The Teabagger Mentality
Were I J. Jonah Jameson, I might have titled this post “The Teabagger Menace”. Despite the fact that they claim to be, and are claimed to be, average Americans, these people are proving to be batshit crazy. They’ve been making ridiculous comments and holding up ridiculous signs since the beginning of their “movement”, but now they’re going too far.
This week, with the health care vote drawing near, the Teabaggers have been showing their true colors. On Tuesday, outside the offices of Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy in Columbus, OH, they were out in force to protest health reform. As exchanges with pro-health reformers got heated, some Teabaggers went so far as to mock a man with Parkinson’s disease. One Teabagger told the man, “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town,” in a tone of voice normally reserved for children. Another angrily threw money at the guy, while screaming things like, “No more handouts!” He was also holding a sign that read, “I Am AFP”, AFP being Americans for Prosperity.
AFP is a supposed grassroots organization that campaigns against health care reform. AFP President Tim Phillips was a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews, where Matthews asked him his thoughts on the behavior of the people at the Columbus rally. Phillips described it as “terrible”, “reprehensible”, and essentially against the “spirit” of the AFP’s position of protest. He was quick to point out that it was only a minority of protesters who were heckling the man with Parkinson’s, putting up a defense of the Teabaggers and their movement. He claimed the majority are civil and respectful.
Fast forward to Saturday. Teabaggers swarmed to Capitol Hill for another rally in a last-ditch effort to kill health reform. This rally was promoted by actor Jon Voight with a Call to Arms, where he declared,
Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.
Health care reform will destroy America, he says. So the Teabaggers packed up and went to the Capitol, where once again they proved that they are so not civil or respectful.
A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.
But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.
“I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus,” [said Clyburn.]
Add to that behavior the following sign which was spotted at the rally:
Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can.
So not only are they spitting on Senators and whipping out the n-word, they are also threatening gun violence.
I don’t care how often anyone claims these people are just normal Americans, or that only a minority of them are nutjobs. The fact remains that they are actively protesting an attempt to make sure Americans don’t have to live without health insurance, a bill that will provide health insurance to millions of Americans who don’t have it and, most importantly, will save lives. That fact alone tells me that they are already operating with a significant mental deficit. They’ve been swept up by Republican misinformation and lies and clearly don’t understand what they are protesting against. It’s been claimed that many of them are protesting simply out of a hatred of government, or because we have a black president. But whatever their reasons for being out there, they have shown time and again that they are loons. Now, they are dangerously close to crossing a line that no one should want them to cross.
I’ve seen several comparisons of this week’s protests to those of the 60s when the rednecks were out against Civil Rights reform. And that, it seems, is an apt comparison as these people are behaving like a bunch of ignorant rednecks. Here’s hoping that if the bill does pass this weekend, we won’t see any redneck rampages next week.
I think, like Obama, you have lost touch with America. At least you have the excuse of living in Korea. You already covered the fact that we say the majority of us are just average Americans who are civil and respectful and don’t advocate violence. This is true, but we will just have to agree to disagree. Here’s a site that shows pictures that are more representative: http://maroonedinmarin.blogspot.com/2010/03/rally-against-obamacare-in-dc-march-20.html
Significant mental deficit? Ignorant rednecks? Are you by any chance watching MSNBC? Do you know anything about the Constitution our country was founded on? Do you know anything about the economy or the level of debt the US has? Do you know what the assumptions are behind the CBO’s estimate of debt reduction? Has any government program successfully achieved what it set out to do on time and on budget? Do you think only Republican politicians lie and the Democrats are the party of peace and truth? Obama says he and the Dems know what’s best for the people so they have to pass it regardless of what their constituents say. And here I thought they were representatives of the people–silly me! Please look at this with an open mind and don’t buy their BS. And please don’t bring up President Bush–I didn’t like him either!
Heh, if everyone could spend a significant amount of time overseas, we wouldn’t be caught up in this sort of debate. The problem is that too many people in America never get out of their little bubbles. If they would get away from Fox news, open their ears and eyes to those beyond their little circle of like-minded associates, they’d see that it’s not Obama who’s out of touch.
Too many of the people at these demonstrations are ignorant. They have absolutely no idea what they are protesting against. They get out there and repeat the talking points: socialism, government take over, unconstitutional, no more handouts, and so on. Ask people to point out specific aspects of the bill that they are against, and they either can’t do it or what they do cite isn’t even in the bill (like the death panels people keep talking about). There’s a great video of a guy interviewing several different protesters at Saturday’s rally. These people are sadly misinformed. And, unfortunately, too many of them seem to be racist rednecks.
There’s a big difference between opposing health care reform on the facts and opposing it just because a bunch of talking heads say you ought to. There’s plenty in this bill that I don’t like and I think it doesn’t go far enough. For example, it doesn’t completely eliminate the overbearing influence of the insurance companies, nor does it provide a public option. In a perfect world, we’d have a single payer system like a number of other developed countries already do. But, what this bill does provide is better than nothing.
Three of the basic tenets of government are to provide for the safety, security and prosperity of its citizens. Health care is a big part of that. The rest of the developed world understands this and have done a good job of providing for their citizens. In America, we have the highest health care costs and the highest number of uninsured among developed nations. The system is broken. If people could stop being so damned selfish, we’d have so much more than we do now. Until people get it through their heads that taxes are an essential part of safety, security and prosperity, America will continue to decline and people will continue to be unhappy.
And for the record, America is not, and has never been, a direct Democracy. The government was founded as a (somewhat Democratic) Republic. We vote for representatives based on the alignment of their views with our own. It is then left to them to decide how to vote in Congress. We should not expect them to vote according to view of the majority of their constituents on every issue. That would defeat the purpose of representative government and be more akin to direct Democracy, something the founders worked hard to avoid. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.
Unfortunately, things have broken down along the way and we are stuck with a system where representatives vote along ideological, rather than practical, lines. The majority of voters naturally fall along the same ideological lines since there is no realistic alternative. In his farewell address, Washington warned of the dangers of political parties. This whole fracas over health care reform, something that in principle shouldn’t be an issue, shows how right he was.