I don't see the big deal. It's just someone voicing their opinion. People do this every single day. Some just find other ways to do it.
People are so sensitive these days.
People are so sensitive these days.
Obama as ''THE JOKER'' Controversy!!
- Thread starter miraclefan
- Start date
There's nothing racist about it. The only thing offensive about it is the stupidity it demonstrates but that stupidity--rather, its expression--is well and rightfully protected.
You said, in reference to longstanding racial slurs and stereotypes, and I quote:
"There's part of the problem, people holding a grudge due to history. Why are some people so resistant to change..."
That's neither shifting the discussion nor obfuscating anything. It was directly on point with your ridiculous assertion that people shouldn't continue to "hold a grudge" when insulted with a racial slur of some sort, verbal or otherwise. You just realize now after shooting your mouth off without thinking as usual that it's an incredibly stupid comment, so you're trying to turn it back around on me just like I said you would. It's Gertch 101.
What was shifting the discussion to something completely irrelevant was the next sentence after that, so spare me your indignation about obfuscating:
"Turns out you'll all be able to rant about racism some more as another Harvard professor is complaining about his arrest - 3 years ago."
The impression you present is that we (and I, since you responded to me) will instantly jump on the "black professor is arrested, therefore it must be racism" bandwagon absent of any evidence to support that assertion, and the Gates case provided a recent and extremely relevant (to your accusation) example where that wasn't true.
Lincoln and Kennedy were both presidential assassinations and thus directly relevant to each other.
Please explain the link between the White House blog asking for examples of inaccurate chain emails, articles, or blog entries relating to health care reform so that they can presumably anonymously rebut the assertions made and correct misinformation and Anne Frank's location being informed on to the Nazis so she could subsequently be shipped to a concentration camp to perform slave labor and starve before finally dying of disease. And try and present that link without sounding like a member of a lunatic fringe group.
How does asking for submissions of publicly posted and distributed articles, emails, and blogs in any way equate to the Patriot Act authorizing warrantless searches and monitoring and collection of private communications and documents? One is given out voluntarily via the internet and is meant to be read by the public, the other is not. One is going to be rebutted with words, the other might result in law enforcement kicking down your door and placing you under arrest. This is almost as idiotic as the Anne Frank comparison.
This White House blog is essentially no different from someone posting a thread with an article from a news source, blog, or email on TrekBBS in order to disagree with it or correct innaccuracies. It's no different from what Snopes or Politifact does on a daily basis. It's no different from the President or Press Secretary addressing and correcting an assertion made in an article or blog when brought up by a reporter during a press conference, which happens all the time. Just because it's being done by a government blog doesn't mean there's some nefarious purpose behind it.
Uhh, "resistant to change" is quite literally the first definition for the word "conservative" when you look it up on Google.Without the winkie that would be the wrong party. With the winkie it almost seems like trolling.That's because they're conservative.
Not a "peep" has been made about the poster, if you're referring to people in this thread and not the small number of people quoted in the OP's article getting offended by it. No one here was bothered by it, no one thought it was racist, they just thought the comparison to the Joker and the random "socialist" caption made no sense. The discussion has moved on to other things.
we ran out of Bush jokes mid way thought his second term, after that it was all cliché, been done a thousands times before Bush jokes.
*should not have watched all 4 episodes of The Daily Show each week*
Here's the current level of debate on health care amongst conservatives, and I wish I could say it was just the extremist fringe, but it's sadly fairly mainstream, because the mainstream is what was formerly the extremist fringe now as contradictory as that may seem. This is why the White House needs a blog to respond to the insanity being spread about the program. There would be no need if things were being dealt with honestly and with actual civil discussion of the pros and cons.
The woman who was nearly the Vice President of the United States says Obama is going to murder your grandparents and disabled babies:
And what happens when you resort to extremist scare tactics? Why, nuts come out of the woodwork and start making deaths threats, over health care legislation:
And finally, demonstrating the need for a White House wesbite dedicated to responding to the many myths about health care reform out there, Salon exposes the five biggest myths:
Myth 1: Democrats want to kill your grandmother.
Myth 2: The government -- i.e., you -- will have to pay for abortions.
Myth 3: Obama will ban all private health insurance.
Myth 4: The government can't possibly run a healthcare program.
Myth 5: Unlike private insurance, government bureaucrats will ration care.
You can read the full text in the link.
[edit] And tying it all back into the Obama Joker poster, socialism, and Nazi health care reform accusations for the trifecta of idiocy, we get this:
The woman who was nearly the Vice President of the United States says Obama is going to murder your grandparents and disabled babies:
Here's Rush Limbough, taking an (albeit stupid) comment by Nancy Pelosi where she mentioned some protestors at town hall meetings were wearing swastikas and SS armbands (Even if true - and I don't know that it is, though given the use of Nazi rhetoric here I wouldn't be surprised - every group has small-time extremists, so you should stick to pointing out the big fish), and further ratcheting up the rhetoric by comparing Obama, Democrats, and healthcare reform to the Nazis:
Okay, I'll grant that that the symbol is kind of funny if you look at it from the perspective of someone not stupid and crazy enough to actually believe Obama has anything to do with Nazism - which sadly a lot of these people are.Now what are the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi party in Germany? Well, the Nazis were against big business. They hated big business and, of course, we all know that they were opposed to Jewish capitalism. They were insanely, irrationally against pollution. They were for two years mandatory voluntary service to Germany. They had a whole bunch of make-work projects to keep people working one of which was the Autobahn.
They were against cruelty and vivisection of animals but in the radical sense of devaluing human life, they banned smoking. They were totally against that. They were for abortion and euthanasia of the undesirables as we all know and they were for cradle-to-grave nationalized health care. I have always bristled when I hear people claim that conservatism gets close to Naziism. It is liberalism that's the closest you can get to Naziism and socialism. It's all bundled up under the socialist banner. There are far more similarities between Nancy Pelosi and Adolf Hitler than between these people showing up at town halls to protest a Hitler-like policy that's being heralded by a Hitler-like logo.
...
Just put the graphic of the two logos on our website right now because Sweetness & Light is being bombarded. Just put up the Obama logo and then the Nazi logo side by side there.
...
Another similarity, Obama is asking citizens to rat each other out like Hitler did. Obama's the one that's got the snitch website right out of the White House, flag@whitehouse.gov, asking citizens to report people who are saying weird, odd things. You know, the White House responds, "No, no, no, we're not taking names here. We're not taking names. We're just taking people who are putting up faulty arguments and refuting them."
Ted Kennedy's dad, by the way, Joe Kennedy, sympathetic to Hitler, sympathetic to the Nazis. That's why FDR pulled him from his post as ambassador to Britain. You want to start talking, Ms. Pelosi, about ties to the Nazis? Let's focus on your party and some of the greatest heroes in your party that you hold up. And let's look at your policies, Ms. Pelosi. Your policies come dangerously close to some of those policies that Hitler forced on the German people.
...
Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate. His cabinet only met once, one day. That was it. Hitler said he didn't need to meet with his cabinet. He represented the will of the people. He was called The Messiah. He said the people spoke through him. Do you know what the very first law that Hitler ordained was? The very first law was a law declaring how to cook lobsters. They were to be boiled. That was deemed to be the least painful. The law was sent around to all the restaurants. Now, does this sound like something any conservative president has ever done or does it sound like the things that liberals are doing all over this country? The links to show you just how off-the-wall radical environmentalist the Nazis were are posted now at the top of RushLimbaugh.com.
Rush Limbough.com
And what happens when you resort to extremist scare tactics? Why, nuts come out of the woodwork and start making deaths threats, over health care legislation:
Not surprisingly, Jewish groups and others are not to happy about all the Nazi comparisons.
And finally, demonstrating the need for a White House wesbite dedicated to responding to the many myths about health care reform out there, Salon exposes the five biggest myths:
Myth 1: Democrats want to kill your grandmother.
Myth 2: The government -- i.e., you -- will have to pay for abortions.
Myth 3: Obama will ban all private health insurance.
Myth 4: The government can't possibly run a healthcare program.
Myth 5: Unlike private insurance, government bureaucrats will ration care.
You can read the full text in the link.
[edit] And tying it all back into the Obama Joker poster, socialism, and Nazi health care reform accusations for the trifecta of idiocy, we get this:
If these people have health insurance, they should be taking advantage of their behavioral health benefits.
Or it could be the answer to your question, that being the definition of the word and all.Without the winkie that would be the wrong party. With the winkie it almost seems like trolling.That's because they're conservative.
My apologies RJD as I didn't realize you were making a play on words. So I'll take the affirmative action of saying sorry.
Ah, now your reply makes sense. No problem.
While other go through life looking for a reason to open his mouth only to hear themselves speak.
B.O. own words. Take a pain pill, not get surgery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo
The gov't has no business getting envolved with doctor patient care.
We already have rationed care by insurance companies. The gov't WILL ration care and to a much further extent. I suggest anyone that wants to get a real idea of what gov't care will be like to read up on Dr Ezekiel Emanuel's works and ideas. He is Rahm's brother and the "White House health care policy advisor". This "end of life care" crap is right out of his rightings. I also suggest that some may want to look into what Hospice care is.
Here is a current example of rationed care. Organ transplants. We have lots more people that need them than we have supply. If we get gov't run health care other medical services will be rationed with a growing rate. Read Ezekiel's papers because he advocates just such a thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo
The gov't has no business getting envolved with doctor patient care.
We already have rationed care by insurance companies. The gov't WILL ration care and to a much further extent. I suggest anyone that wants to get a real idea of what gov't care will be like to read up on Dr Ezekiel Emanuel's works and ideas. He is Rahm's brother and the "White House health care policy advisor". This "end of life care" crap is right out of his rightings. I also suggest that some may want to look into what Hospice care is.
Here is a current example of rationed care. Organ transplants. We have lots more people that need them than we have supply. If we get gov't run health care other medical services will be rationed with a growing rate. Read Ezekiel's papers because he advocates just such a thing.
Rationing exists in all healthcare systems, whether it be due to finite resources (financial and otherwise) or evidence basis. I do find it remarkably lazy that people make these ludicrous assumptions about care for the elderly and so forth without in any way looking at comparable nations with healthcare for all where, last I checked, there were plenty of elderly people and broad-ranging indices of healthcare showed the various systems to be effective.
Not being a resident of the United States I don't have a great personal stake in the situation, I just find that that the distortion of the debate with such hyperbole to be an unfortunate and time-wasting distraction.
Not being a resident of the United States I don't have a great personal stake in the situation, I just find that that the distortion of the debate with such hyperbole to be an unfortunate and time-wasting distraction.
You're about 40 years too late then.
Or, you could look at existing nations where "government run" healthcare exists (not that there's really any such thing. Paid by taxes isn't the same as 'government run'. The British government has no say at all in what treatments the NHS provides and to whom), which demonstrate all your wailing to be completely out of line with the evidence.
I'm not really reading all the replies so sorry if I've missed anything important.
I heard about this a few days ago, can't remember where but I remember thinking "how stupid". Not because the whole Obama as the Joker is stupid, but because people have taken the extra leap and call this racist?! If it were anyone else it would simply be passed off as a joke, but because it's a black man, it's racist.
It's not an attack on his racial orientation, I don't even think it's an attack on his political views, it's just art to me.
I heard about this a few days ago, can't remember where but I remember thinking "how stupid". Not because the whole Obama as the Joker is stupid, but because people have taken the extra leap and call this racist?! If it were anyone else it would simply be passed off as a joke, but because it's a black man, it's racist.
It's not an attack on his racial orientation, I don't even think it's an attack on his political views, it's just art to me.
I am at work and have actually no time for TrekkBBS, so I will use this non-existing moment to go off topic.
I am so sick of Nazi paralells. It is the laziest form of pushing one's opinion, agenda, whatever you want to call it.
Look, here's something for which I can use a remotely similar word which describes Nazi atrocities, therefore it must be evil.
Of course, this latest similie is not only stupid, it is also misinformed. But okay, let's say Nazi. Instead of rationally arguing a point, let's say Nazi. You have a counter argument? But I said Nazi.
I will not now go into detail raging about the lack of both creativity and courtesy towards the opponent of the argument when using Nazi parallels; I assume most people know that. But seriously, do we define ourselves nowadays from only that point in time onward? Can't we argue anymore by using rational and connotation-free reasoning? Why this most basic appeal to an emotionally driven fear?
I honestly lose all respect for every argument made as soon as it gets compared to Hitler Germany. Never mind that there might be a fuzz of truth there, whatever is being argued. You know, now that I think about it ... it's like those drawing the parallels cannot think for themselves anymore. Which reminds me of all the evil Nazis.
Rant over.
I am so sick of Nazi paralells. It is the laziest form of pushing one's opinion, agenda, whatever you want to call it.
Look, here's something for which I can use a remotely similar word which describes Nazi atrocities, therefore it must be evil.
Of course, this latest similie is not only stupid, it is also misinformed. But okay, let's say Nazi. Instead of rationally arguing a point, let's say Nazi. You have a counter argument? But I said Nazi.
I will not now go into detail raging about the lack of both creativity and courtesy towards the opponent of the argument when using Nazi parallels; I assume most people know that. But seriously, do we define ourselves nowadays from only that point in time onward? Can't we argue anymore by using rational and connotation-free reasoning? Why this most basic appeal to an emotionally driven fear?
I honestly lose all respect for every argument made as soon as it gets compared to Hitler Germany. Never mind that there might be a fuzz of truth there, whatever is being argued. You know, now that I think about it ... it's like those drawing the parallels cannot think for themselves anymore. Which reminds me of all the evil Nazis.
Rant over.
You know who else hated Nazi parallels? Hitler.
I've been in lots of places that tended toward contentious discourse - BBSes, forums, various political or artistic or religious discussion groups. Most of them had a vital cardinal rule - Whoever first invokes Nazis loses the argument.
It's a sure sign that the speaker has nothing rational to say.
There are other words and titles which also are indicators of the absence of rational thought - Socialism, Communism, "government takeover". These are attempts to instill fear, and to avoid actually looking at whatever the topic of discussion actually is.
The current talk of how health care reform (it's actually health insurance reform, but never mind that) will kill our old people and babies, how it will "ration health care", how it will get a gummint official between you and your doctor - all this is sheer noise, intended to create unreasoning fear, and to shut down actual rational discussion.
To those who detest the idea of a government official getting between you and your doctor - I'll believe this is actually an honest concern of yours when you repeal all government-enforced limits on abortion rights, or on stem cell research, or on assisted suicide. Until then, it's clear this rhetoric is hypocritical hyperbole, and no more. You desperately want the government standing between me and my doctor. You just want the doctor to be forced to act the way you want him to.
I'm not taking a stand on any of these issues at the moment - abortion rights, stem cells, assisted suicide. I'm just saying that on questions of health care, the position of the extreme right is no more than inconsistent fear mongering.
One final example - the drumbeat of how reform will ration care, and make people die. The insurance companies today ration care, and let people die, simply to increase their profits. The less money they pay out, the more money they get to keep. The president of United Health has a salary of over $100,000 per hour (that is where your insurance premiums go - to pay this guy's salary). And their decisions on medical payments are made with an eye toward profit, not with an eye toward improving anyone's health. I'll believe the opponents of health care reform are serious about thier criticisms when they propose that all insurance companies must be run non-profit, and that the executives of such companies are limited to six-figure incomes.
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