Patty Myers from Montana has a message for Sen. Alan Simpson.

[Moostache]

28. AMEN - Social Security is not an entitlement, its the property of the people who paid into it.

I want to re-frame this debate and reclaim the language into something that actually registers in the shrunken pit of a republican skull - social security PAYMENTS are NOT "benefits" nor are they "entitlements" (at least not in the sense that they get portrayed - something for nothing, or freeloading....if you mean mean money that we are ENTITLED TO HAVE RETURNED, then we can discuss it).

The fact is that progressives and liberals remain on the defense because we lack the collective will to change a meme - ANY meme - that starts off as right wing propaganda.

- We got bullied into the twin wars of Aggression in the 2000's
- We got further bullied into abominations like Gitmo and the Patriot Act just as easily...
- We ended up with a President who negotiates with himself FIRST, then with the opposition and at the end gets nothing he couldn't have had by fiat in the first place.
- We ended up with a Senate Leader who is too timid and weak to take the necessary steps to end the phony gridlock and unconstitutional "60-vote" threshold for even getting VOTES let alone real debate on critical issues.
- We have lost issue after issue after issue because we allow the spin miesters of the right - like that miserable bastard Luntz - to dress them up as something other than what they are and call it something they KNOW will gin up their "base" and create enough noise to seem important.

We have been badly outplayed for a very long time. Its time to stop rolling over, they're just going to kick us again, not rub our belly!

Its NOT "gun control", its "firearm massacre prevention".
Its NOT "Social Security reform", its "returning private equity".
Its NOT "GAY/SAME SEX Marriage", its just "marriage equality".

If the democrats of the 60's and 70's had been as weak as the ones in our representative caucus of today, we wouldn't have had a Civil Rights Movement - it would have been dubbed the "destruction of American Heritage". We would not have passed Civil Rights Legislation - we would have "destroyed the Constitution". In many places in the South, not all, but a good number, you will find EXACTLY these sentiments and worse expounded hourly.

Its time to stop allowing the right to control the language and discussion. Its time to force people to educate themselves and stand up for whats morally courageous, difficult and right instead of whats politically expedient, easy, and cowardly.

Mr. Reid, Mr. Obama, Senators, Representatives, Staffs and others - heed the advice of Mr. Mark Twain and cease to argue with the fools of the right, people WON'T know the difference, and instead start using consistent terminology distinctly different from the professionally crafted right wing lies. TELL THE TRUTH and let its light expose the chicanery and nonsense of the word games they use to bully, bluff and bluster their hateful ideology through to policy.