Friday, August 7, 2009

Stay classy, health care protesters

You know how you can tell a story is going to end well? When the phrases "inspired by Glen Beck" and "some protesters carried racist caricatures of President Obama" are involved. Yes, the "spontaneous grassroots movement" known as the health care opposition, spurred on by Fox News, Glen Beck, and Republican party mailers, stormed a town hall and started getting violent.
Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.

Angry protesters screamed, yelled and banged on windows as officers hurried to guard the entrances to the facility, where U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor was trying to discuss the various health care reform proposals being debated in Congress. One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.
You gotta love people who scream "Tyranny!" as they're trying to drown out a free discussion of ideas with their hooting, hollering, "Forty million illegals" chants, and low level rioting. At least they were offering up pearls of wisdom like "They can't even run a meeting, and they want to run health care?''. Well I don't know, can a public option be disrupted by a couple hundred jerkoffs with racist placards? I think the fact that it can't is one of the ticks in the 'pro' column.

Another moment of unintended hilarity was when they decided to yell at Rep. Castor to "Read the bill!", something assuredly none of them had done. I mean this is a group of people who believe the bill will require near mandatory euthanasia of the elderly, will allow the government to get its damn hands on Medicare, and that a public option equals a complete government takeover of health care. Hey, they're even lying about who they are and what they represent. But I guess lies, paranoia, and the desire to stamp out and disrupt any attempt at rational debate are the hallmarks of an intellectual movement based on actual thought and actual anger over something. It's definately not phony bullshit. I look forward to another couple dozen of these sometimes violent, mob rule, town hall takeovers that are completely spontaneous and don't seem to follow an exactly similar pattern of behavior every single time.

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