What Obamacare Town Meetings Are All About

What is the health care dispute now being carried out in town meetings across the country all about?

• Is it about Democrat and Republican differences?

• Is it about rising concerns about the federal debt?

• Is it about the government practicing medicine, or over government control over one's personal health care decisions?

• Is it about citizens being allowed to protest?

• Is it about the shame of Republicans stealing the Democrat techniques of community organizing?

• Is it about right wing hooligans disrupting normal government listening tours?

• Is it about the the power of the Internet as a disruptive technology?

• Is it about bad Americans undermining the truth and goodness of our President’s health reforms?

It Depends on Where You Stand

Depending on where you stand, the dispute may be about all of these things.
But the dispute may be mostly about President Obama’s misreading of the character of the American people.

• It may be about individual Americans who do not like to be lectured about private choices in life and death matters.

• It may be about not liking to be told what is good for them.

• It may be about Americans constantly being told they are a bad people, that the uninsured are a moral blight, and that they should be ashamed of themselves for thinking they have enemies in the world.

• It may be Americans do not like to be morally and intellectually bullied or being called mean-spirited because they disagree with mammoth government policies being rushed, rammed, and steamrolled and foisted upon them with thoughtful debate – or even reading what's in the bills.

• It may be instinctive distrust of government that might deprive them of liberty and freedom to make their own personal and private life and death decisions.

• It may be about resisting being labeled as “special interests” with the followi language, which has just appeared “Organizing for America, “ a new Obama-sponsored website,

“As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interests attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about a health reform, and it’s getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let the extremists hijack the debated or confuse Congress about where the people stand.”

Political opponents of the President do not appreciate being called a partisan mob, extremists, liars, or hijackers. They simply have questions raised by the bill they want House Reprentatives to answer. As President Harry S Truman might say, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the oven.” What the dispute is all about is staying in the oven after November 2010.