Change! At What Price?

I am not a native Virginian, but as I was in the process of moving to Virginia, I thought that it would be great to live under a state flag which read, "sic semper tyrannis' (thus always to tyrants). Of course, I did know that a motto alone does not insulate a people from the tyrannical designs of evil men, or from those who do their bidding. On Aug. 25 Jim Moran (D-VA) held a town hall meeting at a public school in Reston, VA. Opponents of nationalized health care organized a protest in which they exercised their constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and to demand redress of grievances. Many were carrying signs. One protester was carrying the sign shown at the right of this page. Officer Wesley Cheeks Jr., who was assigned to crowd control duty at that location, apparently was offended by the sign.

Watch the video of the incident, which seems to have been taken by the individual with the sign. Pay particular attention to the exchange at the end of the clip.



"This use to be America", the protester says. "It ain't no more", responds the officer.

As I write this, the President has just finished his speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress. The speech was his typical Obaminable mixture of platitudes, distortions, lies, and damn lies. Amid cheers and boos coming from the right and the left side of the chamber, the President showed once again, that he is the great 'polarizer in chief'. The purpose of this speech was to motivate and embolden the Democrats in Congress to ram this 'national socialist measure' down America's throat.

Back in 1996, as election day approached, some conservatives were saying that "America needed four more years of Bill Clinton" in order to push Americans further to the right. They of course could not have foreseen the 'Lewinsky scandal' which shifted attention from what Clinton was doing from his office, to what he was doing in his office. Now, I am hearing murmurs from some conservatives suggesting that we need the Democrats to shove this health care bill through on their own, and thereby destroy themselves. The future, as always, is unforeseeable. Even if events unfold as expected, playing politics with dangerous pieces of legislation is morally repugnant. Yes, the Democrats may pay for it in the short term, but the American people will be those who suffer in the long term. The price is far too great. God, forbid it.