Many of us were shocked by the scene of Tea Party activists attacking a disabled man with Parkinson’s disease who held a sign calling for health care reform. One man threw money at Robert A. Letcher, 60, and began screaming uncontrollably that him. The man has now been identified as Chris Reichert and he has issued an apology.
Letcher, a former nuclear engineer, suffers from Parkinson’s, was attacked while sitting in front of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s district office. Since my father died after years with Parkinson’s (here and here), the video was particularly disturbing to watch Letcher dealing with such bullies.
Reichert now says “I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can’t explain it any other way.”
He has added “I made a donation (to a local Parkinson’s disease group) and that starts the healing process.”
For the story, click here.
I posted this on the Harry Reid Thread and am re-posting it here.
See the ‘no teabagging’ scene in John Waters’ 1998 movie called “Pecker” on youtube. com/watch?v=Gi9hgqZr6fs
“If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner”. Marlon Brando
It isn’t that I don’t understand or even that I disagree with what you are saying, but to hold that viewpoint as justifiable will lead us as a Nation even further down a violent road where a lot of people will be harmed. If I have to pay to assist a man who was a practicing Engineer much of his career, my guess is that I got some benefit from his lifes work. I can not ascribe to the chew em up and spit em out ideologies of the current corporate and ultra right mindsets.They practice fascism.
I don’t feel robbed by a sick man with Parkinsons. But I do feel robbed by Insurance companies that take my money and deny me care. By Corporations who live high off the hog and offshore thier profits so they can smokescreen investors. Not too mention a justice system that lost it’s sane objective eye a long time ago….
Woosty:
I dont ask for anything from anyone and I dont expect to be taken care of.
Woosty:
why do I have a responsibility to take care of someone I dont know and have no connection to?
Who says so?
Dear Byron,
“I don’t have a responsibility to my fellow man to pay for his disability. It is not my duty to take care of him.”
yes you do
“The fact that they have a disability is immaterial;”
no it’s not
“we are not our brother’s keeper…”
yes we are”
“or sacrificial milk cows.”
no, I hope not
so the guy got his finger bit off….after throwing and landing a couple punches.
I don’t see this guy as being some pillar of reasonable behaviour.
If someone forceably and violently stuck his fist in my mouth….well, not saying I wouldn’t chomp. Where is the footage of the guy ‘going after’ Mr. pinky?
My brother once s flipped off an erratic driver and then got the beeeeeejeeeezus scared out of him when the crazy man started following him waving a gun around. Sometimes it really pays to protest quietly.
TomD.Arch,
Are you in favor of out of control spending by our government? Did you approve of the “Bailouts” or the “Stimulus Plan”?
J Smith 1, March 29, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I am not mean and hateful enough to be part of this group.
I hope you don’t think I am mean and hateful, I really believe that to engage is to solve, so I wish you would be a part of this and speak up. No answers will be found until we put the emotions away and just talk. You can’t possibly understand a person’s point of view based on a blog written in a few seconds or minutes depending on how fast you type. This may be a very big flaw with the blog/internet discussion groups. If you merely turn off the string you have given up already which means you either can’t defend your position or you believe you can’t mount an argument sufficient to change other people’s minds. Either way you get the government you deserve.
It really is an insult to people who enjoy the sexual act of “teabagging” to compare them with the intentionally ignorant, irrational-by-choice Tea Party adherents – although I do recognize that there may be some overlap of these groups. (In contrast to the coining of the term “santorum”, which is entirely appropriate…)
rcampbell said “Teabaggers’ anger is so misdirected at this administration it would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous.”
That’s where you’re wrong. Their anger is about the government spending. It started with the bailouts and then was put over the top by the stimulus plan. Obama is no more responsible for that than Bush was. It’s Congress that has the Tea Partiers pissed.
I am not mean and hateful enough to be part of this group.
No, I am new to this blog. I was introduced by a friend and am familiar with who Turley is and thought I would engage. My personal opinions would take longer than a blog (to be fair) to explain but I will sum it up as such. I believe that our political and judicial systems are broken and have been for a very long time. I do not blame the folks who arrive newly in charge every four to eight years etc…I blame the folks who send them. I believe that our civil court system is a very large part of the problem yet no one discusses this while fighting over which gang of thugs in charge gets to spend our money. A democrat with a social program and a republican with a war are the same career politicians to me and the only difference is who dies at the ends of the day. We know who pays. I know the court’s are broken when an honest man cannot get his day in court, because his opposition has more money and can therefore tie up the situation for years not ever allowing the truth to be heard. Individual rights and Property rights are doomed if the court system remains tied to the lottery type designation of: “Oh, I’ll take your case as long as there is someone with money to sue and I can get rich” otherwise you’re screwed, said the lawyer to his not-a-client. I also believe it is a tragedy that we are all divided (in discussion) along the polarized regions of the debates, while the real tragedy lies in the erosion of our Republic. The minority in any situation in our Country should be protected as equal, not better than or more protected than but simply equal. Why this is so hard for us all to grasp, I may never know? But to attempt to quantify the mistakes both parties have made would just be silly. The anger, derision and emotional mud slinging playing out across America has been coming for over 100 years, who can lay the blame at anyone doorstep? Maybe the conversation should be directed towards the solutions and not whose fault it may be that we are here today. The Constitution (for that matter the Government, itself) was set up to to protect our rights. Not the rights that someone gave or granted us, but our “inalienable rights”. We apparently no longer live in that Country. But to answer your direct question I do not believe the Obama administration is fully engaged, unfortunately the opportunity the President had going into office to bring us together, is gone and I am afraid that he will go down in history as the guy that used a stolen credit card to pay for a bounced check.
Joe
That’s only half an answer. Do you agree, then, that the Obama administration is fully engaged in providing the solutions to the disasters wrought by the GOP?
Wow talk about discrimination. Have you meet them all? Not all teabaggers believe the GOP is the answer, some feel they are the same problem wrapped in a different blanket.
I have no respect for teabaggers, but I’ll give the guy credit for his apology. The guy needs to not only check his anger management issues, but also do a gut check on his views of the issues. Does he really think he’s so superior?
Teabaggers’ anger is so misdirected at this administration it would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous. Obama’s efforts to correct the abuses and wrong-headed policies of the previous administration, indeed those policy failures of the last 30 years, should be hailed by the teabaggers rather than assailed.
They rail against the debt and align with the party that created the largest debt in US history and in the meantime decry the HCR bill which provides a market-based solution filled with GOP ideas and LOWERS that debt. They make irresponsible charges about socialism while many teabaggers collect Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits. They want the Obama administration to do more about jobs, but don’t want the government to spend any money doing it. These are NOT credible people or policies. Their solutions and their adherents are clearly NOT rational.
Maaarrghk!
Teabaggers. Perfect description of them. Sucking on the gonads of the worst corporate psychos of the lot.
Suggest you send some of them over to the UK for us to sort out. just let anyone over here catch them demonstrating outside one of our “evil commie” hospitals.
How’s that free dental care working out for ya? We seem to be perfectly capable of screwing up our Country on our own, thank you!
Duh:
I would bite the guys finger off if he punched me first. If the guy attacked him first then he had a right to punch him but if not he should have restrained himself.
Recall after that nutjob flew a plane into the IRS building in Austin last month a Washington Post columnist immediately insinuated he sounded like a Tea Partier. AAAANNNNT wrong answer, another Obama donor.