RALEIGH – It seems I am a mobster. Who knew? I always thought I was more of a lobster – you know, hard shell on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside.
I am a mobster, apparently, because my colleagues and I at the John Locke Foundation are critics of ObamaCare, as are other free-market organizations, who’ve held public events expressing their views, at which some attendees in other states have occasionally been impolite, a term which might also describe a threatening phone call received last week by the office of U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, whose ideological allies used the term “mobs” to describe the incident and us in the same breath.
If you’re still with me, take a breath and brace yourself. We’re not done yet with the twisting and the stretching.
I am, furthermore, a mobster because my JLF colleagues have participated in dozens of public events across North Carolina on the subject of health care reform, events that have been so well attended and energetic that some news organizations have taken to calling them “shouting mobs,” even though any reasonable person would describe the crowds as consisting largely of moms with strollers, senior citizens in straw hats, farmers in ball caps, bespectacled office workers on their lunch hour, teenagers brandishing handmade signs, and other, similarly dangerous individuals.
And I am a mobster because my colleagues and I at JLF have questioned the economics and assumptions behind ObamaCare, as have some employers and health-industry associations, which have a financial interest in the outcome of any federal health-care legislation, which means that they must be lying and manufacturing fake public outrage, which means that JLF must be lying and manufacturing fake public outrage – you know, just whipping up the mob.
Whew.
All social movements require a variety of resources to be effective. They require organization. They require grassroots passion. They require volunteers and donations. They require strategy and planning. They require media outreach. Sometimes, they require legal representation.
When thousands of North Carolina conservatives gather together to express their views – say, at the Tea Party rallies this spring or the health care rallies this month – all of these resources are employed. The planning often begins with a local activist or group of activists expressing an interest in setting something up. JLF and other think tanks then respond by providing speakers, publications, and advance publicity. Activist groups such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks help to plan the events, reserve venues, and turn out their members. Lots of other local groups pitch in, too, by emailing alerts, sharing them on Facebook or Twitter, phoning friends, and arranging rides for, say, seniors needing assistance and families with young children. Dozens of volunteers are involved. Hundreds if not thousands of donors are involved, by supporting groups such as JLF and AFP, and such donors run the gamut from philanthropic foundations to individuals sending in $20 checks.
If someone says that all this amounts to “fake” grassroots or “manufactured mobs,” then that person is a fool or a liar. If someone says that this model is unique to modern conservatism and has not been employed dozens of times in the past by social movements across the spectrum, from abolition and temperance in the 19th century to civil rights, gun rights, and abortion groups in the 20th century, then that person is a fool or a liar.
Finally, if someone says that conservatives with honest and well-considered objections to ObamaCare are in some way responsible for the fact that some kook made a threatening phone call to Brad Miller’s office, that person is either a fool or a liar.
And for the record, since the John Locke Foundation has itself received threatening phone calls in recent weeks in response to its stance on ObamaCare, threats that necessitated tightening our building security (again), I will state unambiguously that I do not hold the president, liberals in Congress, or liberal groups in North Carolina responsible. There are always a few kooks in any crowd. That doesn’t make it a mob, or me a mobster.
Although I am partial to fedoras and Frank Sinatra.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation