This short clip from Fox News demonstrates clearly why these charlatans shouldn’t have press credentials. The headline is “National Healthcare: Breeding Ground for Terror?” I kid you not:
This is so wrong on so many different levels:
- Their whole premise, that nationalized health care promotes terrorism, is a joke. But they don’t get the joke.
- Fox News is clearly acting as a tool of the health insurance industry. I hope they were well paid.
- Their main argument, that countries like England import many of their doctors and Muslim countries are a big source of these doctors, is racist. It equates Muslims with terrorists.
- Their other argument, made with no evidence at all, is that terrorists use government bureaucracies because they can hide in them while cooking up their nefarious plans.
- Finally, and one of my big pet peeves, is that Fox keeps talking about National Health Care. As far as I know, nobody is proposing that we nationalize our health care. Even the most far-reaching left-wing proposals are for nationalizing only our health insurance, not our doctors or hospitals. And Obama’s plan doesn’t even do that — it is not a “single payer” plan. By continually talking about doctors working for the government, Fox is trying to scare you — and using information that even they must know is false.
Thanks to Prose Before Hos.
3 Comments
I just want to point one thing out: although equating Muslims with terrorists is bigoted, it is not racist.
That does not make it better, of course.
It is just that Muslim refers to religion and Arab refers to race. Saying that all Muslims are Arab or that all Arabs are Muslim would be racist.
Just as someone saying that all Southern Baptists are against women’s rights would be bigoted but would not be racist.
But saying all white people are Southern Baptists or that all Southern Baptists are white people would be.
David, I thought about it when I wrote that, and while it might be a grey area I stand by my use of the word “racist”. Fox News is discriminating against people from Muslim *countries*, not people who follow Islam. My dictionary defines race as “a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.”
Bigoted just doesn’t seem right. My dictionary defines bigoted as “obstinately convinced of the superiority or correctness of one’s own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions”. While Fox News may indeed be bigoted, that just didn’t seem to be the right meaning for what I was saying.
Too bad we don’t have a word for discriminating against people because of their religion — something like “religist” — like we do for racist, sexist, ageist, etc.
That’s why most people use the word “bigoted,” you massive tool.