Hopefully now that the debate over health care reform is winding down, some small semblance of respect and civility can return to the American political process.
The chances of that happening completely are slim, but the least we can hope for is a dissolving of the racist imagery and hurtful and inappropriate words the Tea Party used in the anti-government/anti-health care protests last summer will cease to exist.
While it is great that Americans have the right to free speech, there are times when the idea of free speech gets distorted into something it is not.
Last Saturday’s protests on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on the eve of the health care vote in the U.S. House exemplify this distortion vividly.
So long as those anti-health care protestors had the correct permits to protest outside the Capitol, which they seemingly did, they had every right to be there and to let their voices be heard.
What was not part of the permit they received from the city was the right to spit on members of Congress, yell racial epithets at them, call them “faggots” or physically push them as they passed by the protestors.
According to accounts from various news organizations, Capitol Hill staffers and members of Congress, all of those things happened.
On their own, those actions are despicable and unacceptable, but when one takes into consideration that Republican members of the U.S. House were actually there at the protests makings speeches, it really reaches another level of absurdity.
As if that were not enough, not a single Republican there (or not there) has yet to come out and apologize or denounce the behavior of their supporters.
The least they could do is make a private apology to Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights pioneer and a man who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Congressman Lewis was spit upon and called the N-word numerous times as he passed by the Tea Party protestors on Saturday afternoon.
So far, there is no word of a private apology.
The actions of the anti-health care protestors were just plain unacceptable.
The fact that in the year 2010 these kinds of things still happen just goes to show how little many Americans have learned from the past and how far we still have to go.
After Obama’s election, television pundits across the land started to talk about how America is now some sort of post-racial, colorblind country and just how incredible it is that a black man could be elected president.
Unfortunately, that whole “post-racial America” thing was a bunch of baloney and was never really the case.
Nothing has made this clearer than the actions of the Tea Party protestors over the past eight months or so.
Calling your president a socialist, fascist, communist, anti-American, Muslim-terrorist and Kenyan-Nazi is really nothing of which to be proud. Bringing guns to protests, yelling racial and homosexual slurs at members of Congress, and then spitting on and pushing our elected officials is nothing to go around celebrating about either.
In some parts of the media and in certain political circles, these protesters continue to be touted as some sort of “freedom-loving patriots.”
This needs to stop and they need to be called what they really are: ignorant, pathetic and embarrassing.
There is simply no place for these kinds of actions and behaviors in a civilized society.
Even in protests, a line needs to be drawn, and in the case of these most recent anti-health care reform protests, that line has been crossed and this nation is worse off for it.
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This one has received a lot of attention and a lot of nasty comments on The Blue Banner's page. Not entirely surprising. As they say, it's not journalism if somebody's not pissed off. Or at least that's what they say about editorials.
Democratic Underground also linked to my article on their message board. Some users on Twitter also tweeted links to my article, though I don't even know who any of those people are, nor do I think they were Tweeting it because they were happy about it. But still, this is all pretty cool.
http://www.thebluebanner.net/tea-party-protesters-cross-line-on-capitol-hill-1.1278938
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8007805
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Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) have been “haters not debaters”. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. They are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them are just going along and fanning the flames.
ReplyDeleteAs for the window. This was staged by one of Cantor’s gun buddy, good try at being a victim but I don’t buy it, next.