CRIME AND HEALTH CARE

Is it a war? Abortion? Israel? A racial clash? An election in Florida? No, health care.

It is really about far more - a shift in ideology and balance of power.

The wonkish health-care debate has degenerated into lynch-mob rage bonded with racist and other bigoted expressions. It has grown into the political lynching of our first President of color, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Their conduct is inexcusable. They have been crude, racist, disruptive, insulting, somewhat criminal and hypocritical. They resemble the white mobs who taunted black schoolchildren as they entered newly integrated schools 40 or 50 years ago. Organizers of the town-hall meetings have effective means at their disposal to respond, mainly by having police arrest anyone who is disruptive.

These people monopolized the early hearings, shouting at members of Congress who hosted the sessions and drowning out voices in support of health-care reform. That in itself constitutes disorderly conduct, not to mention some of the fights which erupted. Someone painted a swastika on a sign outside the office of U.S. Rep. David Scott in Georgia. The African-American congressman told the Associated Press that some of his mail contained a racial epithet and references to President Obama as a Marxist.

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carried a sign that read “Obama and Pelosi = Mein Kampf” outside a high school where Obama hosted a town meeting; Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Sen. Arlen Specter was confronted in Lebanon, Pa., by Craig Miller, 59, who told him: “One day, God is going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you,” as The New York Daily News reported. Specter is Jewish, and one must wonder what Miller was thinking when he spouted these words.

Calvin Montgomery, 39, of Exeter, N.H., opposes a governmental role in health care, but he makes his living off the government. He told the Daily News that his employer provides him with health insurance, and his employer is a government contractor. Former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner Herb Denenberg chided Congress in a commentary for rushing into a vote, yet I do not recall Denenberg or other health-care critics scolding Congress seven years ago for rushing its vote to invade Iraq.

These spectacles are bad for our health - the health of our democratic process. The critics have every right to speak out, and they should. They may well have legitimate concerns that should be communicated to Congress for the betterment of us all. However, it is very hard to distinguish between rhetoric and genuine concerns amid all the bombast.

It is clear that the Republican Party is trying to undermine Obama; prominent right-wingers are whipping up a frenzy; and companies that will lose profits are probably financing this uproar. However, there are real people who are speaking their minds and identifying themselves for the public record.

Why do we hear from them now? For 28 years, they had no need to assert themselves so forcefully. The Republican Party turned hard right when Ronald Reagan was elected president, and has generally had its way whether it had partial or nearly complete powers during those years. The party has since collapsed of its own weight and now its hard-core followers have very limited clout in Washington.

With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, Obama and his congressional allies are moving government in a direction abhorred by right-wingers. Obama and his supporters call it public service, and his critics call it “socialism.”

As an aside, racism was injected partly because of Obama’s race, but these goons would be no less obnoxious if a white male led this movement.

The only legitimate response to such uproar is to alert police and press criminal charges. These thugs figure that their hosts are such easy marks that they can get away with anything they want short of violence. However, disrupting these meetings amounts to harassment and disorderly conduct, if not other relatively minor criminal offenses.

They’re bullies. They figure that nothing will happen to them. If the senators and House members sought arrests and criminal prosecution at the outset, these free-for-alls would have been ended swiftly. No self-respecting instigator is going to risk punishment he so richly deserves.

On a communal level, supporters of health-care reform can stand up and be counted. The lynch-mob movement provoked a backlash. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Senate candidate who represents a suburban area, shrewdly hosted a meeting in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 11, drawing far more supporters than critics. I stood in line and participated in a mini-debate where an opponent was alone against four of us health-care backers. A large crowd turned out for a rally in Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb, the following Saturday in support of reform.

A sure way to convert Calvin Montgomery, the New Hampshire guy whose employer contracts with the government, would be for the government to cancel the company’s contract, which would in turn lay off Montgomery. Then he’ll become a devoted supporter of health-care reform.