Which statement is true?

[_MeDotOrg]

"We do not want socialized medicine...We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."
- Ronald Reagan, in opposition to Medicare, 1961

"Like a lot of Americans, when I think about Medicare, it’s not just a program. It’s what my mom relies on. It’s what my grandma had...Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma, when we needed it then, and Medicare is there for my mom while she needs that now, and we need to keep that guaranteed..."
- Paul Ryan, campaigning with his mother in Florida, 2012

[_Drifting]

The one that wins the most votes.

[_EAllusion]

I do like how the RR strategy is to on the one hand push a medicare reform that will supposedly be awesome for people even though it drastically reduces payouts while on the other constantly reassure the retired and near retired that this won't affect their program. Lot of tension in trying to make those two arguments simultaneously.

[_Kevin Graham]

I feel like I'm watching the dumbificaton of America in slow motion.

How are these Right Wingers able to get away with this?

Just look how Tim Pawlenty follows their tune in lock step. Do none of these folks know how to think for themselves? Do none of them have a shred of integrity or concern for what's true?

Just look how he tries to squiggle his way out of this mess with a journalist who holds his feet to the fire.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/08/17 ... ith-facts/

To say Obama cut medicare $700 billion is stupid on two levels. First, it is a lie, and second, even if true it would run contrary to the "Obama = socialist" image these guys keep projecting.

Besides, cutting medicare or any form of government spending (aside from military) is precisely what these Tea Party nuts have been preaching to be a necessity to cure our debt problem.

This is like Obama accusing Romney of trying to increase taxes on the Rich and then complain that this would harm job growth. It makes no sense, and would prove him a hypocrite.

It is just stupid on so many levels and there seems to be no thinking going on by these folks. It is as if they decided they didn't need to make logical arguments and they didn't need to say things that could be true in any sense, because America is generally too stupid to care about anything except emotional ads.

[_ajax18]

Here's how it's going to play out. Medicare, social security, etc. will never go away. The benefits will just be so small that it will force people to live a third world lifestyle if you rely on it. If you have any personal retirement, can still work, or supplement that income, you simply won't be eligible for anything that you paid into it. Being a white natural born citizen could become a disqualifier by itself. Regardless of how many tax dollars are collected from the relatively few people from this 1%, the standard of living will continue to be driven down, not because living off the government is so good, but because there are so many doing it. Increases in immigration and breeding by those who "have nothing better to do," will continue the march down the toilet to third world living status for all citizens of the world who once were US citizens first. We'll finally be equal as they've demanded we be for so long, but we'll be equal in poverty.

The devil does not uphold his children at the last day. Being half brother to the extremly wealthy Barack Obama doesn't seem to have engendered much compassion for this http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/aug/17/bill-zedler/texas-legislator-says-barack-obama-says-were-our-b/ man living in a Nairobi slum. If this is how he treats his brother, I'd hate to think what he has in store for the taxpayer.

[Guest]

The devil does not uphold his children at the last day. Being half brother to the extremly wealthy Barack Obama doesn't seem to have engendered much compassion for this http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/aug/17/bill-zedler/texas-legislator-says-barack-obama-says-were-our-b/ man living in a Nairobi slum. If this is how he treats his brother, I'd hate to think what he has in store for the taxpayer.

Whoa! I simply asked which statement was true: One made by a Conservative Republican in 1961 or one made by a Conservative Republican in 2012. Obama has relatives in Kenya. Romney's has relatives in Mexico. What's that got to do with it?

As for "Here's how it's going to play out...Being a white natural born citizen could become a disqualifier by itself." Remember the life of Edmund Ruffin. fire-eater, and early advocate of secession.

In 1860, Ruffin wrote the book Anticipations of the Future, to Serve as Lessons for the Present Time. In it, he pictured what he apprehended would be the result of the election of Republican candidates. He predicted an American Civil War in 1868 following the re-election of President William H. Seward, which would ultimately result in a victory for Southern states.

Ruffin is credited by many with firing the first shot at Fort Sumter.

After General Lee's surrender, Ruffin went to his study and wrote in his diary:

"And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race."

He put his pen down and shot himself.

Ruffin could not imagine his place in the world to come. And OUR world of the 21st Century experiences change a rate that would simply astonish and overwhelm the people of the 1860s. The world I grew up in, of tailfins, drive-ins, and lily-white neighborhoods, where no one had heard of a burrito, where the word 'pregnant' could not be spoken on Television and foreign cars were a curiosity, is gone. It will never come back. "The Other" is always coming, whether it be in the form of different technology, different races, different values. Bringing the past back is never an answer for the future.

Besides, if the past was so good, how come it led to the present?

When it comes to the future, we are all explorers. We all think we know what the lay of the land will be, but it always surprises us. Many times the ideologies we hold do not fully account for the capacity of human beings to adapt, nor do they account for all of the variables that humanity will encounter.

Maybe the best thing that will happen is that human beings will learn from their mistakes, not ideologically, but empirically.

[_Drifting]

The devil does not uphold his children at the last day. Being half brother to the extremly wealthy Barack Obama doesn't seem to have engendered much compassion for this http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/aug/17/bill-zedler/texas-legislator-says-barack-obama-says-were-our-b/ man living in a Nairobi slum. If this is how he treats his brother, I'd hate to think what he has in store for the taxpayer.

Not something for Romney to worry about then...

[_ldsfaqs]

To say Obama cut medicare $700 billion is stupid on two levels. First, it is a lie, and second, even if true it would run contrary to the "Obama = socialist" image these guys keep projecting.

You know, liberal stupidity and brainwashing is simply so facinating to me.
You clearly don't know anyone that works in the Medical Industry that treats SENIORS on a daily basis. Everyone of them that handles the doled out Medicare will directly tell you that there were HUGE CUTS in the amount of money they got to treat a Senior.

Further, you can ask the Seniors themselves who are paying attention. They've seen the same.

Besides, cutting medicare or any form of government spending (aside from military) is precisely what these Tea Party nuts have been preaching to be a necessity to cure our debt problem.

Why do you people LOVe to bear false witness so much.....??? It makes you feel good inside to pick on people doesn't it, to be a bully???

We want to REFORM Medicare!!!! moron, NOT "cut" it!!!
We want to make it sustainable, etc.

[_MeDotOrg]

First of all, if Ryan is trying to save Medicare, does that mean Reagan was wrong in 1961?

You know, liberal stupidity and brainwashing is simply so facinating to me.
You clearly don't know anyone that works in the Medical Industry that treats SENIORS on a daily basis. Everyone of them that handles the doled out Medicare will directly tell you that there were HUGE CUTS in the amount of money they got to treat a Senior.

When did these "huge cuts" occur? Who authorized them? Please document.

We want to REFORM Medicare!!!! moron, NOT "cut" it!!!

Kevin Graham, you're being called a moron by a person who believes that Martin Luther King was a Republican, and Bull Connor and Lester Maddux were liberals.

From an ABC News story which said of Obama's claims about Ryan's Medicare reform " that they’re generally accurate given the information we have – assuming Romney embraces a plan that’s similar to Ryan’s budget proposal, that is."

On August 16th, Romney said "Actually, Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare, I think, is the same, if not identical -- it's probably close to identical."

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that Ryan's plan would, by the year 2022, result in $6,358.97 LESS COVERAGE per recipient.

[_ajax18]

MeDotorg, I think Reagan was right. You once posted examples of Republican opposition to social security ever becoming law. I think they were right as well.

And what I said is how it's all going to play out. The standard of living in America is going down.