Fox News' Judge Andrew Napolitano: Factually Challenged

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/06/judge-andrew-napolitano-health-care-freedom-congress/

If you ever flip over to the Fox News channel, you will undoubtedly run into Judge Andrew Napolitano. In his most recent opinion article, in his second sentence, he jumps right into the lies. He states that the health care bill "will raise your taxes, steal your freedom, invade your privacy, and ration your health care." He must mean that by 'rationing' your health care, you actually get it for the first time. Your 'ration' will increase from zero to one.

Napolitano goes on to say that "if passed, [the health care bill] will compel employers to provide coverage, bribe the states to change their court rules, and tell insurance companies whom to insure." He acts like those are all horrible world ending scenarios! He thinks companies shouldn't want their employees to be healthy; when the employer mandate is essential to health care reform, and stops companies from abusing their employees' well being in favor of a buck. It's also not called a 'bribe' when states change their laws from allowing health insurance companies to screw over their constituents, to making it illegal to refuse someone for a pre-existing condition and stripping the industry's anti-trust exemptions. Because outlawing denial for "pre-existing conditions" would, according to the Judge, "tell insurance companies whom to insure." Yeah, like everyone who can afford their rates.

Here's where Napolitano drops the bomb; "We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party..." the Democrats. And this is simply because the Republicans are infighting and falling into the religious right, where their top three candidates for the Presidential election are; a guy who thinks Jesus came back to life in Missouri and turned every one's skin red that didn't believe he was the son of some god in Mitt Romney, a woman who thinks the Earth is six thousand years old in Sarah Palin, and a guy who thinks the Bible is the literal word of some god in Mike Huckabee. They make up twenty percent of the country and are pushing the conservatives in the party further to the right. The election of the 23rd congressional district of New York is the most recent and perfect example of Republican infighting causing them to lose seats.

Napolitano finally tries to drag the health care debate into a general theory of how each party is pro big-government in terrible ways. He says that Democrats want "wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties." "Commercial liberties" is the best euphemism for "the ability to screw people over" that I have ever heard. The phrase almost makes it sound like a bad thing. He claims that both parties are in a plot to control your every aspect of life, and that
"the government wants you to follow the will of some faceless bureaucrat." Yeah, who wants to follow the policy that every one's elected officials voted for in the first place? The judge makes it sound like we don't even have the freedom to run for office, or help get someone elected, or even vote!

This is a cheap trick that some people play when trying to convince others. Anthropomorphising gigantic corporations and the government in order to make you feel a certain way about them, like that they are out to get you, when in reality you have every ability to be out to get them. You buy the products and you vote for the candidates. He says that "Congress recognizes no limits on its power." Is he forgetting that they let Presidents go to war without voting on it? That was a right fundamentally given to Congress, and "it" gave it away. There is no it. The House is so big and filled with people who shouldn't be there but represent their district well. The Senate is designed to be inefficient and slow. There does, however, need to be campaign finance reform to stop people like Joe Lieberman from staying the Senator from Aetna.

Napolitano ends with an amazing oxymoron; Congress "doesn’t even read the laws it writes." Have you ever written anything blindfolded? This is Judge Andrew Napolitano's opinion, and it is misleading and wrong. This is the kind of hot garbage that comes out of Fox News everyday. It is cycled and recycled on conservative websites like Prison Planet and Info Wars. Fox News is not news. Alex Jones is not news. Check your sources, always.

The Political Atheist