If there is any doubt that progressivism is progressing to someplace very ugly indeed, I present to you the pro-Obamacare ads put together by a Colorado group. I know, I know, these ads are so bad they seem like they must have been created by a right-wing hit squad, but no, they are actually the production of Colorado progressives led by ProgressNow Colorado and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.
The Denver Post actually talked to a representative from ProgressNow who said the ads are awesome and stuff.
Without further ado, I present to you modern-day progressivism in all its glory:
Yes, you too can now get “free” birth control by paying $2000 a year more in insurance premiums! Who said millennials cannot add?
And how about that portrayal of women? Yes, all women just want to hook up with random guys and get them “under the covers” because the guy is hot!
If there was any doubt that the target audience for Obamacare is young women who just want to have fun, I present you this:
Yes, women are so important to progressives that they are portrayed as wanting to have sex with a cardboard cutout of Ryan Gosling. But don’t worry, “she got insurance.”
Progressives would never encourage binge drinking and irresponsible drunken behavior…would they? Well yes.
When you binge drink, it is very important you sit on top of the keg, but don’t worry, you got insurance!!
And if you are a woman, you definitely want to get drunk while skiing. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and you’ll find a guy to hook up with on the slopes!
It is horrific to imagine the mindset of the group of people who thought this would somehow be a positive portrayal of Obamacare. Even the Huffington Post sees the whole ad campaign as beyond the pale.
But if we as a society accept a world where privileged people can force other people to pay for their own birth control, even if they have religious objections, should we be surprised that these same privileged people promote casual sex and binge drinking?
New Post: Get drunk, have casual sex because Obamacare has you covered: If there is any doubt tha… http://t.co/xJxTncV8Zp #LDS #Mormon
Well, this makes me totally feel liberated and fulfilled as a woman. All I need is birth control for a perfect life. Thanks for the tip!
This is what progressivism is all about. I can do whatever I feel like doing, with zero consequences!!! Well, zero consequences for ME anyway! Some evil, greedy, rich person will pay for everything! Yay!!!
TheMillennialStar: Get drunk, have casual sex because Obamacare has you covered http://t.co/uFd1gQ5XAg #lds #mormon
I’m still slack-jawed in astonishment that these are actual advertisements for Obamacare and not parodies.
Thus confirming what I have suspected for some time. Modern social liberalism–whether manifested in health care policy, education, feminism, finance, abortion, ad infinitum, is reducible to two words:
Fresh meat.
This can’t be real. It must be a hoax. Either that, or Western civilization has officially crossed the point of no return.
Knowing liberals, I’m not at all surprised by these.
These are the types of liberals I am surrounded with constantly.
And thus, my utter astonishment when liberal Mormons defend this type of behavior.
Xenophon, I wish they were parodies, but they are not. I think we need to consider your second option, i.e., that Western civilization is rapidly heading down the tubes.
For years, a Catholic friend has been sayting: If God doesn’t punish America, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Disgusting. And so unbelievable that Snopes already has a post up about it (it’s in fact true).
On the bright side, the general consensus–coming from liberals as well as conservatives–is that these ads are bad.
Here is the Snopes article. Yes, this is true.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/gotinsurance.asp
Tim wrote: “the general consensus–coming from liberals as well as conservatives–is that these ads are bad.”
Well, certainly *some* liberals feel that way. Are they bad because they are in poor taste and are not effective, or are they bad because they are, in your words “disgusting” because they promote unhealthy behavior and the objectification of men and women? Ads like this do not appear out of thin air: they are the product of a group of people, a rather large group, spending time and money analyzing what they want to do with their money to promote a policy they believe in. And their decision is: let’s appeal to young people by having people drinking and having sex, as if this is all young people care about and think about. (And notice that none of the models involved are of people of color). You can imagine a group of white liberals sitting around saying, “yeah, this is what young people do, so this is REAL.” The warped perspectives of these white liberals, who are literally so out of touch with the rest of the world that they never considered how your average suburban family would respond to this, is mind-boggling. But, as they say, this is a sign of where we are today as a culture. So next time a prophet or apostle gets up in Conference and warns us of the decline of society, you can gain a bit more appreciation of where he is coming from.
Nowadays, it shouldn’t take a prophet to tell us how jacked up our culture is.
Geoff, the fact that all of them are white is not a sign of liberal propoganda, which always features ethnics in at the very least 50% of all advertising.
I’ll step in to defend this, first of all, because it is not the government, but private organizations which are trying to support Obamacare on the sidelines for political reasons. I would change my mind if someone could prove that any tax dollars have been used to sponsor this add campaign. Political organizations are free to do whatever they like according to their values, as long as it doesn’t infringe on other’s rights. Like it or not, birth control, drinking, and promiscuity are part of majority culture in American colleges, and as a democracy, we have to live with what the majority does.
Second of all, this campaign is using Capitalist marketing techniques to try and sell a product. They have made the calculation that if they talk to college students in this extremely casual and vulgar way, that kids will go out and sign up for Obamacare. If today’s college kids are really as idiotic and blind to condescention as the marketers assume, then all is well: we live in a nation of idiots, and treating them like idiots helps you sell what you want to sell. But if it’s not true, and college kids are not as stupid as the marketers assume, then the campaign will be a flop, and be disbanded, same as any other unsuccessful add campaign in the free market. So let the market speak! This is not government propaganda. This is a misguided effort to boost youth support for Obamacare in Colorado by a small political collective.
Geoff, this is like someone taking a particularly stupid ad from, say, Meridian, and claiming that all Mormons are idiots brainwashed by their religion into buying overpriced scrapbook supplies (because, family history–see, it’s doctrine!!)and nasty shelf-stable food. IOW, your confirmation bias is showing.
Yeah, it’s *just* like that, Kristine.
Actually, this is not surprising. The underlying messages (ie, not the message to go out and buy a policy at healthcare.gov) have been given in the entertainment media for 20 to 30 years now. (Anyone remember Madonna, circa 1980’s? Love Boat? Dallas?)
If you were not outraged BEFORE this ad campaign, you were not paying attention!
@nate: all pro-Obamacare ads that have been coming out for the last few months have all been paid for by federal dollars. The money for it was budgeted in the ACA law. WebMD recently got busted for taking federal dollars for pro-ACA articles and not admitting it up front (they were behind a paywall, so they claimed it was not required, but I don’t agree with that argument.)
A lot of non-profits and consumer organizations have received contracts to push sign-up with healthcar.gov. And they are very sweetheart contracts. It’s likely another way to slush-fund liberal groups. Just like Acorn was. Just like a lot of organizations that trained census-takers for the 2010 census.
Oh, by the way, i read in the news that the founder of Acorn has started another organization, and guess what it is doing? Promoting Obamacare and training/supervising “Navigators” under federal contract!
@Kristine,
Meridian is not promoting binge drinking and promiscuity.
And as far as I know, tithing money does not go to Meridian.
If it was makers of birth control pills, condoms or alcohol that were promoting the behaviors displayed in the ads, people would still be outraged.
If the makers of those products (contraception and alcohol) were to encourage irresponsible behavior in ads promoting the use of their product, that would be enough of an outrage. But for federal dollars to be spent on encouraging irresponsible behavior? That’s a double outrage.
Kristine, that seems a particularly bad comparison to me, but I think I see your point. Yes, people use data and information and events around them to confirm their pre-existing paradigms, and yes other people don’t always see the comparisons the same way, especially if the other people have different ideologies. Everybody does this — including you — in various ways every day. It seems to me the best approach is to refute the claims being made by the other people, not decry their confirmation bias. If these ads are not representative of how progressive groups act, then show that in an actual argument. Otherwise, we will have to assume that my original claim is correct.
Nate, both of the groups involved get federal and state dollars. Just FYI.
Nobody is saying they don’t have a right to make stupid ads. And the issue is not that the ads are not effective. The issue is that the people who made the ads with government money represent a certain worldview that we all should find reprehensible.
Will Obamacare cover the myriad of STDs one will catch through casual sex?
Davester on November 13, 2013 at 9:21 pm said:
Will Obamacare cover the myriad of STDs one will catch through casual sex?
But of course. Obamacare has got you covered.
The reality is that we are seeing a generation gap among liberals. Sure some younger one may find this beyond the pale, but we are witnessing the erosion of generations recorded and predicted by the BoM.
This is what happens to modern liberals raised with the bare minimum modern values. Don’t forget, those who rejected God were still raised under the influence of religion. With the meat of religion divorced from the public square each generation will become more like this.
Since federal dollars are being used to fund these adds, the issue shouldn’t be wailing about declining values and progressives corrupting youth, but the waste, inaccountability, and complete ineptitude of certain private groups when given access to federal money. This campaign will probably not contribute to more promiscuity and drinking because it is so obviously offensive and panderingly uncool. The backlash will do more to set back progressive causes.
Of course it is also inexcusable that government funded propaganda so blatantly disregards the moral sensibilities of much of the populace, but the question should be, is there a better way to hold organizations accountable for wasting federal money by being completely inept?
You can’t hang the actions of a few stupid people on the heads of all liberals. This is not a nationwide campaign sponsored and carried out by the government. It’s a problem of the inaccountability of private groups who use federal money.
nate,
I would suggest that the easiest way to prevent people from wasting federal money is to avoid giving them federal money in the first place. Obviously the national government has to contract a certain amount of work just to keep the nation running but I think we’ve gotten into a bad habit of letting the federal politicians cut checks to any organization that catches their fancy for whatever reason.
After all, when you have billions and billions of dollars of tax revenue and an ever increasing debt limit it’s just too tempting to give out special contracts and grants as favors to your friends, party affiliates and pet causes. And since more tax money will get collected whether you spend it wisely or not there is much less incentive to spend well than when a person is spending their own, finite budget or is running a business that only gets more revenue if they actually do something desirable.
In short, I think it unlikely that we will ever figure out a really effective way to get the federal government to care about taking good care of tax money. It’s probably better to just try and limit that tax money in the first place and keep most spending and taxation on the personal, local and state level where people are more directly connected to the source of the money and more directly invested in the outcomes of how it get’s spent.
These ads seem to be a reflection of the mentality and moral values of those who favor and promote Obamacare, not necessarily representative of any group of consumers. This is an accurate picture of how certain commercial advertisers tend to characterize the audience they are appealing to. They know how effective this kind of appeal can be by analyzing the results of the last presidential campaign. It obviously worked to get Mr Obama reelected, why not use it to sell insurance?
It does seem as if a line has been crossed by these ads – as Bookslinger says, the message is the same as has been increasingly preached in the mainstream media for half a century – but usually indirectly, in a sugar coated way (as with the TV sitcom Friends).
These ads are shocking in their blatant message – as if the forces of evil now have people at a point where they can ‘dispense with the niceties’.
What is also striking is that, even within its own terms of zero-guilt, consequence-free promiscuous coupling, the advert is grossly dishonest; since its premise is that young attractive women should feel grateful that attractive men condescend to have sex with them.
Yet in the real world, even the most attractive men (such as movie star High Grant) have paid prostitutes for sex, and any young healthy women could sell sex (and even sell the right merely to look at her unclothed body) – and if she is attractive, for a lot of money. It is just plain false for these ads to tell attractive young women that they are in a buyer’s market where they must ‘beg’ for sex, in the way of these adverts.
So, not just disgusting and wicked – also untrue.
Why the lie? Because – of course – that is how the people behind the ads *want* young women to believe. They want to reshape and if possible invert biological reality in this respect, as in so many others.
So these adverts really are a significant step further down the slippery slope.
Bruce, good comment.
“If these ads are not representative of how progressive groups act, then show that in an actual argument.”
How is the burden of proof not on you? Its like me saying, “unless you can prove that conservatives aren’t all Medicare loving hypocrites, then my presumed generalization stands.”
Christian J, no. I am making an argument in this post that progressivism gets you this kind of behavior, citing two particular groups. If you want to disagree with my post, you need to address the argument, not try to change the subject, which is exactly what you are doing in your comment. Sorry, not going to fall for it. Make the case the progressivism does not devolve into exactly what we are seeing and you are on point. You could even make an argument that there is nothing wrong with the ads. Stay on point, Christian J, if you would like to comment here.
There’s no question that the ads are disturbing. It is a waste of taxpayer money.
But the current system (before the ACA) also promoted irresponsibility. If you couldn’t afford health care (or your employer wouldn’t provide it), you just show up at the ER and get treated. And there’s the other part of the law where hospitals and doctors just kept raising rates – so patients have no idea how much a procedure will cost (or that they could save money). The system is broken. The law didn’t fix the system.
I’ll be happy when they get rid of all the attack ads during political campaigns. But whomever came up with this media strategy should be fired.
aerin,
I see what you’re saying, but I hardly think that showing up at the ER is irresponsible if you need treatment. If you’re in need, you’re in need. Hospitals for many decades have budgeted emergency care because there have always been indigent or penniless folk showing up at hospitals needing help (speaking of the era of the modern hospital, say, the last 90 years).
Also, pinning the blame on hospitals and doctors for raising the cost of care isn’t the entire story. It’s a bit more complicated than it being about greedy administrators or doctors. There is the corporatist nexus of government and insurance that’s a huge part of it.
Aerin, back in the old days before the government got involved in health care, you would go to the emergency room of a charity hospital and get treated for very little cost or very often for free. Or you would go to a for-profit hospital and get treated and they would work out a payment plan, $1 a month for five years, etc. There is no reason in practice that going to the emergency room should cost anybody else money — it is only the advent of government involvement in health care that caused care to get so expensive that we began to be concerned about free riders.
In a free market (like we had until the 1960s), doctors and hospitals were businesses that provided a service (just like lawyers and accountants). You paid when you used the services, and costs were relatively low. Doctors and hospitals competed against each other to provide the best service at the lowest price. Health care only began to get prohibitively expensive when the government got involved.
Isn’t that Zachary Quinto (a.k.a. Sylar and Mr. Spock) in the first ad? I’m surprised the ad isn’t screaming “With Obamacare, you’ll live long and prosper!” At least they lured some star power “credibility”, rather than rely on a dorky Gosling cut-out. I don’t think I’ll ever look at Mr. Spock the same way again.
@Geoff – I’m sorry but this is slightly off-topic but prompted by your headline.
The link between get drunk and casual sex is very important for (non Mormon) women precisely because unless they are drunk, most women find it very difficult to get themselves to consent to causal sex even if (in theory) they want it, and have gone out with that is mind.
Naturally, this is not operating at a conscious level – but promiscuity is much higher among women who drink/ get drunk; and at some level women know this, and engage in this kind of self-manipulation.
I wrote about this on my blog a while ago: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/alcohol-men-women-and-mormons.html