Randy Wade is to be complimented as well; he arranged for security. There were actually idiots who brought guns (legally, it seems they had carry permits, but why did they feel they needed them?). Yes, you read that right, and Randy made them all check in with the Sheriff's Deputies on hand.
My Congressman allowed any doctor who wished to address the crowd to do so, and a wide range of physicians did so; unfortunately, only one, Dr. Jeff Warren spoke in favor of the public option. Steve, of course, supports the public option and said so. Him, I'm not worried about; it's the Blue Dogs who have sold their souls to healthcare companies (Yeah, I'm talking to you, Mike Ross, as well as Gordon, Tanner, and Cooper. Democrats, you are NOT as far as I'm concerned) who are pushing the White House and the leadership to back down on the public option. Bubba or no Bubba, I may stay away from Jackson Day so that I don't take a swing at one of these SOBs.
For more, my Flickr stream of photos with comments are here, and a great take from Steve Ross is here at Vibinc.
18 comments:
If you went to said meeting and "took a swing" at those whom you have just labelled "idiots," how would your words and actions be different than theirs? The problem is not the policy debate: we can have honest and vigorous disagreement about health care or any other issue. The problem, which if you actually did attend, label and swing, would only make worse, is a basic lack of civil discourse and common decency throughout our society. It also does no good, incidentally, to scream "well, they did it first!" or some other denunciatory phrase. These others will scream just as loudly and each of you will demonize and attempt to destroy their Adversary (capitalization intended). To scream, swing, demonize and label is simply to act like an 8 year old on the playground who reacted badly to not getting picked for the kickball team. That's not an effective way to pass a health care bill...or anything else for that matter.
John Farmer actually made a point to say on his blog that he wasn't taking his pistol.
To be fair, Cohen did present the other view which the leftwingcracker does not like. You liberals kill me! You only want free speech when you agree with what the others are saying.
You are no different than the neo-con jerks that took over the Republican party under Bush.
I am so glad I am not a stupid Democrat or Republican. Same hypocrites different name.
You are were against the war and when Obama got in you stand with your comrades, the neo-con chicken hawks and sound just like them.
When you educate yourself and truly study history and government, you grow up and become more Libertarian in thinking.
You poor twits. Your days are numbered.
It doesn't matter how much George Soros pays little whores like Jane or Joan Walsh and ACORN and SEIU to spread you racism and lies and violence.
You are 14% down in the polls in NJ and VA.
Soon we will make guillotines and have citizens tribunals. The loot you stole from the tax serfs will be stripped from you and returned to them. You will allbe exiled to Robert Gibb's Iran, where you can live with your President Elect Ahmadinajad.
You are fascist scum and ruling class tax predator parasites. Get out, whores!
Bruce, you are in the last throws of what used to be called conservatism, and your anger represents the fact that time, as well as common sense, are not on your side.
We WILL have national healthcare, we WILL have a better and fairer tax structure and, unless you make 250K or more, you WILL pay lower taxes, you, poor misguided fool.
Steve, don't take this the wrong way, but do you think you're garnering any credibility for yourself or your party with posts like this?
- There were actually idiots who brought guns (legally, it seems they had carry permits, but why did they feel they needed them?).
According to whom, I wonder? You don't cite any credible source for this claim. And giving you the benefit of the doubt, if these firearms were being carried legally, who cares? How paranoid does one have to be to worry about CCW holders actually doing what they’re background-checked, fingerprinted, photographed and licensed to do? CCW holders – if they carry at all – commonly carry everywhere they go. So it’s no surprise that they’d continue to do so at a public meeting like this. And since – according to you – they were given the Sheriff’s Deputies’ official Okey-Dokey, why are you frothing about it?
You rather cluelessly ask “why did they feel they needed them?” Is TN a "may issue" State? If not, then this question is irrelevant. Either way, I don’t know the chronology of this meeting and the one where the SEIU thugs were arrested, but if this one happened later, perhaps there’s an itsy-bitsy chance that these thoroughly vetted citizens believed there was a chance they’d be attacked and potentially hospitalized – the same way Kenneth Gladney was attacked and hospitalized – by SEIU members… All Gladney did was hand out a few out flags.
Just a thought.
Continueing, limply…
- My Congressman allowed any doctor who wished to address the crowd to do so, and a wide range of physicians did so; unfortunately, only one, Dr. Jeff Warren spoke in favor of the public option.
Gee, that must have been a genuine bummer Steve. First, law-abiding citizens are allowed to exercise their Constitutional Right to Bear Arms and next we have doctors actually speaking out AGAINST socialized medicine! Sounds like it was a real O-bummer.
- Steve, of course, supports the public option and said so. Him, I’m not worried about; it’s the Blue Dogs who have sold their souls … I may stay away from Jackson Day so that I don’t take a swing at one of these SOBs.
As we can plainly see, you seem to be the one with an anger management deficit Steve. Your first impulse is – surprise! – physical violence. Did you notice that? Hopefully you’ll maintain the self-control to stay home. Perhaps we should be notifying the authorities, however, just in case.
Have a nice day.
Oy.
Bruce, you're a fag.
Chris, what exactly is a "Libertarian" and what do you stand for?
Let's see...
http://www.lp.org/
Libertardians oppose health care for America's children.
Libertardians side with Republicans on health care.
Libertardians support bought and paid for traitors disrupting the efforts to insure America's kids.
Libertardians hate Sotomayor.....
I'll bet you'd like to shrink gov't 'til it's "small enough to drown in a bathtub".
Nice site. It confirms you're a bunch of Neo-Con losers.
LOL, the most insignificant political party in the nation.
goy...
"You rather cluelessly ask “why did they feel they needed them?” Is TN a "may issue" State? If not, then this question is irrelevant."
It's a good question. It's a well know fact that many "permit holders" are nothing but cowards who carry their manhood in a holster.
They brought guns because they were afraid that if they start shit they will get their yellow asses kicked like they did in Florida.
To intimidate or in cowardice. The only two possible reasons for one of these bought and paid for tea bag fags to bring a gun to such an event.
- To intimidate or in cowardice. The only two possible reasons for one of these bought and paid for tea bag fags to bring a gun to such an event.
Heh. Really? The only two? Wow. And "tea bag fags"? That was priceless. Can I quote you? Not only is that needlessly derisive, but homophobic as well. What it's not is surprising.
Enjoy your coming disappointment.
Steve,
Thanks for your summaries and pictures of Mr Cohen's town hall meeting on 8/8. I would like to let you and others know, I am absolutely for Healthcare reform. But as I am for single payor system and feel the current legislation does not go far enough, I had trouble knowing what I should say to facilitate the possibility of civil discussion with the crowd we had Saturday. I knew if I expressed my views too directly it would have just riled up the yellers, and not really gotten us any where.
Barbara Geater, MD
Once again, many of these comments do not offer any forms of raised and civil public conversation. They recite mantras, spew labels and accomplish nothing. The issue with health care reform--or any of the other concerns we must face squarely and honestly in the next decade--is the role of the central government within them. We must think about these issues and do so with as much clarity as we can bring to bear. Those are not simple concerns and cannot easily be reduced to the sort of bumper-sticker mentality that gave us both Brother Bill--God bless him--and his successor in the White House. "Hope," as per our current Chief Executive, is a slogan, not a series of public policies. "Change" sounds both good and anxiety-producing, but is not a bill coming out of a legislative Conference. Our politics do not, in short, lend themselves to complex discussions about how government should function and what its purpose needs to be. May I offer that we who spend time responding on this and other blogs do so with a basic acceptance that those with whom we disagree are neither "insane" nor "ill-informed" or needful of our "intervention." Let's begin with basic respect, OK?
Well, I agree that civility is indeed desired and that we need to have a real conversation about what we must have as a society and what we are willing to pay for as that society.
Having seen the protesters up close and personal at the town hall, I want to assure you that these people were not interested in having a civil conversation.
Calling Steve Cohen a liar when he provided answers to their questions does NOT engender a desire to talk civilly.
Simply put, they were there to disrupt and not discuss, shout down and not converse, intimidate and not dialogue. In that, they failed, fortunately.
I have conversations and discussions with Republicans and conservatives all the time, and we treat each other with respect.
However, when you have people whose only mission is to yell, disrupt (even when some of the doctors who spoke WERE ON THEIR SIDE, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES) and repeat Glenn beck talking points, there is no such thing as dialogue, as it takes two willing sides to have a conversation.
it's on them, not us. When they respond to me with respect, I shall respond in kind; if not, screw them.
"Screwing" them is not going to help your cause. You show them disrespect and it only feeds their view that, well, you don't respect their opinions, fears and anxieties. It is not easy to conduct the type of discourse our nation needs. Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich and Keith Olbermann do not help much either, calling one another liars, cynics and other assorted epithets. But that does not provide you and other advocates of universal or single-payer health care with the excuse to contemptuously dismiss those who disagree with you. "It," as you used that word, is not on them: it is on US, all of us who are Americans, who care about our fellow citizens and who have an investment in the our common national experience. If you don't like the way somenone is discussing an issue, YOU must show leadership through civility and decency. Even if that means walking away, YOU must present an alternative to what you so rightly decry.
If that's the case, then I will walk away from them, because it is pointless to have a discussion with someone who only wants to spit in your face and not listen to what you have to say.
So you really aren't interested in what anyone other than those who agree with you has to say. You have said in previous posts to "screw" them, "yell" at them and call them "idiots." You also have indicated in other ways that since your positions are the correct ones, you are not open to argument or evidence. You logically are saying that the conversations you have with Republicans or conservatives are only done from a type of noblese oblige obligation. No where in any of this have I read either you or your fellows make an argument for the place of the central government in health care reform or any other public policy issue. It seems easier to "yell," "scream" and call the opposing side "idiots." Is it any wonder why liberals such as I have examined and embraced other points of view? If liberalism wants to advance its agenda, it had first better make a cogent, rational argument why taking money from the economy that creates the jobs that produces the tax revenues which are necessary to pay for health care reform or cap and trade--which I favor, incidentally--or any other policy inaugurated from Washington will actually help the country and its people. I still have read nothing that convinces me--
Let's turn that spin around, shall we?
Let's see YOU make the feasible argument that the status quo is preferable to universal healthcare.
Let's see YOU make the argument for your cause, my readers know where I stand and why.
Your premise is that I somehow support the "status quo". I do not, but neither do I believe in the universal benvolence and policy-neutral efficiency of the central government. Those in government who will administer the public option or, if you eventually get your way, a single payer system, will automatically have a vested interest in how it's done just as much as insurance bureaucrats have in maintaining their company's share within the current system. To your second series of statements, here goes: how else can we pay for universal health care without an expanding economy that creates enough jobs to produce enough tax revenues that pays for a public option, single payer or any other program? We can, as we have been, borrowing from those democracy-loving, human rights advocates in Beijing until we run up even more trillions of dollars in debt. We can also print more money or even devalue the currency, but how will either of those options benefit the "least of these" your policies claim to champion? Do you honestly believe, in the most extreme example, that if the price of universal health care coverage is to effectively surrender ourselves to the Chinese, that it is worth paying?
If we, on the other hand, made insurance portable across state lines, provided sufficient tax breaks to the poor, lower and middle income people (which does not mean the usual GOP garbage of trickle-down or Bush's word slaughter of "compassionate conservatism") so that they could afford private coverage of their own choosing, in combination with significant tax incentives for businesses that provide adequate coverage--primary as well as hospitalization care plus a prescription policy--more people would naturally be able to obtain insurance. When the President yesterday indcated that a "group of experts" would make suggestions about how best to administer care--if I remember his words correctly and mea culpa if not--I grew concerned that yet another series of officials would inevitably start more than suggesting, especially when government money becomes involved. I am not saying such a slippery slops is inevitable, but it is more than likely and almost certainly lead to a warping of the goals your side wishes to advance. Now again, I ask you to make a cogent argument about the efficacy and superiority of the Federal Government in administering health care reform. I do appreciate, in any case, your respect for my view, even if you as well as I become heated on occassion.
Let's start with Medicare, if we can keep the gubmint's filthy hands out of it! :-)
While doctors will initially scream with a single-payer system, what it does is give the Americare system (as I would call it) leverage to negotiate with providers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to set the best possible price for all parties.
I also think that doctors could unionize under such a system to aid their cause for negotiation.
This would also remove the insurance companies, who spend more money attempting to deny claims to users than they would spend if they just paid the claims up front.
Will there be fraud? probably, just on sheer volume, but no more or less than what you have now.
In short, the healthcare system problems will not be solved by attacking the users, but by providing the most streamlined and efficient system possible.
Social Security works. Medicare works. it's as simple as that.
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