from them remind me of nothing more than the lies and misrepresentations presented by creationists in their struggle against the teaching of evolution in the public schools. A left-wing know-nothing bleating on about people he knows nothing of, and wants nothing to do with.