I went to a MoveOn sponsored Health Care vigil tonight in Providence, RI. There were about 200 people there to support the cause and about 20 or so people there who were in opposition to . . . well, pretty much the entire government apparatus. I promised myself I wasn’t going to engage with people that would get my blood-pressure raised, but I couldn’t help myself. For the most part, they were civil in one-on-one discussions (though not always) and while they did attempt to disrupt a couple of portions of the actual event, they weren’t crazed and rabid.
My engagement with them was fruitless, but I kept calm and we were all cordial (again, for the most part). On my way back, I came up with these questions, some of which I asked and some I didn’t.
If you care so much about the Constitution, I assume you are a card-carrying member of the ACLU and support their efforts to fight illegal wire-tapping and bring to light the un-Constitutional acts of the Bush Administration. Oh, you aren’t and you don’t?
If you care so deeply about the National Debt, I assume you have voted for Democrat presidents for the past several decades since the debt always grows considerably more under a Republican president. Oh, you haven’t?
If a single-payer, cradle-to-grave health care system is so fundamentally awful and unsustainable, then you must believe that there is a massive world-wide conspiracy of people from other countries who are entirely miserable and unhappy with their health care, but who have all decided to lie about the benefits of single-payer systems. Oh, you do believe in a world-wide conspiracy?
Will you promise to never accept Medicare or Medicaid since they are government run programs and thus evil and designed to strip us off all our rights as Americans? Oh, you won’t?
Do you believe that the proper response to governmental policies with which you disagree is to a) work diligently to elect new congress-members who will be more in line with your beliefs, b) secede from the country, c) threaten to kill elected officials if they don’t respond to your temper tantrums immediately, or d) go on TV and spout insane conspiracy theory, lies, and race-bait like mad until you whip up enough anger and resentment and hatred and fear to disrupt any semblance of rational discourse, thereby short-circuiting the democratic process that you claim to love so very very much? No, I’m sorry, there is only one correct answer.
If Government is corrupt because of greed and money and power, how exactly is a Free Market free of those same corrupting influences?
Since you believe that Government should stay out of our health care choices, then you obviously believe the the Pro-Choice platform that allows women the right of self-determination over her own body. Oh, you don’t?
Why are you yelling?
Why do you need to call names?
What are you, two-and-a-half years old?
Cross-posted at DailyKos