All entries for Wednesday 12 August 2009

When Agendas Destroy All Logic

Writing about web page http://lornakismet.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/how-house-bill-runs-over-grandma-%E2%80%9Cits-time-for-you-to-die-granny-%E2%80%9D/

I’ve just read a right wing American blog in which the author says:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
Pesky Emotional Repubican

I really hate the stereotype of Americans as being stupid or moronic because the ones I’ve met, both in Europe and in a month long jaunt in Chicago seemed intelligent, if occasionally a little ill-informed about things from outside their area (which could be anything from their home state to the boundaries of the USA, or even North America and Mexico). All the ones I met were open minded and able to grasp the basic concept of fact checking.

But that quote above, that one single sentence has made me despair. It’s one person’s opinion, but it’s so staggeringly, breathtakingly, mindblowingly stupid on every single imaginable level that it has crippled my ability to be objective. I mean, the rest of the blog piece is pretty stupid too (failure to understand what NICE does, general lies about the NHS) but really if you’re going to claim the NHS causes the deaths of disabled people because it doesn’t care about them then try not to talk about a man who has lived his entire life (decades beyond his original life expectancy) within the NHS system is the worst rhetorical device of all time.

Stephen Hawking = well clever.
Pesky Emotional Republican = monumentally stupid.

We need to get Dr Hawking an English accented talking voice box.

: 12 Aug 2009 00:26 |  Tags: Politics And Other Things No One Cares About |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem