Response to the Possible But Not Certain Teabaggers

You might have noted the comment to my post yesterday, made by our illustrious neighbor right up the road, G.

This means, then, that I am locked into going to the Lovingston meeting less than two weeks from now. (Gulp!)

There can be absolutely no doubt that there are many others among our fellow "come-here's" who have also resolved to attend that meeting.

There's a new generation of them now, since the days 20 and 30 years ago when they showed up in force and successfully scared off other efforts to bring things into the county that were thought to be toxic. But the new generation is not long out of high school and college, and they are still shaking themselves out and trying to see if they can figure out what they want to do with themselves. Their parents are still around, though, and they're still fully ambulatory and taking up causes, in a detached sort of way.

I seem to remember at least three of their successes at discouraging things in the past. One involved feelers for building a nuclear power plant, another a regional prison, and a third a set of towers that the Navy wanted to rear high in the county skies, having to do with some sort of long-wave communications system, or pehaps an early warning setup. But the Navy has been exacting its revenge ever since. Every few days they bombard the county with bone-shaking blasts of sound caused by low-flying pairs of jet fighters, bombers, or whatever those suckers are.

The native-borns were never as evident in the opposition to these projects, but it could be easily noticed that they never stood in the way of the objections so strongly voiced by the newcomers.

And actiually I would be shocked and astonished if the same disruptive scenes that have already happened in many places in the U.S. (while having gone conscientiously unreported by the mainstream news media) were repeated at the upcoming health care meeting here. I've already given one reason, but after my subsequent numerous online readings yesterday, another strong reason comes to mind.

Someone characterized the disruptors as being mainly older rural people. I wouldn't fully buy that, but if it's true, then that makes such an uproar additionally unlikely to happen here. I would think that this county is too small, and it's one of those places where everyone either knows or knows of everyone else, and that felicity extends even to the newcomers. If you're here it's because you must live here. There's no other reason to be here. Aside from a ski resort that is mainly used by outsiders who are not as fearful of the steep access roads and their effects on valuable cars, there are no gold mines, football stadiums, or even a Civil War battlefield to visit here.

This means that there would be entirely too much chance that, should someone start caterwauling in the courthouse or the high school auditorium, they will be recognized -- and no cause would be worth having that happen. The reputations of yourself and your relatives are all important around here. That's mainly what everyone knows about you. And besides, you never know who you will run into later and in what situation.

Also, I would expect that even the old, crusty Repubs would become entirely too interested instead in joining their Democratic neighbors in seizing on the opportunity to recite to one and all their own personal tales of health care woes, since illness and insurance hassles do not respect ideology -- a point that I keep wondering how the reform foes can afford to keep overlooking.

Meanwhile my wife, who gets around far more than I do, firmly believes that no candidates for teabaggery are to be found living anywhere in or near this county.