Legitimacy? What are you talking about?

Dude -- trying to reason with these douchebags -- even trying to parse what they're saying -- is like trying to catch clouds in a sieve. the reasoning is tortured as it is specious:

clinton shouldn't go to n. korea. it will never work.

it worked? well, clearly we gave them some tangible promise.

there was no tangible promise? well, surely it provided kim il jong with "legitimacy".

if you follow the logic, it's the same approach to attacking health care reform, cash for clunkers, and even the drive for "real" proof of obama's place of birth.

the program's working?

health care needs fixing?

hawaii has confirmed obama's b.c.?

[insert moved goal post here]

On a different thread on this topic, ranterx2 is bloviating about how palin "nailed it" (pun intended) with her reference to "death camps," even though, hey, yeah, it might be a bit over the top (though it's certainly not her fault if crazies take up that cudgel and run with it to town hall meetings and whatnot). he points to page 426 or whatever of obama's plan as evidence there actually is "end of life" language in the bill.

what's astonishing in all this is that, like all the rightwing minions screaming from the woodwork, there is absolutely no alternative offered to what's currently out there, no alternative to the plans currently working their way through the various channels. just a lot of whining and fear-mongering and gleeful rubbing of hands over the prospect of blocking reform. it takes a lot of willful denial of the current broken system, and cynicism -- if not outright nihilism -- to engage in the dialogue this way.

next, they try to use things like the "death camp" trope as a metonym for the plan itself -- but it's a false metonym. it's false first of all because they totally distort what the bill actually says, and second because one minor part of it cannot and should not stand for the whole thing. it's a big, complicated issue, and it needs to be debated and evaluated that way, not boiled down to its simplest terms.

finally, who gives a damn if there IS end-of-life language in there? is it so awful to approach thoughtfully the issue of death, rather than continue to go with the current mindset of trying to prolong life with medical technology beyond all sense and reason? i say this as someone who stood bedside when a grandparent had the plug pulled and died, peacefully and mercifully. we absolutely need to confront these lies and distortions head-on, and call their perpetrators on just what it is they're trying to do here -- which is not to participate in the hard work of reform, but to deal a blow to obama's agenda.

... or cracked up, one of the two.

so, stinks, not only was orly taitz duped by the fake b.c. -- she was in on it too!

and you've helped solve at least one conundrum of the truther/birther poll numbers: you're down with both theories. in fact, they're part of the same grand conspiracy!

isn't that part of the diagnosis for acute paranoia, by the way? every fantasy fits into the same scheme, with an all-inclusive logic?

please get some help, sir.

I hope all the assholes out protesting health care reform are taking note. You're frightened that changing a clearly broken and incredibly expensive system will lead to "socialism," but it doesn't alarm you that a rogue VP felt entitled to boss around the POTUS and was "disappointed" when the latter finally began to show some backbone?

Every time I think Cheney has proven himself to be perhaps the most dangerous and deluded figure in all of American history, he does something to up the ante a little bit more. Thank god this man never gained full control of the government.

of course not. i don't expect to see glenn beck crying about this anytime soon. it's only democracy, after all, that is/was at stake -- not the corporate hegemony of the health care industry.

As these letters indicate, how you would deal with this situation says way more about you than it does about the homeless guy. Obviously boundaries are important in this situation, but there's about a 90% chance he's harmless and just a bit lost in life -- of course, he may be fine with his life, though it doesn't sound like it from his chronic money issues.

When I was younger, I had the type of energy that somehow invited cranks, madmen, druggies, and angels to come up and talk to me on the street. One of them filled up my answering machine with the most incredible crazy talk I'd ever heard. One of them I found sleeping outside my apartment on a piece of cardboard. Perhaps I was lucky, but all of them wound up being harmless.

Still, over time, I got tired of constantly being hit up for $20 by my heroin addict friend. I got tired of the crazy talk, being preached to, lied to, winding up in weird situations where I didn't feel completely safe. I got older. I grew a sort of veneer, and now those people don't approach me anymore.

But there's such a thing as getting too hard, too tough, to the point where you close yourself off to all other possibilities and ways of being in life. I hope that hasn't happened to me but I worry -- I miss that younger self. As I read these letters I see lots of people locked in themselves by fear -- they're the type who would never pick up a hitchhiker because "god knows what kind of horrible person it could be" -- never step out of their comfort zone. They don't realize they're already dead.

Good luck setting boundaries -- also being compassionate, open, and alive.