Default position: Lie Like a Rug

A few decades back, a fellow in Germany wrote what translates loosely into "Tell a big enough lie, and tell it often enough, and after a while, the nation will believe it."

About that time, a gentleman in Russia told an interviewer: "Truth is a noun that can be applied to anything, whether that thing be true or not. Just because you believe something to be true, I can tell you the opposite is true, and if I keep telling you my truth, you will eventually believe it."

The current crop of Conservative faithful have taken this idea on board with a delight that beggars the imagination. Former governors prate about non-existent "death panels" and support this fantasy be assuming that such things are the only way to reduce health care costs. The reduction of care for the poor in her state was thought to be just another example of cronyism and bad management. Now we get to wonder if she had another agendum. Yes, students, there is a singular for "agenda" even if you never heard it before. Don't bother to thank me, just use it around a Limbaugh or Liddy follower and watch them decide you're an elitist.

An actor whose reputation is built on a string of bad "I can kick you in the ear, so I'm the good guy" films and an even less nuanced television series has become a spokesweasel for one of the exceedingly Conservative blogs, and is telling us all about how bad it would be (in one memorable passage, how "parents' privacy and the security of their homes would be compromised") should the nation have the option of the same medical care system as military retirees, veterans, the less affluent disabled, and people over 65 years of age have had for decades.

Has anybody added up the people who get all or part of their medical care from Medicare, Medicaid, The Veterans' Administration, Military Care Facilities, CHAMPUS, and TRICARE?

The last four of this little list are the people who kept me and my family alive and well for the 26 years I was in the U.S. Air Force and the years from 1992 to the present. I have been told by representatives of the administrations of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush that I and my comrades in arms were getting the best care a grateful nation had/has to offer. Now Limbaugh, Liddy, Coulter, and the Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives, et al., are telling me this system is evil, dangerous, and probably un-American.

Oh, and the "evil Socialized Medicine" rubbish with its "invasion of privacy"? What started that particular bit of mendacity is something like the system we had in England where a Registered Nurse visited us frequently and gave us (first-time parents at ages 39 and 37) a lot of useful advice while giving our son a thorough health check. When it became known that any the National Health Service was happy to extend that service to any "American Citizen Born Overseas" whether or not their parents qualified for NHS, several of our friends took them up on the offer, while others didn't want "some foreigner telling us how to raise our kid." It was an option, I'm glad we took it, and the people we knew who also took it had nothing but good to say about it. Frankly, I think such a program would do great good in our land of ever-younger parents (increasingly single and poorly educated.). But some mediocre actor says it would be evil, so it's one more thing to fear.

And the Death Panels? And the NAFTA Transit Corridor? And the claim that President Obama is a tool of the Illuminati? And the "proof" that President Obama is a secret agent of Al Qaida ... or Hamas ..... or Israel ..... or the OAU ..... or the little green creatures that live at the bottom of our garden and transmit evil instructions through our toaster? I'd call them lies, but even lies deserve some dignity, and there is less dignity in such statements than there is honor in the people who promulgate them. The groups promulgating this dreck claim to be "Grassroots Movements" despite massive corporate funding, but they do validate the old adage about "the closer you get to roots, the more fertilizer you have to dig through."

We ignore these people at our peril,but sometimes it's tempting to beg whatever Higher Power there may be to go back to the old days and smite the lot of them.