Shutting down debate

Interesting to note that the ginned-up astroturf campaign to keep our awesome for-profit healthcare system (best in the world except for 36 better ones, including leading lights like Costa Rica, Andorra and Malta, said the World Health Organization a few years ago) has come closer to Western Mass. (Here's the playbook, by the way.)

The teabaggers, in accordance with the fear and shouting campaign as promoted by corporate lobbyists with their incomes at stake, seem to primarily be about shutting things down rather than discussing them. One recent townhall featured protesters shouting "What's wrong with profit?", an example of a Straw Man argument so stout fans of the tactic should pause for a moment of awed silence.

Free and open debate, that central pillar of democracy, seems to be the real casualty, and on purpose. One recent rabble rouser put it best when, in New York, a townhall attendee had the audacity to endorse a single-payer system. A visibly angry teabagger responded with "Sit down! Sit down! Sit Down!" (As featured in a recent story by the Valley's own Rachel Maddow.) I guess that about sums up the current rational underpinnings of the opposition. Oh, and another loon reportedly called Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and threatened his life. Anything will do, as long as the healthcare industry protects its weirdly-gained profits yet again.

ADDITIONAL: Now you too can have your very own Kenyan birth certificate.

ADDITIONALLY ADDITIONAL: Forget global warming, it's PR that's going to destroy the world.