These are not good times in America but now, if you’re a taxpayer, you get to buy someone else a new car €“ and it probably won’t be a poor person who actually needs one.
Then there’s the glossy universal health care plan, which seems to be still in the research-and-development stage, that’s going to help us all stay well €“ if you can get an appointment and as along as the money lasts.
One of the latest story lines we’ve been seeing in the news is the bad blood over the healthcare proposals that’s erupted in town meetings across the nation, which has drawn sharp criticism from government leaders.
It appears that some of our leaders don’t appreciate debate when they’re trying to institute sweeping new government policies. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer last week accused those protesting the Obama Administration’s healthcare proposals at town halls nationwide as “simply un-American.”
Wisconsin Congressman Steve Kagen said residents attending a Green Bay town hall meeting were “uncivilized.” And Indiana Rep. Baron Hill said he wants to “control” his town halls: “What I don’t want to do is create an opportunity for the people who are political terrorists to blow up the meeting and not try to answer thoughtful questions.”
These are just a few congressional representatives, but when you’re trotting back to your home district for the August recess, touting what one critic has called “a $1.5 trillion monstrosity that threatens to ration health care into scarcity,” what can a legislator expect?
Our own Congressman Pete Defazio doesn’t even plan to visit Linn County during this congressional recess to hold town halls on current issues, which certainly would include healthcare €“ and likely plenty more. Judging by the rancor that arose in Grants Pass a couple of weeks ago at the town meeting there, his decision to limit his appearances may prove a wise one.
The fact is, our government in the United States is in the midst of an attempted transformation that, if it continues, will lead to increased federal control over our lives and increased dependency of citizens on services provided by agencies that have a dismal record of inefficiency and abuse. Think Social Security: If that were a private business enterprise, would we invest?
Government leaders, whether Democrat or Republican, have never been delighted to hear from the opposition. But when we start hearing words like “un-American” coming from the person third in line for the presidency because she doesn’t appreciate tough questions, one wonders what she might be inclined to do to stop the protests, if she could.
Most recently, media coverage has focused on the appearance of firearms at protests. When President Obama appeared in Phoenix earlier this week, news reports the Associated Press reported about a dozen people carrying weapons openly.
In Arizona it’s legal to carry a weapon, as long as it’s visible and you’re legally entitled to possess one.
It’s no secret that the Obama Administration’s and other leaders’ interpretation of what the Second Amendment means in today’s world differs from those who believe it was instituted to protect citizens from abusive government control.
The gun-toters are making that point, in a rather blunt fashion. That’s their right, under the First and Second Amendments, to make a statement in a legal way.
But restraint is sometimes wise. When those in power decide that constitutional lines have been breached, they impose restraints. That’s what one blogger in New Jersey has found out after he wrote on his blog in June that three federal appeals court judges “deserve to be killed” for their decision in a case involving ordinances banning handguns in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Ill. The three-judge panel declined to declare the ordinances unconstitutional, saying it was a decision that would have to be made by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The blogger, Hal Turner, 47, of North Bergen, N.J., who is also an Internet talk show host, called the judges “scum” and said “their blood will replenish the tree of liberty,” a phrase from Thomas Jefferson that has popped up frequently in recent months as more people have grown concerned about where our country appears to be heading.
Turner is being held without bail because his threats have been deemed a threat to the safety of the community after he posted the judges’ names, photographs, phone numbers, office address and room numbers, according to news reports.
In the interest of preserving the freedoms we enjoy, citizens need to speak up loudly and decisively. But doing so with dignity,
rather than hysteria, and with intelligence, will go a lot farther than bellicose ranting and insolence, because public opinion hangs in the balance.