Did that all fit? (I hope so, but I didn't clear it with the national lobby.)

My observation yesterday (that swastikas just don't go with Brooks Brothers suits) was not terribly original, for it doesn't take much imagination to see major inconsistencies in the way health care protesters are being stereotyped and characterized by those who are trying to discredit them in the media, and theoretically in the eyes of the American public. Watching this process is at least as amusing as it is irritating, because they are trying to stereotype an incredibly, truly diverse crowd -- people who have little in common other than their opposition to the proposed destruction of the American health care system. Remarkable as it may seem to those who want to control our lives, the guy who wears a suit to work and always speaks in polite, measured tones can have exactly the same health concerns as the tattooed guy who works on motorcycles and punctuates every other sentence with a four letter word. So it really ought not surprise anyone that when the inefficient, bumbling government wants to mess with something as basic as their health, you'd get a very broad cross section of opposition.

I guess the attempts to discredit them should also not be surprising, and I'm glad to see it's backfiring. Why wouldn't it backfire? A guy in a suit who'd rather be at his country club does not enjoy being stereotyped as an angry thug, any more than a guy who never wears anything more formal than blue jeans and who doesn't even own a tie likes reading in the paper that he's a professionally astroturfed member of the Brooks Brothers brigade. Soft spoken, respectful people who do to great lengths to be polite don't like being told they're a loud and shrill mob, any more than angry, fed-up, ordinary people who can't take it anymore like being told they're well-organized lobbyists for a giant corporate agenda.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of ordinary people involved in this, and ordinary people are not professional lobbyists.

The idea here is of course to discredit them by any means necessary; hence all the ridiculous and contradictory stereotypes.

Not a new phenomenon. Once again:

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I am not a lobby! My opinions are my own. Furthermore, I am not an agenda. These phrases are used to discount opinions, and while it is not surprising to see them tossed around by activists engaged in ideological disputes with each other, for any legislator to discount constituents that way is to my mind, a lot worse than simply disagreeing with them.

One of the most common forms this classic ad hominem attack takes is to claim that an opponent works for or has been paid by some entity perceived as a malefactor.

The first time I experienced this personally, I had called the offices of a San Mateo County Supervisor who was seeking to prohibit gun shows, which I saw as a violation of the First Amendment. Before I could even state my position, I was asked, point blank -- "Are you a member of the NRA?" After I said I was, I was told that they had "heard enough from the gun lobby" and "we want input from ordinary citizens."

I'll never forget it. My argument was nullified without my being heard, much less addressed. I was considered a "lobbyist" -- simply because I had joined an organization and paid $35.00 or whatever it was. Not only was this deeply insulting, but it was profoundly illogical. Had I not bothered to join the NRA, my argument would have been exactly the same. And it would be exactly the same even if the NRA had paid me $10,000.

But as I've been saying from the beginning of this blog (and keep saying), why am I not allowed to just think what I think and be given credit for that?