In honor of the Tea Party Tax Protests on April 15^th, coverage of the town hall fever from the dog days of last summer… So long ago when all of what is happening now, was just a theory… A far far away idea no one seriously thought would come to pass…

As we look back, A couple Trillion later…my conservative views.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Town-hall meetings – WHY do they boo?

Much has been made of the booing in town-hall meetings… A lot of coverage of the noise, no coverage of the reason. People are not booing just to be disruptive, they DO have a reason.

In case after case, a questioner will rise from their seat, read the page number of the bill and quote a passage… And the congressman will reply with something like, “That’s not in the bill”. And the crowd boos… Often, you can tell by the stuttered replies that the questioner knows more about the bill than the congressman. For many questions, the congressmen seem to just want to ASSERT that something is so, or dismiss it out of hand, and move on. They don’t want to dialogue, they don’t want follow up, and they aren’t prepared to argue the bill on its merits.It’s clear they only know the headlines, and have studied none of the details.. So we boo.

I know, we shouldn ‘t… It ain’t right. But neither is the outright disrespect for the voters that is becoming obvious as these politicians hold their town-halls.

To come to the public totally unprepared to answer questions congressman,
…as your employer, I begin to wonder what you are doing at the office every day? We are taking this seriously, shouldn’t you also?

So have some sympathy for us boo-ers. We don’t mean to be disrespectful. It’s an honest reaction to the way we feel you are treating us. Now go ahead with that half answer – evasion that serves you so well on TV and I”ll try not to boo you again… But I can’t promise.