I have had many of the same concerns you’ve had about government intrusion into our lives during the eight years of the Bush Administration, when privacy rights were curtailed, wiretapping without warrants began, and unaccountability and secrecy seemed to be the order of the day.

It’s funny I heard very little from conservatives concerned about personal liberty, freedom and protection from government intrusion then. In fact, what I usually heard was that disagreement with Administration policies = treason. I got whiplash watching the whole “militia” movement and sustained attacks on the Clinton Administration completely evaporate in 2001 the moment George W. Bush took office. The moment Obama entered office, we were back to the same crazy rhetoric from 1992-2000.

When President Bush came to Rochester and visited a school in Greece for one of his “town hall” meetings on reforming Social Security, tickets for that event were available ONLY to registered Republican party members (voter rolls were checked by the local GOP office who was handing out tickets), questions asked were pre-screened on 3×5 index cards, and opposition was rarely, if ever, heard at these events. In fact, protesters had to gather off-site a mile away. Under these policies, we wouldn’t be talking about health care reform protests because they wouldn’t be allowed. During Bush, just having an anti-Bush bumper sticker on your car was sufficient to have you removed and/or detained.

Thankfully, we didn’t have the “loyalty oaths” that some of these events featured in some of the southern states, where you literally had to pledge support for the administration before gaining admittance!

I think every view should be heard, including yours, mine, and the guy over there and the woman next door. But the exchange of views should be respectful, with everyone given a chance to speak. That certainly isn’t happening at these town hall meetings where people are being shouted down and occasionally threatened.

There is not a single health care reform proposals on the table in Congress that “takes over” the health care system by the government. The single-payer plan is dead. There is a plan that offers a public option buy-in to what is essentially Medicare. It means that before age 65, if you want Medicare-like coverage, you can pay for it at cost out of your own pocket.

It scares the hell out of private insurers because they don’t want to have to compete with that. They certainly can compete with it if they choose, but that means leaner profits for them. This is all about money, not about freedom or Communism.

Communism and socialism are words thrown around a lot on Fox News and in right wing circles, but it’s really empty rhetoric, and I’d remind you a lot of elected officials using it are on government run health care plans themselves, and you don’t see them hurrying to switch to a private provider either.

I am all with you on preserving personal liberty, freedom of speech, and telling people if they want benefits, they have to work for them (either through a job or assigning them some public works project so they accomplish something for the public good).

As far as intimidation and coercion, remember, this is the Democratic party. With this party, it’s always like herding cats. You can’t get them to vote in unison on much of anything.

Health care reform impacts none of these things, however. It’s ultimately a battle between a privately run monopoly/duopoly in most markets that answers to Wall Street who expects to see a certain business model with anticipated returns. Private sector competition alone will bring you multiple providers all charging nearly equivalent pricing. That’s because Wall Street will bitch and moan about price wars. Executives listen to Wall Street before they listen to customers. The public option shakes up the whole system, and forces new pricing models, expected returns, and forces efficiencies from all sectors to deliver the best possible care with the least overhead.

And finally, for the record, while some of these people attending these events are paid to protest, or bused in from other places, there are many who have been suckered into the anti-reform rhetoric promulgated by astroturfing groups that pretend to represent ordinary Americans but actually sustain themselves on money paid by health care lobbies to run these pushback efforts.

On an issue like this, which is really all about the money, following that money is far more illuminating than the propaganda campaign I’ve watched from health care interests trying to scare people.