By Floyd Bayne
I like the fact that Dave does his own talking, unlike Cantor, who usually had his minions do most of the talking. After Dave gave the crowd an overview of what he has been dealing with since going to Washington, D.C. he opened the floor for questions. Now keep in mind this was an OPEN town hall meeting. That means that there were more than just Republicans in the room. As it should be.
After fielding a few questions, one from yours truly, he finally got one from a lady who asked a question that did not please most of the crowd, as if it should. She asked whether Dave would sign on to support some bill that has been presented to make gun purchases by "mentally unstable" people more difficult. Now I am not going to get into why this is a dumb bill, that is for another time and post. This woman was not screaming or being belligerent, she did not "butt in line," as Dave called on her in turn, and, I assume, she is a constituent and lives in the 7th district. She had every right to be there and every right to ask her question.
I thought that Dave handled it with aplomb and tact, but he made it clear that he was not going to jump on the gun-control band-wagon. Good for him. What really pissed me off was the way several people in the audience reacted and treated the lady. People tried to shout her down and told her to leave. One man even stood up, waved his hand at her to sit down and told her to shut up and leave.
Now these are Republicans, who tout themselves paragons of virtue and morality, defenders of free speech and the Constitution, people who complain vociferously about how rude and mean Democrats are to speakers whom they disagree with. A note: If you are going to set yourselves up as being more virtuous, even morally superior to "those people," it would help your credibility if you actually acted like it.
You may not have liked her question, you may think she is misguided or even dumb as a sack of hammers, but she was called on and asked her question in a respectful manner. Free speech works both ways, folks. If you expect yours to be respected then you damn well better respect that of others.
Just this mans opinion.
