Protestors confront politicians at town halls megathread

[EnglishPete]

Michigan Congressman Dave Trott (MI 11th) holds a staged Town Hall Meeting

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/18/1644907/-Michigan-Congressman-Dave-Trott-MI-11th-holds-a-staged-Town-Hall-Meeting

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When these lefty rentamob types talk about "hoping to have a chance to express their concerns" what they mean is that instead of asking questions to hear what his answer would be they wanted to take up as much time as they ranting at and hectoring him.  Now the Congressman is a big boy and he has to expect to put up with a certain amount of that as part of his job.

However he also has to have consideration for constituents of his who have come to hear what he has to say on a variety of issues and not have to put up with spending half the time there not hearing what he has to say but listening to hectoring predicable rants from assorted lefties wanting to speak their brains to a captive audience. Trott was perfectly correct to keep these people from disrupting the meeting.

[EnglishPete]

Technically doesn't belong in this thread, since it's about a lack of town halls, but:

Flawless Marco: I won't do town halls because people might yell at me

And people call liberals snowflakes?  Give me a break!

What would his motivation be for giving a free platform to obnoxious and aggressive 'activists' who want to wreck the meeting for anyone who has actually come to listen to what their Senator has to say on a number of issues. There are plenty of other ways, with modern communications that he can allow constituents to question him publicly and for him to respond to their questions. Choosing the method that best suits antisocial 'protestors' doesn't do anyone any good. Pandering to or rewarding in any way the behaviour of this type of people is always a mistake as it only encourages them.

[EnglishPete]

"Rent-a-mob"? Not on your life.

I'll grant you that most of these protestors will not be paid to be their. Those organising and directing the protests will be paid of course but most of the rest will be the kind of people who engage in this kind of anti-social 'activism' for a hobby.

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I notice that those who engage in this kind of behaviour will frequently claim to be the voice of 'the people'. They are not, they represent themselves. The purpose of a townhall meeting is to allow constituents who want to learn his views on various issues to ask him questions, express their concerns and to hear what he has to say in response. The purpose is not to allow organised groups of far left activists to disrupt and hijack the event and turn it in to their own event.

Other people don't show up to these events so they can spend their time listening to loudmouth leftists rant and speak their brainz. If they had wanted to do that they could have just stayed at home and watched TV. As I said the Congressman is a big boy and part of his job is putting up with being heckled by these kind of people. However he has a responsibility to the majority of his constituents not to allow this kind of people wreck his townhalls for everybody else.

[EnglishPete]

"Rent-a-mob"? Not on your life.

I'll grant you that most of these protestors will not be paid to be their. Those organising and directing the protests will be paid of course but most of the rest will be the kind of people who engage in this kind of anti-social 'activism' for a hobby.

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I notice that those who engage in this kind of behaviour will frequently claim to be the voice of 'the people'. They are not, they represent themselves. The purpose of a townhall meeting is to allow constituents who want to learn his views on various issues to ask him questions, express their concerns and to hear what he has to say in response. The purpose is not to allow organised groups of far left activists to disrupt and hijack the event and turn it in to their own event.

Other people don't show up to these events so they can spend their time listening to loudmouth leftists rant and speak their brainz. If they had wanted to do that they could have just stayed at home and watched TV. As I said the Congressman is a big boy and part of his job is putting up with being heckled by these kind of people. However he has a responsibility to the majority of his constituents not to allow this kind of people wreck his townhalls for everybody else.

I love how the right hates free speech. Sad! Triggered People!

Freedom of speech is fundamentally about the freedom to listen. Left wing activists have the freedom to speak and to give others the opportunity to chose to listen to what they have to say. However freedom of speech doesn't mean that others are obliged to listen to what you have to say. Many may chose to listen to what someone else has to say instead.

That isn't good enough for these left wing 'activists'. It isn't enough that they have plenty of platforms that give people the opportunity to listen to them if they want to. Because that means that many millions of people will chose to ignore what they have to say and go listen to what someone else, for example a Republican Congressman, has to say instead. These foaming at the mouth 'activists'  hate this, which is why they like to do things like this, shouting their opponents down and forcing an unwilling audience to listen to what is on their brainz rather than listen to the speaker they chose to listen to.

It is this that lies at the heart of these far leftist's hatred of free speech.

[EnglishPete]

Pbrowera2a

If a group of people went to the performance of a play with the intention of shouting at the actors, screaming insults heckling and interrupting it would be recognised that this was an abuse of those audience members who had come to watch and listen to the production and who would be unable to do so because of this behaviour. Further more one wouldn't expect the theatre managers to tolerate such abuse of their audience.

Town halls are set up so that people of various different views can express their concerns, ask questions and hear the responses of their Member of Congress. People are not obliged to listen but if they are there to behave in such a way they prevents other audience members from hearing what they have to say then why should the Congressman be any more accommodating to those who have showed up to abuse his audience than a theatre manager would be in the same situation?

[EnglishPete]

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American politics (and British political life) are not as scripted as a play, concert, opera, or ballet. Even a courthouse trial of an alleged serial killer has its rules; one does not get away with such disorderly conduct as shouting "Free this innocent person" or "Just hang him!" while a trial is in session. It is more analogous to a sporting event in which one can boo the substandard performance of a star athlete.

Oh for the good old days of the 18th and 19th centuries when politics was heavily influenced by mob violence. Whata shame we don't have more of that <sarcasm>

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That is the purpose of elections. By 'shaken up a bit' you mean having their voice drowned out, preventing people who want to hear what they have to say from hearing them, abusing and intimidating them and their supporters.

What you are saying is that it is desirable that members of the public who take part in and enjoy this kind of rowdy, abusive and antisocial behaviour should have a greater influence on politics than those that do not. I don't think that such backward forms of politics are good, we should have less of this form of politics not more. Also I wonder if you also think that its OK for the right to engage in mob behaviour if they think that elected officials are "insensitive to their needs"

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There is no worse form of dictatorship than pure mob rule.

[EnglishPete]

Colorado GOP on Rep. Mike Coffman's town hall:

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https://twitter.com/cologop/status/852355889847783424

Coffman (to his credit) refuted this:

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https://twitter.com/KyleClark/status/852640309175517184

Attendance was restricted to people living in the district, with photo IDs checked at the door.

It still eludes me how labeling protesters as organized is supposed to discredit them. Do the people who reflexive regurgitate "FAKE PROTESTERS" every time really think there aren't enough pissed off Democrats in the country right now, in a political climate this polarized, to actively organize against the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans in such a fashion? Really, that's so unfathomable? You're saying Democratic constituents can't get their message heard without paging boogeyman Soros for extra cash and hired goons every time they want to scream at a congressman?

The point is to stress that the protestors are not a representative cross section of society but consist of that section of the population that actively are attracted to and enjoy taking part in these kind of protests. These are mostly people on the left, it is a characteristic of many on the right that themorend this kind of disruptive behaviour repulsive and so they are far less likely to engage in that kind of behaviour. Furthermore these kind of people are very much a minority and will rarely act spontaniously. They prefer to act out in this way when they are organised by some group or other (these things are always top down never bottom up) in a way that gathers them together and avoid revealing them to be the unrepresentative minority that they are.

[EnglishPete]

Colorado GOP on Rep. Mike Coffman's town hall:

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https://twitter.com/cologop/status/852355889847783424

Coffman (to his credit) refuted this:

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https://twitter.com/KyleClark/status/852640309175517184

Attendance was restricted to people living in the district, with photo IDs checked at the door.

It still eludes me how labeling protesters as organized is supposed to discredit them. Do the people who reflexive regurgitate "FAKE PROTESTERS" every time really think there aren't enough pissed off Democrats in the country right now, in a political climate this polarized, to actively organize against the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans in such a fashion? Really, that's so unfathomable? You're saying Democratic constituents can't get their message heard without paging boogeyman Soros for extra cash and hired goons every time they want to scream at a congressman?

The point is to stress that the protestors are not a representative cross section of society but consist of that section of the population that actively are attracted to and enjoy taking part in these kind of protests. These are mostly people on the left, it is a characteristic of many on the right that themorend this kind of disruptive behaviour repulsive and so they are far less likely to engage in that kind of behaviour. Furthermore these kind of people are very much a minority and will rarely act spontaniously. They prefer to act out in this way when they are organised by some group or other (these things are always top down never bottom up) in a way that gathers them together and avoid revealing them to be the unrepresentative minority that they are.

And if you're going to bring up the Civil Right movement I would point out that Civil Rights for African Americans were achieved by actions of the Federal government. The Civil Right protests that grew after this Federal government action had nothing to do with the achievement of AA civil rights and were much more aimed at giving African Americans a sense of 'ownership' of their civil rights and tying them politically to 'civil rights leaders' who could then be integrated into the existing party political power structure in Washington.

If you're going to bring up the American Revolution then I would point out that the Revolution was an economic disaster for ordinary Americans, one which they wouldn't recover from for decades. By the time the US started to recover from the Revolution it was well on the way towards a disastrous Civil War caused by huge flaws in the original Constitution. It wasn't until the aftermath of the Civil War and changes made by the Republican Party that America really became great again.

The Revolution was good for Whiggish elites in America who gained power (the so called 'founding fathers'), it was good for Whiggish elites in the UK who got the development of profitable trade in North America (the original purpose of the colonies) but without the cost and bother of defending and administering the colonies themselves. For ordinary Antebellum Americans (and indeed for African American slaves hoping for liberation from slavery) the first century after the Declaration of Independence would have been better if they'd stayed within the British Empire.

[EnglishPete]

Again with the strawman.  I never said there weren't any democrats in a republican's district.  I said the odds are that those with extreme left wing views are very likely in the minority if they live in a republican congressman's district.  Same goes for a "Tea Party" protester at a democrat congressman's town hall.

"in the minority": ie.  Very likely to have unrepresentative views from the average voter / majority of voters in the district.

And again, does that make them a "Fake" or "Paid" protester when they attend their congressman's or senator's town hall? No. 

The point is that that the far left are a minority even of Democratic voters and they will certainly be a small fraction of the population in Republican held districts, and indeed in most Democrat held districts. The point about them being 'organised' is that the (almost invariably top down) organising will be done using various many decades old 'tricks of the trade' designed to make their group bigger and more significant in size than it really is. Protestors will organise to get to the front of the queue, bus people in from outside the area, spread themselves out across the hall, have periodic interruptions spread out in time and paced for maximum impact. All designed to give the impression that such people represent a bigger and more significant section of the population than they actually do.

Its a bit rich if people behave in the obnoxious and anti-social way and then complain if the targets of their behaviour insult them or treat them with the same lack of respect in return.