Bachmann is a few cans shy of a six pack, and much of the "tea bag" frenzy -- including the reflexive and wholly unjustifiable claims about Obama's socialist agenda -- has been as manifestly absurd as the Republican establishment's embrace of such notions has been cravenly cynical. That you only have to talk to these people for a few minutes to uncover the (at best) fringe ideas and (at worst) racial resentments -- the Antichrist? the Rothschilds? -- underlying their protests, tells you pretty much everything you need to know. That said, I have to confess that part of me is very happy to discover that there are still people with enough fire in the belly to drive hundreds of miles on short notice to, as they say, "make their voices heard." It means that the formidable powers of a consumer society bent on lulling us into a half-sleep of instant gratification and cheap thrills hasn't entirely succeeded. After all, why go out of your way to cheer at a protest that will most likely prove fruitless, when you have your X-Box, Netflix, Doritos, and an endless sea of internet porn? At the very least it signals that a capacity for political activism, however misguided and poorly informed it may be, is still with us. A capacity for civic engagement is the lifeblood of our politics, and while I'm convinced Bachmann is a lunatic, part of me still smiles when I see a protest, any protest.

You do have a point and it's a good one. I would like to see the rest of America; those working families whose income hasn't changed though their credit card interest, energy costs, food costs, etc. continue to increase, those with genuine questions, those laid off by companies who have moved overseas, and those financially destroyed and those rejected by the current health care system, take a holiday like July 4th perhaps to raise their voices in support of our government and loudly reject the wild eyed rantings of the right.

It is difficult to get all worked up about health insurance...Until you don't have any.

You are soooooo right.

But when my COBRA ran out four years ago, I was forced to throw myself to the wolves BCBS. And everything changed.

The health insurance racket is just this side of organized crime.

The tea-baggers had better not start a revolution. Because if they do, the health insurance lice are going up against a wall.

I thought the current plan, in its most radical form, would allow for state by state exemptions.

All the needy, destitute states like Massachusetts and Maine and Iowa and Oregon would get a public health insurance option while all the wealthy, well-heeled states like Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and W. Virginia wouldn't.

The tea-baggers could just move to the state of their choice!

The fact that Obama has surrounded himself with people that worship Mao and Marx makes thinking people wonder about his agenda. They're not racists, especially those touting the Obama as "The Joker" shirt. Most of the folks you're putting down were around for the SDS, The Black Panthers, Nixon, then Jimmy Carter. It has instilled a general mistrust of the Government to fix anything; in FACT the Government (from the FBI doing UnAmerican investigations of people to Vietnam to Watergate to 24% mortgage rates) with the help of Congress seems to screw-up most things they attempt to fix. I don't want them running my health care, my heating or air conditioning, my life!!!! I just wish all those whiners wanting Big Brother to do more and more for them would pony up the Trillions the Democrats just spent paying back their special interest groups-attorneys, unions, and environmentalists!!

There certainly are legitimate grounds for skepticism regarding the current Democratic agenda. In fact, there are always legitimate grounds for opposing any party's agenda. This country desperately needs a sober, reasonable, responsible conservative opposition. I would welcome that with open arms. Roughly half of Americans lean to the right, which is why the difficult task of governing needs to be a cooperative effort. Disagreements are productive, but only so long as they are grounded in reality and derived from responsible analysis. Indeed, disagreements are necessary, since each side acts as a check on the unquestioned assumptions of the other, which should result (at least ideally) in better policies. But the nonsense spouted by Jon Voigt, Bachmann, Boehner, and others at the rally was simply that: piffle. Obama is not a socialist; claiming he is betrays either complete cynicism or appalling ignorance. Obama isn't a fascist. Talk about "death panels" is sheer lunacy. Frankly, I feel no compunction in denouncing such rhetoric for what it is. I'm certainly not trying to put down everyone who didn't vote for Obama, nor do I think all Republicans are idiots. But much of the energy behind such protests has come from the lunatic fringe of the American Right. If you want to be a concerned and engaged citizen, that is great. But please do your fellow citizens the courtesy of being politically active in an informed an sensible manner (which means ceasing to link Obama with Mao and deriding Democrats as "whiners" who long for Big Brother). I was only characterizing many of the people at the rally, at least as portrayed in the article, not everyone who is critical of Obama. I wish you would similarly avoid such blanket characterizations. Might I point out two things? 1) We are a self-governing people, which means that if we have bad government, we are responsible. The corrective is to elect wiser and more responsible representatives, not to bash government per se as though it were some hostile, foreign power. 2) I share your worries about the ballooning national debt. But the impetus and justifications for its accumulation have, since 1980, come chiefly from the Republican Party (though abetted at times by Democrats). Recall that Clinton was the last person to insist on a balanced budget, and it was under his watch that we last had a budget surplus.