As we continue to see sensationalized images of ranting citizens in various Town Hall meetings on the evening news, one might ask what the cause of this outrage is. There are many reasons for and from which Town Hall participants draw strength to challenge their Congress men and women. Among the many reasons is fear of change of any kind, a misunderstanding of the facts, or they are downright misinformed acting on out-and-out lies about the issue, or more probable—Town Haller’s might have a gut feeling that there is something just plain wrong about the issue and the information that they receive from the media and government representatives. Combine strong suspicions with real fear and what you often times get is wild-eyed outrageous conduct by people who are otherwise collected intellectually and personally. It would be nice if we could all live in a Pollyanna world—or even better, Lake Woebegone! In addition to all the other attributes of Lake Woebegone, all of our politicians, judges, appointed officials, and bureaucrats would be totally honest, morally upstanding, and perhaps even transparent in motive; none would have hidden agendas and certainly no conspiratorial thoughts to over throw the U. S. Constitution, or to destroy the very foundations and traditions of our nation as some Town Haller’s suggest. But, history from Genghis Khan and before to the present day tells us clearly that such a world is not reality; human nature is what it is, and that there have always been those who would challenge and to challenge by force if necessary for our own good to redirect a nation and reshape it in their own image at the expense of thousands, e.g. Russia, 1917; Germany, 1933; Iran, present day! What we witness is a continuous, ongoing conflict of world views!
I might add here that some people in the media who laugh at or become indignant over the ideas of others who raise images of our collective history in the form of Hitler or Stalin suggest that we here in the United States of America are somehow immune to such extremism and further that those in positions of power and authority here (or they in the media themselves) are somehow intellectually superior to and therefore incapable of such extremism as these an other historical personalities exemplify. To so smugly dismiss these historical images is naïve at best as educated citizens of world history and persons of some responsibility, or supremely arrogant; either is reprehensible! (more…)