PROTESTS UNAMERICAN?

August 7, 2009

My God, we're trying to give the Administration the benefit of the doubt whenever possible, but their criticism of "town hall meetings" being overwhelmed by "organized, astroturf" right-wing zealots would be laughable if not so serious.

The Democratic Party and especially extreme Left-wing liberals have made organized, loud and many times unruly protests their M.O. for the last 45 years. The "organized" approach to protests is a well-documented tactic of radicals beginning with the Black Panthers in the '60s to ACORN and the Pink Ladies today. These groups have historically promoted an extreme Left-wing agenda, with basically no equivalent group(s) representing the Right Wing.

It's recognized that this approach, while personally distasteful, is effective in bringing attention to whatever is being protested. It does not benefit either side when both try to yell over each other, it actually looks extremely juvenile. This is the type of response you'd expect from a 13-year old who's mad at you! It's just such a waste of time trying to simply be the loudest and get in the last word, can't we truly be civilized and speak in turn? We're interested in getting something done, not just who can yell the loudest and longest.

So, let's have both sides quit acting like scorned teenagers and the Democrats have to give up their apparent belief that Right-wing protests are invalid, too organized and mean spirited. Give us a break, anyone with a memory can recall plenty of mean spirited attacks and protests coming from the current majority party and their activist organizations.

We've always allowed this type of protest under our freedom of speech and right of non-violent assembly, even though some Left-wing extremists are allowed to spew the most despicable insults during the funerals of military killed in combat. What reason, other than a pathologic aversion to the military, could these "protesters" have to justify their actions and tirades? Certainly the individual soldier, sailor, airman or marine had done nothing to personally offend these individuals, they were simply defending our Country and following orders.

The percent of Americans who support the actions of those who protest at military funerals is basically an unmeasurable percentage of our population, however, we allow their insults to be yelled and we don't remember anyone in Congress calling them "Nazis" or indicating that the group's intentions weren't valid because they were "organized".

Ms Pelosi, before you call concerned Americans "Nazis", I'd take a look at the Administration's own call for citizens to report "fishy" activity that they'd consider inappropriate. Statements like this do nothing but raise questions in people's minds about the actual intent of the request. Obviously, the Administration expects that most Americans won't equate their request for "fishy" activity reporting to very similar requests made by tyrannical regimes throughout history.

Otherwise they should realize that the request alone would be received poorly and their intentions would be questioned. Senator Dick Durbin has been the most recent to criticize town hall protesters, they should look within before they begin throwing stones.