The Democrat War On Science
By Mitch Berg
Kevin Williamson concludes:
But the next time you hear a chorus of “Hooray, science!” from the Left, ask them why Barack Obama’s signature health-care program is going to recognize theworst sort of quackery and pseudoscience, with no more regard for the scientific record than the most fervid young-Earth creationist, swami, or snake-handler.
Williamson is writing about the fact that Obamacare specifically covers naturopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture, “sciences” with no more scientific basis than Christian prayer therapy (which is not covered, by the way).
December 4th, 2013 at 8:43 am
Obama and the dems believe that including quack treatments in Obamacare will give it a built-in, organized support base. The kind of support base that is willing to spend lots of money on lobbying.
This is what is called ‘rent seeking’.
December 4th, 2013 at 9:54 am
Having a friend who is a chiropractor, and knowing what he had to go through to become one, inclusion of this Doctorate profession alongside naturopathy and accupuncture is very unfortunate and plain wrong and insulting.
Whether it should or should not be included in coverage is up to the individual – if they are willign to pay for it, why not? Oh, wait, there are no more individually selected coverages – onyl what Goobernement prescribes. Soylent Green is just around the corner.
December 4th, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Aw, baloney. The right has circulated all kinds of misinformation and disinformation about the ACA.
Apparently you missed this in the very source you linked to, which separates out the quack, like homeopathy, from the valid, like acupuncture/acupressure:
“Proving that alternative medicine has real, measurable benefits has been key to increasing its role in the system, said John Weeks, editor of the Integrator Blog, an online publication for the alternative medicine community. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, created by the health law, is funding studies on alternative medicine treatments to determine their effectiveness.”
What lie, deception, fake story, or deliberate dishonesty are you going to present next?
How about the California Republican caucus trying to deceive people with a fake web site to ‘guide’ enrollment in the ACA? It must scare the right horribly that states like CA and KY are doing so well. Apparently dishonesty is a core conservative value.
http://news.yahoo.com/california-republicans-send-voters-fake-obamacare-39-39-154000829.html
December 4th, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Apparently dishonesty is a core conservative value.
Just like fascism and murder/infanticide are core progressive values.
December 4th, 2013 at 2:49 pm
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather…perhaps a bit of bloodletting. Or trepanning!….yeah, that’d be great.
December 4th, 2013 at 2:56 pm
““Proving that alternative medicine has real, measurable benefits has been key to increasing its role in the system, said John Weeks, editor of the Integrator Blog, an online publication for the alternative medicine community. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, created by the health law, is funding studies on alternative medicine treatments to determine their effectiveness.”
Trans-orbital lobotomy has gotten a bad rap. I think the PCORI should re-open an investigation, and I think Mongrel Cur would be a most excellent test subject.
December 4th, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Or is
sheit proof that the procedure doesn’t work?December 4th, 2013 at 3:09 pm
DG,
You missed the point. As always.It’s not that Alt Medicine can’t have some sort of value for people. Clearly it does.
It’s just that science, as we practice it today, has not been able to really assign causation to it.
BTW, DG? Whenever something comes up where I don’t know the answer – rare as this may seem – I find out what you have to say about it. And then assume the opposite. It rarely fails me.
December 4th, 2013 at 3:09 pm
The lying about Obamacare is hilarious — and epic. All those not-really-news stories on Fox News, especially Hannity, that turned out to be totally false. Because clearly the right doesn’t know how to fact check, or doesn’t want to, because the facts are not their friends.
Here’s another one — reminds me of that other funny New York story that turned out to be a total lie by a right wing candidate. Remember the funny, and totally FALSE story about the snow plow union-directed shutdown/slowdown during a NY city blizzard? The one with all the bogus claims about people dying because of union misconduct?
You know the one I mean — the one where FOUR separate investigations, ranging from local, to state, to federal levels ALL found that no such event ever happened, and that the Republican candidate who made the claim LIED? No evidence, including extensive traffic cam footage of the roads in NYC showed such a slowdown to have occurred, and the people the Republican candidate claimed told him the story insisted they said no such thing.
And I told you when you first wrote it here it was crap – just like the bogus story about the three busloads of high school students taken to a local polling station to vote only for democrats turned out to be three high school seniors being taken along with a local church group going to vote, so they could register for the first time, and then everyone had ice cream on the way back.
I told you that one was going to turn out to be false too.
Right wing = lies, deception, dishonesty.
That was an event kind of like this one:
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/12/03/boehner-caught-hyping-completely-false-obamacare-horror-story.html
You’re lying, and you’re losing, and trying to gin up more fake Obamacare horror stories just shows how gullible you lot are.
Fascism, aka authoritarianism mixed with hyper (but fake) patriotism and revisionist history are deeply associated with the right. So is a total lack of concern for the life and health of your fellow Americans – including women, infants and children.
The fact that Obamacare provides for reproductive care for women, and care for infants and children, AND for contraceptives so as to avoid abortions, shows that progressive values have nothing whatsoever to do with murder or infanticide — that’s just a silly thing some righties like to believe to make themselves feel better about their other failed values, like letting children and veterans starve.
December 4th, 2013 at 3:13 pm
DG,
On those rare instances where I might not know the answer to something, I read whatever your opinion is on the subject. Then I assume the opposite is true.
On further investigation, it is actually pretty foolproof.
December 4th, 2013 at 3:22 pm
BTW, DG? What is the supposed “lie” about OCare?
Because everything II’ve written about the subject is what we call “the truth”, as has been shown to you over and over again.
Indeed, the best way to step up your FACT CHECKING game might be to quit writing some much over at Eric Pusey’s neurotic little fascist-blog and do some reading over here for a few weeks.
It could only help.
December 4th, 2013 at 4:05 pm
shows that progressive values have nothing whatsoever to do with murder or infanticide
Right. Then show me a progressive who is against infanticide.
There are NONE.
December 4th, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Well, the Health Insurance Deform Act (aka “Obamacare”) wages war already on actuarial science and economics. Why not medicine, too?
Oh, and by the way, Doggone, your source does not prove that John Boehner lied. It proves that his source was either wrong or lied. This proves that you are having trouble with basic reading comprehension, and ought not be trusted on anything until you bone up (ha ha) on it.
Same for naturopathy. The article notes “The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, created by the health law, is funding studies on alternative medicine treatments to determine their effectiveness.” In other words, there are no current, controlled medical studies which prove naturopathy’s effectiveness.
Again, work on that reading comprehension. You’ll thank me later if you do. And what Mitch said about your accuracy. Conclude the opposite of what you say, and it’s generally pretty close to the truth.
December 4th, 2013 at 4:51 pm
Abortion is not infanticide; that would be murder of someone born.
The conservative notion of infanticide/murder is bullshit. It is not substantiated by either science or any religious or ethical consensus. It is crap you all made up, as one more faux fact, about as ridiculous as the earth being 6k years old, Obama being born in Kenya, evolution and global warming denial, or the notion that there were Triceratops roaming the earth in the 11th century (thank you for that chuckle, Allen Quist and the tea baggers).
Meanwhile, if Mitch and the rest of you have such hysteria over imaginary quack medical treatment, it is worth noting that the usual hypocrisy is in evidence.
Marcus Bachmann allegedly claims to have a degree from a highly dubious educational institution that has never offered such a degree. He and his employees at the clinic he and his wife, Michele Bachman own, offer the DANGEROUS AND HARMFUL pray-away-the-gay ‘reparative’ therapy.
Funny, that is pure quackery, it has no therapeutic value, and the professional organizations strongly repudiate it. In yet somehow none of you have ever gotten around to wailing and moaning about how terrible it is that the Bachmann’s have made out like bandits on federal and state payments for what is clearly quackery – quackery that sometimes results in death.
Ah, that good old conservative double standard. Never mind that Obamacare is providing ONLY legitimate care by properly credentialed people when demonstrably effective and medically necessary, which is commonly covered under current policies (notably acupuncture and chiropractic care).
Go ahead, run around with your hair on fire, and throw slurs and slanders at others.
I suppose you are hoping it distracts from how funny your foolishness is — nope, we’re still laughing at your ignorance well-stirred with malice.
You know nothing factual about Obamacare, or health insurance more generally, particularly what was standard coverage pre-ACA.
Bwaaaa haaa haa ha ahaaahahah! Haven’t laughed that hard since you were worried that because children and feeble-minded old people could get handed an I Vote sticker, to make them happy, there must be a union plot to commit voter fraud — never mind the record of who votes every election that can be checked.
(I shared the laugh with Pen about your crazy ACA notions – he made similar observations, and laughed just as hard.)
Thanks for the fun!
December 4th, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Sweet shit on a cracker. . .
The right has circulated all kinds of misinformation and disinformation about the ACA.
As opposed to, say: “If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it. Let me repeat that: If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.” Obama, Rose Garden remarks, July 21, 2009
Good lord, woman. You’re voluminous in your replies, but it’s all just a big puffy cloud of nonsense.
Abortion is not infanticide; that would be murder of someone born.
Hey, shithead, here’s my daughter born at 23 weeks (1 lb., 4 oz): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqJyiEO670s
You probably can’t appreciate her size in the video, but if she had still been in the womb at that time, and a forceps/scalpel sliced her up and a vacuum removed her remains, you’re damned sure I’d consider it infanticide.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:22 pm
Notice that DogGone does not even try to dispute the arguments, but tries to go directly to mockery. It’s the old lawyer’s adage; if the evidence is on your side, pound the evidence. If the law is on your side, pound the law. if neither, pound the table.
Pound away, Doggone, but hope that your table wasn’t made with the “assistance” fo Barry Soetoro or Kathleen Sebelius. Otherwise you’ll need that healthcare exchange plan that you won’t be able to get.
And what Yossarian said about infanticide. Just because abortion is prenatal infanticide doesn’t mean that it’s not infanticide.
And Dr. Bachmann’s clinic? Sorry, but the degree is real, and the reparative therapy allegation is false. May I suggest that (a) you work on your reading comprehension and (b) avoid trusting liberal activist sites in your research? Not that you’d know it, but that’s not Shinola coming out of your fingertips into your keyboard.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:25 pm
Wow! Three comments in the same day and same post! The Bull Conner wing of the Democrat Party is representing here at SitD. Dog Gone’s comments echo of George Wallace… Obamacare Now! Obamacare Tomorrow! Obamacare Forever! And poor Penigma. The proven fabulist having to put up with the Dogs wackery.
Between the President and Dog Gone’s 4:51 post, I’m investing in strawman futures. At this rate I should make a tidy profit. While you and your wealthy husband sit up in the main plantation house, Dog Gone, having a laugh at the expense of the poor saps who believed the President when he said if you liked your plan, you could keep your plan. Ha Ha Ha, eh, Doggy?
Speaking of losing – did you see Harvard’s poll of the millenials? Heading for the exit on Barry. That’s Science!
December 4th, 2013 at 5:27 pm
QUOTE: It’s just that science, as we practice it today, has not been able to really assign causation to it.
I happen to know something about Chinese medicine. It’s never been studied right. The ONLY way to know if the guy you are seeing is any good is if he’s in a big, competitive city and has a ton of happy CASH customers.
Paying for alternative medicine with insurance premiums is an exceedingly dumb idea in the vast majority of instances.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Funding prepaid medicine via premiums is stupid. It always was, and it always will be. Obamacare just makes it worse.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:35 pm
QUOTE: The fact that Obamacare provides for reproductive care for women, and care for infants and children, AND for contraceptives so as to avoid abortions,
Building all of this stuff into premiums is a mathematical mess of collectivism that it in effect funded REGRESSIVELY. IT’S A REGRESSIVE TAX.
Do it with taxes and redistribution or separately bill prepaid medicine accounts.
Socialize the poor, or risk pools, or maternity care, or whatever you want with taxes.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:50 pm
DG- You sound more desperate than normal. Is it because Obamacare is turning out to be such a train wreck? I thought so.
December 4th, 2013 at 5:58 pm
There is NOTHING good about jacking up premiums and deductibles to unmanageable levels.
Obamacare is the worst example of central planning since Stalin built his canal in the USSR. It’s idiotic.
December 4th, 2013 at 6:02 pm
…and narrowing provider networks. Terrible.
December 4th, 2013 at 6:13 pm
aw DG’s just spouting this crap because she still hasn’t found a coherent explanation for why Tony Cornish’s bill was “crap”
and remember she studied Journalism at the UoM so she’s a professional!
December 4th, 2013 at 6:31 pm
I’ve noticed an increase in the insanity level and the spittle flecked hate from lefties everywhere.
It’s obvious that even the most ignorant moonbat can see that Obamacare is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions….they’re skeered, simple as that.
In the the case of the creature that calls itself “Dog Gone” we see the added, laughable denial of its unquestioning love of brutal, bloody infanticide is probably the continuing mental illness, like a cherry on top.
December 4th, 2013 at 7:00 pm
swiftee, I was listening to a BBC interview with Gloria Steinem a couple months back where sh claimed that the only thing Marx got wrong was “the ends justify the means” she asserted that the correct formulation was “the means is the end”. Its hard to imagine a more morally bankrupt ideology but its the one DG has chosen and the assault of reason on her ideology is obviously a truly terrifing ordeal for her. Not that I’m suggesting a moment of sympathy for someone who’d happily pack us all away to a prison or stuff us into a mass grave if things would only go her way.
December 4th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
“It’s just that science, as we practice it today, has not been able to really assign causation to it.”
This is so dumb it makes my head hurt.
“I know that getting up at midnight and blowing this whistle is what makes the sun rise in the morning, t’s just that science, as we practice it today, has not been able to really assign causation to it.”
December 5th, 2013 at 9:02 am
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December 5th, 2013 at 9:55 am
“Jerry, just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
George Costanza
Economy in U.S. Grows at 3.6% Rate on Bigger Inventories – Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/economy-in-u-s-expands-at-3-6-rate-on-bigger-inventory-build.html
Wasn’t Obamacare suppose to stifle employment and growth?
December 5th, 2013 at 10:26 am
The random economic statistic cheerleader is here!
December 5th, 2013 at 1:08 pm
“Bigger inventories” isn’t very positive for the future http://bit.ly/1eTirfR It’s a weak report in spite of the number. Borrowing from the future.
December 5th, 2013 at 1:08 pm
We ran her off like RICK___DFL, apparently.
December 5th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“Abortion is not infanticide; that would be murder of someone born.”
“The conservative notion of infanticide/murder is bullshit.”
I find it astounding that slicing and dicing is OK but at the same time we have fetal homicide laws on the books.
” that’s just a silly thing some righties like to believe to make themselves feel better about their other failed values, like letting children and veterans starve.”
Yet another example that demonstrates the fact that liberalism is a mental disease!!
December 5th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
The reality is, stopping abortion with government force is a very unwieldily proposition if you really think it through.
The other thing is the government never does jack about stupid people that get pregnant and aren’t prepared for it in any way. Who ever gets in legal trouble for poor maternity care or post birth care?
The GOP needs to drop the legal threats and just make the moral case. The Right would have way more power and there would be fewer abortions.
You could *largely* socialize maternity costs, too as far as I’m concerned.
December 5th, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Emery; well, for about the third straight year, job growth is below the growth of the working age population. I’d say that yes, Obama has succeeded in slowing economic growth. Contrast him with Reagan, for example:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/reagan-vs.-obama-whose-policies-brought-growth/article/1247191
December 5th, 2013 at 4:05 pm
On second thought, Mongrel Cur has converted me….I hope the farmer puts all her whelps into a canvas bag and throws them into the river.
December 5th, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Does the state have the right to coerce one person to sacrifice their body for another?
December 6th, 2013 at 7:17 am
It ought to, Emery. You’re big on trade-offs. Consider the trade-off that’s made in every abortion.
If we make Mother deliver Baby then put it up for adoption, Mother sacrifices nine months of discomfort but Baby gains a lifetime. If we let Mother kill Baby, Mother saves a few months of discomfort but Baby loses a lifetime.
Isn’t Baby’s full life worth a few months of Mother’s temporary discomfort? Especially since she caused it in the first place?
Ah, but some women die in childbirth – we shouldn’t trade one life for another. Fine, allow abortions when Baby threatens the physical life of Mother. Ah, but some women are raped, or are victims of incest – we shouldn’t punish crime victims. Fine, kill those babies, too. But use the power of government to save all the rest of those lives. It’s a bedrock Democrat principle that society can force some people to suffer so others can benefit. Here, it’s actually moral, as well.
December 6th, 2013 at 7:41 am
Are you arguing against statutory murder laws Emery? Fastest draw is the law of the land? Please clarify.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:30 am
Emery; absolutely not, which is why I’m against gun control.
But since you’re actually talking about prenatal infanticide, I have to note that that almost all mothers arrive at the point of being a mother by voluntary action, in which case the state does have a well-established interest in seeing that she takes reasonable care for the life she created through her voluntary actions.
December 6th, 2013 at 1:13 pm
If someone uses a gun carelessly, causing the death of an innocent, intentionally or not, that person loses the right to own a gun ever again.
How about men and women that use their genetic material carelessly, then intentionally cause the death of an innocent? What shall we do Emery?
December 6th, 2013 at 7:15 pm
If that’s the case then why doesn’t the MN GOP Party promote personhood legislation or amendments? Thoughtful conservatives should also support onerous rules for abortion clinics to mandatory waiting periods and requirements for ultrasounds as well. You all talk a good game, but why is it the MN State GOP refuses to walk the talk?
If you want to ban abortion, then go ahead and ban abortion. There is no inherent objection to that kind of law; the opposition to it comes out only in the specific case (personhood). Trying to force an answer to one of the fundamental (and unanswerable) questions of life is tantamount to treating every Minnesotan as a perpetual child.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:50 pm
“Trying to force an answer to one of the fundamental (and unanswerable) questions of life is tantamount to treating every Minnesotan as a perpetual child.”
No Emery, the pro-infanticide crowd’s ridiculous dance around a truth so basic a child instinctively knows it (assuming he\she avoids Dr. Frankenstein’s drain) is an exercise in infantile behavior.
I find calling abortion “Women’s health care” especially insulting, as do intelligent women.
December 7th, 2013 at 6:24 am
That was a very Swift-like answer. Full of red herrings, obfuscation and misdirection.
Just answer the question Tom. > Why doesn’t the MN GOP Party promote personhood legislation or amendments? Thoughtful conservatives should also support onerous rules for abortion clinics to mandatory waiting periods and requirements for ultrasounds as well. You all talk a good game, but why is it the MN State GOP refuses to walk the talk?
December 7th, 2013 at 5:26 pm
Minnesota GOP has proven itself pretty weak kneed, Emery. Mark Ritchie stole a Senate seat right from under their noses; they did nothing. The DFL pulled off the biggest bait&switch in state history, beating the marriage amendment by claiming it was redundant in the face of the existing law…then shoved gay wedding dress up day through the very next year. They may still pay for that, but the GOP did nothing.
I grant you, in the face of urban centers filled to the rafters with a-moral, self-serving leftists the MN GOP doesn’t have the balls to do what it should.
That doesn’t mean the bloody butchery being carried out in the name of “choice”, or (God forgive us) “women’s health” isn’t the path back to barbarism it is.
December 7th, 2013 at 6:51 pm
I appreciate your candor and passion for pro-life principles.