Fifteen Minutes with Heath

Fifteen Minutes with Heath

This past Thursday I joined 25,000 or so of my fellow liberty loving citizens in Washington DC, at a rally to urge Congress to oppose the effort by some in the US government to destroy the greatest health care system in the world. It was a whirlwind --31 hours round trip, over 900 miles and 14 hours in the car.

The trip included some scheduled time to meet with elected officials from North Carolina, and or their representatives. The meetings were intended for the entire Asheville group, but because the schedule for the day was so fluid, none of us knew whether the meetings would actually occur as planned.

The meeting with Heath Shuler was schedule for 1 PM, which was during the middle of the rally. I hated to leave the rally in progress. But I was carrying a letter I had written to Mr. Shuler two weeks ago, for which I had received no response. The lack of response was not unexpected, all things considered. The letter outlined why I believe he and others should vote against the current health care legislation.

At 10 minutes to one I pulled away from the rally. A police officer pointed me toward the Cannon Building, where Shuler's office is located. I walked up the hill, went through the metal detectors, walked up to the 4th floor, found office # 422, and bam, I was in the Congressman's office. Pretty cool I thought.

There was a lot of activity in the office. His staff was friendly and engaging. It was almost 1:15, and at first I was told Shuler was not there. I handed one of them the letter. Then another staffer who appeared to have some seniority told me he was there, but had a meeting at 1:30 he could not break. Because the rest of the Asheville group was stationed almost at the very front of the stage at the rally, I doubted they would be able to get there by 1:30. She asked if I wanted to go ahead and see him by myself, and I said sure. What happened next was both bazaar, informative, and very disappointing.

Have you ever been in a conversation in which you thought you had been insulted, but you weren't sure, because the person had no reason to insult you? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person who was constantly being defensive, so much so the person ends up coming across as immature? Have you ever had someone attempt to beat you with a morality stick, without the credentials to do so? Those three questions characterize my 15 minutes with Heath Shuler.

Toward the end of our time together Shuler said something, that made everything else he had done and said make sense. We were sitting around the coffee table and he leaned forward and said "you're a registered Republican aren't you". I responded yes ( I wish I had responded does it matter?). After my response he said "I knew that, the red tie you are wearing gave you away." (I was honestly unaware, that apparently in Washington and some other places, a red tie is a flag for a Republican. I had worn a suit out of respect for his office, a blue one, and red seemed logical. Who knew?)

I was in shock. I am a tax payer. I had driven over 400 miles to be there. My intent in being there was to express my concern over the size, scope, and direction of the federal government. And to him, a man living off the backs of tax payers, I was nothing more than a red tie. But then it all made sense. He had labeled me less than one second after seeing me. That helped explain why the first 'was that an insult(?) occurred within 60 seconds. At one point during the conversation I told him he had done nothing but label me since I had gotten there. He paused, looked down, said he was sorry, and then continued!

At one point I asked him how many people in his district did he think had inadequate health care. He responded 25%. I asked "so 25% of the population is going to dictate to 75% of the population?" He responded with a smile of his face, "That's America". He had no response when I said "that ain't right". That is NOT America. That IS Washington. By that same math, I should have been talking to Carl Mumpower in that Congressional office, Shuler's challenger in the last election. Again, something else I wish I had said.

I came away convinced he views the federal government as the big charity in the sky. He said many times, "we have to help those people". Apparently a $1.4 trillion deficit in the most recent fiscal year is just a bother. He had no response when I asked who helped those people before the federal government got so big?

The meeting was bazaar in part because I was never offered the most basic of hospitalities. There was never a "welcome to Washington", nor was there an offer of a glass of water. It was informative because I now recognize Shuler as a perfect Washington Democrat--a candidate hand picked for his celebrity rather than his intellect or knowledge of government, with a basic ignorance and or disdain of the Constitution, with a desire to satisfy his charitable desires with someone else's money. It was disappointing because it was one of those very rare occasions when I leave a meeting with less respect for the individual, than I had for them before the meeting.

As a post script, I had a by chance, fortuitous phone conversation on the way home, which made me feel better about the bad feeling I had about the meeting. The conversation was with a self described liberal Democrat from Asheville. I told him of my experience, I heard him laugh, and he said he had had the same type experience with Shuler and his staff. I was shocked. He's on their side, actively involved. He said because he is young and from Asheville, Shuler and his staff have labeled him as a flaming Progressive, and distance themselves from him. He too used the word label, to describe how they have interacted with him.