I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
–the words of 19th century robber baron Jay Gould were on my mind as I contemplated the loud mob at Congressman Doug Lamborn’s health care town hall meeting. No one had to hire them to speak against fixing America’s medical system. Citizens of other developed nations surely pity Americans for ranking 37th in the world. They can puzzle at the American idiot’s unwillingness to improve it, but how simply pathetic the idiot’s preoccupation that no less fortunate should share it.
We arrived at the Woodland Park event a couple hours early, and so from our car were able to overhear several earlybird teabaggers rehearse their arguments. They discussed lines that had impressed them from other town halls. As the wingnut numbers grew, the most frequent introductory joke was to cajole each newcomer as the insurance industry plant.
I’m not cynical enough to suspect that any of the Woodland Park shrunken heads could have been paid agents. But I was emboldened to anticipate that without Rush or Glenn Beck present, these dittoheads might easily be disarrayed into a cacophony of bobbleheads, and I was right.
