We are witnessing something that is as American as apple pie despite the attempts of various media outlets to portray it otherwise. The event is the mass protests against a government run health care system. Yet some find these town hall protests, heated as they are, to be “un-American” That was the term used to describe the protesters by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
They stated this in an editorial in USA Today. They specifically stated the the drowning out of other voices in protest was un-American. This is laughable. One of the hallmarks of a healthy Republic is boisterous debate and not a little passionate shouting. One doubts the Speaker would find much appealing in the rhetoric of someone like, say Samuel Adams. The Revolutionary War leader was a master of both fomenting passions against the Crown and using reasoned legal arguments against an ever encroaching government. He was also not above shouting down any opposition to the ideals of liberty. I suppose Mr. Adams would be unwelcome at a Pelosi town hall meeting.
I also found it interesting that some of the leftist MSNBC hosts have more or less suggested that it is only health care and the “AstroTurf” protesters should just calm down and go away. I am quite certain that King George III and Lord North probably said to the colonists “its only taxes”.
A divide has been revealed in America this summer. There is a growing realization that the government is swollen with both debt and laws to an untenable size. As a country we cannot continue the unabated spending and borrowing as we have over the last 50 years. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty. Yet we now propose over a trillion in new health care spending on top of a Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security system that are virtually broke. Or national viability in the future depends on finding a way not to expand these government programs but to reduce them.
Yes I said reduce these entitlement programs. We must work to create a culture that is less dependent on government programs not more so. That is a real American solution. As much as possible these programs must be privatized. At the same time we must adopt a new (actually old) philosophy on the role of government. The Federal government of course will be of little help in this since it has no interest in reducing its own power base. It must come from the people and from a concerted efforts by the states to reclaim their constitutional powers that have been usurped by Washington.
Our children must learn this from us for no one else will teach them. Certainly not government school teachers. That is the one area the protesters at the town halls fail in. They do not advocate loudly enough for a real alternative to the continued grown of government and its intrusion into private life. They and we must loudly proclaim “NO MORE”.
Some may see this as utopian but I suppose the Founding Fathers were looked at the same way. When occasionally asked about future planning my advice is to plan for your life, retirement, and old age as if government did not exist. This is not only to prevent a catastrophe should entitlement programs fail but to create a culture that is able to adapt without directions from government. Most Americans today cannot imagine a world without entitlement programs but not so long ago they did not exist and yet our nation endured and prospered.
We must seek that again.
von Rum
The Daily Rum 