A couple of excerpts from comments (not mine) from a post decrying the outbursts at Sen. Wyden’s and Rep. DeFazio’s public meetings in Eugene, from the unofficial Lane County Bus Project blog:
DeFazio doesnt deserve the mob style from dems. maybe to be greeted with flowers for the battle he is waging though. the mob has formed of pure disgust of bush and cheney and the current direction of the country — a very well found disgust. taking back and enshrining the precedents that they have stepped on might well take decades if even possible. But defazio is doing this and doing it well. no civil disobedience necessary. and possibly a better process to allow those people to really feel like they are being heard.
One better process would be action on the concerns expressed and acknowledgment that they might have a valid viewpoint after being derided for five years since the Iraq war machine got started up. Endless repeating of lines about how impeachment would take vital time away from stopping the war are as ludicrous as the reiterations that Iraq has been turning around for the last four years. If there’s a plan to get Bush to end the war before the end of his term, let’s hear what it is and get a chance to evaluate it, just as we should have expected Bush to give us a plan for “victory” in Iraq that wasn’t just hunder down and wait until it was someone else’s problem.
The immaturity of citizens who are out of control, who cant or wont maintain control of their emotions and behavior, who are so grandiose and so righteous that they shout down anyone who opposes or frustrates them should not be tolerated in a public forum. They simply damage a righteous cause and forfeit the right of dissent and public speech.
Yes, please, let us restrict any dissent in our public forums. After all, that is what President Bush has done so successfully in his “public” meetings over the past few years. It’s worked well for him.