David A. Fennell
Welcome to the Fringe
August 17, 2009

The Speaker of the House called you “un-American,” Harry Reid called you an “evil-monger,” and the President of the United States, well he’d just like you to “shut-up” and wants his supporters to turn in their friends and neighbors by sending their emails and links to the White House (I have a prolific writer friend that self-reports daily). Ironically, this is from the same folks who in recent memory stated that protests and disagreement with the George Bush’s handling of the War on Terror were very “American” things to do.

Apparently the elite oligarchy now in Washington believes they can have there cake and eat it too. Such public displays of arrogance continue to expose them for who they really are. It also signals America’s growing weariness of the tired old progressive arguments of the past century that brought us the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Great Society, TARP, the bailouts, and now universal healthcare. Each of these revolutionary agendas had little economic or social impact in their times, and all have helped bring us to the impending bankruptcy we now find ourselves facing.

So, when it comes to healthcare the Pelosi-Reid intellectuals would have you believe that Karl Rove is driving a bus full of paid Republican Party hacks from town to town disrupting their “get out the message” summer tour on healthcare. Interesting, that though some of the protestors are loud in their message (some would say passionate) none have been more disruptive as their counterparts at Code-Pink. But the Progressives continue to marginalize the message that real American constituents are sending to their Congressmen. They are labeled “astroturfers” in want of a grassroots effort. They are called names and associated with far right-wing lunatics on the societal fringe. This in the face of an August 5th CNN Poll that revealed “nearly half of those who oppose the Obama plan say they are more likely to attend town hall meetings to express their views on health care.” This number represents nearly a quarter of the people that took the poll, and if accurate, theoretically the same percentage of American people. I hope Karl Rove has a big bus.

Further, just five days later Rasmussen Reports put the number of Americans that oppose the single payer system at 57%. To that majority of Americans I say, welcome to the fringe. Only the Progressive elite could label a majority opinion as a “fringe.” But then this is their time-tested tactic. Over the last year we’ve see the Black Panthers, ACORN SEIU and other “volunteers” wielding brown-shirt tactics from polling stations to the homes of private citizens in support of President Obama and his agenda. Advertisements for paid activists have been sprouting up on Craigslist and other places in support of environmentalism, progressivism and most recently universal healthcare. My question would be if the Progressive agenda is so grassroots then why do you need to pay people to attend and protest opposition? Who’s astroturfing now?

The evolution of their tactics is clear. When their argument won’t stand on its own two legs the attacks on “evil-mongers” and the “un-American” become personal and the “fringe” elements of the extreme are told to “shut-up” by the President. When they can’t scare up enough support from the population they hire red-shirted and purple-shirted thugs on the payroll in ACORN and SEIU to threaten families and if necessary literally beat up the opposition. If Glenn Beck must take responsibility for the violent acts of today’s “tea partiers” and healthcare protestors (that haven’t happened), then I demand that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to take responsibility for the beating of Kenneth Gladney in St Louis (which has happened).

The party that coined the term “hate monger” can’t imagine a world where their opinion isn’t in the majority, so they assume that tactics they pioneered are being used by the opposition. The realization that most Americans have what they have, not because government gave it too them, but because they worked for it, is far beyond their scope of understanding. They cannot comprehend that most working Americans don’t want to pay for the “right” of others to have healthcare after those others have already spent their government subsidies on their “right” to have a new ride, flat panel televisions, expensive cell phones and those other “necessities” of life.

So, I again welcome the majority to the fringe. And to those that still believe that most working Americans want to give up their hard earned dollars to a wasteful government bureaucracy, two plus two might also equal five.