Matt Welch on Bloggingheads.tv Talking Right-Wing Conspiracies and Health Care Semiotics With Michelle Goldberg

September 30, 2009

Watch Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch debate The Means of Reproduction author (and Whole Foods boycotter) Michelle Goldberg about the vast right-wing conspiracy, the Obama protesters' real motivation, and whether there is any rational opposition to health care reform. Whole thing last just over an hour; Roman Polanski completists may want to skip straight to the end.

Comments

JB|9.30.09 @ 1:07PM|#

"these people"

Racist bitch.

"I want French healthcare."

Then move to France you stupid cunt. You prefer to stay here and foist it on me by force. Fucking cunt.

Warty|9.30.09 @ 1:17PM|#

Betty Boop vs. the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Fight!

|9.30.09 @ 1:26PM|#

Fucking video links.

|9.30.09 @ 1:30PM|#

Lime green? Really?

Warty|9.30.09 @ 1:31PM|#

Shit, I wasn't prepared for how incredibly unpleasant her voice is. I kept expecting her to scream at me to take the garbage out. God bless your patience, Matt.

moosecat|9.30.09 @ 1:59PM|#

Bless you Matt for arguing with someone who admits that any argument against and of her positions is illegitimate.

Atanarjuat|9.30.09 @ 2:05PM|#

Let Matt get a word in edgewise! Geez.

Rob|9.30.09 @ 2:08PM|#

i'd hit it

moosecat|9.30.09 @ 2:09PM|#

edit: Bless you Matt for arguing with someone who admits that any argument against and of her positions is illegitimate.

Kurt|9.30.09 @ 3:03PM|#

I can't believe she's willing to do this again after the Althouse debacle.

Leo Schlageter|9.30.09 @ 3:11PM|#

I read the parenthetical stating that the Bob Hairdo boycotted Whole Foods and saved myself sixty minutes...

|9.30.09 @ 3:13PM|#

Someone needs to tell her that Hofstadter was a really, really crappy historian. He was much, much more of a storyteller, which means that his notions were flawed in large part because his claims were overblown, unsubstantiated, and based largely on a very slim anecdotal record. That a lot of modern liberals have hitched their star to him demonstrates just how little they know of his work or of historiography, historical methods, etc.

|9.30.09 @ 3:18PM|#

Wasn't this woman last seen being verbally smacked around by Megan McArdle in the same format?

alan|9.30.09 @ 3:33PM|#

Then move to France you stupid cunt. You prefer to stay here and foist it on me by force. Fucking cunt.

No reason to blame vulva and company for the defects of the gray matter. It is probably the only part of her personage that's swell.

alan|9.30.09 @ 3:35PM|#

okay, okay, that probably was the worst pun since the publication of Finnegan's Wake, but come on . . .

|9.30.09 @ 3:47PM|#

On the healthcare and regulation issue apparently she has apparently never studied public choice economics in her life and has never confronted the issue of "Baptists and Bootleggers." Regulation is the surest way to safeguard private actors from competition.

JB|9.30.09 @ 3:52PM|#

I wasn't blaming her being a woman for her stupidity.

I was just using words that would piss her off since she pissed me off with her stupidity.

|9.30.09 @ 3:55PM|#

Anyway, since she is apparently so ignorant of the alternatives to a single-payer system, etc. I would suggest the work to Michael Cannon.

|9.30.09 @ 4:03PM|#

Well, the French system is in deep shit as far as its finances are concerned; any such government financed system relies on the productive activities of the population and when that activity is curbed or harmed by the state the government financing dries up.

Or to quote Thatcher: "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

As for Canada's "single payer" system, well, it is going to the way of the passenger pigeon thanks to Canada's Supreme Court (which basically stated it was unconstitutional in at least one province). Here's looking forward to more Canadian Supreme Court decisions like that.

Matt Welch|9.30.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Is it possible to go at least 10 comments deep about a female without calling her a "cunt" and weighing her sexability?

JB|10.2.09 @ 11:22AM|#

I call Obama and others 'cunts' too.

She deserved that for her comments. Especially the 'I want French health care' one.

|9.30.09 @ 5:00PM|#

She does come across as having the intellectual maturity of a middle-schooler.

|9.30.09 @ 5:09PM|#

I enjoyed the part where her heart bled for Polanski. It halfway looked as if she was ready to start the "Feminists for Rape" protest of his arrest.

|9.30.09 @ 5:19PM|#

Is it possible to go at least 10 comments deep about a female without calling her a "cunt" and weighing her sexability?

Apparently not.

|9.30.09 @ 5:32PM|#

Rob | September 30, 2009, 2:08pm | #
i'd hit it

Only if she's got a sock stuffed in her mouth. Sheesh.

|9.30.09 @ 5:37PM|#

P Brooks,

Actually, we only need one instance of a thread that went 10 comments deep without those events to show that it's possible. to show it's impossible would require looking at every thread about a female in the history of H&R. I would try to find one, but I don't have the time.

Attorney|9.30.09 @ 6:35PM|#

Stopped at 1:19. "The global battle over reproductive rights" was the deal breaker.

Warty|9.30.09 @ 6:52PM|#

to show it's impossible would require looking at every thread about a female in the history of H&R.

Lack of a counterexample does not constitute proof. If your brains weren't all cunty, you might understand this.

Sean W. Malone|9.30.09 @ 7:22PM|#

"sexability"

Nice...

|9.30.09 @ 7:34PM|#

Matt shouldnt despair...the "I'd do her" comments don't bother anyone. And by "anyone", I mean myself and that one other chick that reads Reason.

Without Reason's non-repressive comments policy, this site would get as boring as Slate, full of articles written by neutered males comparing environmentally-friendly diapers.

Warty|9.30.09 @ 7:44PM|#

Mari, do you happen to be hot? If so, would you be interested in displaying to us your breasts?

Attorney|9.30.09 @ 7:54PM|#

that one other chick that reads Reason

I think that one's really a dude, anyway.

Sean W. Malone|9.30.09 @ 8:15PM|#

I'm finally at 50 minutes of this beast, Matt and I have to disagree to some extent. I'm really not sure how "hyperbolic" some of the socialism cries really are. Obviously a welfare state or "social democracy" is not socialism full stop, but also, a casual Hayek reading should show that half socialism fails the basic reasonable epistemology test for all the parts central planning applies to as full socialism.

I'm a little annoyed personally that we're living in a time where people think that the rules of economics & logic just stop applying when we have an emotional attachment to a particular outcome...

Sean W. Malone|9.30.09 @ 8:17PM|#

And... Yes, you can argue that this health care "reform" is the first steps towards totalitarianism... Or perhaps you could note that we're already past the first steps.

Matt Welch|9.30.09 @ 9:05PM|#

Sean -- I would disagree with you, but given that you made it to the 50-minute mark, I'm more inclined to give you a medal. Or a prescription.

B|9.30.09 @ 9:12PM|#

Christ, how many times does this CUNT have to get destroyed, on video, before she decides she really isn't very good at debating people online?

Tman|9.30.09 @ 9:58PM|#

I'm at 20 minutes and if all I get is a medal or a prescripton for reaching 50 than screw this.

Michelle clearly studies her perspective deeply, and makes her arguments by attempting to back them up with relevant facts, but the arguments are so tired and played out for liberals at this point you wonder if she really believes it herself.

I mean, Ehrlic's population bomb was discredited so thoroughly thanks to folks like Borlaug. And again it reminded us that human ingenuity will always overcome the scare tactics of apocalyptic elitists.

Yet leftists still want to make the same arguments.

I don't get it. How many times do you have to be wrong before you just give up?

And even my bleeding heart leftist retired lawyer Mom thinks Polanski should end up in PMITA prison, so jebus lefties, let this one go.

|9.30.09 @ 10:47PM|#

Hi Warty,
Do you happen to be rich? :)
There's no such thing as a free boob.
M

H. Protagonist|9.30.09 @ 10:55PM|#

Kudos to you, Matt, for lasting an entire hour. Honestly, I would completely lose it when someone replied to my first-hand observations of the 9/12 protest with the, "Well, I saw some pictures on the internet!" spiel.

And I would have simply stopped the whole show when she dropped the "I simply can't imagine anyone arguing against Obamacare in good faith." There is no productive conversation you can have with someone who says something like that.

Ratdog|10.1.09 @ 6:59AM|#

Absolutely amazing, completely unbelievable, totally unheard of. Not one time, never even once, in the entire video was the Coo-Coo/Ding-Dong sound effect edited in.

As for Madame's confidence in her abilities to know the thoughts of others, she is as mistaken as is le Matt in his belief that our military intervention in the former YU was justifiable, it is not and was not, and she can not and will never be able to.