The reason that the town (brawl) hall meetings are getting out of hand is because most people have long ago forgotten how to actually form their own opinions and express them and have instead, over time, been trained to simply repeat, mindlessly, the soundbites they hear on talk (hate) radio and Fox news.
I want my America back!
I want the America that our founding fathers envisioned!
I want Government to stay out of my business!
I want Government to stay out of my life!
I really want you to just shut up! (OK, that one is mine.)
What do these people mean?? They truly have no idea, but they heard it and it sounds good.
Does it actually makes sense? Well of course not. Do they want the America where women could not vote; when men were beaten by management thugs because they went on strike; when there were no laws protecting consumers; and on, and on, and on.
So, when you hear some people say that these town hall disrupters are un-american, maybe take a moment and think about it, and dont immediatly bring up the first amendment thing. (the first amendment is that freedom of speech thing....)
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linomartinez I agree with
linomartinez
I agree with citizen k that the people who don't want govt health care don't know what they are talking about.Medicare is a govt health program and everyone on it simply loves it. If you told them the Democrats would abolish Medicare,they would raise the roof with their protests'
These views expressed by some protesters at the health care town hall forums are by those people paid by the insurance companies or are people who have had their brains cooked by listening to hate radio as broadcast by Rush (Oxycontin) Limbaugh and others of the Republican Ultra Right Wing,linomartinez
I am simply talking about
I am simply talking about tactics, nothing more. The tactics that I discuss in my post are not debates or expressions of opinions.
I would love to hear actual arguments regarding health care reform. Simply being against healthcare reform, without articulating an actual reason, is no better than shouting nonesense at a town hall meeting.
So the challenge is; set out an argument(s).
You're saying that these
You're saying that these people don't know what they are saying when they call for the government to stay out of their lives. That they are simply regurgitating some slogan that is meaningless unless expounded upon. Well, what about Franklin's "Join or Die" or Lincoln's "United We Stand"? Did those need to be explained?
This government signed the largest check in human history without reading the (stimulus) bill and then attempted to do the same thing with healthcare. That's healthcare, not our library memberships, our healthcare! I'm not sure how much explanation is needed for slogans which call for smaller government, especially with a Congress which continually reminds us just how imprudent they can be.
As someone who opposes
As someone who opposes universal healthcare, I find this strategy being used by Citizen Kane and other Dems to be quite offensive. Telling opponents to shut up, telling them that they are incapable of forming meaningful opinions, and calling them un-American are all things that quickly make your opinions unworthy of an audience. The intolerance in these statements could be made no more evident, short of calling for the genocide of Republicans and anyone else who opposes healtchare. This is nothing more than a pathetic rant against the very notion that someone might have views which oppose your own.
Citizen Kane, it is pretty obvious that you don't debate very much. Clearly you're only able to share these rants with those of similar views. No one with an opposing views would dignify comments like these with a response. The only reason I'm spending any time on this is for you and the rest of your healthcare buddies to recognize why the rest of us are so mad. We're tired of being told that our opinions are meaningless.