Last night, Congressman Moran and Howard Dean held a town hall meeting in the local high school. About 700 people got in. I was one of the last 20 to be let in. There was a lot of media coverage. In this one, Moran gave a 45 minute talk about some myths about the bill, then took about an hour of questions, with Dean’s help. Since the Dope seems to like to focus on what the media says about these meetings and talk about misinformation and bad debating, I’d like to take questions regarding what really happens in these meetings.
Anyone else that’s been to a town hall meeting, feel free to hijack and give your own experiences.
Disclosure: I’m a Republican conservative, white, upper-middle class male. I am against UHC. Details of my views can be found in the GD debates.
My wife was there, although she stayed outside. Being inside the building and one side of this debate, were you aware that a conservative protester outside punched somebody in the face? The news didn’t report it. Was it discussed by your side? Do you have any opinions about it?
How’s Moran doing these days? I used to live in his district - he was never one of my favorite people.
Did anyone ask him how we can keep health care costs down when he’s pushing bills to extend drug patents - in exchange for $25,000 “loans” with no payoff date from the drug company lobbyist?
No, but I did see a lady in her 50s beat a man with her Pro-UHC sign. I wasn’t in ear shot so I don’t know what it was about. There was quite a bit of fighting going on inside. I think I saw maybe 3 fights or so and a bunch of shouting matches. It certainly got heated in there. And sorry, your side gets half the blame.
No, but Dean did mention how much he likes drug companies. He said they keep down costs for drugs. I don’t really recall the logic there. Something about profits=innovation=lower prices, essentially. Dean had this weird habit of saying “Now this is going to get boos” and “My own side won’t like this…” before saying something controversial.
How early did you get there, and where did you park?
I tried to go, but there was no parking anywhere within a mile radius of the school. All the neighborhood streets were packed with cars. People were walking from every direction up the main road to the school. There was no way I would ever be able to find parking, so I drove by a couple times, then went home.
I got there around 6, and I knew that if I really wanted to get inside I should have gotten there at 5 or earlier, so it was my fault. I am sure people got there even much earlier, like noon.
Also, Chessic, did you really come all the way from Pittsburgh for this?! It was only minutes away from home for me. I wonder how many out-of-towners or out-of-staters were there. I would prefer it if the majority of attendees were local, instead of opponents bussed-in on a mass scale from hundreds of miles away.
If it’s possible to answer this (or even ask it) without starting a thing, why did you go there if you are already (let’s say) firmly against the topic at hand? Did you want to ask some questions, or hear his side of it, or see what all the hubbub was about, or be there if people started throwing chairs, or to throw chairs yourself, or because you love the process, or because there’s no good TV on in the summer, or what?
Roughly 6:10. We went a block down and parked perpendicularly next to a sign that said “parallel parking only”
No, we pledged allegiance. Some obnoxious group yelled “under God” really loudly, which weirded me out since I’m an atheist but presumably agree with their UHC opinion. Then the lady next to me shouts “Under God, not under Obama!” I quickly relocated.
Nope. I’m a transplant. I live in Sterling.
I never said “firmly against”. I was going to say in the OP that I’m an “objective Republican” but I didn’t want to get dragged into explaining that term. The short version of my HC opinion is that I want a government corporation like Fannie Mae where I don’t have to take the policy, but I also don’t have to fund it. That is, I want a public option where payment is optional too. But let’s not get into that too much. This isn’t GD.
To answer your question though, I’m a Poli Sci major and a government employee. I’m into politics and directly affected by it. Secondly, I went so that I could start this thread and report back to all of you. I like watching politicians sweat and I also like watching miscreants get stomped on by prepared speakers. Lastly, I confess to wanting to see a chair or two hit someone in the head
Didn’t you go to Iraq to pay for college? That makes you working class, not upper-middle class. If more Americans were honest with themselves about their actual station in life, I dare say we’d see a lot fewer Joe the Plumbers and teabaggers making such spectacles of themselves.
Also, isn’t it a bit of a vertiginous position to oppose UHC, but to favor, as I presume you do, the GI Bill? I am always surprised at the beam in the eyes of so many enlisted men when it comes to denouncing “socialism.”
Ironically, a bunch of boos. LOUD boos. I don’t think anyone heard a thing he said. Once the cops got there, the crowd chanted “Toss him out! Toss him out!” Good fun! I’m pretty sure everyone thought he was a moron.
(1) So why are you in the National Guard instead of active duty, or are you only so committed to fighting this war?
(2) Yes, it does. I am UMC. I know the badges and incidents of my class (that what classes are, after all, the subtle indicators that tell other class members that you are one of them, sort of like a secret club). UMC parents work to ensure that their children can to go any college of their choosing, or at least to ensure that money will not be an obstacle to doing so. It is a traditionally UMC endeavor. And while class isn’t entirely about wealth or income, it does figurely prominently. Your family probably wasn’t as well off as my own, and they probably had pretty different kinds of jobs. My father is a doctor, my stepmother is an electrical engineer. Now, maybe there was some great reversal of fortune, but I think it’s more likely that you are enjoying the good old fashioned, government-mediated American tradition of social mobility.
No, I don’t see a difference. The GI Bill is entirely economic rent for the working class (i.e., it is not necessary to induce people to enlist; most soldiers would have enlisted without the GI Bill being in place–and not because they are such great patriots, but because they didn’t have such hot prospects). The GI Bill is almost entirely a sociallly-minded transfer payments program. Enjoy it, Chessic, but please don’t begrudge other working class folks their government benefits.
Iraq service makes one working class? Somebody tell this guy.
You don’t know how much money I make, what my parents do for a living, or where I went to school. I don’t know where you get off telling me what class I am. So I’m only going to ask this once: Did you have a question about the town hall, or are you going to continue to threadshit with another “my dick is bigger than yours” post?
Hmmm, yes…just another typical soldier in the British Army.
My point is not to disparage you, far from it. It is to question why so many working class folks seem to resist the label (especially given that in an earlier age, many were quite proud of being working class and would resent the insinuation that they were born more fortunate or that they had anything to be ashamed of).
I ask because a lot of the working class angst seems predicated on self-dishonesty. An example: one of the McCain campaign slogans was “Don’t tax me for working hard.” Now the only tax rate increases being floated was on the uppermost income bracket. But the people uttering this slogan were not CEOs or plastic surgeons or white-shoe law firm partners, it was cops and teachers and, famously, plumbers. What on earth did these people think? That CEOs and doctors and lawyers worked monstrously harder than they did? That a really hardworking cop or teacher or plumber might conceivably clear a quarter million dollars one year? And if you don’t believe these things, isn’t it OK to tax those who have had great opportunities since birth and who have profited from them, isn’t it OK to tax them a little more and to care about the fates of those who weren’t so well-born?
Somehow the traditional working class ethos of “doing for oneself” has been perverted by the Republican party into an ethos that serves only to enrich the already well-off. I’m no class warrior, but I do think the way to start correcting that is by asking people to take a bracing look at where they fall on the social spectrum and to ask who benefits and whose ox is getting gored.
You are a Republican and a soldier. Didn’t you ever wonder why those great GOP patriots who shit red, white, and blue opposed the recent expansion of the GI Bill? Did that give you any clue as to whose bacon they’re committed to saving? And that it might not be yours?
