The other day I posted a link to Reddit to iOpposeObamaCare with its announcement for an activism opportunity on Saturday, March 22, 2013…the third anniversary of the corrupt ObamaCare law.  In comments, the following was posted, and I thought its errors worthy of chewing:

“Meh, same old ‘grass roots’ FUD with a suspiciously slick website devoid of any objective facts.

“The only rationale they provide for “why” are four opinion essays on the “Intellectual Ammunition” page, which all boil down to philosophical arguments. Nothing that tangibly shows Obamacare is harmful or disproves reports that show it’s actually saved a $1.5 billion so far.”

First let us consider, the groundless smear around the phrases “…same old ‘grass roots’…” and “…a suspiciously slick website…”  To be clear, the comment implies without evidence that the site is inauthentic and a production of evil corporate interests.  As I know both charges to be false, the smear says much about the lack of honesty of that commentator, who speaks from the rhetoric of the sophist tradition.

Second, what is the FUD thingy?  It is an acronym for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.”  To be clear, the comment is saying that we should accept ObamaCare on faith without question or serious consideration of its nature.  As such, this commentary is an attack upon virtue and in particular the virtues of independence and justice.  The appeal to FUD is essentially a charge of “Who are you to think?  Who are you to question?  Who are you to judge?”  I ask you my fellow selfish citizens, “Who is to think and judge about our lives other than ourselves?”

Third, consider the phrase “…[these intellectual ammunition essays] all boil down to philosophical arguments.”  This naked appeal to Pragmatism is an attack on human conceptual thinking and an invitation to the reader to lower themselves to the sub-human level of solely perception, unexamined emotions, and arbitrary muscle contractions as a guide to our actions.  Such an attack upon the human mind as a point within an argument is a symptom of dishonesty.  Essentially, it is a charge that your mind is impotent so you must defer to the minds of others, especially the person making the erroneous attack.

Fourth, consider the phrase “Nothing that tangibly shows…”  This is another instance of the anti-conceptual attack, but in this case it is an appeal to empiricism (a method of thought limited to data without context and concepts).  In reply to the commentator’s question, an individual might ask “By what standards of proof and evidence?  By what definition of harmful, beneficial, or even savings?”  However, such an inquiry would be fruitless because from the perspective of the commentator’s argument there are no standards or definitions, but only the perceptual observations of the moment, which are not related to knowledge induced from experience in reality, but only to be related to emotional whims of the moment.

During the anniversary of this corrupt law, take a moment to listen, really listen, to the defenders of the modest proposal to destroy medical care in America.  For them what is reality, merely a social myth believed by the majority?  How do they know?  Are their arguments based upon emotionalism disconnected from reality, disconnected from cause and effect?  I expect that you will find that the advocates for ObamaCare are being dishonest with you, themselves, and the country.

As Ayn Rand wrote for Galt’s Speech in the novel Atlas Shrugged:

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.