posted
The new Republican strategy--what ever they call optional, we'll call mandatory. If we do it more often than they do, people will believe us and we win.
So when there is an Optional program to gather wrong information and counter it, they call it Mandatory and evil.
Just like the Optional End Of Life Counseling (promoted to remove Terry Shaivo type cases where your family gets to decides whether or not to let you die instead of having your wishes firmly known) became Mandator End of Life Counseling--read as euthenasia for expesive elderly patients.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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It is inappropriate to use the office of the President to ask for citizens to inform on other citizens' free speech. Since the office of President carries a hefty amount of power and authority behind it, it is inevitably quelling on free speech.
Clear enough for you? Obama the Candidate did not have official power. Obama the President does. Using that bully pulpit to request citizens' to become informers in a legislation dispute is an abuse of that position and power.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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While I don't disagree with you, Katie, I find myself wondering: let's say that you, as the President, find your policies opposed by a massive, hydra-headed disinformation scheme. You wish to respond to the most important pieces of disinformation in a timely way, before they become part of the national intercourse and thus accepted as "true" by default among people who are inclined to believe that sort of thing.
How do you get out ahead of that cycle without abusing your power?
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Clear enough for you?
No, you didn't answer my question at all to my satisfaction. Moreover you provided no support for your assertion about free speech. It just sounds like fear mongering to me, which is not a great surprise. Be short with me if you wish, but if aren't actually holding back some deeper level of reasoning on this, then I think fear-mongering is exactly what this is.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:let's say that you, as the President, find your policies opposed by a massive, hydra-headed disinformation scheme. You wish to respond to the most important pieces of disinformation in a timely way, before they become part of the national intercourse and thus accepted as "true" by default among people who are inclined to believe that sort of thing.
How do you get out ahead of that cycle without abusing your power?
Have your staff do research. Hire a clipping service. Use Google. Have the DNC put out the request and use a non-government email address for it.
There ARE other options that don't involve a White House email address and a request for citizens to become informants on political free speech.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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So basically do it all, but unofficially. Yeah, I'm getting where you're coming from now.
So had he done that, would you then have been incensed at the subterfuge and lack of openness? I'm betting on yes, but I'm even more sure that Lisa would be posting about that right now instead of this.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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That's a somewhat thin line you're drawing there. If they do they kind of research and find blog postings and other sites and publications, and for that matter, if those staffers doing research go looking for suspicious emails, then it's going to be viewed as some secret investigation out to disrupt free speech. I think you're creating a situation where, applying the basis of your complaints, it's impossible for the president to collect information on his opposition without making him out to be an enemy of "political free speech."
I recognize the hypothetical danger that this tip line represents, but it doesn't really bother me. They want to know about the lies, rumors, dis/misinformation that's going around out there so they can articulate a response to it. Asking people to send them that faulty information is fine. If people send more information than is required, then it's their fault as far as I'm concerned. Intent matters a lot to me, and near as I can tell, the intent here has absolutely nothing to do with the people involved, but the arguments.
Furthermore, THIS kind of political free speech needs to be combated wherever it rears its ugly head, and I'm more than willing to take the nanoscopic risk of some sort of abuses coming out of this in order to combat a willful proliferation of falsehoods to score cheap political points.
Ask yourself an honest question: What's a larger danger to America, a White House tip line, or a nation that can't engage in honest civil discourse because someone always throws a wrench into the gears that no one can ever seem to pry out?
You might argue the first one is a first step on a slipper slope to authoritarianism, but the second is a nation already in the middle stages of decay.
It's the fall that's gonna kill ya.Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Some of you may not be familiar with this new fangled thing called The Internet. All the kids are using it to make up stories about how Obama wants to kill your grandma and retarded babies - you should check it out!
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Epictetus: It seems to me that the White House is trying to gather information about what is being said so it can sift through fact and fiction and address citizen's concerns. I don't see any effort to actually silence these people, and since much of this program is focused on the internet, I'm not sure how you could plausibly go about silencing anyone.
I don't read it that way at all. They seem less concerned with addressing citizens' concerns and more with passing the legislation. Maybe I'm reading some into it with that last statement, but I see no where in the text (videos don't agree with this computer) on this page anything about what they plan to do with these so-called fishy emails, just that they're going to be collecting them if you send 'em in.
I'm definitely leaning toward Katie and PSI's view on this. I am, however, more concerned with the possible trend (include TIPS, for it certainly is part of it) this is encouraging.
(edited to include note about videos hating my work computer)
Posts: 691 | Registered: Nov 2008
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I'm just imagining somebody submitting a link to The Free Republic as if the administration were somehow unaware of its existence. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So, for this to be okay, all Obama would have to do is move the inquiry to a yahoo mail account...?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I don't read it that way at all. They seem less concerned with addressing citizens' concerns and more with passing the legislation. Maybe I'm reading some into it with that last statement, but I see no where in the text on this page anything about what they plan to do with these so-called fishy emails, just that they're going to be collecting them if you send 'em in.
Considering that that entry in under the heading: As part of our effort to push back on the misinformation about health insurance reform, we've launched WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck., I thought what they are claiming to plan to do with them is pretty clear.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Exactly. The point is more to discourage people from speaking against the issue in order to avoid being reported to the White House rather than actually gathering information that lying around for all to see.
If that WASN'T the point, it does a marvelous impression of it, and that's a major problem in itself. There's a reason it's called the bully pulpit - bullying people to stop free speech is not behavior becoming to an elected President.
quote:So, for this to be okay, all Obama would have to do is move the inquiry to a yahoo mail account...?
And have the DNC make the request, not have the request posted on a government website. Yep.
Just like it is okay for the Vice President to call people and ask for campaign money, but not for him to do it from the White House.
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Kath, your argument requires that "being reported to the White House" is some kind of danger. Yet I've received emails from Disrupters who find getting themselves onto the FLAG list as an accomplishment.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Presumably the people who cling to guns or religion wouldn't be in a hurry to stop speaking because they've been told on.
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quote:Exactly. The point is more to discourage people from speaking against the issue in order to avoid being reported to the White House rather than actually gathering information that lying around for all to see.
If that WASN'T the point, it does a marvelous impression of it, and that's a major problem in itself. There's a reason it's called the bully pulpit - bullying people to stop free speech is not behavior becoming to an elected President.
I disagree entirely. I think the the point is to combat misinformation, which theoretically leads to an honest and open debate about the issues. If you relabel that as "using the bully pulpit" then you're essentially saying the president has to allow himself to be run roughshod over.
The problem isn't that the opposition is disagreeing with his plan, it's that they're creating entire sections of new material to add to his plan, and are then attacking those portions vociferously. If he isn't allowed to combat that, we might as well pack it in and call it a day, because we'll never be able to get any sort of national discussion off the ground ever again.
And actually, I'm not convinced we will be able to anyway, but take away that piece of the puzzle, and I'm positive we won't be.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Exactly. The point is more to discourage people from speaking against the issue in order to avoid being reported to the White House rather than actually gathering information that lying around for all to see.
Are we talking about... motives?
I would think that discouraging people from lying by exposing their lies would be a good thing. Not every activity that could possibly lead to abuse is necessarily bad. By that standard, we should just have no government at all. Never try anything.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I completely support the President is putting forth a proposal and vigorously defending it. I do not support the President in asking citizens to forward the emails and links to places where other citizens are speaking against his proposals. It is asking citizens to be informants and that has a chilling effect on free speech. Free speech is good, even when it's stupid, and the appropriate response to stupid speech is better speech, not the suggestion that if you disagree with Obama's proposals and don't keep it to yourself, you'll be put on a White House list.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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You have established only your personal interpretation of a suggestion of a list. That's rather thin.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I certainly don't want the president bullying people to shut them up, but I want Americans to start paying attention to the quality of the information they believe, and providing factual rebuttals to disinformation seems like a good step in the right direction.
However, I can agree that there are other avenues to collect the same information that don't have the shades of Big Brother. While I would be truly shocked to find one person who felt intimidated by the blog post, rather than suspicious and angry and vociferous [rather the opposite reaction to the one people seem to be theorizing Obama was going for], I suppose it's theoretically possible that flag@whitehouse.gov could be chilling in some way.
Basically I think the idea that Obama is actually trying to intimidate anyone with this is completely ludicrous, but OK, maybe it's a bad idea anyway.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I'm not blind to that concern, but I think the overarching concern over the health of civil discourse is more important, and as a way to help alleviate this particular ill, I'm fine with asking people to send along faulty information to help combat it. If it causes people to stop spreading false information, excellent. To you that might be stifling free speech, to me, it's energizing open and honest debate.
The irony is, free speech in this country suffers because of free speech. Why? Because if a Congressman comes out and says that he wants a war to end, I can utterly destroy him by spreading lies and rumors about him. Unless he toes the line in jingoistic bliss, he's vulnerable, and like chummed waters, the sharks will circle. But we have to protect lies and rumors because they are free speech, and if we actively start to prosecute such abuses of free speech, someone, somewhere, will rise out of the wood works to call them destroyers of free speech.
What you're saying is a symptom of what I see as a far larger problem. We don't have free speech in this country specifically because free speech enables us to tell lies that make free speech far too dangerous to engage in.
Edit to add: I suppose the more pertinent example would be to say a congressman can't get up and extol the virtues of single payer or universal healthcare without being called a socialist, despite the fact that what even the far left has on its wish list looks nothing like European socialized medicine. The value behind falsely created buzzwords drowns out free speech, so instead politicians either back off policy wise, or are forced to couch their ideas in the guise of something else.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lyrhawn: You are against free speech? Really?
That isn't completely rhetorical. I know lots of people don't hold free speech as a high value. <Insert crack about Canadians.>
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I very much doubt that you're going to find many people who didn't start from a very biased position who agree with kat's characterization. It's pretty absurd. I doubt she herself actually believes it, and suspect rather that she's emulating Sarah Palin here.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I completely support the President is putting forth a proposal and vigorously defending it. I do not support the President in asking citizens to forward the emails and links to places where other citizens are speaking against his proposals. It is asking citizens to be informants and that has a chilling effect on free speech. Free speech is good, even when it's stupid, and the appropriate response to stupid speech is better speech, not the suggestion that if you disagree with Obama's proposals and don't keep it to yourself, you'll be put on a White House list.
Are you aware that I am capable of sending both this post, along with your forum name and posting history to the website? Has this chilled you so far? Are you sufficiently chilled? Are we witnessing the effect of this move on you at this moment?
Edit: You need not read that as a threat. I have no intention of bothering to report anything to anyone. I don't even tell on my neighbors for letting the cat pee on my stairwell every day.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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That biased postion being "I place a very high value on free speech and don't approve of using the state to chill it."
What an interesting definition of absurd you have, Squick.
As an accompaniment, I also support unfettered access to all citizens of age to their voting locations and I disapprove of efforts to discourage people from voting. Quick! Someone call Jonathon Swift!
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I very much doubt that you're going to find many people who didn't start from a very biased position who agree with kat's characterization. It's pretty absurd. I doubt she herself actually believes it, and suspect rather that she's emulating Sarah Palin here.
I thought Kat was Palin...
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Lyrhawn: You are against free speech? Really?
That isn't completely rhetorical. I know lots of people don't hold free speech as a high value. <Insert crack about Canadians.>
The law of the land is against free speech. Slander is illegal.
It's all just degrees after that. In keeping with the idea that saying something untrue about someone else is wrong, I'm against dishonest speech.
You may feel free to repackage that in any way you deem necessary to make your point in a more dramatic fashion.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:That biased postion being "I place a very high value on free speech and don't approve of using the state to chill it."
err...No. I thought my meaning was pretty clear. I also think that that is obviously not what I was talking about, so much so that I'm pretty sure that you don't actually believe it and it's just a dishonest (should I say, Palinesque?) artifice.
This isn't going to chill free speech. The idea that this was definitely the point of the program is ridiculous. There are legitimate criticisms of it (one of which you may have noticed I made), but that is not one.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Lisa, when this information gets used for nefarious purpose, I'll be right alongside you, screaming bloody murder.
As long as it is used for the purpose the Obama administration is claiming it is being used for, and as long as they continue to ask for information rather than names, it is serving a necessary function (I.E. letting honest people fight the lies of lying liars).
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Epictetus: It seems to me that the White House is trying to gather information about what is being said so it can sift through fact and fiction and address citizen's concerns.
It isn't a matter of fact and fiction. It's a matter of extremely different views. The White House is engaged in a propaganda campaign to put across their plan. Fine, that's nothing new. Every administration does that. But this one is asking for help from the public. That's inappropriate. It's assuming that everything the White House says about the plan is true and correct, and anything that disputes the White House view is "misinformation" and "fishy".
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: It might also be noted that some of the misinformation being spread on the subject is completely in the realm of hysteria, but that spreading false information about government policies isn't necessarily illegal (if it were, the talk radio circuit would quickly be silenced.) While asking for specific names- if the link has- may be incredibly tone deaf, it seems more than a little bit of a stretch to suggest that it's a cue for the jackboots to come to the doors of the misinformers.
Don'cha think?
Oh, stop with the strawmen. No one has suggested jackboots at the door. But this is a blatant attempt to intimidate people who disagree. And even if we aren't at jackboots right now, the government should not be allowed to gather lists of people who disagree with them.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Arguing cause and effect is one thing, making crap up that isn't in the bill and saying that it is, is a lie.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I'm pretty sure "They're going to set up Death Panels that will kill off the elderly and retarded children." isn't really a matter of different views. It's just a lie.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: ... the government should not be allowed to gather lists of people who disagree with them.
I'm assuming you were just talking about politically active people here, and not people on terrorist watch lists, FBI most wanted lists, no fly lists, etc. Are those lists cool, or do you have to be more than a liar or a simple agitator to be on one of those?
Wouldn't be a lot of Palestinians on those lists... so this should be an interesting decision for you.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: Lisa, when this information gets used for nefarious purpose, I'll be right alongside you, screaming bloody murder.
No, Paul, you won't. Because there's a line past which you won't be able to, and anything short of that line, you'll still be coming up with one excuse after another.
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: As long as it is used for the purpose the Obama administration is claiming it is being used for, and as long as they continue to ask for information rather than names, it is serving a necessary function (I.E. letting honest people fight the lies of lying liars).
And if Obama is the lying liar? This plan will obviously lead to rationing health care, just to give a simple example. But Obama and his cronies don't want people focusing on that, so they're insisting that the plan doesn't say let's ration health care. Therefore, to them, saying that the plan will lead to rationing health care is viewed by them as misinformation or disinformation or malinformation or whatever the hell you want to call it.
And by law, correspondance to the White House must be saved. If they don't keep the names of the people who make the claims they consider false, they'll be engaging in criminal activity.
And it goes far beyond the rationing issue. People who are smart enough to look at the obvious repercussions of provisions of this insane plan are pointing them out. Do you disagree with them about this? Fine. But don't call it disinformation, and don't call them lying liars, and don't try to defend an administration which wants to collect a list of people saying such things.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: ... It's assuming that everything the White House says about the plan is true and correct, and anything that disputes the White House view is "misinformation" and "fishy".
That's not American...
I dunno, three terms and counting. It is starting to seem pretty American to me
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Please do. In fact, if you don't mind, can you send it a few thousand times?
I'm fairly certain that if the Obama Administration correctly anticipated that they would be able to silence Americans by threatening them by putting them on a list, they would have also anticipated the upcoming need for an industrial-strength anti-spam solution for their email hotline.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I'm pretty sure "They're going to set up Death Panels that will kill off the elderly and retarded children." isn't really a matter of different views. It's just a lie.
And I disagree. Clearly, they're not going to do Nazi style "selections". But it's going to eventually amount to the same thing. Someone is going to have to decide whether to pour money into keeping someone alive, and if you think their "value to society" isn't going to enter into it at some point, you're delusional.
There's only so much money, regardless of how much Obama runs the printing presses. The government is going to have to place a limit on payments for medical treatments. When an insurance company does that, it's possible, at least in principle, to find different ways to obtain the care. Under Obamacare, it won't be.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Please do. In fact, if you don't mind, can you send it a few thousand times?
I'm fairly certain that if the Obama Administration correctly anticipated that they would be able to silence Americans by threatening them by putting them on a list, they would have also anticipated the upcoming need for an industrial-strength anti-spam solution for their email hotline.
Sheesh. If the Obama administration was capable of seeing future repercussions of present actions, there would have been no bailouts, no cash-for-clunkers, and most certainly no Obamacare.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:And if Obama is the lying liar? This plan will obviously lead to rationing health care, just to give a simple example. But Obama and his cronies don't want people focusing on that, so they're insisting that the plan doesn't say let's ration health care. Therefore, to them, saying that the plan will lead to rationing health care is viewed by them as misinformation or disinformation or malinformation or whatever the hell you want to call it.
Explain the rationing of health care mentality. I've heard this problem pointed out a lot, and every time I hear it, it always comes out as this "if we give all these poor people healthcare, then those of us who already have it will have to compete with them for resources, and we might not get ours when we want it."
I'd love to hear it put a way that didn't sound selfish.
If it was done right, a lot of unnecessary testing that gets done would be eliminated, which would free up a great deal of health care resources for the people who'd be given new access to the system. But anyone who argues that providing universal care is unfair because it will limit access is, to me, basically just saying that the poor can't have knee replacement surgery because the rich would be put on a waiting list. According to their free market principals, in the face of such a need, wouldn't the number of surgeons performing such a surgery increase to make up the difference? I guess that argument falls apart since the supply of livers and kidneys is finite, but I guess that just means the poor lose out again. The argument against rationing care starts to sound a whole lot like nationally institutionalized darwinism.
quote: There's only so much money, regardless of how much Obama runs the printing presses. The government is going to have to place a limit on payments for medical treatments. When an insurance company does that, it's possible, at least in principle, to find different ways to obtain the care. Under Obamacare, it won't be.
How so? The plan currently in Congress outlaws buying medical services with anything other than government money?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There's only so much money, regardless of how much Obama runs the printing presses.
I believe you've been called on this before, but I want to make sure that you're aware that actual printed money, the act of actually printing money, isn't actually the way that the government "prints money" for expenditures... right? Because you say this kind of thing like you're not using a figure of speech, and I only notice because you've said it more than once, and used specific terms about actual paper money. That isn't the way it works. Just so you know.
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