Below The Beltway

Much is being written this morning about a Congressional Town Hall in Tampa, Florida that turned into a violent scuffle:

TAMPA — Bitter divisions over reforming America’s health care system exploded Thursday night in Tampa amid cat calls, jeering and shoving at a town hall meeting.

“Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!” dozens of people shouted as U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, struggled to talk about health insurance reforms under consideration in Washington, D.C.

“There is more consensus than there is disagreement when you get right down to it,” Castor offered, immediately drowned out by groans and boos.

She pressed on, mostly unheard among screams from the audience estimated by Tampa police to be about 1,500.

“Tell the truth! Tell the truth!” “Read the bill!” “Forty-million illegals! Forty million illegals!”

The spectacle at the Children’s Board in Ybor City sounded more like a wrestling cage match than a panel discussion on national policy, and it was just the latest example of a health care meeting disrupted by livid protesters. Similar scenes are likely to be repeated across the country as lawmakers head to their home districts for the summer recess.

It’s pretty clear though, that both sides were responsible for the melee that resulted:

Several hundred people, mostly opponents, wound up outside or packing a hallway leading into the meeting room. Some scuffled with members of the sponsoring groups who manned the doorway.

One man who said he was injured and intended to file a police complaint, Randy Arthur of Oldsmar, was outside the meeting room with his wife, Kathy Arthur, when organizers tried to close the doors.

She said he was slammed against a wall. He later talked to police officers, his knit shirt ripped and a few scratches visible on his chest.

Just great so, now we have both sides yelling at each other and getting into occasional fistfights rather than talking to each other and debating the issues.

This isn’t exactly what the Founders had in mind, folks.

Here’s the video of the entire stupid mess: