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When did we reach the point of no longer honoring the two-party system?Â
How
did we come to this moment of believing it was all right to disrupt a
public forum to try to drown out a speaker who was there to try to
answer questions from BOTH sides regarding health care reform?Â
Granted,
I realize that the people fueling this are a small majority of our
population; but it still disturbs me, because I believe if it continues
that we are going to have bloodshed of both our elected officials and
private citizens.
I
certainly support and believe that people have the right to peaceable
assemble and to come together in protest of ANYTHING. Â Over the course
of our history, freedom of assembly has protected individuals espousing
myriad viewpoints.
Striking
workers, civil rights advocates, anti-war demonstrators and Ku Klux
Klan marchers have all taken to the streets and sidewalks in protest or
in support of their causes.
Sometimes
these efforts have galvanized public support or changed public
perceptions. Imagine a civil rights movement without the March on
Washington or the women's suffrage movement without ranks of
long-skirted, placard-carrying suffragists filling city streets.
But
to assemble for the express purpose of catcalling, booing, and trying
to drown out a speaker is NOT "peaceable assembly" and can only have
disastrous results if it continues.Â
One
man even took a gun to a meeting. How soon before more do that and
some individual, hyped up on too much adrenalin and Beck, Limbaugh,
Hannity rhetoric, pulls it out and kills someone?
Cooler
heads MUST prevail. Â In spite of what I read on some posts and hear on
television from some bloviators, we are NOT at war here. We are all
Americans. We have so much more in common that we have dividing us.Â
I
implore the people fueling this to step back, re-consider that this is
simply ONE administration in a long history of administrations--some
liberal, some conservative--and that the Union will survive and
prevail.Â
The
great thing about our Constitution is that it is fluid, adaptable, and
ever changing. History has proved that bad laws do get repealed. So,
if this administration passes legislation that does not work for
America, the next administration can always enact legislation that
changes or voids it.
I
hope we can all step back, rethink this whole thing, and move forward
as friends and neighbors who agree to disagree without letting our
emotions control us to the point of hatred. We all need to adjust our
attitude toward one another and leave off the derisive remarks. We can
still challenge assertions if we have proof that they may be wrong; but
we all need to do so in a respectful way.
That is what I plan to do, and I ask my conservative and liberal friends everywhere to join with me in that effort.
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