Professional Democrats and freelance liberals haven’t exactly been smooth in how they’ve handled the town hall critics, have they? The Democratic National Committee, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Obama White House, has referred to the protesters, many of them senior citizens, as “angry mobs.” Nancy Pelosi implied some of them were Nazis because a few carried swastikas into the meeting. She apparently “forgot” to mention that the swastikas had a line going through them indicating the critics were against that kind of thing not for it. Harry Reid said they were “evil mongers,” and Chris Mathews said some of the protesters “are upset because we have a black president.” And if that wasn’t enough, others on the Left called them “terrorists.” And because liberals didn’t want to believe the anger against overhauling our health care system could possibly be a genuine grassroots campaign, they dismissed the movement as “AstroTurf” – make-believe grass — and said the anger was either “orchestrated” or “manufactured,” whichever cheap shot you prefer.
So much for that liberal Democratic mantra repeated often during the Bush years about how dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Suddenly dissent is racism and terrorism. Besides, it’s just not good strategy to malign the protesters. The polls are showing that more Americans side with them than disagree with them. And don’t forget, more than a few of the protestors are Democrats themselves. They’ll remember what they were called and how they were portrayed next time they go to the polls. You know what they say about payback being a you-know-what.
And then there’s the matter of rank hypocrisy. These same lefties who are in a tizzy over old people who carry canes and wear Depends getting rowdy at town hall meetings, have encouraged their own crazies to do the exact same thing. Can you say ActUp … Code Pink …ANSWER … and ACORN? These are organizations whose members think they have a constitutional right to shout down conservative speakers — or throw pies in their face.
But liberals don’t have a monopoly on hypocrisy. Conservatives, especially the ones with great big megaphones who talk to millions on radio and cable TV, are downright gleeful at what they’re watching at the town hall meetings. Suddenly, rude, dopey protesters who shout down speakers they don’t like are national heroes.
Why? Well, conservatives legitimately say “the other side started it” referring to all the times liberals disrupted meetings and walked away with a slap on the wrist, if that. But there’s another reason. The sad truth is that more than a few conservatives in the chattering class suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome. So anyone who yells and screams and drowns out Obamacare supporters at the town halls are simply doing the “right thing,” fighting the “good fight.”
I am one of those conservatives who for years have railed against liberals on college campuses who shout down speakers they don’t like. I thought the left-wingers at Columbia who disrupted a speech by the leader of the anti-illegal immigration Minutemen should have been thrown out of school. Students who don’t like Ann Coulter simply shout her down — or throw pies at her. The problem with those kind of liberals is that they have forgotten how to be liberal. Conservatives have decried the mob mentality of these leftists. We’re the ones who have called them Brown Shirts – and for good reason.
So tell me: What are the conservatives on talk radio and cable television going to say the next time those liberals shout down a conservative speaker? What will they say when liberal activists disrupt congressional hearings – as Code Pink has done – because they don’t like what they’re hearing? How will they answer when asked about their double standard and their hypocrisy? Responding with, “Yeah, but they’re OUR hooligans” just won’t cut it.
This we can be sure of: Liberal activists, on and off campus, will be back to their old tricks soon enough. They will shout down speakers and disrupt meetings – and they won’t even notice their own intolerance. But be assured of this, too: It’s going to be awfully difficult for conservatives to say the hooligans are out of line and not look like two-faced hypocrites - not after they applaud the protesters on their team who do the exact same thing.
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A short note:
At a number of these town meetings, the conservatives sat and waited their turn as the congressmen spoke about everything BUT health care. They were ignored, derided and discounted. (At one, the meeting was actually adjourned without them getting to express their opinions!) Only then did they, out of deep frustration, react with rudeness.
No, I won’t defend rudeness, but I will provide the context that makes it more understandable, even predictable…
Healthcare: The Question no one has asked.
Is the Fed, State, County, Towns, Employees going to be forced on to the Public health plan????
This should save the Public and Union Budgets a ton off money, is this why they want this?
Why would they pay for private insurance if they can put it toward a public healthcare?
Wouldn’t think they could make the money go farther to help the uninsured.
What we have in this country is not enough money for all the budgets?????
They all will save a ton of money putting there employees on the public plan??????
School Districts, all Unions across the country will they be also forced to the public option too or are they going willingly?????
The irony of the whole deal is the majority of public employees and unions voted for change, (because they were told to)
And I believe if they all find out that this might be the change they voted for, the outrage would cause a full blown Revolution.
I am sure that Public and union employees think that they are safe because they are public, but in fact are the most vulnerable.
I think in the next election we will see a record change in to the parties for the better, change we really need, out with the old and in with the new.
Before the 2008 Election I told the Obamakins
If you want change there Underwear we will be all better off.
I am a small business owner and pay my insurance every month. If people are forced to go
On to the Public option when they originally were paying into private insurance, that means that
My insurance rate will probably triple because the insurance companies will not be receiving the
Revenue as they once did from the other groups (county, state, school, and town’s employees)???
And we will all be on the public option as what they want.
More control of our life is how the Dems want it us.
We are in an ObamaNation and need to have better change, help me tell Americans that this might happen to them.
My Family Infected by this.
I want to know about who will be affected????
My brother in-law is a state policeman.
My father in-law is a retired postman he is 59.
My mom worked for the county mental health she is 58.
My wife works for the school district.
My dad was a retired union worker under 60.
In my mind what I see is the Public and Union bodies putting there employees as part of the public healthcare system before anyone.
My question is, is this facts or is this about the people who don’t already have insurance.
I see my insurance bill going up, why to make up the lack of funds need to fund the private healthcare providers.
If all public bodies cut there healthcare out of there budget wouldn’t that give them more money to fund other projects?????????
Is this really what it is about??????????
I do see one difference in a town hall meeting and a speech. If someone is giving a speech you are there to listen, not to shout them down and disrupt it. But a town hall meeting is supposed to be about dialogue, give and take. The representatives of our government are supposed to be there to here what we think. So while shouting others down at the meeting is wrong, everyone should get their turn to speak, expressing outrage and anger in a forum where your feelings on a subject are supposed to be encouraged is within the parameters of acceptability.
Bernie,
I would add to the list of “deeds” perpetrated by the far-left the plants they sent to infiltrate the Republican National Convention. Remember how strategically placed plants would disrupt a speech by shouting, only to be physically carried out by the security detail? I remember shaking my head and thinking that this is exactly the playbook of the German brownshirts and Russian communists. I could not believe that this was happening in America.
Now, a few years later, we here the same shouting down and name-caling from the members of congress. Democracts have not only failed to alineate themselves from the extremists — they appear to be increasingly adopting their tactics.
I am retired U.S. Army(24yrs) and I have a B.A.,with 1year towards a masters. As I was told as a young troop, and as I later told my troops when I was a leader, that we wear the uniform to defend the right of Americans to say whatever theyhave on their mind, good, bad, or downright stupid. I agree with Mr. Goldberg in that if you don’t agree with what the yo-yo on the podium is saying, fine, don’t agree with him. Disagreement however, does not mean that the speaker can be shouted down or insulted or otherwise interferd with if they are speaking at a public forum. I am furious when the left disrupts events by Conservative speakers. I am even more furious when Conservatives do the same thing to speakers from the left. Because they are acting like ill-mannered, barely housebroken semi-civilised barbarians does not mean that we have the right to return the favor. Dealing with the hypocricy, I’ve found, is best done one-on-one. I’ve been reimding this young Obama supporter that dissent is still patriotic even when it comes from conservative mouths. One at a time.
The conservatives are alot tamer than the liberals have EVER been at protesting. Maybe it’s the years of the scornful treatment that the right has endured at these looney toon lefties hands(like Sarah Palin, like Christians, etc.)..
I know that I have had it and I’m not taking it anymore.
It is quite obvious you’re well educated, you have written books that show a clear outline from your perspective that is unfolding before us. Your satire and opinion is unique and sometimes I wonder which side you’re ultimately on. During an interview on The O’Reilly Factor you said: “Let me start out though Bill by offending half of the people watching … the ones that think that ‘anything goes’ at town hall meetings, I want people to understand: I am against the jerks who shout down speakers they disagree with, I am against people who bring guns to town hall meetings, I am against comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, or his health health care policies to fascism… as several people on this network routinely do, and I am against a general philosophy which made sense when Thomas Jefferson said it- that says: ‘we have to have blood in the streets … and kill off the tyrants.’”
My question to you sir, is this:
Where are you going to be when the hammer comes down? When these ‘angry mobs’ everyone keeps talking about- really do come out and storm the streets and use their Constitutional Rights … Are you going to be with them or against them?
The Two Faces of Hypocrisy,
is a clear work, however I can’t agree on the idea liberals that are there with the conservatives at the town halls as you have mentioned, both against the same, both doing the same are calling each other hypocrites or that one or the other is in danger of being two-faced hypocrites. Its odd to say that people that agree are hypocrites when act the same way for a single reason ?. If liberals and conservatives feel the same way on something, and show the same reaction(s), there is a common point they are making about what may happen to them as collective Americans. I see the hypocrisy does not exists when people stand together, liberals and conservatives in this case. Those liberals and conservatives calling the alarm about the other side, are those that do not share in common the others, liberals and conservatives together, feelings or reactions, and noone is a hypocrite.
Excellent piece. And you are right.
I think what we’re seeing on the news is only a small part of the town halls. The media are waiting until tempers bubble over and then that’s the footage they use.
At least no one’s throwing anything. Food fights are all well and good, but they should take place among friends, not as a way to intimidate or humiliate someone.
Mr. Goldberg–
I feel the anger in the public at large is in large part fueled by the feeling that the press is not representing their interests. In other words, most people now feel that they cannot get the truth by watching the nightly news. With no checks and balances on this White House, it is the people who are holding them to explain themselves, although I wonder if the arrogance of power has rendered this current administration incapable of understanding from whom they in fact have derived this power.
On another note, is anyone else afraid that the Dems in Montana have been solicited by the White House to turn over the names of those who have legitimately written crazy or racist letters to them so they can “randomly invite” them to conveniently be there tonight? Nothing would thrill this White House more, I fear, then to discredit the ire of real Americans by planting a lunatic so they could say…see there, just racists and crazies…..
Bernie,
What is your take on the current Boycott of Glenn Beck show? Is the First Amendment is only a liberal right?
A boycott has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Glenn Beck has a constitutional right to voice his opinion, just like everyone else has the constitutional right not to listen.
If the government endorses that boycott, that’s a different story altogether.
I wonder if someone in the media could take one or more of these issues and make it into a documentary where the members of our current administration could be substitued with those of the founding fathers. Let see how moronic and childish it would appear in the light of day to have those we most respected try to explain all of the tyranny and socialistic programs and solutions we are now facing! I wonder if our current administration would get the picture be they democrat or republican.
I figured out during the election that both side from which the media allows us to choose are hypocrites. That’s when I started taking minor parties seriously.