AUGUSTA, Maine – Governor Paul LePage released the following statement Monday regarding his recent radio address in which a comparison was made of the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo:
“It was not my intent to insult anyone, especially the Jewish Community, or minimize the fact that millions of people were murdered.
Clearly, what has happened is that the use of the word Gestapo has clouded my message. Obamacare is forcing the American people to buy health insurance or else pay a tax. Our health care system is moving toward one that rations care and negatively impact millions of Americans.
We no longer are a free people. With every step that Obamacare moves forward, our individual freedoms are being stripped away by the Federal Government. This should anger all Americans.”
Duh. Keep it up. The real agenda is bleeding through.
You talk in riddles. What is the agenda?
The same as the extreme on the other side. Lies, obfuscation and pandering to special interests. If he keeps it up, he’ll assure a major swing of the political pendulum, which would be just as bad.
Nice apology, Guv. Not!
Please let call a spade a spade. The millions of people that were killed were murdered by the German Government
What word would you substitute in the Governor’s address that would have the same meaning as to the enforced collection of monies at gunpoint if necessary from American citizens if they do not purchase a product or pay a tax?
When does the IRS enforce tax collection at gunpoint?
In Limboughland!
The IRS for your information, does as a matter of demonstarble fact, seize property and assets at gunpoint without probable cause..
Some IRS agents do carry weapoons
So do Taxpayers!
At gunpoint?Well, the NRA would like that. How could any self-respecting r not be for collecting at gunpoint!
This is leadership? A minority elected State governor working to inciting anger about the actions of a President who won his office by a large majority? This is obnoxious.
I don’t think he’s “inciting” it, he’s just expressing it. And a “large majority” of people don’t want the government to do this, if that means anything.
A “Larger” Majority like whats in it!
They didn’t like it only because they where “Told” not to!
So… a large majority doesn’t like it, but a larger majority do like it?
That doesn’t make sense.
“they where ‘Told’ not to?”
That doesn’t make sense. Maybe you mean “they were told…”.
So, who exactly is “telling” them (and me, BTW) not to like it?
Fox News? Al Gore? Rush Limbaugh? Ron Paul? Sarah Palin?
You don’t know me from anybody, yet you’ll sit there and say that somebody is telling me what to think?
Has YOUR insurance bill gone up 20% because of this crap?
Mine has.
Has YOUR doctor told you he’s quitting because of this crap?
Mine has.
Do YOU like your government now able to order you to do anything by taxing you only if you don’t?
I don’t.
“Do YOU like your government now able to order you to do anything by taxing you only if you don’t?”
First of all, They have for years! The government orders me to enter into a private contract yearly with a private company to inspect my car. If I don’t they fine me, ( Tax) if I don’t pay my fines ( Tax) I can go to jail.
I don’t like having to pay somebody to inspect my car for me as I am fully capable, yet I don’t trust You to inspect your car and come barreling down the highway towards me at 60 mph with loose tie rods!
Your rights don’t transcend to allow you to endanger me , and my rights don’t transcend to allow me to endanger you, so the government steps in and protects us both!
Human rights are interwoven in a fabric that makes up society,
we aren’t alone!
and THATS why we have a government!
A man alone on his own Island is the only Truly free man to do “ANYTHING” that he wants!
One should never apologize for speaking the truth.
See definition #2
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/Gestapo
Lepage in the Prime of his Life!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK-Dqj4fHmM
I would not have apologized. Forcibly making people pay a fine for not having health care is ridiculous and dictatorial in my opinion. Forced Socialism is not freedom. I applaud his frank and blunt speaking.
Unfortunately, he has now apologized, since Jews apparently hold the copyright on the term “Gestapo”.
Yeah, how dare they! They were hunted down and killed by the Gestapo and now they think they have the right to be offended by a flippant use of their tragedy for political purposes? How dare they!
What makes you think it was flippant?
Because no one would be so stupid as to purposefully compare collecting taxes to being physically collected for the purpose of genocide.
Want to bet? This poor excuse for a leader has just proved you wrong.
When Rep. Luis Gutierrez referred to the ICE as “Gestapo”, was he being “insensitive” and “Stupid”?
Did Jews demand an apology?
Did he apologize?
When Nancy Pelosi said that Gutierrez was right in what he said, was she being stupid?
Did Jews demand an apology?
Did she apologize?
No, no, no.
No, no, and no.
It’s only offensive if it comes from someone you disagree with, apparently.
You’re changing what you’re arguing about now. Clearly that means you’re the one who is inconsistent and only defending the Gov. because you agree with him political. Pathetic.
What are you talking about – I didn’t change anything.
I’m not arguing that Pelosi / Gutierrez were wrong for using the word.
I merely pointed out that the use of the “Gestapo” term only seems to offend the left if it’s used by somebody politically different.
How is incentivising people to purchase health insurance from private, for-profit companies socialism? Does anyone who throws that word around to discribe anything they don’t like know what it means?
An incentive is a positive motivational tool. A punishment is a negative motivational tool. Tell me how forcing someone to buy health insurance they may not be able or willing to afford and having to pay a fine instead is a positive motivational tool.
And how long do you think that the “private, for-profit companies” who will offer this “insurance” last when the government dictates who they must cover at how much cost?
Does anyone know what “insurance” means? It’s a risk, a gamble. The companies bet that a certain percentage of clients will get a certain problem, (and they know that percentage to 5 decimal places, I bet). If you force them to cover everybody who’s already got that problem, then you are skewing the odds waaaaay to one side.
Why don’t we force fire insurance companies to cover people whose houses are already on fire, and see how that works out?
If an uninsured person goes to the emergency room, they get treated (this is called the hypocratic oath…goes back about 3,000 years), whether they can afford to pay for it or not. You and I pay for that through higher premiums (interesting idea of freedom you have if you think that’s ok). Getting people to buy personal health insurance that they will need someday is not at all like the Gestapo….It’s asking people to take personal responsibiliy for their own future needs. It’s a Republican idea from the Heratage Foundation that Mitt Romney passed in Massachusettes.
The English and the French aren’t free? Hmmmmmmmmm, damn, all that good education gone to waste I guess. Since I’ve got insurance and I won’t be affected by the “tax'”, except, I’ll no longer be subsidizing those without insurance,. I feel even freer than before!
If leadership is speaking your mind & telling the truth, then yes, this is leadership. When did the American people become so thin skinned? Guess we just can’t take the truth anymore. After all, we have been 3+ years without it.
Thin skinned? I’m pretty sure screeching that collecting taxes is tantamount to being rounded up and killed is the definition of being thin skinned. Paying your taxes isn’t the same as being forcibly removed from your home and killed. That’s not the truth, that’s being a big baby and whining.
Truth???
Gov LePage was excdercising his right of free speech, albeit using an exaggerated analogy. Where on earth was the outrage when the left portrayed President Bush as Adolf Hitler, or, when President Obama referred to his grandmother as a “typle white lady”
Poor Paul stewing in his own rhetoric, here’s my shocked face :-)
Gov. Lepage has no apologies to make.
His target was the freewheeling spenders, not Jews.
Come on, people, let it go.
The target is irrelevant when armed with a bazooka!
the problem is that no citizen should fear any government entity including any bureaucracy. Don’t apologize! Bangorian, we have freedom of speech and have every right to voice our opinion. You will never silence me.
We are no longer free? Come on.
I’ll bet Governor Paul LePage probably has sign on his desk saying “Just two years ago I wasn’t a Governor, now I are one”
He’s supposed to be our Governor, our Statesman…………he’s successful in getting Maine in the National media spotlight after he lets words fly which he has to later recant. I’ll bet his staff all have heath insurance with a special optometrist rider (as they have to roll their eyes so much they need more visits than “regular people”).
When Pelosi likened ICE to the gestapo,
the libbers cheered. What a bunch of phony
hypocrites.
The best point yet… phony crocodile tears…
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Ignoring for the momnet the lousy analogy (if we can), why does this recent addition of responsibilities to the IRS make them the Gestapo? If they’re that bad, haven’t they been Gestapo (KGB, STASI, secret police, take your pick) all along (they haven’t but let[s continue with the argument). If they hvaen’t been (and even foot-in-mouth LePage hadn’t callled them that until now, I guess the whole brouhaha is an invented polical ploy rather than an argument of substance.
Bad analogy, false and inaccurate, and transparently political. looks like the trifecta but in this case, LePage and his apologists lose (along with the rest of us thinking Mainers).