Fact: I am far more likely to die from lack of access to affordable healthcare... FB Conversation

FB friend Evan posted this meme:





Benjamin: AND, most of the terrorist attacks in the the USA the past 10 years have been perpetrated by radical right-wing terrorists.

Me: That is simply false.


Benjamin: On US soil? Roughly the same, possibly a hair more.

Certainly they're each equivalent threats to the American people, but our view of the Muslim threat is disproportionate with the risk. Certainly not worth over a trillion dollars, creating blowback, and destroying our international relations over.

http://www.politifact.com/.../kohn-911-right-wing.../


Evan: It is simply true. No alternate facts here.

"But more importantly, foreigners pose less of a threat to Americans than right-wing extremists on domestic soil. In a 2015 New York Times article, University of North Carolina Professor Charles Kurzman and Duke Professor David Schanzer found that Islam-inspired terror attacks accounted for 50 deaths since 9/11, but that “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”

Trump lied. Right-wing extremists — not foreigners — commit more… THINKPROGRESS.ORG

Benjamin:I was going to say, it's spiked post-Trump.

Regardless, Ev's main point is absolutely correct.

The dumb thing is we're already paying many times more per capita for healthcare than other developed countries. It's not about funding.

"Keeping America safe" is clearly nothing more than rhetoric.

Me: After following layer after layer of links to the source, a 148 page PDF is found entitled "Challengers from the Sidelines - Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right." It isn't even about Islamic terrorism.

In fact, the words "Islamic,"Islam," and "Muslim" are not found in the article. Bottom line: conclusion not justified.

And by the way, artificially restricting the timeframe to 10 years is also deceptive.

While I'm on the subject, I'll also mention that the meme presents a false either/or choice. We don't have to pick one and dismiss the other.

Benjamin: Agreed. That's the point. We don't need to chose one or the other... currently, we are. If we do actually value human life and freedom like and prosperity as we say we do, we should be doing better. The USA's health policy is an international embarrassment. A country this wealthy and resource laden should be able to encourage growth and prosperity, without leaving anyone who's not wealthy behind.

Me: I would disagree that we are not choosing healthcare. Oh, and by the way, "healthcare" and "health insurance" are not the same. The health industry is among the most highly regulated industry in the country. There is no dearth of government involvement in healthcare.

There are several premises in operation here that have not been established. Everyone receives some level of healthcare in the US. What that level is or should be is another matter. Whether that should be provided by government is another matter. What "affordable" means and how that is achieved is undetermined.

"A country this wealthy" and "without leaving anyone out" is a non sequitur. The wealth does not belong to the country to dole it out as it sees fit.

And what other countries think about us is irrelevant.