New Rules for Radicals

If you're a virtuous and patriotic American, you may find this column either offensive or misleading. If so, please forward it to White House authorities at the Department of Fishy Activity. (E-mail the good people at flag@whitehouse.gov.)

As many of you have heard, the White House now requests that the public tattle on those of us spreading "fishy" "disinformation" regarding Washington's proposed takeover of your health care. This step, naturally, is for our own good.

Now, don't get overly paranoid, you rabble of freaky right-wing zealots. Judging from the Obama administration's track record, the program will do absolutely nothing other than add billions to the deficit.

The vital thing to bear in mind, though, is that the nation needs a concerted plan to corral this wacko "mob" of "thugs" who recklessly use the First Amendment to decelerate all this forward progress.

We are talking about a moral imperative here. As one senator asserted this week, passing government-run health care is the "sacred duty" of Congress. (Boy, it's a good thing we banished all that moral preening from Washington.)

When your mission is the same as the Lord's herself ... well, you can imagine the kind of scandalous characters populating the opposition camp. It is the type of individual who Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi astutely points out has the tendency to carry "swastikas and symbols like that" to local town hall meetings on health care.

You might be curious to find out what symbols Pelosi believes are "like" swastikas. Maybe she's referring to the Gadsden flag.

In any event, it's true that people who believe in health care choices and free markets are zombies. For one thing, they are entirely too well-dressed to contemplate serious issues independently — and thank you, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, for pointing that out. A man without Birkenstocks, after all, is a man without a soul.

Organizing and protesting, as any sensible and compassionate citizen already understands, is exclusively the bailiwick of ideologically diverse and freethinking groups, such as unions.

And really, the most galling aspect of this entire spurious uprising is the rumor that protestors are actually organized .

Can you imagine?

The question now becomes: How can we, thinking people, stop this horde of well-heeled, Nazi-loving, insurance industry-funded (and possibly organized) robots? What can we do to destroy our health care?

Well, as always, the president has crafted a glorious plan forward. In an e-mail to the nation, Obama begins by telling Americans, "This is the moment our movement was built for."

"That's why Organizing for America is putting together thousands of events this month," the president goes on, his words stirring even in pixel form, "where you can reach out to neighbors, show your support, and make certain your members of Congress know that you're counting on them to act."

Who knew? "Organizing" for America? Movements? Sounds familiar.

For you yahoos out there who gleefully will point out the hypocrisy of Democrats grousing about organized grass-roots activism — whether well-funded or organic — you just don't get it. It is imperative that we start thinking about the world in a counterintuitive way.

In today's world, the "radicals" are the ones who protest the takeover of a huge swath of the economy by government bureaucrats who have proved they can't even run a program that gives free money away to car buyers properly. It is radicals who want to preserve the pillars of a system that more than 80 percent of Americans still believe works — though certainly not perfectly.

In this new world, radicals are the ones who protest adding trillions to our debt and radicals who have the temerity to ask whether legislators have read the bills they sign. You've seen them. Those radicals ranting and raving about silly things, such as the Constitution.

So here is a plan. Instead of making the case for health care "reform," let's launch an offensive against citizens. Nazis. Fanatics. Mobs. Thugs. Whatever you call them.

And if you're really patriotic, you even can report them.

David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post and the author of "Nanny State." Visit his Web site at www.DavidHarsanyi.com. To find out more about David Harsanyi and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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