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Here’s how those freedom-loving Republicans and conservatives are handling the health care reform debate,
TAMPA — Bitter divisions over reforming America’s health care system exploded Thursday night in Tampa amid cat calls, jeering and shoving at a town hall meeting.
“Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!” dozens of people shouted as U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, struggled to talk about health insurance reforms under consideration in Washington, D.C.
[...]
The spectacle at the Children’s Board in Ybor City sounded more like a wrestling cage match than a panel discussion on national policy, and it was just the latest example of a health care meeting disrupted by livid protesters.
[...]
…hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican Party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points.
Steven Pearlstein writes a biting piece in the Washington Post on the politics behind these staged protests as well as ripping apart the many lies and fear tactics used by conservatives in blocking health reform.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress — I’ve made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.
Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.
[...]
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society — whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone’s Waterloo, let it be theirs.
The wingnut world is not a pretty place.
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I have to wonder if I missed something. I was a teenager/young adult during the 60′ and 70′s. We protested virtually everything. Almost daily, we were participating in a sit in, love in, smoke in, lay in, walk in, stand in, ride in (catch my drift) protest of some sort or another against some wrong or evil, real or perceived.
I have always understood Organized Protest was about as American as Mom or Apple Pie. When did Organized Protest become evil and Un-American?
Of course, I guess it could be based on who is protesting and what it is they are protesting against.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6YmhMXDQYs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNXmy0e5fc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv9xa-VxchM&feature=related
Not too surprised that fervent conservatives cannot admit that organized disruptions of public townhalls where the idea it to not let anyone speak is just wrong. You stupidly provide a link to some fool attempting to throw a pie at Ann Coulter as if to suggest that it is equivalent to what conservatives are doing at these townhall meetings. Your desperate attempt to justify republican’s actions is remarkable in its idiocy and makes them and you look that more pathetic.
@Hank
The protests in the 60′s and 70′s were funded largely by substances not corporations. Sure there were protests in the 60s and 70s. There have been protests throughout time and protests will continue over a variety of subject matter. Civil disobedience is one thing but political terrorism is another. I believe there was some of that in the 60s and 70s as well…
The protests described above are funded by organizations who are snake entwined with health insurance companies who fear change. The people they hire to disrupt event discussions are little more than thugs.
Blanca…I didn’t “stupidly” do anything. First, posting a video of Coulter dodging pies was a gift to people like…well…people like you.
I only wanted to confront you with your own hypocrisy and you have obliged me with success.
Hank, why are always arguing with everyone.
@Hank Answer this question if you will. Is the Coulter pie incident equivalent to the organized protests by conservatives at townhalls?
No, but the other videos were. And so were the protests staged at the republican national convention in St.Paul, Minnesota last year. Hey, maybe the repubs are finally learning something from the dems.
Obama’s gonna kill Grandma?
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/obama-wants-to-kill-your-grandma/
@Mike Licht
Obama’s gonna kill Grandma… oh no, I thought Reindeer already did that. Is he going after the Reindeer? What about Santa, is Santa safe?
http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2009/08/img/080709.jpg