"I happen to believe in the people and believe that the people are supposed to be dominant in our society. That they, not government, are to have control of their own affairs to the greatest extent possible with an orderly society." - Ronald Reagan

Strange times…

Posted: August 4th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

I never thought I would see the day where left wing sites would cite difficulty organizing people to counter conservative protesters. Let’s face it, the right has always had an activist gap. Not only do we skew older, which tends to mute passions, but as a group we tend to regard politics as an unpleasant distraction rather than a means to an end.

Perhaps more interesting than the late rise of conservative activism is the liberal reaction. This particular piece at FireDogLake goes as far as characterizing Republican participation in health care “town hall” meetings as “one step short of angry brown shirt mobs physically threatening and beating people”.

Watching the videos I see some people being rambunctious, perhaps even obnoxious, but “sheer thuggery”? At worst the videos circulating show a lack of decorum. I think our legislators can weather a few boisterous and resolved constituents.

Now it seems the White House has gone on record with the accusation that conservative groups are “manufacturing” anger, with vague allusions to nefarious forces behind the scenes.

I suppose honest answers to legitimate concerns is too much to ask for.


2 Comments on “Strange times…”

  1. #1 mberg said at 09:05 pm on August 10th, 2009:

    The Right Princples PAC took in a whopping five grand last year. They also have a Twitter feed with 77 followers and a Facebook page with 285 followers, and those numbers were far lower before the left wing blogs started flogging that memo. Painting them as a major influence on the current activism is pretty laughable.

    Honestly, I think a lot of the protests are excessive, but they are fairly tame compared to the protests we’ve seen over the past eight years. And they are countered by very well financed groups – Organizing from America, which has a mailing list of millions and the direct backing of the president; Health Care for American Now, which reportedly got a five million dollar pledge from George Soros; the SEIU which boast membership in the millions and had at least one local urge it’s member to”come out in strong numbers to drown out their [oppenents of reform] voices.”; PhRMA, which ironically is often said to be in bed with Republicans, recently pledged $150 million in pro-reform advertisements.

    In the end, most of the anger is that the administration tried pushing a vote before the August recess. What chance did that allow for anyone’s voice to be heard?

  2. #2 mberg said at 08:51 pm on August 12th, 2009:

    That might be a compelling argument if the bill actually insured anyone in the short term. Most of the provisions wouldn’t take effect for months or years. The taxes, however, would be immediate.

    It might also be compelling if the only options were to leave people to die in the street or pass a massive transformation bill that nobody has read because it doesn’t exist in any final form yet. We already passed emergency legislation providing subsidies for workers to continue their coverage under CORBA on top of expanding unemployment benefits at both the state and federal levels.

    Your conjecture that most people opposing the legislation doesn’t really warrant a response, but your impression that most Americans are in favour of the proposed reforms is somewhat dated. Zogby pegged opposition at 50-42, Quinnipac got 52-39 last week and Rasmussen showed a decline yesterday to 53-42 from 49-47 in their previous survey.

    Support for reform is strong. Support for this reform isn’t.


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