Rick Santorum compares himself to Nelson Mandela fighting against the ‘apartheid’ of Obamacare by Niki2

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Rick Santorum compares himself to Nelson Mandela fighting against the ‘apartheid’ of Obamacare

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Sunday, December 8, 2013 12:39
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Saturday, December 7, 2013 1:56 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
As condolences and reflections followed the passing of Nelson Mandela, Rick Santorum linked the injustices the former South African president fought and Obamacare.

“He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives — and Obamacare is front and center in that,” Santorum said Thursday on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

In a segment about the divisions within the Republican Party, host Bill O’Reilly brought up the death of Mandela, saying that while he disagreed with him and called him a “communist,” he still respected the South African leader and wondered why the GOP couldn’t bring the same approach to its disagreements.

“He was a great man! But he was a communist! But I would never attack Nelson Mandela,” O’Reilly said. “So why can’t you guys in the Republican Party bring that to the fore?” O’Reilly said. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/rick-santorum-obamacare-nelson-m
andela-100776.html#ixzz2mog3mi2a]

Leave it to a Republican to take the death of a great human being and spin it in the most sickening way. We shouldn’t have to deal with statements like this at all, but once again we are forced to do so. With that said, let us examine Santorum’s stupidity.

Obamacare is the response by the federal government to the fact that millions of Americans cannot afford health care in this country. Many of them end up going to the emergency room to get the care they need, thus passing off the expensive price to everyone else and driving up health care costs. Insurance companies rejected people with pre-existing conditions and often dropped people rather than pay for their care.

Along came the ACA. Santorum claims that this is an injustice and that government is “controlling people’s lives,” but that is hardly the case. Americans get to choose their own insurance policy from the private company of their liking. The government is simply requiring that people take responsibility for their health, which is why we have the individual mandate. As much as Republicans enjoy complaining about it, the mandate was their idea in the first place. Besides, how is making sure that everyone has health care an injustice? The real injustice would be preventing people from getting care.

Furthermore, it is totally outrageous to compare health insurance to apartheid. Apartheid was tyranny of the minority. In South Africa, the white minority put the system in place to guarantee that they would continue to rule. Segregation divided people by race, and it’s a system that many right-wingers in America long to return to. Black people were required to carry an identification card and a passbook that any white person could demand to see, so they could tell if they were allowed to be where they were. These passbook laws are akin to the “papers please” laws that conservatives are pushing for in this country against the Latino community.

In addition, black people weren’t allowed to vote, because the white minority feared losing power. In the wake of the election of President Obama in 2008, the GOP has sought to make voting more difficult for minority voters. As a result, many red states have resorted to passing voter ID laws in an effort to suppress the vote. This is what a real comparison to apartheid looks like. Voter ID, papers please, racism, a desire to re-instate segregation, tyranny of the minority, and the fact that the GOP is comprised of mostly white men makes this not only a true comparison, but a chilling one.

And one more thing. During apartheid, social conservatism ran rampant, resulting in the restriction of abortion, homosexuality, and sex education in South Africa. You know which party is currently waging war against these three things in America?

Access to health care is not an injustice. Health care is a human right that everyone should have. Even Nelson Mandela believed that. During a 1993 speech, Mandela said: “The right to vote, without food, shelter and health care, will create the appearance of equality and justice, while actual inequality is entrenched.”

Mandela believed so much in the right to health care that it was included in the new South African constitution that he signed. In fact, Mandela went much further than President Obama did. He created a public health care system funded by the government, which led to the eventual creation of South Africa’s universal health care system. In no way would Mandela call Obamacare an injustice. More than likely, he’d say it doesn’t go far enough.

But Rick Santorum and many other conservatives don’t care. They are so obsessed with destroying the signature legislative achievement of America’s first African-American President, that they are willing to say and do anything to topple it. To date, Republicans have compared Obamacare to Hitler, Stalin, Nazism, communism, slavery, the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the Holocaust, just to name a few. And now, Rick Santorum has added apartheid to the big list. Republicans oppose Americans having health care so much that they are literally picking any terrible thing throughout history to compare it to in an effort to scare people from supporting it. That’s a true injustice that Nelson Mandela would be disgusted by and so should most Americans.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 2:28 PM

CHRISISALL

You GO, Rick! Keep fighting the bad fight! Don't stop driving those nails into the GOP coffin!!! Good work!!

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 6:15 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

So American conservatives think Mandela was a communist...

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 6:26 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
So American conservatives think Mandela was a communist...

If you don't embrace Capitalism with big wet stupid sloppy kisses, YOU ARE A COMMUNIST.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 9:02 PM

JONGSSTRAW

O'Reilly was wrong to say what he said. The man HAD JUST DIED a few hours earlier. The last thing I wanted to hear that day was that he was a communist, a terrorist, or a friend to tyrants. It's just in poor taste to demean someone on day they die.

Besides, how was Mandela a communist anyhow? Capitalism and private ownership still prevail today in South Africa. Mandela didn't nationalize industries or confiscate anything. He spent 27 years, the prime of his life, in a small dirty prison cell. What did he do, organize the cockroaches into tiny little communes? It's pretty hard to be a raging communist when you got nothing. The Boers were sadistic brutes. Their country was basically Nazi Germany light.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 11:34 PM

CHRISISALL

^^^THANK YOU!!!!

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Sunday, December 8, 2013 3:48 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

Everything spewing from Bill O'Reilly's mouth is from Bile, Inc.
He corrodes the airwaves just to sell books to his flock of sheep, so people with any kind of common sense would see right through his brand of hate - hence the inappropriate comments following the death of a famous political figure; it lends importance to his "spewings." Or so he would like to think.

Nelson Mandela was a man who fought for independence, dignity and respect. Were it not for his skin color, he would have been declared the second coming to O'Reilly, Rush and their ilk, a freedom fighter par excellence. Instead we get, from that hideous corner of the world, the filth retching up from the depths of stupendous ignoramus - namely that he was a communist/terrorist.

Still though, I get why they speak with such contempt. He fought the oppressive Nazi-like regime of Apartheid (the South African equivalent of Jim Crow with a jack-boot click of the heels, Heil Hitler!) and opposed the minority white supremacists controlling and exploiting the majority black population. For our right winged friends, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many - hence, shutting down the government to appease a handful of right wingers in their foolish attempt to overthrow the very government they profess their undying love and allegiance.

By the way, everyone knows Rick Santorum is an idiot.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
O'Reilly was wrong to say what he said. The man HAD JUST DIED a few hours earlier. The last thing I wanted to hear that day was that he was a communist, a terrorist, or a friend to tyrants. It's just in poor taste to demean someone on day they die.

Besides, how was Mandela a communist anyhow? Capitalism and private ownership still prevail today in South Africa. Mandela didn't nationalize industries or confiscate anything. He spent 27 years, the prime of his life, in a small dirty prison cell. What did he do, organize the cockroaches into tiny little communes? It's pretty hard to be a raging communist when you got nothing. The Boers were sadistic brutes. Their country was basically Nazi Germany light.

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Sunday, December 8, 2013 8:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Guys, I revere the man and what he went through was horrific, but he did have Communist sympathies, in fact was a member of the party for a time I believe. He certainly had good reason, and "Communism" isn't the dirty word we Americans have been trained to abhor; if it weren't for how it gets realized in real life, the concept isn't that far from Jesus' teachings. But you have only to google "Nelson Mandela communist" to find the facts.

It's the "terrorist" thing that gets me; WE (or our government anyway) decides who to label "freedom fighter" and who to call a "terrorist", and we've called some pretty awful people "freedom fighters" over the years, and supported them. I certainly abhor some of the things that went on in the fight to end apartheid, and Mandella was no saint, any more than Martin Luther King was or ANYONE else who fought against oppression of any kind.

That said, Jong has astonished me once again, and I sincerely appreciate it.

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Sunday, December 8, 2013 12:37 PM

REAVERFAN

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Sunday, December 8, 2013 12:39 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
You GO, Rick! Keep fighting the bad fight! Don't stop driving those nails into the GOP coffin!!! Good work!!

That's his " NOTICE ME TOO! NOTICE ME TOO! " routine.

Just tiresome.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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