This morning I was on my way to work listening to the local news talk about the “outburst” of Rep. Joe Wilson SC (R) during President Obama’s Healthcare reform speech last night.  During the speech Rep. Joe Wilson took particular exception to the President’s claim that no government healthcare funds would be extended to illegal aliens.  Rep Wilson shouted “You Lie!”.  Unfortunately for Joe that happened to be the one moment when the Democrats weren’t clapping and cheering for the President as they publically slobbered their love all over him.  It was hard to watch as it was Political Porn.

In case you missed it here is the event here is the video:

P.S.  I love the look on Pelosi’s face.  It looks like someone slapped her with a board.  But I digress …..

At first, I was taken aback by the lack of decorum in the chamber.  But as I continued to listen , I tired of the bashing the outspoken Representative of South Carolina was taking, so I turned on my iPod and continued driving to work.  Then a song came on and the introduction caused me to reconsider my disappointment in the congressman.  The spoken intro goes like this:

“Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipted, best prepared troops refuse to fight”

“In fact, I think it’s safe to say that they would rather switch … than fight!”

Of course my younger readers will immediately identify that this is the introduction of Public Enemy’s landmark song “Fight the Power” from their 1989 Album Fear of a Black Planet.  Need a refresher?  The video does not contain the introduction that was found on the album but any reason to hear Public Enemy is a good reason in my book.

Then something clicked in my mind.  Maybe we have traded real progress for the “theater” of legislation with all of it’s traditions and codes.  Maybe we need to get a little medieval, maybe to need to say it out loud when we think someone is feeding us bullshit.  Maybe we’ve been a little quiet too long. 

Some believe that conflict should be avoided at all costs.  We fall victim to group think at work because everyone is afraid to rock the boat.  We try to ignore children in our community that misbehave because to a degree we are afraid of what their parents might say to us if we said something to them.   Maybe we as a peopl have lost our stomach for conflict. 

Maybe our troops are refusing to fight.  But the other side’s haven’t … leading up to the election of Barack Obama the left certainly wasn’t congeneal.  Remember MoveOn.Org calling Gen. Pateraus a Liar in a full page Print Ad?  They called a commanding General (not a politician) a liar while he was in full command of 130,000+ troops in Iraq.  Remember CodePink?  Remember every G8 summit for the last 8 years?  Bush was called many things worse than a liar (granted not during a nationally televised speech) but does the venue make all that much difference when they instead stand just ouside the chamber and called Bush a liar for the better part of 4 years.  I don’t think it does.

Perhaps this and the type of conservative outrage at the Healthcare townhall meetings this summer, were the conservative version of what Bush was forced to absorb during his term. 

Perhaps they set the bar so low that it’s easy to step over it

Perhaps our troops are beginning to stir.

And perhaps this is just what we conservatives needed.

By the time I had gotten to work,  I had turned the corner from being disappointed in a conservative politican to getting on Twitter and yelling “Yo, Joe!”  and “Fight the Power!”

 

 

P.S.  facebookers will have to click through to see the videos.