“ That's a bunch of garbage,” Graham said. “That's a complete bunch of garbage.” This quote from Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina on the report that came out from his own party that was investigating Benghazi found nothing much to fault the administration's handling of the incident. This is a symptom of ignoring facts, and sticking with conspiracies theories that fit into his warped sense of reality. Senator Graham is not alone in this thinking. Fox News; Limbaugh, Will, Gingrich, and assorted right-wing wing-nuts fit into this category. They choose not to believe anything that doesn't fit into their perception of what is right and wrong.
This phenomenon isn't anything new. You can find instances of this throughout history.
In President Kennedy's time a congressman from Texas denounced President Kennedy on the house floor for assuming “almost unlimited power” and using “dictatorial tactics.” The right-wing also said that Kennedy's use of executive orders that by-pass Congress would transform our Republic into a dictatorship.
When the Affordable Care Act was proposed you heard about all kinds of things that could happen, including death panels. When Medicare was proposed the same term was used, of course that never happened, but it doesn't stop the right-wing of doing it again.
Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater two of the icons of right-wing thinking had this to say about Medicare.
Ronald Reagan: “If you don't [stop Medicare] and I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free.” 1961
Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.”
It's obvious that these two dove off the shallow end of the pool once to often and hit their heads. If these two guys and the other people who were against medicare or the
Affordable Care Act had legitimate arguments against them they sure didn't show up in the absurd comments made then and today. None of the things these people have
said has come true or has caused us as a country to suffer. All it has done is make life easier and better for the elderly.
I used Benghazi and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act as examples. There are many more things that have been said by these people that are out of touch with reality. I think this quote by former Senator, Vice-President of the United States Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota sums them up nicely.
Whole communities “can be afflicted with emotional instability, frustrations, and irrational behavior. That emotional instability that affects a significant but small minority in our midst that some call extreme right. They still see the world in total black and white they are still substituting dogma for creative thought. They are angry, fearful, deeply and fundamentally disturbed by the world around them”
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