In the news we've seen videos of shouting, angry people at town
hall meetings. The media has laid out a picture of almost all town hall meetings being in this fashion. To find out the truth I went to a local
meeting myself on August 22nd, hosted by Congressman Pete Olson. He resides over Texas' 22nd Congressional District. This district contains the
cities of Rosenberg and La Marque as well as portions of Missouri City and Pearland.
August 24, 2009
Virginia Nicholson
The meeting took place at a local school, in which I attended in my youth, Sartartia Middle School of Fort Bend County in south west Houston. It was
held in the largest area of the school the lunch room, positively packed with people. Interesting fact: Fort Bend County’s demographic area happens
to be the most varied in the entire United States.
I found it interesting I was one of only a handful of younger people in the audience. Almost the entire group of people who came to attend was older
and grayer of hair.
I came for the atmosphere and general feeling of the attendees, the found the entire meeting was a wonderful experience. Everyone was courteous and
respectful, at one point Mr. Olson even said, "You can shout at me. I don't mind!"
When the presentation began, Mr. Olson introduced himself with an opening on being respectful to everyone in the audience and hopefully not being mad
enough to shout curses. The entire attending crowd clapped in agreement to being civil, courteous and polite.
After the introduction Mr. Olson started to describe his stance on the hottest topic of the day. He says on his website, “The health care delivery
system in the United States is in need of reform… I believe the “solution” the Congressional Majority has proposed would be disastrous for
Americans and further cripple our economy. It includes an unprecedented expansion of government involvement in health care, including the creation of
a government run public option that could result in more than 114 million Americans losing their current health care coverage. The public option
allows the government to act as regulator and funder for the public option. This will allow them to set rates for reimbursements and bail out the
public option if it fails to compete with its private sector counterparts.” The crowd reacted positively and clapped in agreement with the
Congressman’s stance on Healthcare reform.
Mid-speech the Congressman showed this chart:
Booing followed the showing of the chart and Mr. Olson’s agreement with the attendees. Although there was booing, it was neither aggressive nor
insulting, just an agreement that the chart is a completely horrible place to start for national health care.
Check out a larger picture of the graph here
The Congressman finished his presentation with an excerpt from the Bill of Rights, “The 10th Amendment is: The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Following the roar of
agreement that health care is not for the Federal Government, the Congressman stated that now is not the time for health care reform.
I left feeling rather good about my representative in the House. I agreed with his position on almost all his bullet points and so did the crowd. The
entire experience was awesome and I will definitely be going to further town hall meetings in my area to pose questions and show my Texas Pride and
Respect.
Pete Olson's standing on the major issues of the day can be found at his website:
Congressman Pete Olson's
Website
[edit on 2-9-2009 by SkepticOverlord]
