Editore"s Note
Tilting at Windmills

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July 6, 2007

NATIONAL HEALTHCARE = TERRORISM....Conservatives want Americans to fear a national health care system. Conservatives also want Americans to fear Muslims. What better way to demagogue two birds with one stone than to connect the two in a transparently ridiculous discussion on Fox News?

[Yesterday] on Fox News's Your World With Neil Cavuto, National Review Online columnist Jerry Bowyer attacked Michael Moore's movie SiCKO and its positive portrayal of the health care in countries such as Britain and France. He argued that national health care systems are breeding grounds for terrorists because they are "bureaucratic." "I think the terrorists have shown over and over again ... they're very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies," said Bowyer.

The chyron, by the way, told viewers during the segment, "National Healthcare: Breeding Ground For Terror?" It was in all caps, and it wasn't trying to be funny.

Indeed, Bowyer added, "[I]f one of your guys is a jihadist, if one of your doctors is spending all the time online reading Osama bin Laden fatwas, someone's going to notice that. But the National Health Service is more like the post office, you know there's a lot of anonymity, it's easy to hide in the bureaucracy."

To which FNC personality Cavuto responded, "The fact that we may be looking to go this way in the United States, you're saying one of the potential consequences -- without judging national health care one way or the other -- is that this could happen. We have to be at least aware of the distinct possibility that in such a system, we would have to recruit outside doctors, and where we're getting the most of them these days seems to be from the Muslim world."

Of course, this was not to "judge" the merits of a national health-care plan; it was just Cavuto's way of alerting FNC viewers that advocates of such a plan are undermining national security by inviting terrorists into the country. That is not, Cavuto told us, a value judgment on his part.

What's more, this seems to be a new talking point, particularly this week, among conservatives who no longer worry about appearing credible. National Review's Iain Murray argued a couple of days ago, "The socialization of medicine in the UK is responsible for a lot of problems. The importation of terrorists is just one of them."

So let this be a lesson to all of us. National health care may offer better care to more people for less money, but that won't matter because your doctor will be an al Qaeda mole.

We've been warned.

Steve Benen 8:55 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (79)
 
Comments

Don't you mean Jerry Bowyer, longtime Richard Mellon Sciafe sock puppet?

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2003/02/outing-bowyer-kevin-over-at-calpundit.html

Posted by: DJ on July 6, 2007 at 8:58 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, for God's sake. We'd just have more jobs for doctors, so it would be easier to convince your (intelligent but underachiever) slacker kids to grow up quicker and get a high-paying job as a doctor instead of spending six additional yrs. as a beatnik/poet/band musician.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 9:02 AM | PERMALINK

In other words, the jobs would go to domestic, middle-class white kids who otherwise would be living lives of crime and slinging ludes like Gore's son. Think of it as a national youth reclamation system.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 9:03 AM | PERMALINK

More consumer power in America is a good thing. It might broaden the middle class and thereby strengthen the economy.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 9:05 AM | PERMALINK

Could these people possibly have any more contempt for the critical thinking abilities of the average Fox News viewer?

Posted by: Donna Queen on July 6, 2007 at 9:05 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, for cryin' out loud. I honestly didn't think it was possible for Cavuto to be more of a cretin. These government-is-evil types really don't get it, do they?

Posted by: filkertom on July 6, 2007 at 9:08 AM | PERMALINK

We have to be at least aware of the distinct possibility that in such a system, we would have to recruit outside doctors,

We would? Why?

and where we're getting the most of them these days seems to be from the Muslim world.

We are? Since when?

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 9:17 AM | PERMALINK

you know, I didn't think much of SICKO as a documentary, for a lot of reasons, but if it's going to do for health care what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change (basically make it possible to discuss it in polite company) I will forgive Mr. Moore his excesses.

Posted by: northzax on July 6, 2007 at 9:22 AM | PERMALINK

"But the National Health Service is more like the post office, you know there's a lot of anonymity, it's easy to hide in the bureaucracy."

Doesn't this suggest that we should be staking out the post office?

Did McVeigh ever work at the post office? Did he have health insurance coverage? From whom? And what about those anthrax letters, eh? They were delivered by the post office, right?

I have evidence that Atta met with Royal Mail agents at a pub in Bristol.

What about the DMV?! Hmmmm?

Posted by: JM on July 6, 2007 at 9:25 AM | PERMALINK

I saw that clip and they were talking about how Britain has to import doctors because many of the British doctors go to America to make more money. Thus Britain had to allow in terrorist jihadi health care workers who couldn't even blow up a car the right way.

Applying that to America, just where are American doctors going to go to make more money? Canada? Iraq?

Does anyone really think that if the Congress ever gets around to setting up a National Health care system that doctors are going to take a big cut in pay? Sure.

Posted by: tomeck on July 6, 2007 at 9:38 AM | PERMALINK

"Do Democrats Cause Cancer? Find Out At Foxnews.com. . ."

once again, life imitates satire

Posted by: ItAintEazy on July 6, 2007 at 9:39 AM | PERMALINK

They're saying Americans are too dumb to be doctors, right?

Posted by: rabbit on July 6, 2007 at 9:40 AM | PERMALINK

We have to be at least aware of the distinct possibility that in such a system, we would have to recruit outside doctors,

We would? Why?

For what it's worth, about a third of the doctors in the NHS in the UK are foreign-born. I don't know the reasons why, but most aren't hard to guess.

Posted by: RSA on July 6, 2007 at 9:41 AM | PERMALINK

I'm sure Pizza Hut also has a vast corporate bureaucracy. They have an army of drivers ready to deliver "pizza" almost anywhere in the nation. Who knows what demonic jihadists might worm their way onto the payroll!? "Mr. President, your extra large with pepperoni & cheese is here!"

Posted by: steve duncan on July 6, 2007 at 9:42 AM | PERMALINK

Or we can just recruit all those doctors from Britain, and let the British figure out where to get new doctors. Get to experience hot women speaking gravely over you in British accents if you happen to be critically injured. Two birds with one stone: free health care and attract hot British chicks to America with better $$$ salaries.

I'm sure our first responders would appreciate being greeted by a hot British chick when they gallantly show up with some accident victim they've saved.

Ok, I know, I know, British chicks in reality generally aren't that hot (big noses and big teeth, etc.). But we can just get them from Canada.

To all the beatnik/poet/band musicians I may have offended with my comment at 9:02 AM: Grow up and get a job as a doctor or a lawyer, you lazy slacker bums. Don't let the job go to some Republicans kid who's half as smart and twice as annoying as you are.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 9:47 AM | PERMALINK

Don't forget taxi drivers! They are almost all foreign, and thats in the free market. Of course, I am sure they are subject to much more scrutiny than doctors.

Posted by: Michael7843853 G-O in 08! on July 6, 2007 at 9:50 AM | PERMALINK

"But the National Health Service is more like the post office, you know there's a lot of anonymity, it's easy to hide in the bureaucracy."

Argument enough for eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon, as those vast bureacracies provide lots of places for a terrorist to hide.

Really, it's as if they're so hysterical with fear that they've lost all capacity for rational thought. It's like we're arguing with people who believe in sprites or pixies or angels or devils.

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 9:51 AM | PERMALINK

For what it's worth, about a third of the doctors in the NHS in the UK are foreign-born. I don't know the reasons why, but most aren't hard to guess.

Yes, but why would we, the US, have to recruit foreign doctors? Is being a doctor simply another one of those jobs, like picking lettuce or working at a chicken slaughtering plant, that Americans refuse to do?

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 9:54 AM | PERMALINK

Oh.My.God. frank was serious yesterday! Fox News has turned into The Onion.

Posted by: TJM on July 6, 2007 at 9:55 AM | PERMALINK

>"It's like we're arguing with people who believe in sprites or pixies or angels or devils."

Sadly enough, that's exactly the case.

Posted by: Buford on July 6, 2007 at 9:56 AM | PERMALINK

Well, there is one unfortunate fact here- the Brits had a world-wide empire, and as a part of that Faustian bargain admit large numbers of people from former colonies, and have also retained the habit of importing cheap labor when they can.

Now we have the worldwide empire. Millions of people around the world have tied themselves to our apron strings but, fortunately or no, we are not the British empire, and undoubtedly will leave our former supporters to drown in the rising tide when our empire ship founders.

Except, of course, for the cheap labor we like to import.

In the meantime, hang on to your seats- this is what the fifties were like and they were half over before the Pledge of Allegiance was made a mandatory loyalty oath for every schoolchild's morning. Like the Venezuelans, we're going to get a bellyful of 24-hour propaganda television.

Posted by: serial catowner on July 6, 2007 at 9:58 AM | PERMALINK

OMG, I'm really starting to feel like my mental health is in jeopardy if I keep following the news/politics.
The pure idiocy and brazen lies are making me feel like my head is going to explode.

The connections that the FNC viewers seem to accept as fact from these charlatans (supposed journalists), are so mind-bending that it's hard to take. I don't get how anyone can take these people seriously or believe anything they say, but it seems there are plenty who do and the mainstream press is reporting all this with a straight face without calling anyone on their bull**it!

I can't take it anymore!!!

Posted by: Madster on July 6, 2007 at 10:03 AM | PERMALINK

If there's one thing this country needs more of, it's babes.

Now, I've never been there, but I have a nose like a divining rod for hot women, and if it tells me anything, I have a hunch they can be found in the icy northern land of Canada.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 10:07 AM | PERMALINK

I hear in Great Britain you have to wait 6 months for CPR.

Posted by: steve duncan on July 6, 2007 at 10:09 AM | PERMALINK

The connections that the FNC viewers seem to accept as fact from these charlatans (supposed journalists), are so mind-bending that it's hard to take. I don't get how anyone can take these people seriously or believe anything they say, but it seems there are plenty who do and the mainstream press is reporting all this with a straight face without calling anyone on their bull**it!

It has been a sobering experience to realize over the last seven years that a good 20 to 25% of our population is flat-out insane, criminally stupid, and/or evil. That's 60 to 75 million people, folks, who are literally mentally incapable of understanding how the world works.

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 10:09 AM | PERMALINK

Now, I've never been there, but I have a nose like a divining rod for hot women, and if it tells me anything, I have a hunch they can be found in the icy northern land of Canada.

As someone who's dating a Canadian, I have to say yes. Yes they can. And not only hot, but they come equipped with a social conscience too.

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 10:11 AM | PERMALINK

>"It's like we're arguing with people who believe in sprites or pixies or angels or devils."

This reminds me of the Simpson's episode where the kids have to go live with the Flanders' due to a court order, and Ned gets all worried that Bart and Lisa are going to hell because they haven't hear of (forgive my memory and spelling) "The Blood Beast of Bethchuharazeb".

Posted by: Dismayed Liberal on July 6, 2007 at 10:13 AM | PERMALINK

I hear in Great Britain you have to wait 6 months for CPR.

If so, that's because all the women doctors in Britain are so randy they're giving mouth-to-mouth to hot English cops in a closet somewhere and can't be disturbed.

So you see, Michael Moore's movie may be part of a male plot to flood the nation with beautiful femals. You can tell he's smart and he's probably thought of this.

OT-
I saw the Transformers movie yesterday and they really did a great job of making a movie with a Progressive/lefty social conscience- all this "all sentient creatures have a right to life, blah, blah, blah" stuff- Optimus Prime sounded like some Britsh lawyer, doing pro bono work, suing under international law on behalf of victims of human rights abuses and quoting from the UDHR, or something. And the U.S. soldiers were portrayed as fighting a defensive action against a true hostile invasion (Decepticons), instead of a war for empire, and friendlt to Muslims. Whoever made this movie did a good job of passing on the teachings.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 10:19 AM | PERMALINK

The main argument against national healthcare is the inefficiency of government in our nation.

Noe of the progressives have offered any partial solution to government inefficiency, yet they claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.

Fix the one and you can get the other.


Posted by: Matt on July 6, 2007 at 10:22 AM | PERMALINK

I saw the Transformers movie yesterday and they really did a great job of making a movie with a Progressive/lefty social conscience

Oddly enough, one of its screenwriters--a decent lefty blogger, incidently--is bemusedly dealing with rightwingnuts trying to claim the movie as their own:

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/07/hey-libertas.html

Posted by: rea on July 6, 2007 at 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

Steve, just a word of warning about Friday's Political Animal column. I'd have some cat pictures to put up sooner today, rather than later. We "catters" are fanatics about our Friday fix.

Just a "friendly reminder".

Posted by: phoebes on July 6, 2007 at 10:31 AM | PERMALINK

I watched the video and thought about writing on the utter insanity of the segment, but then it hit me. Fox News seriously thinks its viewers will believe that if we pass universal healthcare the terrorists will win. After that depressing realization I could barely write.

Blue girl gets depressed occasionally. I often have to send her emails to cheer her up. She wasn't on line to cheer me up and I was out of wine. I was depressed for a long time.

DJ, I looked him up. Jerry Bowyer is the very same Richard Mellon Scafe sock puppet we have all come to know and ?love?

Posted by: corpus juris on July 6, 2007 at 10:40 AM | PERMALINK

Does anyone really think that if the Congress ever gets around to setting up a National Health care system that doctors are going to take a big cut in pay? Sure.

The main argument against national healthcare is the inefficiency of government in our nation...yet [liberals] claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.

Can we please lay to rest at least one particular misunderstanding in this debate. No one is talking about setting up "government healthcare" like the NHS in Britain.

We're talking about universal health insurance coverage. Get it? Like an insurance policy, with a benefit package and all, but managed via the public sector.

Secondly, it might help to define what "efficiency" means before you claim that government, or the private sector for that matter, is efficient or inefficient. As an example, take a look at Medicare disbursements and the associated administrative costs of Medicare (as a percentage of disbursements).

Then compare that percentage with the average for private health insurance companies. Medicare is more "efficient" by far.

And doctors' salaries...right, under a universal coverage system, salaries for medics would probably fall over time, to be more in line with what doctors earn in other "western" universal coverage systems. Personally, I think that would be a good thing, for several reasons.

Posted by: JM on July 6, 2007 at 10:42 AM | PERMALINK

If so, that's because all the women doctors in Britain are so randy they're giving mouth-to-mouth to hot English cops in a closet somewhere and can't be disturbed.

Yeah baby!

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 10:52 AM | PERMALINK

Watch out! When those foreign doctors have us on the table all opened up who knows what they could implant -- exploding livers, liberal brain chips.

And with socialized medicine it would all be funded with your tax dollars!

Posted by: pj in jesusland on July 6, 2007 at 10:53 AM | PERMALINK

Noe of the progressives have offered any partial solution to government inefficiency, yet they claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.

Of course they have -- universal health care is actualy more efficient and more effective than private care. It's an undisputed fact that government-run programs like the VA and Medicare are cheaper and far more efficient than the private insurance industry. And in every other industrialized economy, government mandated universal health care provides better care for less cost than we do in the US.

Frankly, it's up to the regressives to offer a defense of private sector inefficiency, rather than the other way around.

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 10:56 AM | PERMALINK

Noe of the progressives have offered any partial solution to government inefficiency, yet they claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.


Medicare vs. Private Insurance: Rhetoric and Reality
October 1, 2002
Authors:Karen Davis, Cathy Schoen, Michelle

In their report, Davis and coauthors find that elderly Medicare beneficiaries are more likely than enrollees in employer-sponsored plans to rate their health insurance as excellent (32% vs. 20%) and less likely to report negative experiences with their insurance plans (43% vs. 61%). Medicare beneficiaries are also less likely than those with private insurance to go without needed care owing to costs (18% vs. 22%). The survey also finds that elderly Medicare beneficiaries are more likely to report being very satisfied with the care they received compared with those with private insurance (62% vs. 51%).

...private insurance holders are actually less satisfied with health care and more concerned about costs than Medicare beneficiaries. The fact that Medicare was systematically more likely than employer coverage to be rated as excellent across income and health status categories challenges the received wisdom that Medicare is "out of date," and should "catch up" with the private insurance model. "Would-be Medicare reformers need to be cautious if they want to make the program more like the private sector," the authors conclude.

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 11:00 AM | PERMALINK

What does Bush have against hot women?

Oh, yeah

Expect Giuliani to oppose this too.

Oddly enough, one of its screenwriters--a decent lefty blogger, incidently--is bemusedly dealing with rightwingnuts trying to claim the movie as their own

You can tell it's a lefty movie because the protagonist has a Misfits poster in his bedroom- incidentally, a prop Hollywood has used in Gleaming The Cube, Pump Up The Volume, and The Lost Boys, if I'm correct- no right-winger would ever support that.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 11:02 AM | PERMALINK

Noe of the progressives have offered any partial solution to government inefficiency, yet they claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.

And yet from 2000 and 2003, private spending grew at an average of 8.8%, with increases each year (2003 hit 9.6%), while Medicare averaged out only 5.9%, with 4.7% growth in in 2003. So who's more efficient?

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation, "Trends and Indicators in the Changing Health Care Marketplace"

http://www.kff.org/insurance/7031/ti2004-1-10.cfm

Posted by: Stefan on July 6, 2007 at 11:05 AM | PERMALINK

Once again this show FOX's institutional bias for "elite" professions, doctors in this case. We are already importing nurses under our current medical system, many from counties with a large Muslim population. Are not nurses a threat? Only Doctors?

Posted by: Tigershark on July 6, 2007 at 11:07 AM | PERMALINK

Yes, it would be shocking if the US were forced to recruit foreign-born physicians. We've only been doing it for decades. See http://tinyurl.com/yqcznq for some current information. Its worth noting that the USDA facilitated visas for over 3000 foreign-born physicians between 1994 and 2003.

Posted by: rk on July 6, 2007 at 11:08 AM | PERMALINK

They might have officially hit the bottom of the barrel here, but I've said that before, so I am not sure what to think. Regardless, I am not sure we need to be worried. There's no apparent logic to these claims, so I'm not sure they'll stick.

Posted by: Brian on July 6, 2007 at 11:15 AM | PERMALINK

To quote Atrios:

Ouch...the stupid...it burns!!!!!!!

Where do these people come up with this crap? Oh, let's have an expensive and ineffective healthcare system - it will keep out the terrorists!

You can't make this stuff up...oh...I guess someone did.

Posted by: MeLoseBrain? on July 6, 2007 at 11:22 AM | PERMALINK

As an attorney I notice that many of the physicians who work at the local VA have middle eastern names. I wonder if idiot Neil Cavuto knows this, Not that he would actually have a friend or relative who gets care at the VA.

Posted by: Frank Koch on July 6, 2007 at 11:37 AM | PERMALINK

Is being a doctor simply another one of those jobs, like picking lettuce or working at a chicken slaughtering plant, that Americans refuse to do?

In many rural locations foreign M.D.'s are the only option. U.S. docs like to be high paid specialists in trendy urban areas.

Posted by: Col Bat Guano on July 6, 2007 at 11:52 AM | PERMALINK

I'm sure that those doctors were there to do jobs that regular British wouldn't do. Right?

Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on July 6, 2007 at 12:02 PM | PERMALINK
The main argument against national healthcare is the inefficiency of government in our nation.

Noe of the progressives have offered any partial solution to government inefficiency, yet they claim their continued views the governent healthcare should work.

Fix the one and you can get the other.

Medicare.

(smiling innocently)

Posted by: kenga on July 6, 2007 at 12:04 PM | PERMALINK

mhr: Modern liberals are another kettle of (smelly) fish.

I don't think that I've ever heard a more lucid, cogently argued analytical conclusion.

Posted by: JM on July 6, 2007 at 12:09 PM | PERMALINK

yeah JM, Jonah had better watch his back.

Posted by: kenga on July 6, 2007 at 12:30 PM | PERMALINK

Steve, I love your posts, but your guest stint here has driven me to Andrew Sullivan. I only have time to read two blogs regularly, and I need some variety in my reading material...

Posted by: rabbit on July 6, 2007 at 12:34 PM | PERMALINK

We have to be at least aware of the distinct possibility that in such a system, we would have to recruit outside doctors, and where we're getting the most of them these days seems to be from the Muslim world.

Sorry, I just don't get it. Am I supposed to fear my Doctor driving a car bomb through my kidney?

Posted by: E Henry Thripshaw on July 6, 2007 at 12:47 PM | PERMALINK

Right, if we're already getting a lot of doctors from Muslim countries and the Phillipines, then perhaps now we'll have to recruit them from places like Canada.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 12:53 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry, I just don't get it. Am I supposed to fear my Doctor driving a car bomb through my kidney?
Posted by: E Henry Thripshaw on July 6, 2007 at 12:47 PM | PERMALINK

Speaking as a software developer whose job is in constant jeopardy of outsourcing, and whose wage growth has been stagnant since the outsourcing and H1B craze started in 1997, I think we need to be a lot more afraid of the software developer in Islamabad who sells the password to the backdoor he coded in Goldman Sachs' trading software to a guy like Osama bin Laden, you know, who has a degree in economics.

I mean; an Islamist doctor will just refuse to transplant a pig heart into Dick Cheney. An Islamist computer security expert could bring our entire economy to its knees. You never hear the cheap-labor republicans talk about this.

Posted by: osama_been_forgotten on July 6, 2007 at 12:54 PM | PERMALINK

I feel the need to point out that this topic is sufficiently ludicrous that even Al and Egbert avoided it.

Posted by: Clive on July 6, 2007 at 12:55 PM | PERMALINK

MHR's FDR: "And liberal Democrat FDR wanted Americans to fear Germans. And Japanese. "

real FDR: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"

Posted by: northzax on July 6, 2007 at 12:57 PM | PERMALINK

Why wouldn't privately employed immigrant healthcare providers, or other well educated immigrant specialists, be just as susceptible to become combatants against the military crimes our nation commits against their indigenous peoples?

I think those immigrants employed in the private sector would have even more reason to become combatants against the national forces that are mass murdering their people back home.

Posted by: Brojo on July 6, 2007 at 1:11 PM | PERMALINK

It's always nice when two of your seemingly unrelated ideological viewpoints dovetail so perfectly, isn't it?

Posted by: ibid on July 6, 2007 at 1:12 PM | PERMALINK

It seems Bush's abstinence-only sex education policy has gone to his head.

There is something called absolutism, Mr. Bush, and it is an evil.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 1:50 PM | PERMALINK

Muslim countries and the Philipines have a limited number of people trained as or willing to become doctors. When we have a much higher demand for new doctors, we will have to pay a little more to new physicians to entice them over here. This will make working in America more attractive to Canadian and British doctors who wouldn't have come over here before. If the supply of Muslim and Filipino doctors willing to come here falls far short of our new demand, we could end up with a horde of hot new Canadian and British doctors. Specifically advertising opportunities in countries that are not significant sources of jihadism will increase this effect, as will possibly adopting policies to limit the number of immigrants accepted on professional visas to be doctors in this country from Muslim countries. It's up to you whether you think that latter measure is too much xenophobic and isolationist and too little actually prudent.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINK

That is, Filipinos and Muslims tend to come over here because they're more needy and their countries are worse. With Canadians and Brits (Irish, Swedish, Italian, Portugese, whatever) these have been less so, but offering new money will counteract that.

Forgot to say that before, sorry.

Posted by: Swan on July 6, 2007 at 1:58 PM | PERMALINK

Hey! How about those thousands and thousands of foreign contractors coming to this country to take tech and service jobs?

I guess the policies that allow corporations to seek out cheaper labor overseas leads to terrorism in this country.

Posted by: Waffle on July 6, 2007 at 2:10 PM | PERMALINK

""[I]f one of your guys is a jihadist, if one of your doctors is spending all the time online reading Osama bin Laden fatwas, someone's going to notice that. But the National Health Service is more like the post office, you know there's a lot of anonymity, it's easy to hide in the bureaucracy."

That cracked me up big time. I'm more optimistic than ever that the American people will go for health care reform in a big way. Why? Because I think the FEAR of not having insurance and the FEAR of losing everything they own if they get sick will be greater than the FEAR of a jihadist doctor. Maybe some of the more paranoid will switch principle care providers.

Posted by: Doc at the Radar Station on July 6, 2007 at 2:38 PM | PERMALINK

So now Fox News is touting the fact that two of the Islamacist doctors in Britain inquired recently about coming into the US. Doesn't that prove the Islamacists don't give a rat's patootie whether or not a country offers universal health coverage?

By what leap of logic can Fox commentators possibly conclude socialized medicine breeds terrorism when Fox's own news coverage reputes their silly views?

Their ought to be electricity regulations governing the number of electrons allotted to idiots.

Posted by: pj in jesusland on July 6, 2007 at 2:39 PM | PERMALINK

Oh no! The U.S. might become more like Canada! Where cops sell would-be terrorists fake explosives in a sting operation, as opposed to revealing moles in foreign cells and outing covert CIA agents.

Posted by: doug r on July 6, 2007 at 4:15 PM | PERMALINK

Well then the United States government, being the behemoth bureaucracy that it is, must be absolutely full of terrorists right?

Posted by: Dee on July 6, 2007 at 4:42 PM | PERMALINK

In many rural locations foreign M.D.'s are the only option. U.S. docs like to be high paid specialists in trendy urban areas.

The program which brought foreign Docs to rural areas, run by the Dept of Ag, iirc, was axed after 9/11 over exactly this kind of ridiculous paranoia -- call it screwing over rural areas to protect urban areas from terra-ists.

I haven't heard if it's been reestablished or not.

Posted by: Disputo on July 6, 2007 at 5:20 PM | PERMALINK

So now Fox News is touting the fact that two of the Islamacist doctors in Britain inquired recently about coming into the US. Doesn't that prove the Islamacists don't give a rat's patootie whether or not a country offers universal health coverage?

The fact that highly educated and modernized Muslims are starting to see guerrilla warfare and martyrdom against the West as a viable alternative to working within the system and living out their comfortable middle class lives should be an indicator of how fucked up our current foreign policy is. We're turning our natural allies against us.

Posted by: Disputo on July 6, 2007 at 5:29 PM | PERMALINK

When was the last time there was paranoia about doctors?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot

OMG, It was Stalin and the Soviet Union:

"On January 13, 1953, some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors in the USSR were accused of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership. Pravda, the official newspaper of the CPSU, reported the accusations under the headline "Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians"

Today the TASS news agency reported the arrest of a group of saboteur-doctors. This terrorist group, uncovered some time ago by organs of state security, had as their goal shortening the lives of leaders of the Soviet Union by means of medical sabotage.

Investigation established that participants in the terrorist group, exploiting their position as doctors and abusing the trust of their patients, deliberately and viciously undermined their patients' health by making incorrect diagnoses, and then killed them with bad and incorrect treatments. Covering themselves with the noble and merciful calling of physicians, men of science, these fiends and killers dishonored the holy banner of science. Having taken the path of monstrous crimes, they defiled the honor of scientists.

Among the victims of this band of inhuman beasts were Comrades A. A. Zhdanov p1 and A. S. Shcherbakov p2. The criminals confessed that, taking advantage of the illness of Comrade Zhdanov, they intentionally concealed a myocardial infarction, prescribed inadvisable treatments for this serious illness and thus killed Comrade Zhdanov. Killer doctors, by incorrect use of very powerful medicines and prescription of harmful regimens, shortened the life of Comrade Shcherbakov, leading to his death.

"The majority of the participants of the terrorist group… were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch-office of American intelligence — the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization called "Joint." The filthy face of this Zionist spy organization, covering up their vicious actions under the mask of charity, is now completely revealed…

Unmasking the gang of poisoner-doctors struck a blow against the international Jewish Zionist organization.... Now all can see what sort of philanthropists and "friends of peace" hid beneath the sign-board of "Joint."

Other participants in the terrorist group (Vinogradovp10, M. Koganp11, Egorovp12) were discovered, as has been presently determined, to have been long-time agents of English intelligence, serving it for many years, carrying out its most criminal and sordid tasks. The bigwigs of the USA and their English junior partners know that to achieve domination over other nations by peaceful means is impossible. Feverishly preparing for a new world war, they energetically send spies inside the USSR and the people's democratic countries: they attempt to accomplish what the Hitlerites could not do — to create in the USSR their own subversive "fifth column."...

The Soviet people should not for a minute forget about the need to heighten their vigilance in all ways possible, to be alert for all schemes of war-mongers and their agents, to constantly strengthen the Armed Forces and the intelligence organs of our government."
----

Posted by: Doc at the Radar Station on July 7, 2007 at 2:03 AM | PERMALINK

OMG, It was Stalin and the Soviet Union

More proof that:

Doctors + Socialism = Terrorism
Posted by: Wingnut on July 7, 2007 at 4:24 AM | PERMALINK

The socialist propaganda and the Left’s greatest lie of the 20st century, i.e. poverty causes terrorism, received another blow.

Muslim physicians conspiring to murder innocent civilians. Hmm…very uneducated, very poor, very “disenfranchised.”

Posted by: josh on July 7, 2007 at 2:00 PM | PERMALINK

The socialist propaganda and the Left’s greatest lie of the 20st century, i.e. poverty causes terrorism, received another blow.

It's not the poverty, you tool; it's the oppression. If you think an Iraqi doctor is going to be ok-fine with the US and UK murdering his family and destroying his country just because he has some bucks in his pocket, you're dumber than you look.

Most revolutions are led by people who hail from the middle class precisely because they are the ones who can afford it. You can't fight if you're starving.

Posted by: Disputo on July 7, 2007 at 2:15 PM | PERMALINK

Dispute

1. Well, next time, the so-called MSM, including the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and the socialist liberals claim "poverty causes terror," I will use you as a reference for rebuttal.

Thanks for the tip. The socialist-nanny-state-liberal narrative is changing.

2. Hmm, what about the Islamofascist terrorist from Jamaica, Pakistan, Phillipines, and on and on? They are not from Iraq. Ooops... (wink)

3. Any other socialist-nanny-state-liberal who seconds Dispute that "poverty does not cause terrorism?"

Posted by: josh on July 7, 2007 at 4:03 PM | PERMALINK

The thing I was trying to highlight with the Soviet History thing was that Tass and Pravda sounded just like Fox News. The questions are: Are we evolving into a paranoic Soviet-style society?, Do most people believe everything they are told?, Are our constitutional freedoms something that only can survive without significant external enemies? ...

Posted by: Doc at the Radar Station on July 7, 2007 at 11:48 PM | PERMALINK

Nice Background info on Jerry Bowyers (the person interviewed by Fox News)!!

See here (the introduction to the clip):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2c-JEx-Kfvc

Posted by: Fred on July 9, 2007 at 7:59 AM | PERMALINK

Those doctors in Britain were indeed terrorists. Deny it, downplay it, but it's fact. It's also a fact that people in Canada come to the U.S. for health care. It's a fact that taxes will have to be raised substantially to pay for the health care of drug addicts, perverts and deviants. That will affect my family directly by meaning we have less money to spend on luxuries like food and clothing. Socialism has failed EVERYWHERE it has been tried. It is a failed system. Yeah...we should emulate Cuba where the average worker makes like $3 a month. Good idea. Of course, you would be part of the ruling elite no doubt...only the rest of us should live in communes. You guys are idiots.

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