MTNP Radio Saturday

I'm going back on Meet The New Press Radio this morning at 10:05 (EST) to talk about Slaying Leviathan and the Dean/Moran Town Hall with my fellow SamSphere bloggers Skip Murphy and Doug Lambert. Please tune in here.

Town Hall Reflections

The plunder lobby did a good job of mobilizing its astroturf whiners for yesterday's Town Hall meeting with Howard Dean and Jim Moran.

Earlier this week, Organizing for America sent out an email urging agitators to arrive at 5:00 for the Town Hall, a full hour earlier than constituents were told the doors would open. OFA followed up with another email telling its whiners to

WEAR A BLUE T-SHIRT AND ARRIVE AT 5:00 PM TO ENSURE THAT YOU GET A SEAT AND A POSITIVE HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM SIGN!

"Negative people have been getting to these events early," the email explained.

I had hoped to arrive around 3:00, but with the brouhaha surrounding Slaying Leviathan's release, it was after 4:00 when I pulled into the parking lot.

Both sides were already out in force. I saw Crystal Clear Conservative and a few of the folks from the Reston Tax Day Tea Party.

There were signs, chants, and street theater. As one might expect, the folks on the side of personal responsibility tended to be more creative



than the ones who expect somebody else to provide for them.



"Health care now!" some liberals chanted, as though there actually were no health care in America. "Let's mix it up," one of them suggested. "Now health care!"

I got myself into a couple of arguments (to use the term generously).



I asked this gentleman whether he would continue to support Barack Obama if he kept back-peddling on his pledge only to sign a bill containing a public "option".

"I trust his judgment," the gentleman said of the rookie POT(57)US a decade or two his junior.

I cataloged a few of Mr. Obama's broken pledges (e.g., that he'd filibuster FISA, that he'd accept public campaign funding) and pointed out the folly of trusting someone who has revealed himself as just another two-faced politician who'll say one thing to one group at one time and another thing to another group at another time.

"I trust his judgment." Okay then.

Another argument I had was even more intellectually disheartening. A gentleman was insisting that health care is a right, but he was unable to articulate where this alleged right originated; his best effort was to utter the words "general welfare". I tried to get more specific, asking him how he came to have a right to technology that someone else created and capitalized; he couldn't or wouldn't answer and instead accused me of saying that the uninsured shouldn't be treated, which of course bore no resemblance to what I said.

With all the sanctimoniousness that ignorance allows, he insisted:

"We have a right to be taken care of."

Yikes!

Ever since the enormous outcry sparked by George Bush XLIII's unConstitutional bank bail-out, I've been hopeful about America's future. I still am.

But the encounters I had last night were a window into the uncritical mentality that we're up against. If the liberals I talked to, and the ones carrying signs and chanting slogans, are representative, then we're up against something even more insidious than whining, than the notion that rights are a product of available technology, than the assumption of entitlement to what someone else has created, than the willingness to sacrifice human dignity to the infantile desire to be coddled. We're up against an unawareness that ideas have to be rooted in something, that conclusions have to be derived logically, that truth matters.

Last night was a reaffirmation that conservatives need to reacquaint ourselves and our fellow Americans with the ideas and principles that work. Ideas matter, and it's the responsibility of those of us who understand that to make sure that the right ones are heard.

Slaying Leviathan is out!

I am happy to announce that my book Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform has been released. You can order it here.

Democrats Asked to Pack Moran Town Hall Before Constituents Arrive

The glossy postcard, printed and posted at taxpayer expense, arrived last week:

Howard Dean
to Speak at Town Hall Discussion
on Health Care Reform
Hosted by Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA)
on
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
7:00PM - 9:00PM
Doors open at 6:00PM

Wanting to get a good seat (after all, nothing says reasoned policy discussion like Howard Dean and Jim Moran), I made a mental note to arrive by 6:00.

You can imagine my surprise today when a friend forwarded me an email from Brandyn Keating, Virginia State Director of Organizing for America, "a project of the Democratic National Committee", touting Mr. Moran's Town Hall meeting and announcing:

Arrival Time: 5:00 p.m.

"Please arrive as early as possible to the town hall, and make sure that the most powerful voices in this debate are those calling for real reform, not angrily clamoring for the status quo," the message pleads.

I'm glad to know that we've got them running scared, but asking party loyalists to pack a so-called town hall meeting before constituents arrive is just plain wrong.

My fellow conservatives, please arrive by 5:00, and please spread the word to others about the Democrats' trickery.

The location is:

South Lakes High School
11400 South Lakes Drive
Reston, Virginia

President Reagan's 1984 Acceptance Speech

Is America better off than she was 25 years ago?

Health Reform

Obama on 300,000,000-payer health insurance

MTNP Podcast

Click here to listen to a podcast of Saturday's MTNP interview with Paul Mitchell, the conservative candidate booted from the Republican Party booth at the Lake County, Illinois, Fair.

MTNP Radio Today

Please tune in to Meet The New Press Radio this morning at 9:00 EST, as my SamSphere colleagues Doug Lambert and Skip Murphy host Paul Mitchell, the conservative candidate who was booted from the Republican Party booth at the Lake County, Illinois, Fair.