A Right Way and a Wrong Way to Protest

By Jack Lee

Over the years I’ve been to a lot of protest rallies, some as police officer trying to keep order and sometimes as just an observer and most recently as a participant. This is a picture essay and hopefully these pictures will say more about the right way verses the wrong way than I ever could:

A majority of the health care protestors are sincerely afraid President Obama is about to grow government health care to the point it competes with and eventually overwhelms private care. They have good reason to be concerned that by creating another layer of bureaucracy with government health care we will undermine that which is first class in the private sector to something far less. They are distressed to think that eventually government health care will eliminate private health insurance and it will morph into something akin to the wasteful and fraud ridden Medical, Medicare and Medicaid.

In the process or sorting this out in town hall debates extreme views arise on both sides as they always do and this leads to confrontation and intractable division. How is division supposed to solve a serious problem? We need dialog to have understanding and this means both sides should listen – really listen and think!

It doesn’t help your cause when people show up only to incite others or to shout down the opposition. It doesn’t matter what the issue is or what side you represent, this sort of conduct is never warranted. When it occurs the dialog stops and emotions take over. This is what a mob thrives on and taken to its furthest and most irrational absurdity, it can be deadly.

Since the 1960’s I’ve witnessed the radical left beat that Hitler theme to death. Every Republican leader was another Hitler..Newt was Hitler, Trent Lott was Hitler, Bush I, Bush II was Hitler…give it a rest! Barrack Obama is not Hitler and neither was George Bush. I’m getting tired of hearing it. This Hitler analogy is getting way over used, so maybe it’s time to back away from using Hitler every time a politician does something we don’t like? Better we save it for when we really need it.

The left was very good at inciting others and mocking the right, I’ll give them that! President Ronald Reagan was mocked relentlessly, remember… Ronald Ray Guns? Anti-war protestors burned the American flag and that sure did incite a lot of us on the right. The left carried outrageous posters urging soldiers and draftees to desert! I’ve seen posters, even quite recently, calling on troops to shoot their officers, but what I’ve never seen is anyone on the left saying this was a bad idea, that is was absolutely wrong and that it undermined their cause. Moreover, I saw too many pundits saying their means justified the end. Take a look at the Tea Party Posters…how does this mob compare to the anti-war mob? (Right way – wrong way)

Inciting and inmsulting others is not the conduct of the rightwing conservative movement I have come to know and respect. And for 95% of them now it’s still not. But, there are some who would like to undo our respectable track record. I remind those types, it’s not free speech to shout down the opposition; this is thuggery and we should not be part of it or tolerate it.

This is why we must not allow those extremely few vocal radicals on the far right to hijack our issues and compromise them by outrageous conduct. And let’s keep those #@%& guns out of the protest march! We need reasoned, logical dialog because both sides of this issue agree that there is a good deal of reform needed in our health care system. Just how to go about it is what is causing this great division. Let’s hope we can build a consensus by recognizing our common ground and make some reforms and changes that both sides can live with!