Reaching the boiling point

From Tampa Bay Online:

What was intended to be a town hall discussion on President Barack Obama's health care reform proposal dissolved into a shouting match with shoving and scuffles in Ybor City tonight.

The event brought home to Tampa the recent phenomenon of angry opponents of Obama's proposal disrupting town hall meetings by Democratic members of Congress during the August recess.

This meeting was organized by Democratic state Rep. Betty Reed but was to include comments on the proposal by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a strong supporter.

Castor tried to speak for nearly 15 minutes but the crowd drowned her out, chanting, "You work for us,'' "Tyranny, tyranny,'' and "Read the bill." She ultimately left the meeting early, further angering some attendees.

Why should one sit in silence and listen to someone spout what you know to be lies? Why should an elected official, someone who is not a master of the people but a servant - like the people who mop the floor and clean the toilets - expect to be treated with respect when they stand up to knowingly and maliciously lie to the people they are supposed to work for?

These Democrats who are going out to try and convince their constituents to support their party's socialized health care scheme are attempting to convince the citizens of this nation to accept much lower quality health care which will cost them much more money in the long run and which will enslave them and their children in chains of dependence to a federal government which will have become much more powerful and much less responsible to and responsive of the people. And those politicians know that this is what they are doing.

If they truly believe that the new Marxist health care system they are attempting to build for the citizens of this nation is better than what we have now then why have they exempted themselves and their families from that new system?

You do know that they have built into the legislation an exemption for themselves, don't you? They will not have to go the the same filthy overcrowded clinics and wait in line for hours and hours and hours to see a doctor like the rest of us will. They will not have to spend years on waiting lists for surgery, sometimes living in agony and sometimes dying for lack of treatment, like people in Europe and Canada do. They will not be told that the drugs they need are too expensive. They will not be told that they are too old to make treating them "cost effective". They will not be told that they are too fat or have smoked too much or drank too much to deserve treatment.

But the rest of us will.

Friends, the fact that they have exempted themselves from the system they are trying to impose upon the rest of us proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that they know EXACTLY what they are trying to do to the rest of us!

The fact that they do know exactly what they are trying to ram down our throats and will stand up and lie to our faces about it forever removes any obligation to treat these scumbags with any shred of respect or even civility. They deserve nothing from us but absolute and perfect contempt! They have made themselves the enemies of the American people and they deserve to be treated like it.

And I am profoundly glad to see huge numbers of my fellow citizens coming to agree with me.

The problems began when a crowd of around 500, many of them recruited to attend by interest groups both for and against the proposal, sought to enter the meeting room. The room, in the offices of the Hillsborough County Children's Board on East Palm Avenue, has a capacity of only about 250.

Several hundred people, mostly opponents, wound up outside or packing a hallway leading into the meeting room. Some scuffled with members of the sponsoring groups who manned the doorway.

One man who said he was injured and intended to file a police complaint, Randy Arthur of Oldsmar, was outside the meeting room with his wife, Kathy Arthur, when organizers tried to close the doors.

She said he was slammed against a wall. He later talked to police officers, his knit shirt ripped and a few scratches visible on his chest.

Among the crowd outside, opponents and a smaller number of proponents got into occasional shouting matches.

After trying to speak, Castor left at about 6:40 p.m., taking jeers as she left.

"They're hiding from their constituents. She works for us and needs to listen,'' said Karen Jaroch, a Tampa homemaker and organizer for the 9-12 Project, set up by TV commentator Glenn Beck, which had recruited its members to attend.

These people, who in their own minds hold a place closer to medieval aristocracy than public employees, are simply unused to being held to account for their actions. It angers and frightens them and their first impulse is to do what some 12th century baron would do and have the ungrateful serfs flogged.

Castor spokeswoman Ellen Gedalius said Castor left because her part of the event was finished.

"We said all along our role was to come and give an update on the bill in Congress,'' Gedalius said, noting that Reed, not Castor, organized and sponsored the meeting. "That's what Betty Reed asked us to do … and that's what we did.''

But Reed said afterward that she encouraged Castor to leave because, "She couldn't get a word through."

Gedalius noted that Castor will have a town hall meeting by telephone on Aug. 13 and that her office has been receiving hundreds of comments on the health care issue.

The meeting was organized by Reed plus the Service Employees International Union, other unions and Organizing for America, a liberal group that grew out of the Obama presidential campaign.

SEIU is a union which violates the law by using member dues for political activities and Organizing for America is an Obama Marxist front organization. Two ultra-left organizations attempt to pack the meeting (one breaking federal law to do so) and yet it is the opponents of the legislation who are accused of "astroturfing".

Some opponents accused the organizers of trying to stack the crowd by allowing early admission to those on their side. Reed denied that, saying those admitted early were organizers setting up the room.

In any case, opponents appeared to outnumber proponents both inside and outside.

Of course they did, all you have to do is check the polls to see that those who are protesting this socialist boondoggle are representing the majority of the people.

After doors to the meeting room closed, some of those outside crowded around the windows of the meeting room, where they held up signs and chanted.

In the last week or so, similar disruptive protests have erupted at town hall meetings in several states.

Democrats, including White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, have said the disruptions were organized attacks aimed at Democrats by conservative, anti-health care reform interest groups. Several protestors at Thursday's meeting in Tampa angrily rejected that contention.

Castor's staff said Reed planned the meeting and invited Castor before the controversy became so heated.

Reed said she set up the meeting because, "I represent a number of people who ask questions about what's going on with health care, so I thought it would be good to put on a meeting and have the congresswoman come in and give an update."

Reed said she was shocked by the number of people who turned out and some of their reactions.

"When you get to the point of possible violence, you've gone over the edge," she said.

When politicians reach the point where they have driven law abiding and patriotic citizens to the point of possible violence THEY have gone over the edge!

In a news conference prior to the town hall, Castor had said, "I do expect some rabble-rousing."

She said the protesters who have been appearing at town hall forums on health care "would have been protesting Medicare … they would never have accepted Social Security."

Medicare and Social Security - two massively expensive federal government programs which the federal government has mismanaged and are now all but bankrupt. They represent tens of trillions of dollars worth of liabilities which the government has no means to pay for. Americans have paid into a system which was supposed to create accounts to fund retirement income and health care in their old age but congress has looted the trust funds in order to pay for vote buying pork projects and now that the Baby Boom generation is nearing retirement age the entire system is threatening to collapse.

This should be all the American people need to consider when contemplating whether the government should be entrusted to take over the nation's health care industry. We are talking about one seventh of the American economy. Do we really want to turn it over to a bureaucracy which will have all the compassion of the IRS, all the customer service skills of the DMV and the fiscal responsibility of, well the federal government (the only entity in the world ever to pay $600.00 for a plastic toilet seat)?

Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said the department was told a couple hundred people would show up and sent a squad of 10-15 officers, two marked cars, two supervisors and some undercover officers.

As the crowd grew, more were brought in – mainly for traffic control, she said, but they also broke up some scuffles.

She said no arrests were made.

All in all very instructive in helping us understand the amount of anger this attempt to royally screw over the American people in generating.

It also gives us a foretaste of what the left will do to support Comrade Obama in his efforts to turn the US into the new Cuba.

Expect criminal organizations like ACORN and the New Black Panther Party (as well as some labor unions) to start bringing in thugs to intimidate and even attack protesters at these meetings (think Hitler's SA attacking rival political party's meetings). Of course the mainstream media will spin this as peaceful pro-health care reformers defending themselves against attacks by right-wing neo-Nazis.

Remember this is all to the good. The public has Obama's measure now and the time when he was trusted is rapidly vanishing in the rear view mirror. The more he works for this the less people are going to like it and the less they are going to like anything else Obama advocates in the future.

Obama is locking himself into being a one-term president and Nancy Pelosi is handing congress back to the GOP in 2010. Hell, even Harry Reid looks to be defeated in his bid for reelection next year.

I made the point last year that sometimes it takes a Jimmy Carter to make the nation ready for a Ronald Reagan. Well the GOP has three Reagans waiting in the wings. Palin, Perry and Jindal are all capable of doing the jog and indications are that any of them would be willing to step up.