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Exclusive: Had Enough Yet?
Tom McLaughlinHow many people protested
Obamacare in Washington last Saturday? Twenty thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? Two million? The Washington Post said there were “tens of thousands.” So did the New York Times. They got the memo from Democrat leaders worried that if 1-2 million showed up it would be a major PR victory for the right, so they did what they could to play numbers down. The UK’s Daily Mail said there were up to 2 million protesters there.
Watching the demonstration on C-SPAN, I was struck by who I was seeing. They looked like ordinary men and women 40-70 years old, some younger, some older, but they didn’t look like demonstrators I’ve seen there for decades. There were no dreadlocked anarchists, no angry minorities, no fat feminists, and no flamboyant homosexuals. These were efficient, mind-your-own-business people who quietly keep everything running while others demand favors from government. I wondered what caused them to make signs and journey to Washington in huge numbers. Something’s happening out there. Something different. Something big.
The only thing these people want from government is to be left alone. While liberal baby boomers waxed nostalgic over Woodstock last month, they went to town hall meetings to question their congressmen and senators – worried that their government planned to take away their health insurance plans and force them into a government-controlled system. Unlike their hippie contemporaries, they didn’t go to Woodstock 40 years ago to smoke weed and frolic naked in the mud. They went to work instead – bagging groceries, banging nails, mowing lawns, and saving money for their future.
Though Obama, Pelosi and Reid continue to deny it, they know government would ration their health care when they get older. They know a younger gangbanger or illegal immigrant would get treated before they would when they were 65, 75, or 85 even though they’re the ones who pay the bills. They know Obama lied in his speech last week when he said his alleged reforms “would not apply to those who are here illegally.” When they heard Congressman Joe Wilson shout back “You lie!” they jumped up in front of their television sets and cheered him.
As part of its effort to demonize Congressman Wilson, CNN sent a reporter to the demonstration, but it backfired. Marchers didn’t trust CNN and didn’t want to be used as stooges for left-wing propaganda, so they gathered behind the reporter and shouted “Tell the truth!” over and over. The anchor back in Atlanta was exasperated when her reporter in the field said: “There are people who very strongly support Congressman Joe Wilson – and many of them are right here.”
They were there all right – over a million of them – and they don’t get their news from CNN and the other alphabet networks. They get it online and from talk radio because the mainstream media doesn’t have complete control of news anymore.
These are people who know they’ve been paying higher premiums on their private health insurance plans for years because hospitals charge them more for health care. They haven’t liked it, but they’ve paid anyway. They pay because they know hospitals cannot otherwise function when government pays much less than it costs to deliver health care to poor and elderly patients on Medicaid and Medicare.
These are people who pay on both ends – with their taxes and with their premiums. They know that if ObamaCare passes with a “public option,” the private health insurance they’ve been paying for will disappear and they won’t have any more choices. Government will decide what health care they get – and don’t get.
These are people who have been planning for their retirement while others have been living fast and loose. They know they can’t depend on Social Security or any other government program. They watched the “War on Poverty” waste trillions and paid the taxes that financed it. They watched their money go down the drain while they worked in PTAs, Scouts, Rotary clubs and churches without government assistance. They are the real community organizers – quite unlike the government-funded ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) types caught last week scheming to fund child prostitution with taxpayer money in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York City and San Bernardino. Because President Obama did legal work for ACORN, CNN and the alphabet networks continue to ignore the story. Demonstrators, however, know about it anyway.
These people are the ants who worked, who took care of themselves, who laid up food for the winter while their grasshopper contemporaries flitted about “finding themselves” at Grateful Dead concerts and the like. Now they’re envisioning their old age as government would force it upon them, not as they planned it and worked for it all their whole lives. Obamacare is the final straw for them. These people have had enough – and there are millions of them.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Tom McLaughlin Tom is a history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam. E-mail him at tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net.Read, comment and pass along ... this is still America!
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