LAT op-ed: Democracy in action and the obnoxious

[Heidi]

The hotheaded opponents of healthcare reform and their ilk have always been a part of the American fabric.

By Gregory Rodriguez
August 17, 2009

Don't get too outraged, those of you who are looking down your noses at those unreasonable, misinformed anti-healthcare-reform town hallers. No matter what particular clan, tribe or party you belong to, you can't really disown them any more than you can your own grandmother. You may not agree with them, but their brand of hotheaded, self-righteous, obnoxious, stick-it-to-the-manism is as American as apple pie.

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Clearly, know-it-allism can also make people intellectually lazy and willing to follow the herd on any given topic. "I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America," Tocqueville wrote.

That leads us to one of the most glaring paradoxes in U.S. society. Our founders created a government that required an informed citizenry. We were one of the earliest countries to democratize education. And yet, as historian Richard Hofstadter once wrote, anti-intellectualism is "older than our national identity," and it's part and parcel of our belief that all men are equal.

So as much fun as it may be for some of you to blame idiot right-wingers for the invention of ill-informed political haranguing, it's really an all-American tradition. It's in the same spirit of all those lefty bumper stickers that read "Question Authority." It's embodied in Benjamin Franklin's famous advice along the same lines: "The first responsibility of every citizen is to question authority."

It's not a pretty process, and it clearly has its dangers. But it's the price of democracy to suffer fools.

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