The town hall — an open forum or a staged performance???
We have lots of town hall meetings these days on healthcare… Hark. It should be a good thing to have our representatives coming to speak with us and hearing us and addressing our concerns, right? But what is the overarching purpose of these meetings? They are prematurely stacked with people supporting the bills and dissenters have to fight for entree. It seems … staged… And I fear that these nationwide town hall meetings are set up NOT as forums for debate and discussion, but rather are an excuse for representatives to do what they will in spite of the will of their constituents. You see, if every representative says that they went to their district for a town hall, they’ll have won a carte blanche for voting as they choose… They tried to reach out to the community, but the community was irrational. I’ve heard that at least one rep said: “This not a pure democracy, this is a representative democracy. I was voted in by you to do what I believe is best for you.” It’s right that we are a representative democracy, to protect against tyranny of the majority. But this is being abused through a tyranny of the patricians, talking down to we poor plebians. This complete disregard for the citizenry smacks of liberal elitism at its worst.
