by hilzoy
As you might have read elsewhere, large chunks of the right-wing blogosphere have decided to go after Graeme Frost, the kid who gave the Democrats’ response to Bush’s radio address a week and a half ago. Frost was in a car accident, and S-CHIP, the children’s health insurance program Bush just vetoed, paid for his medical care. First, a Freeper decided to “investigate” the Frosts’ financial situation, via Google. Then the results of his “investigation” were linked all over the right-wing blogs. Michelle Malkin decided to do an on-site investigation of the Frost home and business. As John Cole wrote:
“Maybe she can get some of her flunkies at Hot Air to sit with binoculars and see what they have for dinner. Better not be government cheese, or the SH!T is going to hit the fan.”
(OK, he didn’t use an exclamation point.)
I find the idea of Michelle Malkin poking around people’s homes trying to find out whether they are really as poor as they claim to be as creepy as everyone else. So rather than belabor that point, I’ll make another:
If, for some reason, it occurs to you to fact-check a story like this, please, please, please try to exercise some modicum of intelligence. And if you read someone else’s investigation, please, please, please ask yourself whether there are any obvious problems with it before plastering it all over cyberspace. It’s one thing to investigate the claims made by a kid on the radio privately, and then go public if you find some actual problems. It’s quite another to go after a kid (or anyone else) with allegations whose problems are so obvious that you’d really have to wonder about anyone who didn’t spot them.
The first point made by icwhatudo, the Freeper who did the original Googling, is this:
“Graeme Frost, who gave the democrat rebuttal to George Bush’s reasons for vetoing the SCHIP Bill, is a middle school student at the exclusive $20,000 per year Park School in Baltimore, MD. (…) His sister Gemma, also severely injured in the accident, attended the same school prior to the accident meaning the family was able to come up with nearly $40,000 per year for tuition for these 2 grade schoolers.”
This fact was picked up by all sorts of bloggers, many of whom ask “why a “working family” in need of government-subsidized health care can afford to send two children to a $20,000-a-year-private school” (to cite Michelle Malkin’s version.)
Heavens: who could spot a problem with this? Here is an analogous question, just in case some of you are feeling a little slow:
“John Edwards claims to be the son of a mill worker. But somehow his allegedly impoverished parents were able to find the money to send him to Clemson University, which now costs out-of-state residents all of $22,300 in tuition and fees! Even accounting for inflation, it must have cost a decent chunk of change when John Edwards went there. I wonder how his poor mill-worker Dad managed?”
If you guessed “financial aid”, you win a lifetime subscription to Obsidian Wings! Apparently, most right-wing bloggers are unfamiliar with the concept of “scholarships”, by which private educational institutions defray the cost of tuition for their poorer students. But it’s hard to see how icwhatudo, or any of the bloggers who bothered to click his/her links before linking to his/her post, could have missed this fact, since (as Thers at Whiskey Fire notes) s/he links to this page at the Park School’s website, which is conveniently titled “Cost & Financial Assistance”. You don’t even have to scroll down to find this information:
“Park enrolls students based on their talents and capabilities. Families who are unable to meet the full cost of tuition may apply for the Financial Assistance Program, which supplements tuition payments. Financial assistance does not need to be repaid.
In 2007, 18% of Park students in grades 1-12 received over $2 million in financial assistance that ranged from $1,000 per year to full tuition. Tuition remission for children of our faculty brings that total to 25% of the student body.
Because each family’s situation is unique, it is impossible to predict the amount of funding awarded based solely on income. For example, the number of children attending tuition-charging institutions is an important factor. As a guide, families with incomes up to $160,000 received financial assistance during this past school year.”
It certainly sounds as though a family like the Frosts, who make $45,000 a year, might have gotten some of that financial aid. And, in fact, they did: ThinkProgress reports that the family pays only $500 a year in tuition.
Moving right along:
the next “fact” that icwhatudo “discovered” is this:
“In a Baltimore Sun article the family claims to be raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. “Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work.”
What the article does not mention is that Halsey Frost has owned his own company “Frostworks”,since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as “bookkeeper and operations management” prior to her recent 2007 hire at the “medical publishing firm”. As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.”
Last time I checked, owning a company didn’t necessarily mean that you had much money. If you own Microsoft, then you do; if you incorporate your struggling one-person business, that’s another story entirely. The fact that Mr. Frost owned his own company does not begin to imply that he “chose” not to offer himself or his wife health insurance. Health insurance is expensive, especially for very small businesses, and if the family was making $45,000/year and needed to cover two adults and four children, they would probably not have been able to afford it.
Next claim:
“His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The buildings owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost’s home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reillys Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total
The current market value of their improved 3,040 SF home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 SF. A photo taken in the family’s kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets”
The Frost family seems to have around half a million dollars in assets! And yet their children are getting government-sponsored health care! This certainly sounds bad, unless you happen to be familiar with an arcane financial instrument called a mortgage, which allows a person to purchase a home or commercial property even if she cannot come up with the full price, and to pay off the balance over time. During the term of the mortgage, the buyer owns the house, but also owes money, often quite a lot of it, to the bank that lent her the money to buy it with. This means that the assessed value of the Frosts’ properties tells us very little about their actual net worth. Since charity forces me to assume that right-wing bloggers are unfamiliar with mortgages, I probably should not fault them for not knowing this. However, even a shred of journalistic integrity would have required that they familiarize themselves with the terms on which most Americans buy property before leaping to conclusions.
In this particular case, the Frosts probably do have a fair amount of equity in their home. ThinkProgress reports that they “bought their “lavish house” sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.” Since I actually live in Baltimore, I can speak to this: during the last 16 years, property values in many neighborhoods have gone up a lot. There has been a fair amount of gentrification in some parts of the city, and that has meant that some houses that were quite cheap 16 years ago are now a lot more valuable. Moreover, the real estate boom of the past few years has brought up property values in general, as it has in most places.
On the other hand, that also means that if the Frosts were to sell their home, they would have to pay a lot more for a new one. They couldn’t just expect to cash out their equity and buy another house for a lot less: most of the neighborhoods that were easy to gentrify have been gentrified, and while it’s still possible to buy a house for a song in some neighborhoods, I’m not sure I’d recommend those neighborhoods to a family with four young children.
In any case: two final points. First: is there any reason to think that it would be a good thing for the Frosts to have to sell their home and move in order to pay their kids’ medical bills? I don’t think so. It would be one thing if they were living in a mansion somewhere. But they aren’t. They are living in a 3000 sq. foot house, and there are six of them. If they sold their home and tried to find a new one outside some pretty seriously dangerous neighborhoods, they would probably not be able to get one for very much cheaper. I can’t really see why it would be in any way desirable for them to become renters.
Second: As far as I could tell, none of the right-wing bloggers bothered to consider such questions as: how much equity do the Frosts have in their home, and how much could they expect to convert to cash if they tried to sell it? As far as the ones I checked were concerned, the fact that the Frosts own these two properties just means that they had about half a million dollars in assets, which in these days of no down payment, no income verification, no nothing is completely ludicrous.
As I said: before you start smearing kids, let alone siccing Michelle Malkin on them, you should at least have the decency to try to make sure that you’ve got the facts straight. Likewise, before you link to a piece that smears kids, you should make sure that it has the facts straight. If anyone wants, we can have an interesting debate about exactly how much trouble you have to go to in order to link to something responsibly. But surely we don’t need to debate whether it involves things as minimal as: considering the possibility that kids are going to school on scholarship, or recalling that owning a property does not necessarily mean owning it free and clear.
Why should anyone have sicced Malkin on them? This idea sounds loathsome enough that her husband could have easily come up with it for her to get her loyal readers to do.
I hate to ruin a froth-festival by injecting a couple of notes of sanity into the proceedings, but…
1) According to the radio address by Graeme Frost, he got hurt in an accident that took place three years ago. Does anyone know how much the Frosts could have sold their home for three years ago? Does anyone know what their asset picture looked like back then? Because as far as I know, you can’t pay your hospital bills by telling the doctor you hope to get rich in three years.
Of course, maybe Malkin et. al. oject to the idea that someone who has ever needed assistance can go on and improve their situation. An interesting idea… except that if they’d applied it consistently through history, the United States as we know it would not exist.
2) This discussion does not concern just one twelve year old; it concerns millions of kids. Let’s say Graeme Frost’s parents could have bought him insurance; does that mean S-CHIP should not exist for millions of other kids?
The financial sense and lack of understanding of small business in the righty side of the blogosphere is teh funny. I believe I just saw someone enraged that the Frosts don’t get a home equity line and draw on it every month to pay insurance. Awesome, just awesome. (although it’s startingly reminiscent of Bush’s economic policy)
Another fave so far, courtesy of Macaca at QandO:
Yep. A name, I hear, is mighty expensive these days. Don’t you get it Frost? It’s about priorities; instead of buying insurance, you chose to spend all that money on a name.
Does anyone know how much the Frosts could have sold their home for three years ago? Does anyone know what their asset picture looked like back then?
no. who cares. MYOB.
May I be the first to remind everyone that lentils, which can be purchased in bulk for pennies on the dollar, are a nutritious, filling dietary staple?
They can be stored at room temperature.
Few know that lentils, if prepared properly in non-subsidized creek water, also can be used as a salve for massive trauma and injury resulting from automobile accidents.
Few know this because I just made it up.
We can have our cake and eat it too, you see, but if you have cake I would eat it pretty quickly before Michelle Antoinette loses her head over it.
but if you have cake I would eat it pretty quickly before Michelle Antoinette loses her head over it.
*offers the first three comers a truly irresistible coffee cup cake*
(I’m eating the fourth one myself. Yum.)
John: I can vouch for the wonders of lentils. The last time I was well and truly broke — well, right before I became well and truly broke I bought a very large bag of lentils, one of several that have served me well in times of need. It’s fun to watch the meals go from lentils, a little yogurt, a tomato cut up, and some bread down to lentils period, as one extra after another becomes more than I can afford. Even more fun when the ‘lentils period’ phase lasts for months.
Ah, memories.
(Snarfs Jes’ coffee cake, quickly. Hopes it’s not made of lentils.)
Granite countertops and glass front cabinets? We are about to redo our kitchen with formica that looks ohsomuch like granite. And many old houses used glass front cabinets. Didn’t know these were pricy anyway.
And isn’t papa a woodworker? Couldn’t the redo been the work of his hands?
papa is indeed a woodworker. And having repaired several windows, I can attest to the fact that glass itself is not that expensive.
I think I saw the photo in question, and it’s not clear to me that you could say much more about the counter other than: it’s sort of dark. Definitely distinguishing real from faux granite is more than it allows you to do.
If the value of their house has gone from $55,000 to $400,000, I imagine one expense they’ve seen increase a lot is property tax.
Definitely distinguishing real from faux granite is more than it allows you to do.
on the contrary. they called in some geologists for this, and not only was it determined that it was indeed granite but that it was a granite of such rarity and high quality that people now suspect papa has ties to al-Q – northern Pakistan being the only source for this particular stone.
currently, concerned citizens are attempting to sneak a mass spectrometer into the Frost’s house to determine the exact chemical composition of the surface in question – the image from the first scout’s cell-phone are inconclusive as to the exact species of mineral, though certain striations suggest the Chitral district as a likely source.
In Malkin’s post, Bob at InsureBlog lends his expertise to debunk the Frosts’ claim about how much insurance would cost them:
Apparently in Bob’s world all 6-person families are the same, there’s no such thing as a preexisting condition, and insurance companies are required to accept anyone. If you want a true answer to how much insurance will cost, 2 minutes of googling by a person who knows nothing about the family will clearly produce a better result than whatever foolishness the Frosts engaged in in their so-called search for insurance. They obviously are failing to buy insurance out of sheer cussedness, or more likely because they’ve been part of the Democratic healthcare conspiracy for years.
When people published Malkin’s address and photos of her home online a while back, wasn’t she so freaked out that she moved?
John Cole said it best when he called it a Wingnut Voltron.
Ah, found it, from April 2006:
Cleek:
I have no particular interest in the details of the Frost’s financial situation, now or ever. I just find it
absurddisgusting that Malkin et. al. have focused on the economic situation of a family today in relation to a accident for which one of their children needed care three years ago.In any case, I would say to the Americans that if you want to stop this kind of thing, you have to stop letting it pay off. Encourage your representatives to override the Bush veto. If the noise machine has so little to argue that they have to take on a 12-year-old, you can shut them down.
SCHIP Poster Family Not So Needy After All
It appears that the advocates of SCHIP expansion did a poor job of choosing their poster family. The Frosts got a profile in the Baltimore Sun and one of their children, Graeme, was trundled up to Congress to pull on America’s heart strings. But …
John Spragge, perhaps i misread your point 1).
Of course, the whole point, which Malkin et. al. seem to want to ignore, is that Gramedid have insurance, via S-CHIP. Given the Frosts’ income, their premium was probably not zero.
I lived (renting at that time, unfortunately) in a neighborhood that went from modest middle class to one of the most desirable yuppie neighborhoods in the region over the years we lived there. For the homeowners on our block, it meant very little other than (1) their property tax would go up, (2) nobody they knew could move into the neighborhood.
Malkin et. al. are the types of people who complain about how much it costs to remodel their kitchens while begrudging the people who work on them the ability to own a house, drive a decent car, etc. And god forbid the people who work on their kitchens should have affordable health insurance available for their children.
You guys with your work-safe posts. Heh heh. This is how we express outrage.
Either Malkin’s basic 101 reporting skills really suck, or she’s being really disingenuous, too. So they were able to find out how much the commercial property was bought for, but not the house itself? If it’s not available online because the purchase was too far back, if Malkin could make the drive to Baltimore to walk around the Frosts’ neighborhood, couldn’t she bother to go to the Baltimore courthouse and look up the real estate transaction?
And to assume a car parked in front of a house in a city belongs to the person living in said house is pretty ass backward too.
That said, is anyone else having irony overload for the rightwingers going after this family for being small business owners, the mother apparently staying home with the kids, and finding ways to send their kids to (gasp) private school?
That said, is anyone else having irony overload for the rightwingers going after this family for being small business owners, the mother apparently staying home with the kids, and finding ways to send their kids to (gasp) private school?
Only everyone who isn’t a right-winger.
I agree that if you are going to “fact check” a story like this, it’s a good idea to be careful about getting the facts right. And I also agree it’s all a bit distasteful.
Still, one might consider the propriety of using a 12-year-old boy to deliver a political address in the first place. I hate this whole argument-by-touching-anecdote Oprah Winfrey style political “argument,” and the use of children in this manner is vile and manipulative.
So while you’re doing condemnation, you might also condemn the folks who put him in the position to be slimed.
Yes, Cheerful, that would be a good way to bring in false balance and come to a Broderian “pox on both their houses” conclusion.
I’m not a fan of using children as spokespeople, but that sin is nowhere near the same league as Malkin sending her flying monkeys after the kid’s family, and it shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath. Besides, I’m not willing to accept that the idea that anyone who makes a public political statement deserves this sort of sliming, even if they’re an adult.
Cheerful: Still, one might consider the propriety of using a 12-year-old boy to deliver a political address in the first place.
One certainly might – but not because that “put him in the position to be slimed”. It’s arguable whether a kid that age has the maturity and experience to consent to being a poster child for legislation, even legislation that affects him very directly: but when I say “arguable” I mean that there is an argument that in that particular instance that particular kid does, as well as there being an argument that no kid that age could appreciate the ramifications of being part of a political campaign. Given that the legislation affected the kid so directly, and that the kid was 12, and the involvement was a radio broadcast, I’m willing to take the parents’ judgement that the kid was able to do it.
But I think any decent person, of any political alignment, would agree that sliming a 12-year-old kid for taking part in a radio broadcast to support legislation on healthcare is an unspeakably awful thing to do, and ought to be condemned out of hand.
you might also condemn the folks who put him in the position to be slimed.
blame the victims because wingnuts can’t act like adults and control their constant unfocused rage ? fnck that.
“A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!””
Cheerful Iconoclast, shouldn’t it be beyond the pale to slime a kid? So I find it hard to condemn the Democrats for putting him in the position to be slimed. And as for the propriety of him delivering the address at all, that seems ridiculous. After all, this is a debate about children’s health care. What’s wrong with featuring its impact on children? After all, we use kids to sell all sorts of things (movies, dish soap, etc.)–none of which draw condemnation, even though the connection in a lot of cases is far less obvious. I guess I missed the memo where Democrats promised to only use dry statistics to make political points, but the outrageous behavior seems pretty one-sided in this one.
First it was the phony soldiers, now it’s the phony kids needing insurance. They truly can’t believe that there are actually people out there who need a hand purchasing health insurance.
I actually think the whole dialectical process – both the wingnut sliming and the detailed rebuttals to same – has been educational for me and really serves to reinforce the point of just how typical this particular family is. Any family could suffer serious injuries in a car accident. It’s good that we have a program to help them out in their time of need.
First off there’s no excuse for MM’s behavior here. Going to their place of work and their home, talking to acquaintances etc. and posting it all is inexcusable (as KCinDC noted): especially in her case as she claims to have had to pull one of her kids out of their school and move her family due to harassment and threats after a leftwing site posted her cell phone number and home address! So I won’t be attempting to defend her behavior in this.
And I won’t defend any rightwing bloggers for taking this approach without insuring that they had their facts right. OTOH as Cheerful Iconoclast noted, I’d like to see just a smidgen of outrage at the Democrats using a 12 year old child to spout talking points he doesn’t even understand. That was nothing but another classless attempt to play the “ultimate moral authority” card to stifle legitimate debate on the topic. Let’s at least acknowledge that it was the Democrats who pushed this 7th grader into the middle of a rather hot national debate. And the one thing I’ll question the parents on is their judgment in allowing that. That opens the door to ask legitimate questions about the family’s circumstances, but I agree with what I believe Hilzoy is saying here – it’s not out of bounds but you better be darn sure your facts are straight before you publicize them or link to the criticism.
The point those questioning this story seemed to have missed or given very little play: it is irrelevant how much the family’s home or business is worth or whether they own 10 SUVs. The family lives in Maryland, which has no asset test at all. That is a legitimate point to discuss.
MD is the wealthiest state in the union with only the 19th highest population, yet it has the 12th highest (out of 51, DC counted separately) SCHIP enrollment. Anyone else see anything wrong with that picture?
With income eligibility at 300% and no asset test MD is hardly the poster state for Democrats on this issue. They should have chosen a kid from any of about 40 states other than MD.
If you live in one of the many states without an asset test you’re obviously better off having the government pick up the tab for your children’s health insurance and spending that money on home improvements or a new car every couple of years. If you live in Maryland right now with a family of 6 you can make $82,830 per year and have unlimited assets and still qualify.
Pay attention here wingers! With a tiny bit of research you could have pointed all of that out without appearing to slime the kid or the family. That goes double for you MM as you live in MD and should be well aware of all this. Sheeze.
Note that these people belong to the supposedly “pro-life” party. They’re no more “pro-ife” than the average planned parenthood donor.
As someone said somewhere on these here internets with respect to these people: they believe life begins at conception and ends at birth.
I’d like to see just a smidgen of outrage at the Democrats using a 12 year old child to spout talking points he doesn’t even understand.
As my redneck daddy used to say, “you can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first.” You’ll get no apology from me, not when your side does the same crap time and time again and you give them no grief about it. Or have you forgotten “snowflake babies?” Or practically any other time there’s legislation that will affect children, even remotely.
And let’s not even get into the issue of whether it’s worse to use kids as props or troops as props. Your side has no moral authority to bitch about anything, OCSteve–absolutely none.
Judging expenses for things in the past is seriously risky. I’m about the same age as John Edwards. When I was in college (Friendly State University), in-state tuition was $18/semester hour. No, I didn’t misplace a decimal point. (Actually, I started out at an Exclusive Private College. Tuition was 10x as much. Still peanuts compared to today’s prices. And the EPC had an explicit policy that “nobody ever left for financial reasons”.
College costs are another one of the “luxuries” that have skyrocketed in price since the Reagan Revolution.
Looks like the wingers simply don’t care about accuracy in making an argument. There’s a name for this.
To me, one of the notable aspects of this situation is that the rightwings bullies who are posting misinformation about the Frosts don’t have comments on their blogs. They don’t allow anyone to correct them. I’m sure their excuse is that the poor babies would be the target of leftie attacks if they aloled comments–but fear of what wingnuts might say doesn’t keep leftwing blogs form having comments. Their real fear is that their self-serving lies will be refuted.
I don’t think that modern conservativism should be viewed as a philosophy–it’s a personality disorder.
As someone said somewhere on these here internets with respect to these people: they believe life begins at conception and ends at birth.
I don’t even know if they’re that pro-life. They’re in favor of fetuses staying in wombs. But they’re opposed to pregnant women obtaining S-Chip (1 of the reasons Bush vetoed the measure), which, you know, would benefit the unborn.
OCSteve: I’d like to see just a smidgen of outrage at the Democrats using a 12 year old child to spout talking points he doesn’t even understand.
Who says the kid doesn’t understand, OCSteve? The boy is 12: for three years he’s been receiving health care thanks to S-CHIP. Now Bush plans to veto that health care. The notion that for this boy his health care is just a “talking point” that he doesn’t understand is really outrageous.
BTW, OSCSteve can speak for himself, of course, but i don’t think that the righhtwing is “his side”. He isn’t doctrinaire.
I think that fact that families who aren’t living in boxes under bridges still need help with medical bills is sympomaticic of the decline of the middle classin this country. People with jobs, even relatively good paying jobs can’t afford essentials any more. Mmy brother and his wife pay one thousand dollars a month for insurance for thhe two of them. My husband and used to pay nine hundred for the two of us, but I have a unionnjob now and my innsurancedropped to seventeen dollars a months. Middle class just isnn’t what it used to be.
Let’s at least acknowledge that it was the Democrats who pushed this 7th grader into the middle of a rather hot national debate. And the one thing I’ll question the parents on is their judgment in allowing that.
This is really only an issue if you assume that any private person making a public statement on matters in the public interest will instantly be fair game for any and all sorts of abuse.
I guess we’re there.
Regarding the facts you cite about Maryland etc., I’d like to point out that the Frosts, at $45K/year, are at about 2/3 of the MD median income. I’ll also point out that “median” is not the same as “average”.
They’re also at just over half the 300% of poverty level number you cite for a family of six.
So, you know, they don’t have a lot of dough, even if their house is worth a lot more than they paid for it.
It is a big house, I guess they could take in boarders. That’s a point Malkin et al seem to have missed.
Living where I live, just outside of Boston, it is in fact not that hard for me to imagine a family of six making $82K, owning their own home, and still finding it hard to purchase insurance privately at a rate they can afford. Especially if there is anything whatsoever in the way of a prior condition. Maybe things are different where you live.
Shocking as it is to say (and it certainly shocks me), in lots of areas in this country $82K just isn’t a lot of money anymore for a family of six.
What I really don’t get is the conservative / Republican / what have you animus toward anyone getting any kind of assistance from the state — any state — unless they’re absolutely financially knackered.
Would it be better if the Frosts had to sell their house and move before they got a dime of help?
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Thanks –
OCSteve and Cheerful Icon seem dangerously close to saying that the kid was asking for it the way he dressed up on radio.
And, substantively, how is it not appropriate to use someone who is directly effected as a spokesperson? It’s a lot harder to push such spiteful vetoes as a matter of ideology when you realize that real people are affected. And the real people seem to so often be forgotten in the conservative calculus on such things.
“Their real fear is that their self-serving lies will be refuted.”
This is mind-reading. People do and don’t have comments for all sorts of reasons, and there are plenty of rightwing blogs with comments, and plenty of leftwing blogs without comments.
Pronouncements on people’s “real fears” are an attempt to privilege impossible mindreading as moral righteousness; it’s not really terribly attractive.
What will your objection be when someone denigrates you by explaining what your “real fear” is? That they can’t know what’s in your head? That they’re generalizing about every single left-wing blogger and applying it inappropriately to you? That it’s a ludicrous form of accusation?
Sorry, those doors will all be closed to you.
“I don’t think that modern conservativism should be viewed as a philosophy–it’s a personality disorder.”
I’m a liberal, not a conservative, but statements of this type are a clear and blatant violation of the posting rules.
Posting Rules: “Lastly, just a reminder that Left and Right have very broad definitions and that people are going to take it personally if you inform them that of course all Xs eat babies, should they themselves be Xs (or Ys trying to keep things cool).”
Specifically verboten are claims along the lines of “conservatives are all X” or “liberals always do Y.”
russell: This is really only an issue if you assume that any private person making a public statement on matters in the public interest will instantly be fair game for any and all sorts of abuse.
Yeah. Except that the difference between right and left is, if you google Noah McCullough the only personal attack from a left-winger you find on the front page is clearly (I mean, even to a 9-year-old, clearly) a joke. I ran through earlier pages – there was a small handful of left-wing blogs making fun of the Bush campaign for trotting out a 9-year-old expert, but no personal attacks on Noah himself, no reference to any material other than that he/his family had chosen to make public, and no criticism of his parents for “pushing a 5th grader into the middle of a rather hot national debate”. Noah is clearly a gifted child, and there are more recent references to stuff he’s doing (and a book he’s written).
You want to do a comparitive googlesearch on Graeme Frost, OCSteve?
There are exceptions. There are decent people on the right, and utter creeps on the left. But overwhelmingly, you can see the difference in the way these two kids got treated: there is an ethos in the conservative movement that anyone who stands in their way, regardless of how old they are or how vulnerable they are, can be attacked ruthlessly, and without compunction. There is no evidence for any comparable ethos among liberals.
A question out of my own ignorance: Is it possible to go out and buy medical insurance just for my minor children, and if so, how much does it cost? Everywhere I’ve ever worked had medical insurance benefits, but the choices were always “employee”, “employee plus spouse”, and “employee, spouse, plus children”. Purchasing insurance just for the kids wasn’t a (presumably) low-cost option.
Is there a truly private alternative to SCHIP? I know that in most cases, the SCHIP coverage is actually provided by private insurers, but do those same insurers offer such policies to non-SCHIP applicants?
Incertus (Brian): “you can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first.”
My dad said that too, almost daily – except it wasn’t “spit” in the other hand. As for the rest: I claim no authority moral or otherwise and I don’t recall saying that this behavior was limited to Democrats.
Jes: Who says the kid doesn’t understand, OCSteve? The boy is 12: for three years he’s been receiving health care thanks to S-CHIP. Now Bush plans to veto that health care. The notion that for this boy his health care is just a “talking point” that he doesn’t understand is really outrageous.
Bush vetoed an expansion of the program, not this kids current eligibility. (And I called that wrong as I really didn’t think he would veto it.) The kid knows he received health care that saved his life. Do you really believe he had ever heard of SCHIP before very recently? Do you really think he’s qualified to discuss health care funding on the national stage? Anyone here with children – would you allow and/or encourage your 12 year old to do this? I don’t have kids so I’ll admit I lack any personal experience – maybe putting your kid on the national stage for political points is normal…
russel: Living where I live, just outside of Boston, it is in fact not that hard for me to imagine a family of six making $82K, owning their own home, and still finding it hard to purchase insurance privately at a rate they can afford.
I don’t disagree with that. $12,000 of $82,000 is a substantial chunk. Mostly I wanted to make the point that MD is probably the worst example to highlight in this discussion given that we’re the wealthiest state (we should be able to manage this with no federal funds at all) yet we still have among the highest income cut-offs in the country and no asset test at all. If anything we’re taking advantage of the rest of the country on this.
I didn’t mean to imply that this family should not be eligible – rather, that in this state they could almost double their income and still be eligible (as you note). So there is no family in MD worse off than the Frosts who are not currently eligible, and there are a heck of a lot of other families in MD who are much better off than the Frosts who are also eligible. IMO this family and this state are just the worst possible choice to use to argue for an expansion of the program.
BTW I’m pretty open on income means testing. I wouldn’t want to try to raise a bunch of kids on $82k, or even $100k. And I think it has to be adjusted for local cost of living factors etc. I have more of a concern with no asset test at all and I really think there has to be some limit there. Anyone with common sense would choose to build their assets if the government is going to pay for their children’s insurance anyway. They are not to blame for that – they’d be foolish to pass it up. Maybe we don’t count the house or the first two cars as assets – but I think bank accounts and other financial vehicles should count.
And another question from outside the USA.
How long will the kids be covered by that program? Till they´re 18?
And what happens then?
Given that they´re still not 100% healthy, what are their chances of getting private health insurance as an adult?
Well, I’ve googled all over the place and I can’t find a figure for the Frost’s medical bill liability, which might be, I don’t know, relevant?
Turns out two of their kids suffered massive brain trauma in the auto accident and one was in a coma for a week.
I noticed one blogger of right-wing persuasion expressed outrage that the Frost’s could not pay their own doggone medical bills because one kid’s classmates donated $4000 via a fundraiser, which proves the efficacy of charity in paying for the overpriced aspirin on the itemized bill.
By the way, I was in favor of Terry Schiavo’s medical bills being paid for by the government rather than having her rubbed out.
Unfortunately, when Michelle Malkin sold her soul she received a mere pittance and thus was exempt from the taxes required to pay the government’s bill. Or maybe the money went into unmarked offshore accounts.
At any rate, Schiavo should have been hired by Blackwater to access their company healthplan, their being charitable Christians and all.
Blackwater could hire the Frost kids, too, and defray our costs because, remember, the word “healthcare” does not appear in the Constitution. The words “horseshite”, “tumor”, and “Ann Coulter” do not appear in the Constitution either, but we seem to have a right to be surrounded by all three of those.
Maybe Coulter’a a penumbra.
Failing that, Schiavo should have received some quotes for health insurance via Google. She could have put the best possible light on her condition, thus reducing her monthly premiums of $74 million dollars.
A higher deductible would have reduced those already discounted premiums.
By the way, I think the Frost’s car hit a tree. My sources (voices in my head) tell me the taxpayers of the local municipality will
pick up the cost of the tree surgeon.
My outrage gland runneth over.
The modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist. I know it’s not proper to call them fascist, for fear of violating Godwin’s Law and all that. Plus, American fascists really hate being called fascist…and God forbid one would never want to offend fascists.
Another question out of ignorance: Is there something in the SCHIP program that prevents the insurance from being canceled? It seems to me that aside from cost and the immense hassle of applying (making sure to detail every doctor’s visit and health problem for the past five years), a big problem with buying insurance as an individual is that if you ever have any expensive health problem (so that you start costing more than your payments), the insurance company will do whatever it can to cancel your insurance, ideally doing it retroactively by going through your application with a fine-tooth comb and finding some mistake on it.
I wouldn’t mind buying my own insurance (rather than running the risk of being dependent on my current employer forever if something happens) if I had some confidence that the coverage would actually be there if I needed it. No doubt I should stop being so cynical and just trust that the Invisible Hand would never let me down.
OCSteve: And I called that wrong as I really didn’t think he would veto it.
You’re such a nice guy that you think Bush can’t be as much of a scum-sucking scummy McScumbucket as he really, really is. I recognize that this is why, so I’m not actually mad at you, but COME OFF IT: of course Bush would veto it, because all you had to do was think “what is the scummiest thing to do in this situation?” and that’s what President McScumbucket will do.
The kid knows he received health care that saved his life. Do you really believe he had ever heard of SCHIP before very recently?
Is that important? He knows he received health care which saved his life. He may not have known the name of the legislation that allowed him to receive life-saving health care until relatively recently, but… so what?
Do you really think he’s qualified to discuss health care funding on the national stage?
I think he’s qualified to get up there and say what he said about it. (More qualified than young Noah was to talk about Social Security, certainly.)
Anyone here with children – would you allow and/or encourage your 12 year old to do this?
It would depend on the kid. Some kids wouldn’t be mature enough to handle the attention, or able to do the broadcast without flubbing it/embarrassing themselves. A 12-year-old is old enough that I certainly wouldn’t automatically assume they’re incapable. (I don’t have kids of my own, but I’ve looked after quite a few.)
I am starting to suspect ‘icwhatudo’ is a liberal plant bent on proving how clueless the right is on healthcare. He certainly couldn’t have done much better if he’d tried.
Dont Target Sick Or Hurt Children For Political Debate
I have to say this is one of those days I am glad to be an unaffiliated voter. I lean GOP (heavily) but there are days when it is a blessing not be too closely associated with right. The entire S-CHIP mess is spinning madly out of control – again tha…
Note that quite a few states in the US don’t even regulate child labor in the entertainment industry – which could get a minor into rather more trouble than a one-off radio broadcast on behalf of the Democratic party. (I mention this as a parallel example of what children in the US are allowed to do with, it is presumed, their parents’ consent.)
Final straw for John Cole (I, bsphere). I feel bad for him.
“S-CHIP, the children’s health insurance program Bush just vetoed”
… the expansion of which …
Rilkefan: I feel bad for him.
I feel worse for you. But thanks for the link to an excellent post: I don’t read Balloon Juice regularly, but every time I do, I wonder why I don’t, if you see what I mean.
Jes: “I feel worse for you.”
?
I had no idea Cole was still a registered Republican. From the way he’s been talking I figured the last straw had arrived long ago.
Crap!
Last time, I wrote:
But twice in a row?
Third try:
“The modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist. I know it’s not proper to call them fascist, for fear of violating Godwin’s Law and all that.”
Godwin’s Law can’t be “violated.” It’s a much-misunderstood observation, frequently referred to by people who have no idea what it says, or who Mike Godwin is.
This is Godwin’s Law:
That’s it. Nothing more.
Any “violation” or whatnot is pure garble.
Beyond that, the American Right is no less disparate than the American Left, and as usual, anyone who makes sweeping and universal generalization — far easier than that is than writing the necessary essays to intelligently distinguish, say, Pat Buchanan from Francis Fukuyama from William Kristol from Ron Paul — is engaging in analysis that doesn’t educate anyone in the slightest, but merely speaks to, again, our constant companion, Moral Righteousness.
I’m sure it’s very comfortable, but it’s not actually informative to anyone by way of presenting any actual useful information, or insights.
Speaking purely for myself, the more I see a comment thread consisting of invective and moral chest-beating, the less positively I think it speaks of those making such contributions.
Thoughtful analysis would make a pleasant substitute.
Now aren’t these caterwauling flying monkeys of the right the same people who were absolutely outraged that MoveOn dared to attack General Petreaus?
Let me see:
A 4-Star General who writes Op-Eds and testifies on policy to Congress vs a 12-year old brain injured child?
Oh, I understand. Obviously, the 12-year old is the one it’s all right to attack. We can’t allow the General’s feelings to be hurt while a 12-year old brain injured child is being allowed to get SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!
They don’t call ’em Values Voters for nothing!
Thoughtful analysis would make a pleasant substitute.
In general, I agree with you, but sometimes a subject is so devoid of logic, so insane, so beyond crazy that it makes it nigh impossible to discuss it without launching into invective, ranting and cursing. The arguments made by Malkin, et al, are of that quality. There can be no thoughtful analysis of what they say because there was no thought put into their original argument. The only logical response to that is some version or another of “what the hell goes on in their pointy little heads? and can we stop it before it harms anyone else?”
I was holding out hope they could be saved.
They can’t. They are in a persistent vegetative state.
“Anyone here with children – would you allow and/or encourage your 12 year old to do this?”
I don’t have children, so take this for whatever it’s worth, but my answer is that it would depend purely on the kid. I’ve known lots of quite stupid 12-year-olds, I’ve lots of average 12-year-olds, I’ve known quite a few reasonably intelligent ones, and I’ve known a few brilliant ones.
I’d let the latter two do it, and not the former two, likely enough.
I know that I was damn sure knowledgeable and articulate enough to do such at thing at 12, or at 7, for that matter. But I was extremely precocious and rather atypical. I wouldn’t recommend it for most of the other 12-year-olds I was familiar with at that age. But some, yes.
“In general, I agree with you, but sometimes a subject is so devoid of logic, so insane, so beyond crazy that it makes it nigh impossible to discuss it without launching into invective, ranting and cursing.”
Understandable, but there are an infinite number of venues to engage in that.
Obsididan Wings is one of the very rare and few exceptions that has rules limiting it. That would seem to be pretty much the end of the story. No “but.”
In fairness, Hilzoy’s post pretty much incited that sort of reaction. I don’t in the least deny that it gives cause to feel outrage and impulses towards expressing it. I just note that I didn’t make up the rules, and that this site is not, in fact, intended to be a partisan site for engaging in slurring of people of any given political view, but a site where people of different views, including quite specifically Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals and libertarians, can respectfully disagree. No matter how it fails the ideal, and that therefore a few think the concept should be changed, that is the concept of this blog, after all. It’s not Firedoglake or DailyKos or whathave you.
You wanna argue with the rules? Don’t take it up with me. I didn’t make them.
To be honest, I tend to doubt whether Michelle Malkin, still less any of her busy little elves, really cares a flying about Graeme Frost’s health problems, or his family’s finances. The main point here, I think, is one of emergency meme-placement for political gain. Whether it is true, fair, accurate, moral, or not: the accepted rightwing “message” has been launched: “The Frost family aren’t really THAT badly off: they have a ton of money, and just trying to exploit their kid to shill for socialized medecine”. And by the time anyone does any sort of REAL research to disprove this “message”, it will be too late: the wingnuts will have already over-blogged and over-linked their version of the story, and the seeds of doubt will have already been planted (albeit mostly in the minds of those already predisposed to Winger Theory anyway).
Oh, and btw, wasn’t Michelle Malkin the one who blew a gasket when someone posted her home address on a blog someplace? Frothing and fulminating about Teh Hateful Libruls who had no respect for privacy?
Actually, that’s debateable OCSteve. Wait, no it’s not. The kid’s will indeed lose eligibility under the existing program as I understand it.
There are reasons I could get behind a revision to the expansion. But they haven’t been offered in defense here.
As for Gary, the interpreter of all things civil.
Was it Hilzoy’s post that incited it Gary? Or was it the subject of the post.
Not vile enough for you? Of all people?
Watch your windows dude.
I’m not so sure that it is an attack on the boy to look at the financial situation of his family, when the financial situation of his family is precisely the issue raised by the boy’s response. I don’t read right-wing sites (mainly because I can’t find any rational ones, suggestions?), so I don’t know if the boy himself was ever personally attacked, but Hilzoy’s lead-in that he is being attacked in these investigations is unsubstantiated in her post.
On another note, I believe that S-CHIP works like any number of federal-assistance-to-states programs which grant federal funds to states with a fairly broad mandate to use the funds as best befits their specific circumstances. If Maryland has fewer people living at the poverty line than other states, it would raise the eligibility limits to include people with higher incomes until the money is gone. This is the same thing as giving North Dakota a proportional share of national security funding to protect itself from terrorist attack. These situations arise, of course, because members of congress will not vote for the programs if their states don’t get a “fair” share.
so, what would someone have to do to give Frost a good shot at winning a slander suit ?
Dunno if anyone else mentioned this, but owning a valuable home, if you aren’t willing to sell it, doesn’t mean you’re wealthy. My family was nearly identical to the Frost’s in many ways–my dad is a contractor, built our house from scratch, mom doesn’t make much more, etc. But if you’re not willing to sell or refinance, it just means you have to pay more in taxes.
Being a contractor is not so great either. I don’t know how many of these bloggers have been self-employed, but it sucks. Right wingers complain about double taxation, right? Well, as a contractor, if you make more than $400/yr, you have to pay self-employment tax on that, then you add that to your income and pay income tax on it again. It’s a pain.
OCSteve: You’ve done a good job of making the best argument I can imagine against the CHIP program in Maryland, without sliming or attacking Graeme Frost in the least. That proves that anyone can debate this issue rationally without sliming a twelve year old kid and his family. This in turn suggests to me that those doing the sliming did so out of pure malice. From the Federalist papers to the Lincoln-Douglas debates the Michelle Malkin and Michael Savage, political discourse in the United States has gone down very quickly.
As for “outrage” against the kid’s parents, I really see no basis for outrage. I believe everyone, including children, has a right to speak out about what policies mean to them personally. Most democratic constitutions guarantee this right. If such a person makes a morally compelling case, maybe you should consider changing your opinion. At the very least, nothing justifies the slime campaign against Graeme Frost.
Generally: I’ll say it again, if you don’t want this sliming to happen, you have to make sure it doesn’t work. Michelle Malkin will clearly eat all the moral outrage the American left can serve up; you have to make sure she eats Bush’s first veto override with it as well.
Hmm? If you’d like to accuse me of having said something vile somewhere, please do go ahead and quote it, and make the accusation, rather than merely insinuate. I’m unaware of having ever violated the posting rules, but perhaps we all missed it.
I assume you’ll also keep in mind the requirement to not engage in personal attack, but rather to discuss issues of substance or policy.
What’s on your mind, sir?
John Spragge: “That proves that anyone can debate this issue rationally without sliming a twelve year old kid and his family.”
… that anyone smart and diligent can …
Isn’t that precisely the right-wing argument when it comes to the estate tax opposition?
Isn’t that precisely the right-wing argument when it comes to the estate tax opposition?
Except there the “wealthy” person is dead, and likely has other concerns other than remaining “wealthy.”
Ugh, why do people on my side have to be vile?
yeah, Ugh, why?
Huh?
“Isn’t that precisely the right-wing argument when it comes to the estate tax opposition?”
Isn’t the cut-off $3 mil or so? Ok, that’s just a snazzy but non-mansion large-family-sized house in the nicest part of Palo Alto, but …
Oh, not referring to me but to the exasperation. Maybe I should get a new handle…
Okay, that was pretty funny. I was scratching my head for a few minutes.
I get the same thing when bloggers use Newspeak.
And was that a trick question, Seb? 🙂
I’m tempted to join in playing “Who’s on first,” but I believe it’s merely coincidence that Sebastian made an exclamation following someone who happens to have adopted that exclamation as his cogomen.
Otherwise I’d either join in demanding that Ugh surrender the answer, or regret that we have no regular commenter using the name of “Ick.”
Isn’t that precisely the right-wing argument when it comes to the estate tax opposition?
That argument is pretty thin when there’s a $2 million exemption off the top. If someone inherits a $5 million house, I’m comfortable with requiring them to pay long term capital gains on the $3 million above the exemption, even if it means they might have to sell the house to pay for it.
And I would also note that the argument of “you should have to sell your house in order to provide healthcare to your children” carries more weight than “you should have to sell your sizable family business in order to pass millions of dollars on to your heirs.”
Maybe there’s some hypocrisy in there, but we’re realy not talking about the same underlying issue/problem.
Ugh, how about “Ugh_” in honor of our absent founder?
That argument is pretty thin when there’s a $2 million exemption off the top. If someone inherits a $5 million house, I’m comfortable with requiring them to pay long term capital gains on the $3 million above the exemption, even if it means they might have to sell the house to pay for it.
Well, the estate would pay 55% on the $3 million above the exemption (not sure if the exemption is $2 million but doesn’t matter for purposes of the example), not the 15% capital gains rate. If the estate didn’t have enough liquid assets it would have to sell the house in order to pay the taxes, or borrow the funds using the house as collateral. The heirs would then get a step up in the basis of the house to its $5M FMV, although it would be encumbered by the debt.
Ugh’s suggestions for estate tax reform:
(i) lower the marginal rate to the top ordinary income rate;
(ii) make the exemption to $5 million and index for inflation;
(iii) heirs receiving the property get a step down in basis to zero, not a step up to FMV; and
(iv) eliminate valuation discounts (this may be hard to do).
Sorry I actually use the word ‘ugh’. I sometimes forget we have a commenter by the same name. Did your parents hate you? It seems like such a strange name.
“Did your parents hate you?”
His name is actually “Sue”, and it’s a sign of love.
I think we need commenters named “Sorry”, “Wow”, “the previous commenter”, “Posted by:”, “Guiliani”, and “September 11”.
“His name is actually “Sue”, and it’s a sign of love.”
So his parents were both lawyers?
“although it would be encumbered by the debt”
This paragraph would make sense to Jane Austen but it’s over my head.
When I think that we probably came close to learning about SCHIP vs selling (the sliver not owned by the bank of) our house, I get the heebie-jeebies.
“So his parents were both lawyers?”
I’m not sure if “dirty, mangy dog” is country slang for “lawyer”, and Cash isn’t around to ask.
Ugh, why do people on my side have to be vile?
Not just on your side. Leading pundits and commentators. Sure, there’s crazies on the left. Can’t think of any of ANY prominence that would smear a 12 year old.
In fact, if I remember correctly both sides of the ole’ aisle were recently faced with some dubious statements regarding American soldiers. I can’t recall which side denounced it, and which side praised it….
Everyone’s different, but sooner or later there comes a point where you look around and see all the vile and despicable people that agree with you, and have to question how you and they ended up on the same side. Maybe there was some sort of mistake….
Well, the estate would pay 55% on the $3 million above the exemption (not sure if the exemption is $2 million but doesn’t matter for purposes of the example), not the 15% capital gains rate.
You’re right, it’s the inheritance rate not the capital gains rate, though right now it is a moving target. The top rate is I think 45% and the exemption is $2 million right now, but in 2011 the law sunsets. Still, if the exemption is $2 million, going up to $3.5 in 2009 or something, I’m comfortable with taxing the rest, even at 45%. Revenue has to come from somewhere, and as Warren Buffet says, the estate tax does have positive social value.
I’m not so sure that it is an attack on the boy to look at the financial situation of his family,
Hey, maybe somebody should give that a try — looking at the actual financial situation of the family. Because none of these nutcases so far has done anything approaching that.
Sebastian: Have you carefully considered the possibility that maybe these people aren’t really on your side?
Also, someone named “thanks,” and someone named “also.”
Someone named “I” and someone named “me” would also enliven things.
Could we also have someone using “Giuliani,” though?
Gary,
Fascism is rarely a majority phenomenon. In all liberal democratic Western nations where fascism has dominated the political culture and eventually ruled, it was the “pragmatic” and “middle-of-the-road” and conservatives who all acquiesced (grudgingly or whole-heartedly). The methods and techniques of the various fascist organizations were always brutalizing and thuggish, however the “moderates” found them more desirable than wimpish liberalism or tax-stealing socialists. This phenomenon has not been replicated on the Left.
Although I’m open to be corrected.
“Fascism is rarely a majority phenomenon.”
Be that as it may, it doesn’t make “The modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist” into either an accurate or interesting observation, or even a coherent one.
“In all liberal democratic Western nations where fascism has dominated the political culture and eventually ruled, it was the ‘pragmatic’ and ‘middle-of-the-road’ and conservatives who all acquiesced (grudgingly or whole-heartedly). The methods and techniques of the various fascist organizations were always brutalizing and thuggish, however the ‘moderates’ found them more desirable than wimpish liberalism or tax-stealing socialists.”
I agree, and that’s a perfectly reasonable observation, which brings something to the table, unlike “[t]he modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist.”
My suggestion of “Guiliani” was of course intentionally misspelled, since I think I’ve corrected people on that here before. I thought about changing it to “‘Guiliani’ [sic], and ‘Guiliani [sic]’, and ‘September 11′”.
OCSteve: About Maryland, I think it would be interesting to see a breakdown of income here, showing how much, say, each decile of the population makes. It might just be living in Baltimore, but from here it looks like a bunch of wealthy people and a bunch of very poor people. In which case, the mean could be fairly high, and the number of people needing help with medical insurance pretty sizeable. I could be wrong, though, which is why I’d like to see the stats.
Wonkie: there are conservatives here — Seb, OCSteve, G’Kar (insofar as he identifies as conservative), etc. — who don’t seem to me to suffer from any sort of personality disorder. So probably a narrower and more accurate statement would have been better.
John Cole: Howdy! And welcome to the dark side!
Jay C “To be honest, I tend to doubt whether Michelle Malkin, still less any of her busy little elves, really cares a flying about Graeme Frost’s health problems, or his family’s finances. The main point here, I think, is one of emergency meme-placement for political gain.”
This is pretty much exactly right. For a long time, much of the right wing punditry and spokepersons, and even Congressional leadership have participated in the “destroy the credibility of the messenger and then we don’t have to actually counter the message.”
Whether it was Durbin, Kerry, Gore, Rather, Colbert, Fox, and now the Frost family, they are too lazy to actually attempt a counter to what was said. What matters is character assassination, not the facts being presented by whomever is at the end of their tirade.
I tend to doubt whether Michelle Malkin, still less any of her busy little elves, really cares a flying about Graeme Frost’s health problems, or his family’s finances.
“Tend to doubt”?
Don’t tend, don’t doubt. She’s an evil person, by any reasonable definition of the word “evil.”
As I indicated in a posting on the Lawyers, Guns, & Money site, many of the rightwingers who’ve attacked this family show an astonishing ignorance of how middle class people make ends meet (mortages, financial aid, and the like). Since they completely lack the polish that one associates with great wealth, I’m becoming more and more convinced that large numbers of them really are just losers banished to their parents’ basements. How else can they not know this stuff? Does someone else have a better explanation?
Seb: Sorry I actually use the word ‘ugh’. I sometimes forget we have a commenter by the same name. Did your parents hate you? It seems like such a strange name.
“Ugh” is short for Popeye’s “ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh!” (which is a lie).
Rilke’s suggestion of “Ugh_” is a good one, although informing the Ugh-fan club throngs of the name change would take, like, no time whatsoever – which may be an insurmountable obstacle for me.
How else can they not know this stuff? Does someone else have a better explanation?
it’s not about what they know, it’s about what harmonizes best with the voice of the party.
I think even if Ugh changed to Ugh_ some people would still shorten it to “Ugh”, just as people call Edward_ “Edward”. I used to be fond of the introductory ugh but have been experimenting with urgh, aagh, argh, yeeugh, and even just uggh since Ugh’s been around. (At least some of those do represent different sentiments.)
I take strong exception to the idea that a twelve-year-old should automatically be considered manipulated because he speaks on the radio about a bill that affects others in his situation.
Children can express themselves perfectly well about issues that they feel strongly about. One of my favorite bloggers’ nine-year-old daughter makes more sense than many adults about impeachment.
I used to be fond of the introductory ugh but have been experimenting with urgh, aagh, argh, yeeugh, and even just uggh since Ugh’s been around.
same here.
i’m growing fond of ack, blech and meh.
Rilke’s suggestion of “Ugh_” is a good one, although informing the Ugh-fan club throngs of the name change would take, like, no time whatsoever
But I just had the monogramed club polo shirts made! Lousy underscore.
I’ve said this previously and I’ll say it again. What’s left of the GOP, especially the 28% crowd is headed for a very dark place in 2008. It worries me just how far they will go. As their worldview becomes increasingly detached from the reality around them it seems like it could cause some collective snap.
For example the White House gets the latest Osama video from a website. They keep it less than 5 hours before turning it over to Fox News to give it the ‘fnord’ treatment. As it turns out, they tipped off Al-Q that we were monitoring that chanel.
But never worry it’s all wrong because someone found a date stamp
I worry about right-wing wackos more than left-wing ones because those on the right are closer to the levers of power and, on average, better armed. I fear the choice of vice president could be especially important for the Democrats this time.
Neh?
“Neh?”
Sorry, that was in response to: “i’m growing fond of ack, blech and meh.”
I agree, and that’s a perfectly reasonable observation, which brings something to the table, unlike “[t]he modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 09, 2007 at 08:20 PM
Fair enough.
The modern day American Right, is a coalition of fascist.
Beyond that, the American Right is no less disparate than the American Left, and as usual, anyone who makes sweeping and universal generalization…
It’s true, when folks trot out the word “fascist”, my first inclination is to look to see if they’re wearing a tin foil hat. Images of jackboots and all that. It seems overly dramatic.
Plus, all authoritarian tendencies aren’t fascism.
It’s also true that current day conservatism covers a lot of ground.
All of that said, the particular brand of current day conservatism that holds the whip hand is, by American standards, extraordinarily authoritarian, and appears to have as its overriding agenda and reason for being the expansion of its own unaccountable authority.
I take your point here, Gary, but it’s also true that there’s enough truth to the “fascist” claim to make any reasonable person sit up and take notice. At least as regards the aspects of fascism that make it dangerous, which is to say, forcible rule by authority without transparency or accountability.
As regards introductory expressions, my vote is with “feh”.
Thanks –
“All of that said, the particular brand of current day conservatism that holds the whip hand is, by American standards, extraordinarily authoritarian, and appears to have as its overriding agenda and reason for being the expansion of its own unaccountable authority.”
Indeed, and I’ve written about this quite a bit. I was taking issue with the specific sentence I took issue with; not with all possible statements in the neighborhood of the topic.
Hey everybody, perhaps the moment has passed, but I do wish to acknowledge and thank those who responded to my earlier comment.
I just want to be clear that I don’t defend personal attacks on this kid or his family, and I probably don’t want Michelle Malkin going through his garbage, either. That said, if you rely on touching anecdotes, you ought to expect people to check them out.
My point is that using a twelve-year-old boy like one of Jerry’s Kids is an emotional and manipulative thing to do. It’s an attempt to bypass rational debate and make public policy based on anecdotes. I hate that kind of thing, and I promise I hate it when Republicans do it too.
Cheerful Iconoclast: My point is that using a twelve-year-old boy like one of Jerry’s Kids is an emotional and manipulative thing to do.
Yes. But are you telling me you think it’s the most emotional and manipulative thing you’ve ever seen either party do?
Yes, having a child who is directly affected by the legislation speak about it, is “emotional and manipulative”. It puts a human face on the cold figures. It does not permit you to set aside the human effects of the US policy of allowing children to go without healthcare as something that’s just a matter of political ideology: much as news stories about elderly people being forced to sell the home where they and their partner lived for forty years in order to pay the estate tax after their partner dies is a piece of emotional manipulation in favor of equal marriage rights for all (or, if you’re Republican, in favor of abolishing the estate tax). Giving a human voice or a human face to the numbers is emotionally manipulative, because as human beings we are less inclined to do something cruel and unfeeling if we know that we are doing this to fellow human beings.
But when political ideology can overcome this natural human feeling – as it evidently has with Michelle Malkin and others – this is the result of emotional manipulation to make hatred of those who are “the Other” a stronger emotional force than the natural feeling that children ought not to suffer permanent harm because of who their parents are. It’s relatively easy to dismiss these children as numbers: it’s harder to dismiss these children as irrelevant if even one of them hss become a human person with a voice and a name.
It’s an attempt to bypass rational debate and make public policy based on anecdotes.
There are good solid rational reasons for providing free healthcare to all children. Rational debate would focus on those reasons.
It is those opposed to rational debate, who base their political ideology on the belief that it’s better to keep most people poor and needy and unhealthy, and justify this by appeals to emotion, to hatred for “the Other” – so that people who would benefit by more rational policies allow themselves instead to think that it’s better to suffer a little if they can be sure that those they hate will suffer a lot – whom you should condemn, if you hate emotional manipulation.
But instead, it appears, you hate having personal anecdotes used to justify the rational basis of providing free healthcare to children whose parents can’t afford it.
Jes, let’s not overstate. “Most people” in the United States aren’t “poor and needy and unhealthy.” By the standards of most of the human race for most of human history, people in the United States are incredibly rich. It says something about the abundance of the United States that obesity among the poor is a matter of serious concern.
And I honestly don’t think that anybody actually thinks it’s better to keep people poor, needy and unhealthy. They just disagree about the mechanism by which these ills ought to be alleviated. I happen to think that a free market will do a better job, in the medium to long-run, than an ever-expanding system of entitlements.
That’s a debate I’m quite willing to have, but your characterization of your opponents’ position is obviously false. Nobody holds the beliefs you ascribe to your opponents, really. They don’t.
“Fascism is rarely a majority phenomenon.”
Go read 1984. All it takes is like 2-4% of the population to keep everyone else is servitude and squalor. And do we really think everyone in Germany or Zimbabwe or Burma/Myanmar is a part of the ruling class?
Doesn’t matter what you call it, once totalitarianism (in any form) takes hold, it’s hard to shake. And this is what makes the authoritarian streak (core?) of the Republicans so scary (expansion of FISA, extraordinary rendition, PATRIOT act, etc).
Forgot to add/juxtapose:
And the following quote from 1984:
Cheerful Iconoclast: “Most people” in the United States aren’t “poor and needy and unhealthy.” By the standards of most of the human race for most of human history, people in the United States are incredibly rich.
True. But the same would be said for anyone in most of the developed countries of the world – people in the US are worse off, perhaps, due to your lack of a national health care system, but we’re all way up there in the richest 15%. But this is rather like arguing that Bush & Co aren’t as bad as Stalin or Pol Pot: true, but is that the standard you want to be measured against?
It says something about the abundance of the United States that obesity among the poor is a matter of serious concern.
Actually, it says a great deal about how the US government chooses to put profits for large corporations over the health of the poorest people in the US.
Good food costs more and is less readily available. Federal aid is not available to ensure that every neighborhood has locally-grown fresh fruit and vegetables for sale at affordable prices – that’s not profitable to anyone, because there’s no monetary profit to be had in making sure people living on a low income can buy good, healthy food. But federal aid is available for the cheap, cheap food available in supersize portions anywhere in the US – never mind the long-term damage that this is doing to the health of the poorest people in the US.
Michael Mann. Fascists. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2004. Pp. x, 429. Cloth $65.00, paper $23.99
On the last, Mann concludes that the great divide was between Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe on the one hand (where fascisms flourished) and Northwestern Europe and Britain on the other (where liberal democracies were more entrenched). After a masterful examination of various interpretations of fascism, Mann provides his own data-rich explanations (including some of the best data from other scholars) of Italian, German, and Austrian fascisms—with additional chapters on Hungarian, Romanian, and Spanish “families of authoritarians” (Mann regards fascist movements in all six countries as “extensions” of previous right-wing authoritarianisms).
[…]
Mann writes that only a handful of Nazi leaders were originally attracted to the movement by antisemitism. Most Germans disliked Jews, but antisemitism was not a priority for them and Nazi leaders downplayed antisemitism at election time. Germany’s media barons played a major role in stirring up a populist nationalism that boosted their audience and moved politics to the right. Alfred Hugenberg, a conservative politician who controlled Germany’s largest media empire, “made the world-historical mistake of giving favorable news coverage to the Nazis” (p. 197). 4
Mann finds no overall correlation between class and Nazism. All classes were well-represented in Nazism. Many non-industrial workers supported Nazism (by 1930 some seventy percent of the SA were workers). In Italy, two-thirds of the labor force in 1922 remained non-union, and many previously socialist workers were tired of party rhetoric that brought few results. For them “guaranteed work was more important than risky protest” (p. 117). Few German capitalists supported the Nazis before 1933, although “even fewer hindered them” and “many finally welcomed their accession to power” (p. 197). German capitalists wanted “order” and were unhappy with Weimar’s social and labor reforms, which raised taxes and reduced profits, but before 1933 they distrusted Nazism’s “socialist” side, disliked its violence, and “greatly preferred” the older conservative parties of the day. Austrian fascism, by contrast, was more “class-based,” and Austrian conservatives “reached for their guns too early” (p. 234), as did conservatives in Spain. In Italy rural landowners and the “nation-statist” bourgeoisie were overrepresented in fascism and the business bourgeoisie, large and small, was underrepresented. As for fascist violence in Italy, by 1926 Benito Mussolini’s regime was so popular that there was little need for further violence. 5
According to Mann, overrepresented in fascist movements were not the class foes of communist historiography, capitalists and petty bourgeois, but rather the highly nationalistic and “macho” young from all classes, people living in border regions where communists or foreigners had earlier threatened, war veterans and younger men with paramilitary values, and, in largely agrarian countries, big and small landowners.
More:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/110.2/br_129.html
It would be great if we could all pivot from the attacks on the Frosts to the real issue here, which is that the GOP is attacking the middle class more openly than ever before. And, if we’re honest, the Dem leadership isn’t doing anything about that either.
And from Bill Scher:
These are the same conservatives that insist that they love tax cuts, not because they are cold and selfish, but because it will unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that makes us Americans.
Well, Mr. Frost is an entrepreneur and small business owner.
And the tax cuts for the wealthy did not provide him with the financial security to afford health insurance for himself and his family. Nor did it do anything to reduce the cost of health insurance.
But the family has been able to get by, despite suffering unexpected medical expenses, in part because we have collectively pooled our resources to provide health insurance for millions of kids.
Without SCHIP, the Frosts’ entrepreneurial spirit may well have been crushed, literally and figuratively.
This does not concern conservatives.
All of a sudden, their patriotic love of entrepreneurship in pursuit of the American Dream has vanished.
Instead, conservatives are fine with making it a choice between being an entrepreneur and having health insurance for one’s family.
Unfortunately for them, most Americans see “choice” differently. We believe everyone should have the choice to blaze their own career path without being forced to put their kids’ health at risk.
By the standards of most of the human race for most of human history, people in the United States are incredibly rich. It says something about the abundance of the United States that obesity among the poor is a matter of serious concern.
As noted above by Jesurgilac, obesity among poor folks (and, actually, most folks) in the US has less to do with an overabundance of food, and more to do with the low quality of food available at a reasonable price.
But, you are correct, any current day American is richer than 99% of humans who ever lived. At least as we count wealth these days.
They just disagree about the mechanism by which these ills ought to be alleviated. I happen to think that a free market will do a better job, in the medium to long-run, than an ever-expanding system of entitlements.
That’s a debate I’m quite willing to have
Let’s fire it up. Here’s a question for you.
Here in the US we have about the most private-sector oriented health care among OECD nations.
We also pay more per capita than any other nation for health care. We’re third in public expenditure per capita, and first in private expenditure per capita. In terms of private expenditure, we pay double our nearest rival.
We pay a lot for health care.
Let’s see how we do in terms of outcomes for that money. All figures are from Nationmaster.
10th in access to sanitation. Slovakia and Mexico do better.
19th in acute care beds per 1,000 people.
20th out of 30 OECD nations for life expectancy at birth, and 29th overall in healthy life expectancy at birth. Slovenia is number twenty-eight.
27th in hospital beds per 1,000 people.
6th highest infant mortality rate among OECD nations. Only Turkey, Mexico, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland are higher.
Under our largely “free market” system, we pay the most and get, at best, mediocre results.
Are just not free market enough?
Thanks –
It says something about the abundance of the United States that obesity among the poor is a matter of serious concern.
Yes and no. It also says something about the abundance of junk food, which isn’t inherently a sign of true abundance at all. See, e.g., the epidemics of obesity in Australia and Brazil.
Curses, by the time the post registered (i.e. I remembered to complete the captcha) it was rendered obsolete. Ah well, it bears repeating.