Healthers

The gang of corporate organized health care protesters, senior citizens opposed to extending medicare, and Right Wing loud mouths dedicated to crushing meaningful health care reform have finally gone too far.

Barack Obama has been compared to Adolf Hitler, accused of plotting to bring eugenics to America, wanting to kill old people, babies, and unborn fetuses, and now destroying the America "we once knew."

It is now time to label them appropriately. They are not concerned citizens exercising their First Amendment Rights, but pathologically ignorant racists convinced Obama is a Muslim Communist. They have no interest in facts or details, but simply want to destroy a president who doesn't look like them.

The idiots who have been questioning the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate were effectively labeled 'Birthers'. It was a useful way of ridiculing their movement, and it has essentially worked. When Ann Coulter wants no part of your movement, it is probably over.

That is why I am proposing calling those opposed to a public insurance plan "Healthers."

The Healthers exhibit familiar tendencies to Birthers. They have no interest in civil debate, cannot be swayed by fact, display psychotic, child like behavior in public, and have a deep seated fear of black people.

And above all, they're idiots.

Ben Cohen is the Editor of The Daily Banter.com

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Comments

[uncleT]

I actually think that most of the media has gotten this wrong. I don't believe that the race causes the Birthers to question Obama's legitimacy. I think it's the other way around. People who happen to hold antiquated views on race are the same type of people that are more likely to accept the notion that our president (without regard for race) wasn't born here despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's kinda like the difference between saying Republicans are racist vs. saying Racists are Republicans.

[iMissMollyIvins]

I've been saying for months that Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Marsha Blackburn, and the like are Heathers.

[thinkagain2]

Healthers sounds like a name for those supporting the health care reform

If they are Astroturfers created by big money lobbying groups, and they oppose every thing, how about 'Astro-nots?

[Gidster]

I like it!!!

[PlaceboStudman]

I have a better term.

"financers". Those people, on the left and the right, in our government, bigPharma, and insurance who believe that insurance reform will be the end all, be all of this so called heath care reform, that doesn't ever actually say a word about health care, only about finances.

They talk about money, not medicine.

we are essentially trying to blame VISA when a CD we bought from Amazon arrives broken, and trying to ask VISA to reduce its interest rates because our CD was broken, without investigating Amazon, UPS, or the CD manufacturer to inquire why our CD showed up broken.

So long as we only continue to blame VISA, (insurance companies), we will continue to receive broken CDs (medicine and technology), only at lower and lower prices

and who would pay a dime for a broken CD that contains enormous shards that could bleed us to death

[Gidster]

neat analogy!

[PlaceboStudman]

Sadly, it will go over most people's heads

[rcwblessed]

I completely agree with your assessment and like the fact that you've held nothing back.

[whalerpilot]

Call them what they are "Extremist Fascist" not Birthers or healthers just plain ole Fascist . El Douce would be proud. My way or the Highway no intellegent discussions no compromise just single minded ideology.

[BowlyJones]

How bout not "Healthers"

Michael Moore got it right: They're SICKOS!

[mlaiuppa]

"They have no interest in civil debate, cannot be swayed by fact, display psychotic, child like behavior in public, and have a deep seated fear of black people.

And above all, they're idiots. "

Isn't that the definition of Republican?

[Gidster]

It has become so in the last 10 years.

[tel8034]

It would seem that a "Healther" would want healthcare reform.

These republican mobs want to KILL healthcare reform and therefore should be called "Deathers"

[JohnFromCensornati]

I thought they were already called Deathers.

[mlaiuppa]

I agree. I think calling them Deathers is much more effective.

[PlaceboStudman]

Deathers is already taken by those who are pushing the scare tactic that Obama wants to kill granny with the Death with Dignity section of the bill. Of course no one bothered to read that part of the bill to see that it only referred to Medicare paying for wholly optional consultations, leaving the whole decision of end of life plans up to the patient themself

[Virginia Plain]

I prefer the term "Unhealthiers", Ben.

These protestors are unhealthy in mind, body and spirit. They are not a healthy advertisement for America. Their aim is to weaken and beat-down co-operation, integration, progression, democracy, liberalism, secularism, pacifism, respect for one another, tolerance and peace. They are NOT a good thing to have constantly trying to undermine a healthy society.

Unhealthy is what they are and what they wish America to be.

[Interested01]

There's no question that certain talk radio hosts and other ideologues are exploiting the uneducated among their eager fans. But your post denies the real and legitimate concerns of people whose suspicions are roused by the fact that their congressman really don't read the bills they vote on, and by the President's lack of specificity on what the final health care bill will contain. Your intemperate language won't clarify anything for these earnest and understandably confused voters. It's likely to put them off.

Political and social polarization is normal during times of economic turmoil. It's getting intense, and it should get worse before the economy stages a real recovery. Wouldn't it be better to step back and examine that phenomenon instead of joining one of the two herds now clashing on health care?

[laylahb]

Thanks, interested01. I've posted similar comments elsewhere, pointing out that this "revolt" has very little to do with health care.

Many people are terrified of becoming a minority in about 20 years, realize that manufacturing jobs are gone and they're not coming back, know their neighbourhoods have been decimated and life for them will never be the same. We have an African-American President, a Latina Justice, and many people in positions of power in business and government who don't look, speak, think or worship like them. In the words of one woman at a Town Hall, "This isn't the America I know; we have to take back our America."

When people are terrified as they see their world slipping away, panic tends to bring out the worst in them. The fact that talk show hosts and irresponsible politicians (think RL, GB, SP, etc) stoke the fire with hate speech only exacerbates the situation. They point at "the other" as the source of their problems, and xenophobic tendencies go into overdrive.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like a perfect storm is brewing over America, and it's going to be ugly.

[EqualMeansEqual]

your 'pointing out' is simply just playing the race card. Those people "protesting" are likely wrong on many things but there fears are far, far more likely to be about Economic issues than being a 'minority in twenty years'.(wh­ich is wrong on many levels including factual, because Hispanics will be the new majority around 2050, and that's not twenty years. So you not having grasp of the facts kinda "points out" your card playing and demonstrating that you are the one with likely racial issue and judgmental race based stereotyping of people.) The serious economic down turn of recent years and the drastic change in government involvement in the financial sector may bring irrational fears but that does not mean that its race based. More like a red scare/commie type of reaction to teh economic global events of the past few years.

[Merlin7]

The town halls should be irrelevant anyway. They are mostly for show, to give the illusion of public participation in a process that occurs mainly behind closed doors. Insiders in Congress are reporting that real health care reform already has been defeated, watered down into a series of subsidies for insurance companies and rules that will allow those companies to become more profitable than ever. That's what bloggers and journalists should be talking about, not the town halls. Ignore the jangling keys, focus on the real issue, which is that once again the American public is being screwed by our "represent­atives." Remember the 72 percent of Americans who favored a public option? No? Neither does anyone else in Washington.

[pinkibus]

I feel this article is a gross insult to idiots. Idiots have trouble or are actually incapable of thinking or learning beyond a childlike level. Healthers and birthers are more like the paranoid who believe everyone is a threat to them. Like suicide bombers they will do as they are told in the belief that they and they alone "know". Facts are annoying to them. Healthers need help and should not be ridiculed. It is unkind. I think healthers should have their points proved by showing them how euthanasia works. They can be the first to try it.