Meet the New Bores (Same As the Old Bores)

So, we have the lovably fuzzy-headed Sen. Arlen Specter (D-R-Whatever They're Serving Today-PA) getting booed and catcalled as he tries to explain the proposed health-care reform measure to constituents.

Now, there's plenty Sen. Spectator could legitimately be booed for, so it's not the expression of disdain that caught my interest. It was the booers. Apparently they finished buying their lottery tickets, polished off a few cans of Schmidt's and, since they'd already seen the episode of "Golden Girls" airing that day, decided to head over to the Town Hall Meeting. To create a disruption.

What I want to know is, when did these mavericky Palinesque wannabes become the Yippies? We have here a bunch of pseudo-conservative pathological naysayers who have adopted the tactics of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin to raise an issue that seems to focus on the following talking points:

• I don't want the government telling me when to kill my grandmother
• I don't want some bureaucrat deciding my medical treatment
• The Canadians hate their medical system and already flock to our doctors like meth addicts to a Mountain Dew giveaway promotion
• The government would never be able to run an insurance program
• OK, most of us get Medicare and Medicaid but that doesn't count
• Something else that Lush Bimbo told me to say but I forgot after my 4th Schmidt's
• Obama wants to be your daughter's baby daddy
• Don't taze me, bro

Apparently the best shot at public discourse for the opponents of any-change-that-could-be-bad-for-insurance-companies is to get to their feet and begin yelling yadda yadda yadda and hope their victims will throw up their hands and say, "My God, you're right! This idea sucks! What the hell were we thinking? I'm so very sorry."

Right, just the way Nixon totally came to Jesus about the Vietnam war after the Yipsters staged Inhoguration ceremonies and smoke-ins on the Mall. "Dammit, Henry, those fucking kids are right! It is an immoral war and I want it stopped tomorrow!"

Unfortunately, Hoffman and Rubin became caricatures and sadly irrelevant. Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize and the freedom our troops paid for with their lives was apparently the freedom of Vietnamese government officials to open up restaurants and convenience stores in Arlington, VA.

The sad truth is that people are dying now because of long-standing government inaction on health care. These people deserved the chance to lead productive lives in this country, too. The tactics used by opponents of this effort are shameful. And the people who put them up to it should be looked at as loathesome enablers of pain.

If the clown shoe fits, wear it. We don't get fooled again.