TexasCHLforum.com

LaUser wrote:

if they limit attendence, my refusal to divulge personal information to screen me from that meeting is a Constitutional violation of my right to free speech, and open meetings act...They called these meetings, and laying conditions (for accessing) to those meetings already in the public record is not a good thing (I'll leave it at that)...

Actually it is not a violation of your First Amendment rights. The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Since no there is no law that limits your right to free speech in this case, your rights have not been violated. You cannot be arrested for only speaking or your expressing your views, because there is no violation of the First Amendment. And limiting who may attend is nothing new. The Council for National Policy has been doing that for years. It is attended by many of our nation's top federal officials, elected and appointed, and the public and press are excluded. Republican George W. Bush limited who attended his speeches throughout his tenure as President. Dissidents were not welcomed and if they tried to push the issue they were arrested.

Also, not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. If a person were to act as to disrupt the meeting, shout down others, make threats, then that person could be asked to be quiet or leave or possibly get arrested. The town hall meetings are for expressing your opinion. The First Amendment does not give license to get carried away doing so, nor does is protect attendance.

Well then, I would say that if they asked you for proof of who you are, like a photo ID, you'd be more than happy to comply with that to get in the door (if you were a constituent)???

What if you are not a consitutent, do you believe your opinion, and your desire for them to address your grievances (I know you don't have any, but that is beside the point) is not a violation of your Constitutional right to voice them???

See, if they (Gene Green, Sheila Jackson-Lee, et. al.) can somehow put up the facade of requiring you to proving who you are before you are allowed to enter their public meeting, where your personal information is required before being allowed, or denied access, is not noted before in the same public manner the meetings were originally called for...Then those very same people who have opposed every single means to establish and maintain the sanctity and purity of elections across the country, in regards to showing a valid photo ID... is a little hypocritical in mine and many others opinion...

Thats what these meetings ar for...If you hide as a coward, not willing to stand there and discuss with someone(s) who do not agree with you, no matter the tone, then that is plain cowardice...

I have not heard of a Republican official screening out people at their townhalls these days??? I'm sure you'll go try to find one though, and I hope you do...And then I'll tell you how much of a non-Republican that person is as well...

Tell me when the "soft tyrrany" knocks on your door demanding you turn in your guns, because ownership and possession has been determined to be "unhealthy" for you and the rest of us...This nationalized healthcare plan will set the stage for that attempt...It did in Canada, it did in GB...

I could care less if they were really violating any of my rights at denying me my chance to voice my opposition to these liberal/socialist plans...I want to make every attempt to let them know that opposition anywhere they happen to be...

None of them are above reproach, and none are above the law and the Constitution...

And we'll both respect to agree to dissagree about all of this I am sure...

The reason that the Congress critters and the proletariat peasantry are having a difference about these townhall meetings is that we tend to see things differently than they do and go to the meetings for different reasons.

Comngress Critters hold the meetings to tell the peasantry a bill that they don't understand or have ever read themselves. They are there to tell the voters how wonderful and superior they are and that the prolotariat needs to keep voting for them.

The Voters are there because they have actually looked at the bill and understand what the congress critter is trying to do with us. The voter is under the mistaken impression that the congress critter is holding the meeting to listen to voter. They are mistaken, the congress critter is there because he believes he is smarter than the voter and believes the voter can't possibly understand the bill until he explains it to them. The whole idea of listening to their contiuancy is foreign to them when the constituance doesn't hasn't have checks in hand. after all why should they listen plain old people. Isn't that what lobbiest are for?

It's all a matter of perspective.

This whole town-hall thingie seems like a waste of time for everyone involved. Every time I think of any form of government health-care, or government-sponsored health-care, I just think back to my own experiences with Tri-Care (can't remember the original name for it) and the VA.
Don't get me wrong, not everyone involved with both health-care systems is a raving lunatic, but in general they are institutions that fail to meet the needs of their constituents.

I was very disappointed to see that my rep, Kay Granger, also had a "Tele-TownHall Meeting".

What a cop-out. I wrote her and told her what I think about that.

We already have government managed healthcare in medicare and medicaid. Look how good that works!