Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fearmongering

We've been hearing a lot about fearmongering as it relates to any political debate. Right now the opposition to government run health care are being accused of spreading misinformation and fearmongering; so what exactly does that mean?

Wikipedia defines it as: is the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. The feared object or subject is sometimes exaggerated, and the pattern of fear mongering is usually one of repetition, in order to continuously reinforce the intended effects of this tactic, sometimes in the form of a vicious circle.[citation needed]

Merriem Webster defines a Fearmonger as somebody who incites alarms needlessly.

If we use the Wikipedia definition then isn't anybody who says, "hey this bad thing could happen" considered a fearmonger?

If we use the Webster definition then is pointing out potential and probable issues around government health care really raising a needless alarm?

The biggest question though may be why it's ok to be a fearmonger when you oppose something, but bad to have a fearmonger opposing what you support? For example, does anybody remember the attempt to fix social security by phasing it out; giving the young people another option while leaving people over a certain age on the social security program? What happened to that? Opponents screamed that seniors would have their benefits taken from them and be left to die in the streets. Completelly untrue according to the information proposed but I guess that wasn't bad fearmongering because it was done by the same people crying about fearmongering now. But what is the fearmongering now? Is saying that there will be rationing of healthcare in the US based on what has happened in every other nation who has tried this type of program really fearmongering? Is telling the truth as you see it, calling out a consequence there is a high probability of occuring, fearmongering?

So here's how I see it -- Telling both faced lies about a proposed legislation and using those lies to scare the shit out of the general population is not fearmongering, but showing the true and actual potential problems of a piece of legislation is bad fearmongering.

Do I have this wrong?

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