Saturday, November 03, 2012

Obamacare and the End of Days

Canvassing in Allentown, PA today, I met a young white woman coming out of her apartment, lighting up a cigarette. She was listed on the contact sheet as a supporter, and she said she was going to vote, and when I asked for who she said somewhat doubtfully, probably Obama, or I guess Obama, or something like that. I asked whether she had any doubts, and she said several positive things about Obama -- that he came in facing a mess, and had started to turn things around (I wish I could remember the good metaphor she used), that Romney was just for the rich. She seemed neither educated nor politically unaware.  Then she pointed to her forearm and said, "what about that chip?"

I had heard this once before. A Hispanic girl of about 13, translating for her mother who remained far from the door, asked us whether Obama was going to put a chip in everyone's arm through which we could be controlled. I asked one of the district coordinators about this, and she said they had heard the tale occasionally, and thought one of the churches was spreading the rumor (she may have said a Seventh Day Adventist church, or that may be my memory embellishing). 


I just looked up "obama care chip in arm" and found a 5-minute YouTube clip narrated by a professed Ron Paul acolyte: Obamacare Mandates RFID Chips to be Implanted in All Americans by March 23, 2013?  It begins with a mock commercial in which vaguely zombie-ish dupes speak enthusiastically of having their medical conditions effectively monitored by the wonderful device. Then comes an earnest, wonkish sounding young man with the inside story: the ACA mandates that an RFID chip be implanted in each of us. Your bank account will be linked to it; it will have a GPS, so the government knows where you are all the time, as well as your whole medical history. It will enable the government to track all of us illegally; there will be no 4th amendment any more, etc etc. And the ACA mandates that all American citizens have this chip implanted by March 23, 2013.  He then reads off ominous-sounding language, allegedly from the ACA pp 1000-1008 (who reads a 2000-page bill, he asks near the end) establishing a medical device registry.

Even on the face of it, the quoted language sounds like exactly what it is: a registry of existing medical devices for the purpose of tracking effectiveness. In any case, the registry is not in the ACA; it was included in a version of the bill that did not pass. Snopes.com has a complete debunk.  And as a quick Google search demonstrates, this fever dream is connected with End of Days fantasies; the chip is the mark of the beast.

As Snopes points out, these rumors have been kicking around since the days of Hillarycare; more broadly, rumors of government implants "have been around just about as long as microchips have."  Still, it's disturbing that these smears are having a noticeable effect on at least a small subset of Obama's natural constituents.

44 comments:

  1. Well, what did you tell her?

    ReplyDelete
  2. And by far the most annoying thing is that any basic understanding of technology would foreclose on this nonsense. GPS without power or antenna? RFID with data storage? Mind control by a passive chip in the arm? How gullible do you have to be to accept silly crap like this at face value?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They elected George W. Bush....twice. The think that global warming is a theory. They believe that Jesus helps their football teams. Shall I go on?

      Delete
    2. Global warming or climate change is a theory. There are plenty of scientific theories that we basically accept as fact though, including gravity.

      Delete
    3. Please, no. It's unbearable.

      Delete
    4. Please, no. It's true, but unbearable.

      Delete
  3. So, is she going to vote for Obama or should I freak out?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anon: I just said that it was complete nonsense and that Obamacare would just make health insurance affordable if you can't get it from your employer. She said that her boyfriend's employer offered some really expensive, limited insurance he couldn't afford. I told her that people who made less than 30k would just pay about 3% of their income for insurance under the ACA. She said he made under 25%. Bend: she did say she would vote for Obama, but who knows?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My wife makes $40k. No luck there.

      Also, since I can be insured through her job (in theory) am I still eligible for help under ACA for not being able to afford it? So far ACA has done zero for us (and the premiums have gone up so that I can't be insured under my wife anymore) so it would be nice to see some benefit.

      Delete
    2. The ACA will pay for your chip implant if your employer doesn't cover you

      Delete
    3. It's a sliding scale. Why don't you just look it up in Wikipedia instead of wallowing in ignorance?

      Delete
  5. The Georgia state legislature was concerned enough to pass a bill banning microchip implantation.

    http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/04/19/delusions-the-legislature-and-an-implanted-microchip/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Crazy - an elderly Asian woman pushed a flyer on me that had this exact same lunacy on it while I was trying to board the Red Line train at the Kendall/MIT station in Cambridge, MA. They're everywhere I guess!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, where can i get one of those chips? i can't keep track of my health insurance, medical history, or anything else!
    i'd also like to apply for review by one of those death panels they talk about--some decisions just make me so nervous!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We should require that anyone wishing to vote be microchipped, to stop all that damn voter impersonation that is so rampant it's invisible. According to reputable scientists at Glenn Beck University, they're soluble in fluoridated water, so they can easily be distributed in city water supplies.

      Delete
    2. Wish I could thumbs up that, Geoff. Nicely put.

      Delete
  8. I was hearing this stuff back in the 80's from born agains I worked with at the time. Some people are just a lost cause.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was bar codes in the 80s that I heard.

      Delete
  9. Even worse, registry of medical devices for tracking efficiency is needed, because those are items like stents, pacemakers, implantable pumps for insulin or defibrillators for heart conditions. There's something similar for medical drugs but it doesn't do enough either. Neither devices nor drugs have to *really* show effectiveness but mostly that they do no harm and have some effect that can be spun in a positive manner.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Richard Hofstadter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American_Politics
    25% of every nation's population is batshit crazy. nothing can be done about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's one in four. Since my three best friends are sane, it must be me!

      Delete
  11. I remember hearing about this back in the '80s as well, that everyone would have a chip implanted and it could track our movements, etc etc.

    Who would have thought that, thirty years later, we'd all be carrying around chips that allow the government to track our every movement ... and paying $100 a month for it. At least I can play Angry Birds.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The chip! That, I guess, is how the drones find you. They can't just go shooting random people, because that might mean that they hit some friendly targets and thus compromise Obama's re-election to a third and final term, because he will invalidate voting after that. So, the chips record party affiliation and then send, like, a signal or something to the drones, and then the drones can send their smart weapons hurtling toward your house or car, if we even have cars at that time after Obama, like, makes gasoline illegal but no one wants to buy those stupid Chevy Volts.

    Romney HAS to win tomorrow, or we are all screwed.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I ran into a house painter in upstate NY who had 2 kids and a wife, and no health insurance. He was voting for Romney because he heard that if he didn't pay the Obamacare penalty for not having health insurance, the government would take away his kids. I shit you not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well the health insurance would be cheaper without those pesky dependents! oh, that poor man!

      Delete
  14. I can't believe no one here has so far related this paranoia to the prophesy in the Book of Revelations that the Antichrist will force everyone to wear the Mark of the Beast (666) in order to buy and sell things. Since for these nutcases Obama is obviously the Antichrist then this supposed part of Obamacare makes perfect sense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't believe you didn't read and understand the article. From the penultimate paragraph:

      "And as a quick Google search demonstrates, this fever dream is connected with End of Days fantasies; the chip is the mark of the beast."

      Delete
    2. I always thought he was the antichrist when he won the first time, watching everyone cry like they were worshiping him when he won..

      Delete
  15. The idea of the implanted chip was also spread through lunatic quarters (libertarians, Ron Paul types, the Tea Party, etc.) by the film Zeitgeist. Towards the very end of the film, we are warned that the "new world order" (a cabal of bankers who secretly control everything on earth) is going to force everyone to get "chipped."

    You can find Zeitgeist on YouTube right now and see it yourself. Just Google for the words zeitgeist and rfid chip.

    ReplyDelete
  16. A chip in your arm? What.moronic bull! Everyone knows the chip goes.into the back of your head.

    ReplyDelete
  17. A chip in your arm? What.moronic bull! Everyone knows the chip goes.into the back of your head.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hey . . . my cat has one of these!

    ReplyDelete
  19. This is kind of an old story. See this from, if memory serves, 2009: http://www.creators.com/opinion/daily-editorials/lawmakers-on-the-frontiers-of-science.html

    ReplyDelete
  20. I thought it went in your buttocks. That's where they put Timothy McVeigh's.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Actually Tommy Thompson R, running for Wisconsin Senate seat, advocated for medical chip implants. Although it was totally voluntary. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/may/22/michael-mc-auliff/huffington-post-reporter-says-possible-gop-senate-/

    ReplyDelete
  22. This one goes way back (minus the precise details). I remember hearing it from my doom-obsessed new ager mother when I was 7. That was back in the early 90s.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I grew up Adventist, and the mark of the beast in the form of a chip or a card is very much something they teach will happen at the end of the world, and they're always sure the end of the world is 5 years away or so. I haven't been involved in the church proper for quite a while (because that seems like a crazy and paranoid way to live), but it wouldn't surprise me if some of them were spreading this rumor. It tends to be a broader evangelical thing anyway, so it's not necessarily them spreading the rumor. I'm just saying they more or less always buy into that one, the only thing that changes is how loud they're trumpeting that particular belief.

    I think the funniest article I ever read was in Time somewhere near the turn of the century, and it basically talked about how most christian religions believe they'll be persecuted by the atheists and all the other christian denominations at the end of time. Kind of made the illogical paranoia of it all more obvious.

    Good times those end times.

    ReplyDelete
  24. How am I going to show off my new Iphone if it's lodged inside my arm?

    ReplyDelete
  25. I got one of them chips implanted. Under a microscope it looks like a tiny teabag.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know you are being sarcastic, and this is my point. Republican, democrat, whatever... American- I don't see anyone agreeing to something like this. If it were actually happening more people would know about it, because those subjected would be taking a stand. Don't we have more important things to worry about?

      Delete
  26. My eccentric, but sweet old neighbor accosted me as I was walking my dog this evening about this. The idea of it can be quite scary to those who are uninformed. I mean really, how many people are going to submit to something like this?! I have yet to be 'offered' a chip, and I don't know anyone that has. Whatever.

    ReplyDelete
  27. i am so scared obama is going to put chips in our arm

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hmm I don't know what to believe really. It all sounds bogus. But who knows?

    ReplyDelete
  29. I think that this has to do with what the christians have been talking about all this time.
    They r not using the 666 but its really the chip. Not only some wont get medical help but soon we wont be able to shop either. They will control us in everyway. Remember William Cooper he mention this in his book. Thats why he was assasin. He had so much info. And yes we are at the end of time. And it just happen to be our time.

    ReplyDelete