Healthcare Plan Misinformation Video-induced Debate

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Ah, ok, but was that the distance from the school or from the President's route (I'm short on time atm)? If it's from the route, then I expect the SS could have asked it be further if they wanted it to be. If it's from the school, and only represents the standard "no guns near the school" policy, then that's a different issue (though again the Pres's car is quite bullet-proof).

 

The car being bulletproof doesn't make shooting at it not a crime. Also, at some time Obama will have to leave the car. The Secret Service needs to be lucky all the time, a murderous nut case only once.

The entire episode reminds me of the mood in Israel before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Before he was murdered he was seen depicted on posters, shields, signs or whatever in an SS uniform. He was being thoroughly demonised by the Israeli right, in particular the settlers movement. Opposition leader then was Benyamin Netanyahu. The settlers are a part of his base. In the end some very calm and composed right wing radical with 'moral clarity' from the settler movement, a guy named Yigal Amir, decided 'to do God's will' and shot him. Actually, he tried twice before, but didn't get the chance.

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What happens now in the US with the US right and Obama isn't any different. The right wing shock jocks and republican politicians cynically whip their base into a fearful frenzy. They engage in 'innocent satire' by enacting the poisoning of Nancy Pelosi. They are demonizing Obama as 'the other' - a socialist, a dangerous revolutionary, who's not even an American (think of the birth certificate nonsense), as another Hitler, a secret Muslim, someone who will euthanase your grandparents, a wicked tyrant who must be resisted or America as we know it will cease to exist - and then they leave the room with a (metaphorical) loaded gun on the table. And when something happens, they will piously profess utter consternation about how someone could possibly do something as outrageous like taking a shot at the US president - they'll be shocked, just shocked.

In that sense the guy with the poster, shield, sign or whatever, is far from innocent, but a symptom of a very serious malady. Pondering on which particular spot of soil he stood on, and perhaps his shoe size, and whether his gun was legal, or whether he was stupid, or not so stupid, or, the forever glorious one, that he obviously wasn't dangerous because he was calm - to me that amounts to idle, inattentive or pious blathering, which frankly disgusts me and for which I lack patience. This is serious and deserves attention. So, for those who haven't gotten it yet - murder is in the air.

Excellent comment on the situation from Pat Lang - 'A Growing Hysteria':

 

Agreed, but that's not what happened, is it?

My question to you is: what exactly do you want to happen (realistically)? Do you want to arrest idiots like this guy who come closte to breaking the law (and only fuel the movement more, since you're now oppressing them illegally)? Maybe you'd prefer to silence the pundits fueling this thing. That'd certainly be more effective, cutting the head off as it were (though again there's the whole illegal oppression thing). I'd love it if every last one of the pundits could be held culpable for everything they're driving, but that's not the law, and it shouldn't be the law. Unfortunately, I think this will have to go on until it either dies down or something breaks. Hopefully, that break will be a near-miss. Someone shoots at the President (enough to shock people back to reality I hope), but either doesn't hit him, or only wounds him. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure even something like that would stop this.

 

Ragusa, if the man would have been cuffed and dragged off, in violation of his constitutional rights and without having committed a crime, what direction would your arguments have gone?

Are you really pro-rights, or simply pro-Obama?

Do you selectively decide which rights should be defended and which are "unimportant"?

 

I see the legal situation in the US as it is. I do see that the police took care of him one way or another, short of arresting him. Good. I also see that allowing protesters to pack heat is unwise, and inexpedient.

Disallowing packing heat in a protest would not be an infringement the right to free speech. U.S. court decisions hold that the government may regulate the time, place, and manner — but not content — of expression. Reasonably they ought to have offered him to stay where he is, but take away his gun for the duration of his protest - or put him in a spot where he could peacefully protest and express his views with his gun and his poster, shield, sign or whatever, say, some two miles away in a parking lot - his choice. It is good that it wasn't necessary. Still, it's worth getting clear about that here is nothing gained as far as the right to free speech is concerned when you carry a gun.

To look at past practice: Under Bush people were herded into 'free speech zones' for far less. John Ashcroft said this on Dec. 6, 2001: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty … your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and … give ammunition to America’s enemies.” Aaah, those were the days ... Obama sure is liberal. As in the Bush days, the Secret Service could have under § 1752(a)(1)(ii) of Title 18 of the United States Code simply cordoned off the entire area and let local police exclude everybody they didn't like, and arrest them if they resist.

A protester against Bush, Brett Bursey, was arrested for holding a 'No War for Oil' sign at a Bush visit to Columbia. He was sentenced for violating § 1752(a)(1)(ii) of Title 18 US Code. The judge wrote in the verdict: "In this age of suicide bombers … the Secret Service's concern with allowing unscreened persons to stand in such close proximity to a slow-moving vehicle carrying the President of the United States is not just understandable, but manifestly reasonable". Mind that Bursey wasn't even armed. The judge noted that two presidents were assassinated in the past century, and went on: Even though Bursey meant no physical harm to the president, "the Secret Service does not have the luxury of assuming such to be the case." That's harsh legal language on what is possible and legal under US law. For those agonising that an arrest of this guy would have clearly violated his rights - keep in mind that apparently the US courts don't necessarily see it that way.

In Germany we are far less heavy handed, but still the guy would have been arrested and charged under §§ 2 Abs. 3, 27 Abs. 1 VersammlG. In my country it is not legal to bring a gun to a protest, for the obvious reasons. Well, we have different laws, and I think reasonable ones.

What really struck me, however, was not the legal situation, but the notion that, alas, the man is just innocently exercising his right of free speech, just as if he was doing so in a vacuum. The current campaign that was and is still preparing the grounds for political extremism and its violent expressions can fester in the absence of vocal or credible opposition. It would be a pity if an elected president has to be shot or shot at to change that half distracted, half astonished attitude.

 

No, you see it as you see it. To claim you see it as it truely is is the same thing as claiming your side is the absolute truth and everyone else is wrong. That's not a wise statement to make.

First of all, the issue with the guns isn't free speech, but right to bear arms, though similar rulings apply.

Actually, for free speech, I don't think the government may regulate the time, place, or manner of expression. All the rulings I know of are governing content, not time, place, or manner. I can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater, not because it's a crowded theater, but because the content is an attempt to cause life-threatening panic. Similarly, no matter where, when, or how I say it, advocating violence is illegal. On the other hand, I can say , "Obama (or Bush if you prefer) is a pig!" whenever I want, wherever I want (as long as I can legally be there), and through any legal means of expression I want.

For the Right to Bear Arms, though, laws can and have been passed limiting that right by location. This guy didn't violate any of them, though.

Again, from my understanding, he was allowed to protest with his gun in a safe location. Whether that's two miles or 1,000 feet is up to the police and SS to decide.

And on a side note, how exactly did you take that sign to be a shield? I'm just curious.

Ragusa, what I think the confusion is based on is that, as I see it, he was in a "free speech zone". It may not have had barbed wire fencing, but it was an area set aside for protestors already, and that area was decided on with the recognition that those protestors may have weapons, both legal and illegal.

Ragusa, the difference is that this guy was outside the President's security perimeter, whereas your example was someone inside that peimeter. I don't care if he's carrying a protest sign, has a gun strapped to his leg, or is wearing a Pro-President t-shirt and carrying an autograph book, anyone violating the President's established security perimeter should be taken away.

I think this is the problem. You are trying to apply your legal standards to a foreign incident. In the US, it is entirely legal to bring a gun to such an event (the protest, not the Town Hall Meeting).

Oh, I wouldn't call him 'innocent'. He's not guilty of any crimes, and as such shouldn't be arrested, but he is guilty of being an idiot, provoking a volatile atmosphere, and probably attempting to provoke an illegal response by law enforcement. That being said, though, he was exercising his rights.

 

I don't know if you remember but we had a thread on a guy who commented to Cheney in public that he "didn't like what he was doing in Iraq," and walked off, and later was arrested by the SS for "harrassing" the VP. The person in question was in a mall with his wife and kids, and the SS was disrespectful enough to arrest him in front of his young son. Like the Gates case the man was taken in and then released with NO charges.

He later sued the SS man in question, but I don't know the outcome.

 

I remember that case, and I hope he won his suit against the SS. In that case, no security perimeter had been established (as far as I recall). The VP was just walking through the mall with some SS personell with him. If there was any perimeter, it was all of 2 feet and was poorly marked (by the bodies of the SS agents).

 

I really, really don't think that anyone is gonna take a shot at Obama anytime soon. If they did, the sympathy for the Dems would be overwhelming, and the Right would lose what little power and respect it presently has now. It would bring none of the right wing dreams to pass.

In any event, I've said it for right wing leaders and I'll say it for left wing Obama* -- the Secret Service cannot be too careful in their efforts to protect the President from crazies. I may be pretty sure that no one is gonna shoot him, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I'll leave you all with this article and this little quote thereof for those in America claiming that Canada is some sort of health care hell:

 

Go back a few pages and you will see that many countires use different definitions of what a "birth" is. Anyone who believes that an infant born in the United States has higher chance of dying then in other places is delusional. If anything there is a higher chance of living as I am sure we are able to save far more "premies" then other nations.

 

I believe that the same wiki page you quoted there stated that these days all the countries mentioned in the article actually use a common WHO definition on live birth. Of course some places are bound to have unreliable statistics but I imagine most OECD countries to have more or less reliable statistics.

 

I don't quite see it that way, so I'll reprint. True it says that many nations have adopted the standards, it also implies very heavily that there are all sorts of problems when trying to compare nation to nation. I believe the only thing that can be compared is year to year for a specific nation.

Spoiler

The infant mortality rate correlates very strongly with and is among the best predictors of state failure.[3] IMR is also a useful indicator of a country's level of health or development, and is a component of the physical quality of life index. Some claim that the method of calculating IMR may vary between countries based on the way they define a live birth. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat.

UNICEF uses a statistical methodology to account for reporting differences among countries. "UNICEF compiles infant mortality country estimates derived from all sources and methods of estimation obtained either from standard reports, direct estimation from micro data sets, or from UNICEF’s yearly exercise. In order to sort out differences between estimates produced from different sources, with different methods, UNICEF developed, in coordination with WHO, the WB and UNSD, an estimation methodology that minimizes the errors embodied in each estimate and harmonize trends along time. Since the estimates are not necessarily the exact values used as input for the model, they are often not recognized as the official IMR estimates used at the country level. However, as mentioned before, these estimates minimize errors and maximize the consistency of trends along time."[4]

While the United States reports every case of infant mortality, it has been suggested that some other developed countries do not. A 2006 article in U.S. News & World Report claims that "First, it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless.[5] And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country."[6] However, all of the countries named adopted the WHO definition in the late 1980s or early 1990s.[7]

Historically, until the 1990s Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union did not count as a live birth or as an infant death extremely premature infants (less than 1,000 g, less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 35 cm in length) that were born alive (breathed, had a heartbeat, or exhibited voluntary muscle movement) but failed to survive for at least 7 days.[8] Although such extremely premature infants typically accounted for only about 0.005 of all live-born children, their exclusion from both the numerator and the denominator in the reported IMR led to an estimated 22%-25% lower reported IMR.[9] In some cases, too, perhaps because hospitals or regional health departments were held accountable for lowering the IMR in their catchment area, infant deaths that occurred in the 12th month were "transferred" statistically to the 13th month (i.e., the second year of life), and thus no longer classified as an infant death.[10]

Another challenge to comparability is the practice of counting frail or premature infants who die before the normal due date as miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) or those who die during or immediately after childbirth as stillborn. Therefore, the quality of a country's documentation of perinatal mortality can matter greatly to the accuracy of its infant mortality statistics. This point is reinforced by the demographer Ansley Coale, who finds dubiously high ratios of reported stillbirths to infant deaths in Hong Kong and Japan in the first 24 hours after birth, a pattern that is consistent with the high recorded sex ratios at birth in those countries and suggests not only that many female infants who die in the first 24 hours are misreported as stillbirths rather than infant deaths but also that those countries do not follow WHO recommendations for the reporting of live births and infant deaths.[11]

Another seemingly paradoxical finding is that when countries with poor medical services introduce new medical centers and services, instead of declining the reported IMRs often increase for a time. The main cause of this is that improvement in access to medical care is often accompanied by improvement in the registration of births and deaths. Deaths that might have occurred in a remote or rural area and not been reported to the government might now be reported by the new medical personnel or facilities. Thus, even if the new health services reduce the actual IMR, the reported IMR may increase.

 

The problem is that the source for all those controversies is basically a single newspaper article. If there is a common decision and the nations have adopted it they will most likely follow that definition. I do not know the exact WHO definition but they tend to be quite detailed and thought out to prevent statistical errors. The article also lacks proper sources to any real research in the area, which would be useful in veryfying if anything the article says is actually true.

So quite honestly to me the article seems like an feeble attempt to justify the relatively high IMR, which might actually be using outdated information. I might be wrong of course since I'm not a doctor and have very little prior knowledge on the actual IMR definition. The IMR is still used though as a comparable value in academic economic and sociological studies, so while it might not be 100% reliable it's still considered comparable between countries.

EDIT: Not that the IMR in itself proves that the US healthcare would be worse anyhow.

 

I found this funny/entertaining. I know everyone had a great laugh at Obama debunking the "Death Panels" and had even more fun making sport of Palin for using the phrase. Well it appears that now the Senate is removing from the health care bill the "end of life provisions" because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly

Wow, it actually seems like the uproar over it may have been worth it as "the people" got it removed.

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I just posted one article it doesn't take long on Google to see other examples.

Here's another

This is the money quote where the OECD admits

 

My understanding is that they are keeping the option open for voluntary meetings with your doctor, but discarding the mandatory requirement. It's utter BS that anyone would think that it's something other than what it is intended to be. I saw an interview this afternoon with the head of the AMA who claimed that the AMA was supporting the provision because a lot of people want to make their own feelings known on this issue. My wife is very adamant about this topic and occasionally she reminds me that she would never want to left in the state that Terri Schiavo was.

You can hear the AMA guy on this topic about 3:00 into the interview. You can watch the entire link at your own risk, TGS.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31388323/#32419225

 

1. Voluntary makes sense. Mandatory is the government overstepping its authority. Congress is making the correct decision.

2. This is the same AMA that is having trouble with its members who feel they have been betrayed by the AMA.

 

Can you explain that?

 

The OECD warns only about that particular problem, it does not state that they are completely uncomparable, also that is the only problem they warn about. I'd assume that comparisons between USA, Canada and Japan would still be very valid since they use the same definition, and even in that case the USA is significantly behind (note that Japan STILL actually has one of the lowest IMR in the world). Utterly dismissing all IMR statistics and comparisons between countries is folly, and that's not even what OECD is doing.

 

'Schild' means both sign and shield in German. I fell prey to a 'false friend'.