Published at 12:00 AM on August 12, 2009
President's Portsmouth Town Hall meeting was fake Most of the opposition was kept outside
so Obama could entertain puff-ball questions
By Andrew J. Manuse

As the president's planted crowd read soft-ball questions from a script for President Obama so the tyrant-in-chief could return scripted answers, literal bus loads of pro-Obama protesters with the same shirts and the same "manufactured" signs emptied onto the green at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire yesterday to try, but not succeed, at outnumbering anti-Obama protesters who -- for the most part -- were not allowed inside the farcical meeting.

But real New Hampshire residents and citizens from surrounding states came in groups of two at most in plain clothes with homemade signs and outnumbered the "manufactured" supporters of the president, instead.

Anti-Obama protesters who did not get in to the school asked the tough questions and made their opposition to Obamacare and the otherwise socialist Obama agenda well known to anyone who would listen. To ensure that this side of the story gets told, I have included only the folks who were underrepresented inside Obama's fraudulent Town Hall meeting to make sure our voices are also heard. We earned this coverage with our sunburns and our laryngitis.

In case you missed it in the video, my open question to President Obama (since I wasn't allowed to ask him during the farcical meeting), is as follows: "My money and property are the fruit of my labor, which is the product of my rational soul. Mr. President, why do you think it's acceptable to take from my life and effort to give to another person stolen goods he or she has not earned and thus does not deserve? Why do you think it's OK to kill a part of me so another may mooch off my life?" (Read an article on Townhall.com that expands on these ideas (PDF).)

(From what I've seen, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly actually covered this event fairly on TV so far. Also, Fox Business News did a fairly good job as well. Local reports from the Union Leader and the Lowell Sun were also fair.)

The following video, produced by Campaign for Liberty, tells the rest of the story that my video above could not due to space limitations. It is extremely well done and truly captures the reality that is now before us as Americans. If I were telling someone what happened on Tuesday, August 11, 2009, in Portsmouth, I would tell them to watch these two videos and maybe read a few lines about the farce that occurred inside.


Regarding health care and whether the system should remain status quo, here is my response to the question, "Do you support health care reform?"

The word "reform," like "change," is vacant and irrational as a standalone concept. Reform and change can mean many things, and most of them are simply evil. Some of them are good, but they must be spelled out and debated with evidence and due process.

We need tort reform, meaning that it shouldn't be so easy and in some cases it should be impossible to sue a doctor who did everything he or she could, but it didn't work out for the patient. Medicine, like any science, is not perfect.

We also need to fix the illegal immigrant problem to cut health care costs by removing criminal elements, and others, and we need to encourage immigration of the best and brightest as well as those who want to contribute to our free market system based on individual liberty. They must prove they have an understanding of the U.S. constitution and our government of the people and by the people before they are allowed to stay. I believe they should also prove they can support themselves within a given time period.

Me at the Obamacare protest in Portsmouth, NH, on August 11, 2009Finally, we need to get government out of the way, allowing competition across state lines and throughout the nation. Health insurance should be phased out as a required employer benefit and as a government benefit, while other forms of private group insurance should be phased in.

By no means am I saying employers shouldn't be able to offer health insurance as a benefit. That's ridiculous. As it stands, some employers offer auto insurance as a benefit, too. That is their right to do so to attempt to attract quality employees. But no business or individual should ever be forced to offer or buy health insurance. For employees of companies that don't offer insurance, these individuals should be able to choose their own plan based on the myriad offered across the nation. Whether that is a group plan through their church, their YMCA or even if they choose to buy health care outright as needed, it must be allowed and encouraged by the market in our free society.

As for government care, I think all forms must be eliminated. Non-profit groups will certainly fill in where the government is taken out, and I'm sure privately funded health care will far exceed the health care provided by government in quality and efficiency. At no time should I or anyone else be forced to pay for another person's debts. Charity is volunteered, it is never forced. That is the way it is supposed to be in America, and that is how it should be.

Here are some articles and Web pages where you can learn more about health insurance as it is and the proposed reforms:

- Wall Street Journal, "The Truth About Health Insurance" (PDF).

- Whole Foods founder John Mackey is 100 percent correct on what health reform is needed (PDF).

- All You Need to Know About Health Insurance (PDF).

- Analysis of Health Care Bill HR 3200 (PDF). And here is the bill (PDF).

- Simple analysis of health care bill (PDF).

Cato Institute on Health Insurance (This is a libertarian think tank).

- The Heritage Foundation debunks Obama's lies. (This is a conservative think tank).

- The Heritage Foundation's page on health insurance reform.

- Bloomberg, Best article I've read concerning why Obama is wrong on health care, among other things (PDF).

- Sarah Palin is not wrong about death panels in Obamacare.

- Here's an article that has me featured in the photo (PDF). It nicely explains how Obama cannot win this information war.