Contributed by: filbert Sunday, August 16 2009 @ 09:26 PM CST
When we arrived in Grand Junction we drove straight to the high school. The gal who was in charge, a twenty something cutie with passion in her face, got on the sound system and said to the group that it was our job to respect the anti obama demonstrators. She was very clear that we were not to interfere with their free speech. I was so impressed by her clarity, confidence, and willingness to be the hard nosed leader of the group. She said that if anyone became too inflamed she would take them out of the group and not let them demonstrate and our goal was to be upbeat, positive, and confident.
Who can argue with that? I told Paul last night that I just felt like crying as she talked. I was so touched. This is AMERICA. We all have free speech and in attempting to debate, shake up, and break down old systems of thinking…sometimes emotions get frayed and tempers can overwhelm. During the whole event I saw much more rage coming from those opposed to Obamacare than from the Democrat Activist side.
This is illustrated in the video montage I made for Huffington Post.
When the event was over, we all piled back on the bus and Senator Bennett came to speak to everyone. He was very grateful that they all came to the event. I could not hear what he said, but I could tell it meant alot to them that he was there to talk to them.
As for who was astroturfing, the Conservative side simply had home made signs and a few speakerphones. They were all on foot, and I saw no bus loads of people showing up to demonstrate with them. It was all just individuals and families. I did hear one young man yell that Obama was an f’ing n word before he took off on his bike. I thought he was a coward and a bully. Another young teenage girl was yelling F you and flipping the bird as she demonstrated against the dems. I did not see any of this type of behavior from the Democrat activists. They were all laughing and singing along with the music and ignoring the racial and profane slurs being shoved on them. I was a little embarassed to see the conservative side being so rude, and it was a good wake up call to stand back and see how we present ourselves from the other side of the street.
I think almost everyone really wants the best for most everyone else. It’s just that there’s such a wide gap of disagreement in how we can accomplish the goal of making everyone’s lives better.
I firmly believe that you make other people’s lives better FIRST by making yourself better, and only secondarily by making others more capable of handling their own lives. There is far too much blame-shifting in society today, and far too little responsibility-taking. People must take control of their own lives, and by that I mean every single aspect of their lives–their diet, their exercise, their social life, how they relate to friends, to families, to neighbors, and to everyone else. If you don’t control yourself, don’t *censored* to me or anyone else that someone else finds it necessary to control your behavior. Don’t expect somebody else to pay for your mistakes.
On a related note–the extent to which you depend on someone else for your life and happiness is the extent to which you will be an unhappy person. Learn self-reliance. Learn self-respect. Learn how to positively interact with others. Those are the basic life skills for a happy and productive life.
You have more power over your life than you realize you do.
Use your power on yourself. Grow. Be a free person, not a serf.