Town Halls Or Dog And Pony Shows? Video Chris Murphy on gun control
Recently in CT we have had a spate of “Town Halls” from our Congressional “Representatives”.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Rep. Elizabeth Esty, Rep. Jim Himes et al. came out to be among the “folks” acting like they were actually set on a mission “to hear from you”. Rest assured they weren’t.
They instead come on a mission to spread mis-information with regard to the issues of gun control, the sequester and a myriad of other things. They say and present information designed to sway public opinion one way or another regardless of the truth to what they say. They mainstream media then continues the propaganda by printing the narrative that THEY desire.
What is worse is that they either pack their town halls with people sympathetic to their Progressive Liberal cause, or they cherry pick from the questions that have been submitted to them, or they totally control the agenda of the meeting to avoid addressing certain issues. That is not a dialogue – that is a controlled lecture and presentation of propaganda.
These are not true “Town Halls”… they are window dressing … they are trumped up and phony displays of “reaching out to their constituents”.
It is so they can say they “talked to their constituents”.
It is a glorified photo-op.
Here is one response from a CT voter regarding the recent Town Hall from Rep. Jim Himes:
Does Jim Himes Represent Us?
Congressman Himes is supposed to represent the people of the 4th District in the 113th Congress. But increasingly he instead appears to be representing the federal government to us. On Thursday he held a town hall in Greenwich and rather than focus on taking the views of his constituents back to Congress, he made sure to repeat and present the Obama Administration’s misrepresentations on the sequester to the people of Greenwich. He repeated all the scares pedaled lately by the president, including three-hour airport lines, CT defense plant shutdowns, and teacher layoffs (the feds don’t even pay teachers). He indicated the litany would “wreak havoc” on the economy. These Washington representatives want us to believe that a 1.2% reduction in the scheduled budget increase will unavoidably produce these catastrophic impacts. He so imbibes in Potomac water that he thinks we’ll believe his insulting analysis. It would be akin to us personally facing a 1.2% salary cut and immediately first cutting off our child’s antibiotics. His threatening such federal cuts reveals his contempt for us and his willingness to punish us because we’ve simply asked the Congress to get the budget under control. It’s only taken him four years to become totally subsumed in the oppressive Washington mindset.
In addition, he enunciated his view that constitutional rights should have checks on them. He said “there are no absolute rights in this country.” To exactly what country does he refer? He’s our representative to the federal government – the one created by the states and granted limited, enumerated powers in the Constitution. The way our republic works is we have the unalienable rights and we have delegated limited powers to the federal government. In short order Mr. Himes has revealed himself to be a elitist who believes our “unalienable rights” are simply those which the federal government deems fit to define for us. I would urge the citizens of the 4th District to look thru his mask of happy talk and see Mr. Himes for the government statist he reveals himself to be. The hard-working, taxpaying citizens of the 4th are not being well served by this imperious man.
Bob MacGuffie
In truth these people that we sent to Washington are not interested in representing their constituents in Congress.
They are interested in furthering their career and doing so by carrying water for the people of power in the White House.
They are NOT interested in what the public has to say – or to ask.
They are interested in TELLING YOU what they want you to know and believe.
They are bastardizing the intentions of the US Constitution as well, as they continue to vote for bills that erode away our rights.
This NOT how representative government is supposed to work.
Here is an example of one such Town Hall The format for this Town Hall in Manchester, CT, was much different than the prior one held in Hamden,CT, where voters really unloaded on Sen. Murphy, especially on the issue of gun control.
What happens here is that the crowd gets angry and their frustration with the process becomes palpable.
Chris Murphy and the others are doing all of us such a disservice by the way they structure these “Town Hall” events – it’s good that they see the natives are quite restless. I particularly liked it when a woman pointed out to the local Mayor who intervened, not to point/wag his finger at them like they were children.
OK – sure – we should all remind each other of being civil – but we are all incredibly frustrated and perhaps it is good for our “representatives” to feel and know this frustration on topics that are incredibly important with regard to our rights.
At least in this instance people were told that they would be able to talk with Senator Murphy afterwards – but that conversation should have been for everyone in the room… not just pro 2A advocates in private afterwards.
In the end you will see reasonable people seeking answers.
It is clear that Sen. Murphy does not know a lot about CT gun laws or about firearms in general.
We must continue to attend these Town Hall meetings and be heard… and to MAKE them hear us!
We must continue to video tape them and expose them.
We must continue to make the legislators uncomfortable when they deny us our rights.
About the Author
Judy Aron lives with her husband Michael in CT. They have three grown children who were homeschooled and are now successfully pursuing careers. Judy earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Magna Cum Laude, with minors in Business Administration and Computer Science from the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Judy has been involved in politics for over 15 years. Judy has written many articles on various aspects of education at home and in public and private schools. She has been published in magazines and online, and has been interviewed on radio and in print.
She served as Vice President of Connecticut Homeschool Network (CHN) and was their legislative liaison. She now serves as Research Director for National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD) providing parents across the nation with important information on legislative issues concerning parental rights and education.
