House of Eratosthenes

Snopes has spoken on the issue of “Death Panels” — sort of (warning, that site is popup-city). They have avoided, perhaps wisely, using or even making reference to that term. The wisdom of that decision depends on what they’re trying to do, and what they’re trying to do is strongly related to why I don’t visit their site nearly as much as I used to.

I don’t blame them for leaning left; we all have our little quirks in that department. But given a decision that would result in edifying the audience on the one hand, and staying out of a shouting match on the other, Snopes will opt to remain cucumber-cool and leave the audience ignorant. A decade ago I wrote an e-mail to David Mikkelson taking him to task about the Al Gore “Created the Internet” page and the high potential the contents had for giving the readership the wrong impression; the reply I got back convinced me the resolve to remain above & outside of shouting matches, must have been Barbara’s. Oh don’t get me wrong, the man’s words were calm, reasoned, logical in their own way — but it left me wondering if you could ask him “scrambled or sunny side up?” without getting scolded. You know the type, I think.

The death-panel page? It’s pure straw-man.

Claim: The health care bill currently before Congress mandates that seniors be given euthanasia counseling every five years.

FALSE

I haven’t heard that one anywhere. How ’bout you?

No, the discussions I have heard have to do with whether socialized medicine has a proclivity of investing life-and-death decisions with bureaucrats who care only about dollars and cents, and perhaps under-value the life that is left in people who don’t quite have one foot in the grave just yet.

And I think I’ll place my trust on that issue in the relatively popup-free Neo-Neocon:

The Times Online reports the case of Hazel Fenton, a near-casualty of the British health care system:

AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened…

Read the whole story. It certainly does add a new perspective, I think.

Progressives are never interested in the consequences of their actions, only their intent. If they don’t intend for there to be “death panels”, if anything like one pops up as a result of their legislation, it was somebody else’s fault, and they’ll come up with yet more legislation to “correct” the problem. Well, at least that will be the intent … and the cycle continues.
- philmon | 10/12/2009 @ 08:51
What are the consequences of what they are talking about on a doctor who specializes in geriatrics? On a cardiologist? An orthopaedic surgeon?
- Larry Sheldon | 10/12/2009 @ 10:50
Snopes.com does lean left, though not as bad as some other outlets. They’re fairly reliable on non-political matters; they’re sort of like Wikipedia that way.
- Gordon | 10/12/2009 @ 14:41
Funny you should say that. Right after my dust-up with Mr. Mikkelson I was asked about them and I said “on anything not having to do with Al Gore, they’re pretty trustworthy” or words to that effect.

I would amend it now to say, the things they put out there, you can take to the bank. It’s the stuff they choose not to print that you really can’t trust. The item linked is a perfect example; they want like the dickens for people to go to their cocktail parties and say Sarah Palin’s expression of “death panels” is an “urban legend.” But they didn’t even discuss it, they went after the thing nobody anywhere is talking about.
- mkfreeberg | 10/12/2009 @ 14:51
Always remember, and never let anybody forget — this bill is a foot in the door. No, it doesn’t say “socialized medicine”. It doesn’t say “government health care system”. It doesn’t say “rationing” or “death panels”.

We’re not arguing about what’s in these particular bills.

We’re arguing about where the bill will lead — and that is directly to where those who are pushing it want it to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

It is excactly a “Trojan Horse” for single-payer, government healt care. They’ve told us what they want, they’ve told us what they intend, for years and years and years. They didn’t just suddenly change their minds.

Barney Frank: “I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer and that is the best way to reach single payer.” … among other quotes in that video.
- philmon | 10/12/2009 @ 15:00
When somebody (snopes, for example) lies or is misleading about something I know something about, I am going to assume that everything that somebody (snopes, for example) says is either a lie or is intended to mislead me.
- Larry Sheldon | 10/12/2009 @ 15:49
I use Snopes periodically myself to debunk whatever scary-sounding email is currently making the rounds. My dad, for instance, will get some damn thing in his inbox about how Bill Gates is tracking your emails and will send you a nickel for each one, or how the FCC is getting ready to levy a tax on same. He forwards these on to me wanting to know “if there’s anything to it.”

I have noticed, however, that on any subject which is even remotely tinged with politics or controversy…Snopes never, NEVER, EVER seems to come down on the side of the debate which one would assign to the “conservative” perspective. Likewise with the Straight Dope, a myth-buster column which appears weekly in the Chicago Reader. That one, between answering questions about whether water would freeze or boil in space, has declared that the “science is settled” on both MM global warming and on evolution. The author (Cecil Adams) proceeds to make several erroneous statements in defense of both.

Does anyone know of a myth-buster resource that DOESN’T lean left?
- cylarz | 10/14/2009 @ 21:47
Politifact.com seems to hew fairly close to center on issues. But the do seem to pick on conservatives more than they do the liberals in terms of what they analyze.
- Gordon | 10/14/2009 @ 22:32
Does anyone know of a myth-buster resource that DOESN’T lean left?

The pink stuff between the ears.

Seriously. Just find out what the conclusion is, and what drives it; then ask “Now how do you get from HERE…over to HERE.” We need to avoid the future in which the ecclesiasticals tell us what to believe and the rest of us just go “mmm, okay.” Fortunately, even if our culture isn’t moving away from that, our technology is.
- mkfreeberg | 10/15/2009 @ 04:48
NewsBusters.Org … I don’t know if it qualifies as a “mythbuster” organization, and they are upfront about the fact that they are targeting leftist spin. But people tend to equate “center” with “fair” … which isn’t necessarily true. What’s true is true, and if people who’s opinions are closer to it happen to fall into one category than the other — that’s just the way it is. The “truth” isn’t the average of all opinion. The truth just is.
- philmon | 10/16/2009 @ 06:48

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Death PathwayMonday, October 12th, 2009

Death Pathway
Monday, October 12th, 2009