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Woke up and ate breakfast as I drove to Chelmsford. Rep Nikki Tsongas was speaking on healthcare. As I mentioned yesterday, I'd heard about some really nasty tactics that opponents of reform were taking and I wanted to see for myself. The meeting was originally going to be at a grocery store, but when I got there I was directed instead to city hall "because of the number of people who have expressed interest in attending". When I arrived there were maybe a hundred people outside, and I later learned that that was the overflow, the actual meeting having already been filled to capacity. One thing I have to hand the conservatives, they are really organized around this issue. Seriously, if you support Obama's health care reforms, you need get out there an start representing, because the great majority of the people there did seem to be against it, and those I spoke to were indeed locals.
I didn't get to see Tsongas, so I don't know if there were attempts to chant her down or not, but there was indeed some seriously offensive stuff from representatives of Lyndon LaRouche's PAC outside: pictures of Obama with a Hitler moustache, a giant banner that read "Obama's Nazi Death Plan", complete with swastikas and gory imagery, and booklets with a smiling Obama photoshopped into a meeting with... Hitler. No, I am totally not making this up.
...and yet, that's not really what I want to write about. The event actually turned out, on the whole, to be uplifting in one way, and deeply frustrating in another (aside from the Hitler stuff).
The uplifting part was that despite not getting into the event I ended up spending about two hours engaged with some of the anti-reform activists there... in a civil and reasonable discussion. Said discussion was, shall we say, animated at times, but particularly the three guys I talked to the most, were nonetheless at least respectful enough for my standards, and listened in turn when I was speaking. Interestingly, they all seemed to lean more toward libertarianism than typical republican conservatism. They all sincerely feared that the proposed health care reforms were designed to put private insurance options out of business, and that the resulting single-option system would lower the quality of care, put too much power in the hands of the government and remove the incentive for innovation from the medical industry. They were obviously well-practiced in their arguments, which they made passionately but, for lack of a better term, with a minimum of wingnuttery and a willingness to hear out, if not accept, other opinions.
I call the experience uplifting partly because, hey, I love a good argument so long as it doesn't get personal. It's nice feeling to be able to disagree with someone, even loudly, and still have everyone leave with a sense that they contributed something to and got something from the exchange. Heck, by the time we'd been at it for an hour or so, when someone did try to jump in in an overly confrontational way, they told him to back off.
But it was also uplifting, or perhaps 'enriching' would be a better term, because I got to interact with a part of the political spectrum that I don't get to interact with often (except perhaps for my dad), and the people I talked to were in a lot of ways not what I expected. For example, one was an Indian immigrant who had made it big here, doing the American Dream thing (surprisingly it was him who trotted out the old "white, Christian males are the most oppressed group in this country" line). Another worked at a VA hospital, and it was his experiences and frustrations with working at that hospital that convinced him that government having a hand in civilian health care was a bad idea. He actually gave me his name and that of his hospital and said he'd give me a tour any time-- I'm tempted, to be honest, particularly if anyone else wants to come along. In any case, I try very hard not to fall into the "us and them" trap, but when you don't actually get out there and talk to "them" like real people, it can be hard. Likewise, it was also good to represent their "them" and be reasonable and respectful in return.
But then we get to the way in which the encounter was deeply frustrating. Basically, I was not prepared for the discussion.
I'd gone there partly to see for myself whether the reports of bullying were true and to help raise a voice for civility if they were, but partly to try and learn more about this issue because, frankly, I feel swamped. If forced to pick a side, I support Obama's plan because the system is broken and for all their bright ideas now the conservatives had a long time to fix it and didn't, but that's far from an actual understanding of the issue. So I tried to hold my ground with these guys, and while there were things points I could contend with confidence, and even a few they even conceded to me, I ended up doing a lot of "Well, I can't speak to that...", and "I'll have to take your word for that", and "That makes sense, but if it's as cut-and-dry as you say, why do so many others see it differently?", which of course played right into their hands, as they always had a ready, if cynical, response. In fact, the cynical side of me wonders whether the reason they were so friendly was at least in part that they saw me as a starry-eyed liberal who was finally being confronted with Facts for the first time and was thus on the virge of "coming around". There were several good-natured but patronizing comments along the lines of "Oh, I can't wait to see what you're like in 10 years", and of course that one Winston Churchill quote (...which turns out to possibly be a misquote?) came up.
And really, I worried that maybe they were right. Being relatively ill-versed in law, history, and sometimes it seems every subject but gaming and Linux, I had to admit that I found many of the cases they made compelling, if un-palatable. Then again, this is something I've noticed about myself a lot: If someone says something authoritatively about a subject of which I am ignorant, I tend to find that argument persuasive. I have gained enough wisdom to question the impulse and not buy into things as a knee-jerk reaction, but all that awareness does is cause me to pull my hair and be unwilling to accept any authority without gobs and gobs of research. Indeed, when I got home and talked to Josh, whom I generally regard as a reliable source for a well-informed liberal point of view on political issues, his counter-arguments to some of the points I relayed were similarly compelling, swinging me back to his side. Eventually I'll probably talk to my dad about this, and he'll make good, reasonable-sounding arguments to sway me back in the conservative direction.
It's maddening! I feel like my choices are to either quit my job and take up research full-time (because let's face it, real, primary-source research take craptons of time, dedication and subject-matter expertise), or pick an authority to take largely at his or her word, or just give up on the whole damn thing and be a typical ignorant, apathetic quasi-citizen (fun fact: the term "idiot" comes from the word the Greeks used to deride people who didn't participate in politics-- it shares a common root with "idle").
So yeah, frustrating.
The day wasn't over, though. Apparently today was to be my big "up with people what I'm not usually up with" day.
Decided to split this into two posts, because some of the other things that happened that day involve possibly-flock-worthy content, so, "Continued in Part Two", as they say.
I didn't get to see Tsongas, so I don't know if there were attempts to chant her down or not, but there was indeed some seriously offensive stuff from representatives of Lyndon LaRouche's PAC outside: pictures of Obama with a Hitler moustache, a giant banner that read "Obama's Nazi Death Plan", complete with swastikas and gory imagery, and booklets with a smiling Obama photoshopped into a meeting with... Hitler. No, I am totally not making this up.
...and yet, that's not really what I want to write about. The event actually turned out, on the whole, to be uplifting in one way, and deeply frustrating in another (aside from the Hitler stuff).
The uplifting part was that despite not getting into the event I ended up spending about two hours engaged with some of the anti-reform activists there... in a civil and reasonable discussion. Said discussion was, shall we say, animated at times, but particularly the three guys I talked to the most, were nonetheless at least respectful enough for my standards, and listened in turn when I was speaking. Interestingly, they all seemed to lean more toward libertarianism than typical republican conservatism. They all sincerely feared that the proposed health care reforms were designed to put private insurance options out of business, and that the resulting single-option system would lower the quality of care, put too much power in the hands of the government and remove the incentive for innovation from the medical industry. They were obviously well-practiced in their arguments, which they made passionately but, for lack of a better term, with a minimum of wingnuttery and a willingness to hear out, if not accept, other opinions.
I call the experience uplifting partly because, hey, I love a good argument so long as it doesn't get personal. It's nice feeling to be able to disagree with someone, even loudly, and still have everyone leave with a sense that they contributed something to and got something from the exchange. Heck, by the time we'd been at it for an hour or so, when someone did try to jump in in an overly confrontational way, they told him to back off.
But it was also uplifting, or perhaps 'enriching' would be a better term, because I got to interact with a part of the political spectrum that I don't get to interact with often (except perhaps for my dad), and the people I talked to were in a lot of ways not what I expected. For example, one was an Indian immigrant who had made it big here, doing the American Dream thing (surprisingly it was him who trotted out the old "white, Christian males are the most oppressed group in this country" line). Another worked at a VA hospital, and it was his experiences and frustrations with working at that hospital that convinced him that government having a hand in civilian health care was a bad idea. He actually gave me his name and that of his hospital and said he'd give me a tour any time-- I'm tempted, to be honest, particularly if anyone else wants to come along. In any case, I try very hard not to fall into the "us and them" trap, but when you don't actually get out there and talk to "them" like real people, it can be hard. Likewise, it was also good to represent their "them" and be reasonable and respectful in return.
But then we get to the way in which the encounter was deeply frustrating. Basically, I was not prepared for the discussion.
I'd gone there partly to see for myself whether the reports of bullying were true and to help raise a voice for civility if they were, but partly to try and learn more about this issue because, frankly, I feel swamped. If forced to pick a side, I support Obama's plan because the system is broken and for all their bright ideas now the conservatives had a long time to fix it and didn't, but that's far from an actual understanding of the issue. So I tried to hold my ground with these guys, and while there were things points I could contend with confidence, and even a few they even conceded to me, I ended up doing a lot of "Well, I can't speak to that...", and "I'll have to take your word for that", and "That makes sense, but if it's as cut-and-dry as you say, why do so many others see it differently?", which of course played right into their hands, as they always had a ready, if cynical, response. In fact, the cynical side of me wonders whether the reason they were so friendly was at least in part that they saw me as a starry-eyed liberal who was finally being confronted with Facts for the first time and was thus on the virge of "coming around". There were several good-natured but patronizing comments along the lines of "Oh, I can't wait to see what you're like in 10 years", and of course that one Winston Churchill quote (...which turns out to possibly be a misquote?) came up.
And really, I worried that maybe they were right. Being relatively ill-versed in law, history, and sometimes it seems every subject but gaming and Linux, I had to admit that I found many of the cases they made compelling, if un-palatable. Then again, this is something I've noticed about myself a lot: If someone says something authoritatively about a subject of which I am ignorant, I tend to find that argument persuasive. I have gained enough wisdom to question the impulse and not buy into things as a knee-jerk reaction, but all that awareness does is cause me to pull my hair and be unwilling to accept any authority without gobs and gobs of research. Indeed, when I got home and talked to Josh, whom I generally regard as a reliable source for a well-informed liberal point of view on political issues, his counter-arguments to some of the points I relayed were similarly compelling, swinging me back to his side. Eventually I'll probably talk to my dad about this, and he'll make good, reasonable-sounding arguments to sway me back in the conservative direction.
It's maddening! I feel like my choices are to either quit my job and take up research full-time (because let's face it, real, primary-source research take craptons of time, dedication and subject-matter expertise), or pick an authority to take largely at his or her word, or just give up on the whole damn thing and be a typical ignorant, apathetic quasi-citizen (fun fact: the term "idiot" comes from the word the Greeks used to deride people who didn't participate in politics-- it shares a common root with "idle").
So yeah, frustrating.
The day wasn't over, though. Apparently today was to be my big "up with people what I'm not usually up with" day.
Decided to split this into two posts, because some of the other things that happened that day involve possibly-flock-worthy content, so, "Continued in Part Two", as they say.
