Something happened this morning on Facebook that deserves a blog post. A friend of mine linked to an article titled, “Page after Page of Reasons to Hate Obamacare.” Here’s a sample:

• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)

• Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.

• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.

My friend’s question was simple,

Calling all Doctors amongst us! Is this information about the Obama Health Care Plan true?

Now, granted, there are two problems with his question: 1.) It’s not like only doctors can read the bill and so in that case 2.) Why couldn’t my friend just read the bill himself?

(The answer is that this is how he works – he routinely lobs questions out on his FB page to try and “provoke and evoke” and he does a good job of it… but I digress)

Nonetheless, (to me at least) that seems like an objective question with an equally objective answer that’s easy to find. I mean, hell, the original author even wrote it in a list and gave page numbers. That should be easy to prove and in my mind gives his list much more authority than some Ann Coulter (God love her) or Daily Kos piece that speaks in generalities and is meant to scare more than to inform. I mean, for an objective question like my friend asked, fact checking this particular piece is a like 6 inch gimme putt on the 18th hole. All the hard work has already been done.

But no! Check out the very first response to his question:

Consider the source… Canada Free Press is a conservative website… I wouldn’t put too much (if any at all) credence in anything they have to say.

WTF? Without even bothering to read the bill or otherwise attempt to answer the question objectively, this guy just assumes that since he thinks the source is biased, the article is therefore inaccurate?

Has the dialogue in this country become this poisonous? Sometimes I think Glenn Beck can be a little febrile (to borrow a good description from Ed) and overly exaggerative of how America is fraying politically while the masses eat cheetos and play video games in ignorance but then I see comments like this being made increasingly often and it just makes me wonder. So many people, people who like to think of themselves as being politically informed – which I assume this guy does if he pays enough attention to the Canada Free Press to discount it as biased – living in little bubbles of opinion assuming that objective statements of fact are wrong and inaccurate simply because they disagree with the politics of the messenger.

Jimminy. Maybe I do need to be more worried about this country.

Just for the record, it’s all there.

And it scares the bejeezus out of me.