Mocking Republicans for their escalating rhetoric on how dire the health care law will prove to be, Obama said one Republican’s assertion that it was the worst law in the nation’s history is an awfully tall order.
“You had a state representative somewhere say that it’s as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act,” the president said as the audience booed.
“Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that lets slave owners get their runaway slaves back.”
Mocking Republicans for their escalating rhetoric on how dire the health care law will prove to be, Obama said one Republican’s assertion that it was the worst law in the nation’s history is an awfully tall order.
“You had a state representative somewhere say that it’s as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act,” the president said as the audience booed.
“Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that lets slave owners get their runaway slaves back.”
Follow the link (to the story, and then to the original quote) and it's quite illustrative.
It just goes to show, I suppose, why you cannot use metaphors or analogies in today's low info climate. Hitler (and now, apparently, slavery) analogies come to mind.
So yes, the man was perhaps dumb for using such an analogy at all, and then using it clumsily.
But what I took from what he was saying was the fugitive slave act was - like Zero care - a raw use of government power to a bad end. The fugitive slave act allowed the fedgov to come into "free" states, grab the slaves, and return them to their masters and a life of slavery.
Is that not a raw use of fedgov power to a bad end? But again, in the future, stay away from ALL slavery analogies. Because our enemies PLAY to - and count on - the low info crowd
LOW INFO RULES!!
You're a brave man. Go and break through the lines. And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a sucker you are. ~Rufus T. Firefly