I'm tired of hearing about how a small segment of society (yet seemingly many, as the news makes it seem) would take marching orders from conservative propagandists, shouting nonsense and misinformation, and being outright disrespectful and rude to those who actually want to fix health care. How should I respond to this situation, if this even warrants a response at all?
I don't care what name the health care plan is called, you can call it "socialized medicine" for all I care, but I want something that works for me, works for everyone else, and keeps costs low. But we know that even if we believe, in fact even if we know, that what we're doing is right thing, I wouldn't be barging into town halls shouting down a Congressman who opposes my views. Even if I felt like Dubya's war policies were destroying the lives of millions for the sake of oil profits, I'm not going to hold any poster with his face with a Hitler mustache or a swastika sign. We must not allow self-righteousness justify incivility. Even if people can't be convinced by facts and reality, I would prefer to try to reason with them then yelling at them and call the Republicans fascist or some stupid, overused label, as mad as heck as I may be.
And that's how we must be. If we know we are right, we don't need violence or intimidation to prove it. We're better than that. And yes, we don't even need to call the other side names and depict them as any less human (though I concede I may have lost patience a few times in this post). We will set the record straight if people ask us about health care, and no, for the fiftieth time, there's no death panels attached. We will keep ourselves informed about the issue, and decide for ourselves what is right for our country. And we'll do it the right way. If we protest, it'll be peaceful, refrain from using misinformation and slandering our opponents. If they call us names, we'll rise above it and let the people decide who's acting like what. Remember, we know we are right based on the facts out there, not because someone listening to Beck reacts erratically and storms a town hall meeting believing their way of life is being challenged. So what if they hate us, we may not like them any more, but we'll still approach them respectfully. We'll make our voices heard through reasonable dialogue, even if it appears less effective than screaming and shouting. Even if it appears that their actions more closely resemble the epithets they shout, we won't call them fascists or Nazis. And we won't use their play book. They can have it. And we won't be any less effective. protesting for affordable health care now.