Throw Granny Off The Cliff?
This is the second and final installment in my two-part series on the two arguments you will hear from the Obama presidential campaign every single day from now until November 6, 2012. The first argument was that Romney/Ryan wants to raise your taxes to "pay for" tax cuts for their wealthy friends. I dispensed with this nonsense here.
The next one is far, far easier. The Obama campaign, having no actual accomplishments to brag about in over three years of governance (Oh, sorry. I forgot: Barack Obama killed Osama bin Laden), has nothing left but shrill scare tactics. And the number one scare tactic is to frighten senior citizens into thinking that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to take away their health and retirement benefits. It is brazen. It is cynical. It is factually challenged, to put it mildly. This is not to mention that it is deeply immoral. Emotionally manipulating vulnerable people on fixed incomes is, quite simply, outrageous and beyond the pale. But this strategy is, at the end of the day, virtually all they have. Yes, there will be other "shiny objects" used to distract people from time to time (e.g., the "war on women," "Mitt Romney is rich!" Republicans are racists, the Koch brothers are evil, etc.). But substantively, this is one you will hear, as I say, every single day from now until Election Day.
The argument has no facts whatsoever to commend it. It is nothing but an assertion wrapped in lies, delivered in malice. Don't believe me? Here is a political ad that appeared last year by a left wing group opposed to Paul Ryan's proposed budget plan:
Unhinged, I know.
I had originally intended in this post to do the hard work of presenting what the Romney/Ryan plan actual involves. But the truth is I cannot do any better than Paul Ryan himself, who is the most articulate and persuasive spokesman for his own plan. And, as I wandered over to YouTube to find his video tutorials, I was shocked (I mean, absolutely SHOCKED) to find that only 300,000 people have watched them. Seriously? One-tenth of one percent of the population of the United States of America has watched these videos? Meanwhile, the music video for Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" has over 135 million views, nearly half the population? Okay. I'm officially depressed.
Let me say this as clearly and forcefully as I can: if you have not taken the twelve minutes, eighteen seconds of your precious life to watch these videos, shame on you. Shame. In Brian Land, your right to vote has just been rescinded. (Oh, and if you're one of the 135 million to watch Lady Gaga, yours too. But I digress.)
Here. Let me make this easy. Here is Paul Ryan explaining his "Path to Prosperity" in three parts. Part Two in particular deals with Medicare and Social Security (and no, that is not an excuse to watch just that one, you lazy bum). I present them to you for easy viewing, and you will find no additional comment from me below. Because further comment is completely and utterly unnecessary. Paul Ryan is a serious human being; his opponents are not. And this is not a debatable point.