I’m kinda new to the whole Twitter thing so last night I decided I would spend some time on it talking to a few people. I ended up debating somebody that I can reliably presume is a liberal although he identifies himself as a Republican in his profile. Debating somebody in 140 character “tweets” is damn near impossible when delving into more complicated subjects but, I gave it a shot.
I have to admit, I’ve never bothered with a tit-for-tat debate with a hard left liberal. It always seemed a pointless pursuit. I think I proved to myself that I was correct. The propaganda and bumper sticker slogans that were thrown at me were almost dizzying. Some of the comments were so absurd that it was almost impossible to argue the point.
What got my interest is this tweet where he was speaking on health care reform:
It is sad that ppl in #teaparty, #iamthemob & #majority are being played fools by the fat cats in the monopolies. #fascism #mob #tcot#gop
I proceeded to ask which health care industry monopolies he was speaking of since there are no monopolies that I’m aware of in any industry at this point. He replied:
@brokentracks IKE warned of military-industrial #monopoly. Now, includes energy, pharmaceutical & other #healthcare monops#mob #gop #tcot
Which doesn’t answer my question. I asked few more times throughout the conversation but he never answered. I provided a definition of monopoly to him but, either he didn’t read it or didn’t understand it.
@brokentracks No bid contracts R monopolistic and so R Health insurance cos that can fix prices. #gop #tcot #tiot #teaparty#iamthemob #fox
A little evidence that monopoly is a term he’s having some problems grasping.
@brokentracks Most tax $ are given out as political pork in no bid contracts as favors to those who put them in office #gop #tcot #tiot#mob
Not sure what to think of this, kindof like a mish-mash of two different democratic talking points. Actually the largest portion of our tax money is spent on entitlements.
@brokentracks Original #hcr bill was bi-partisan & based on good research. #Teaparty fools were manipulated. #gop #tiot #tcot#libertarian
Bipartisan? If the Republicans said that Christianity was the new state religion should Democrats support it in a Bipartisan fashion? They aren’t saying you have to be a Baptist.
@brokentracks #Teaparty movement was based on lies & misinformation by the #healthcare industry. That is now a well-known fact. #libertarian
Well known by who?
@brokentracks All that crazy crap about #socialism for one. Those ppl in #teaparty were such fools to buy into that crap. #libertarian#tiot
Would not a single payer system be a socialist system? That’s the crux of the argument. Most opponents agree that the public option originally brought forward would invariably end in a single payer system.
@brokentracks There is a #healthcare monopoly as long as Congress allows them to have anti-trust exemption. #tiot#libertarian #teaparty #p2
So, if congress exempted me from murder laws does that mean I’m a murderer?
@brokentracks Actually, when the govt gives no-bid contracts & allows industries to be free of competition, that is #socialism! #tiot#gop
No it’s not. I didn’t bother providing him with a definition of socialism. He still hadn’t grasped monopoly yet.
@brokentracks #Healthcare industry is more bureaucratic than#medicare.They R caught up N blind greed, paranoia & protecting turf #tiot #hcr
If you can rebut that in 140 characters you’re a better man than I.
@brokentracks One of the biggest cost factors is companies that provide insurance are paying for all the freeloaders who dont. #tiot#hcr
Almost sounds like he’s becoming an Objectivist here. I doubt it for some reason.
@brokentracks What abt outsourcing & all those no-bid contracts given by govt to monopolies to do what the Army is supposed to do? #tiot #p2
He’s still not understanding what a monopoly is, which I’ve given up trying to explain at this point.
@brokentracks How can you believe that paying Halliburton $500 per load of laundry and $25 per plate of food is cheaper than govt?
How can you believe that a Blackwater soldier at $200,000/year is better than a govt soldier at $30,000/year? #tiot
Wouldn’t this be a good example of government waste and not an example of the inefficiencies of the private market? He’s attempting to explain otherwise.
*Actually it costs almost a million a year per U. S. Soldier in the Middle East but I thought that might be too complex to try to explain. I’m not going to dig too much into his Blackwater statement but I’m thinking that a $25 plate of food might include logistics to deliver that food to a warzone half a world away. Also curious as to how large a “load” of laundry is. I’m having trouble picturing Halliburton employees running around with pink laundry baskets washing BDUs.
@brokentracks The reason I asked that was you indicated Army & private enterprise do not complete. They do & the Army does a better job.
He lost me on this one. Our Army competed with Iraq’s Army but, I don’t think you could call the Iraqi Army private enterprise. Oh wait, I think he was trying to explain to me that Government and Private enterprise can compete successfully by using Blackwater and the Army as an example. Wouldn’t that be a public-private partnership?
We moved on from there into insanity.
@brokentracks What? Our military is biggest enterprise in the world! Bush started the Iraq War so he could outsource corps 2 compete /w it.
@brokentracks Okay, another reason 4 Bush was because Saddam tried 2 kill his dad, but 4 Cheney & others, it was 2 make money 4 their buds.
@brokentracks Bush had Osama cornered in Tora Bora & let him go; then, he went into Iraq and let things fester in Afghanistan.
@brokentracks There has always been terrorism. Having a “war” on it was just an excuse to feed the tax-suckers & destroy the#constitution.
@brokentracks We also have troops in Japan, Germany & Kosovo just to keep the peace. The same wud now be true in Afghan except for Bush.
@brokentracks The problem was Osama bin Laden & his gang of criminals. It should have been handled as that instead of stirring up revenge.
@brokentracks That commissions was suspect, especially when the ring leader was Cheney who wanted to feed tax-suckers at Halliburton, etc.
@brokentracks Bush ran the Taliban out, then let Osama go at Tora Bora & walked away after borrowing a trillion from the commies for Iraq!
@brokentracks No conspiracy with Cheney. It was all out in the open. He fed the tax-suckers and set up the commission to justify it.
@brokentracks Insurgency is a very strange word. Here is an example of fighting an insurgency with terrorismhttp://tinyurl.com/4r8ye
What do you say to that? It made me want to cancel my Twitter account. It’s like a combination of Alex Jones and the Huffington Post. But, if you really look at his comments you can see a lot of the talking points that have been coming from the left over the past few years. The scary part is this guy probably votes.
Sorry to waste so much space on this absurd conversation but, I believe that he is not that uncommon. Both the left and the right have quite a few in their ranks that sound like this. You can see the propaganda in what he’s saying if you are in the right wing. But, you should also be careful that you aren’t doing the same.
How many Republican talking points have you swallowed without question?
Both parties play the same games. Your fear and emotion is used against you to nudge you into supporting something that you would otherwise oppose. The Patriot Act comes to mind. If you supported it, how much research did you actually do? If you did some research on it, do you still support it?
You might be able to say that the Patriot Act was sold to Conservatives in the same fashion that the Democrat version of Health Care Reform is being sold to Liberals.
