Because We Lie To Your Face
The health care debate has been just horrible, with both sides playing to the lowest common denominator, and making all sorts of bad-faith accusations against the other side. Megan McArdle says it quite well:
I’m sad that libertarians and conservatives are casting this as some sort of massive conspiracy of power-mad idiots, when there’s obviously a very large left-wing policy apparatus built up around health care that knows a thing or two, and virtually all of the progressives advocating this are for it because they are worried about people who can’t get basic health care. I’m sad that liberals are casting their opposition as being mostly about racism and hatred of the poor.
In all of this, I find myself upset the most by what’s coming out of the Republican camp. Part of that is because I think Keith Olbermann notwithstanding, there’s really no left wing equivalent to guys like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reily. The bigger part, however, is because this is my team. When the other guys act like jackasses, I think to myself “that’s why I’m not on their team.” When major figures from the party I identify with attempt to advance their cause primarily through intellectual dishonesty, I start to get a little upset. And worried.
This, a survey sent out by the Washington State Republican Party, pretty much sums up my point.
A survey sent out by the Washington State Republican Party.
Here’s a question to my fellow conservatives: why is this ok? Why do we tolerate members of our own party distributing this swill? It’s time for a little self-policing, or the electorate will do the policing for us. “Because we lie to your face” is not a good answer to the “why should I elect you?” question.