It's Tea Time

It's a crazy time in the good ol' US of A. Policies being talked about now in the realm of healthcare reform will have a huge impact on our lives, and there's certainly not a shortage of opinions on the subject.

What's got to me in this whole thing however, is the response to these town hall meetings. The main question I have is the following:

At what point are protesters real people trying to voice their opinion vs. "staged" people, and who exactly is qualified to make that distinction?

That's the problem here, and make no mistake: it's a huge one.

For me it's fairly simple. If I look at social organization on the "right" side of things, it's nearly non-existent. On the left, however, the influence of the various labor unions is quite obvious. Those who are in unions know that they tend to lean a certain way and are not shy about it. The "left" also seems to do much better organizing major events online.

The reasons for why they are more successful are not important, the fact that they are is. Think about the publicized war protests, or like mentioned earlier, the union "advertising" for their candidates or policies they want passed. These are events that truly are organized by one group or another. Have you seen video of these town halls? I doubt very highly that some of the elderly folk I've seen yelling at their congressmen were online a few nights before organizing the event in some underground forum. If these things are being organized, on such a grand scale that the entire nation is being swept by them, where is the rally point? Where is the web site, the leaflet, the organization behind it all?

My fear here is that we are, in some roundabout way, losing our freedom of speech. Not so much in that we are losing the ability to say what's on our minds, but that we are giving our elected officials the rationale to ignore it. I for one am grateful that there are men and women in this country young and old who are passionate about this topic. It would be wrong if it were any other way, just as it would be wrong if any war were fought without questions and doubt from segments within society.

So I say to these citizens in the town hall meetings across the US: keep it up. Don't let off the gas for even a second. If this legislation passes in the wake of the public furor, at least you will be able to look back and know it was not for lack of effort. It will shine brightly as a beacon, illuminating the truth: Our elected officials care naught for the opinions of the everyday man or woman. Then, and only then, might that light lead the way to the things which Obama himself promised but has failed to deliver: Hope and Change.