The futility of tryinhg to discuss anything at all with a right-winger...
So last night on Facebook, a right-wingnut cousin of mine posts this:
Of course, there was so much wrong with it that I couldn't resist popping off a reply. Here is what I wrote:
First, "facts" presented absent the critical context required to understand them DO lie.
(1) The primary reason given by the rating agencies for the credit rating downgrade was Republican brinksmanship over raising the debt ceiling.
(2) The 7.8% unemployment rate is from December 2008. The only problem is, the nation's fiscal year runs starts in October of the previous year, thus for the first 9 months of the Obama presidency we were still operating under Bush's budget. So, the correct unemployment number to use for Bush is the one from September 2009, which was 9.8%.
(3) Gas prices peaked at $4.12 per gallon in July of 2008, while Bush was president. But really, it's irrelevant. There is very little a president can do to even influence, let alone control, retail gasoline prices. That was true under Bush and it remains true under Obama.
(4) The national debt. Yes, there were some big ticket items that contributed to the debt, such as the stimulus. But if you want to know what would have happened had there not been a stimulus, read up on what is happening now with Britain's economy. But the lions share of the budgetary deficits that in turn added to the national debt were because of falling tax revenues as a result of the economy (which tanked in 2008 under Bush). Additionally -- and this also relates to the wars and budget issue -- part of the apparent spending increased under Obama is the result of President Obama having brought to an end a dishonest accounting trick used by the Bush Administration (i.e., running two wars off--budget. Sure, Bush gave us budgets. The fact is they weren't really worth the paper they were written on because they did not account for th money spent on Iraq and Afghanistan. In any case, budges, in reality, function more as guidelines. The real spending decisions happen in the House and Senat Appropriations committees
And here was my cousin's response:
Which I think translates as, "Don't trouble me with any facts that might run counter to my narrative." Actually, I was tempted to respond that we weren't really discussing politics, but rather the empirical question of whether or not the assertions in the image were true. But I let it go...
= new reply since forum marked as read
Pretty close to yours.
1) Tea Party politics. A new crop of freshmen T-Party Republicans playing hardball with the debt. Their hero Reagan raised the debt limit 18 times while he TRIPLED the national debt. The Republicon Ryan budget will require increasing the debt limit for decades.
2)The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator of economic activity which was -9% GDP in early 2009. We LOST 4 million jobs in Bush's last 6 months and 700,000 his last month alone. Obama's stimulus immediately turned the GDP around and was positive by June 2009 and is +2.5% now. And Obama has ADDED 4 million jobs his last 26 months.
3)Wall street was speculating wildly on commodities in the summer of 2008 which drove up global oil, gas and food prices. When it all came crashing down in fall 2008 with the financial crisis, the gas prices also collapsed to under $2 a gallon.
4)Obama will only spend $1.5 trillion in new spending until 2017 vs Bush's total of $5 Trillion new spending.
My uncle used that exact same line on me after I tore down his beliefs with facts. "We'll just agree to disagree." So aggravating because even when they have been proven wrong and have no counter argument they still can't see the truth.
. . . They know they are intellectually outgunned, and so they simply insulate themselves from hearing any further infromation that might cast doubt on the basis for their bigotries ... er, I mean, their beliefs!
