On the one hand, it’s been nice to avoid the incessant talk about health care reform and only peek in on the debate from afar when I feel like it. Being at home for the last year of drawn-out debate might have pushed me a little too far towards the line of insanity that I’m precariously near already. For me, it’s almost like all of the mudslinging and Faux News reports and lies and deceit never even happened.

On the other hand, it’s surreal to miss out on the celebrations and the gloating that progressives back in the US get to engage in now that the bill has finally passed. It would feel a bit strange to throw an HCR party here in Thailand (besides, HCR stands for “High Commissioner of Refugees” ’round these parts).

On the third hand (yes, I am special), stories like this are scary, and remind me why it’s good that I still have another 6 months before I come back home. Can someone please make the scary people go away before I come back?

(On a somewhat related note, TPM considers whether there is, or ever was, a Tea Party Movement, or whether these people are just regular old hard line Republican base voters with a new name.)

What was the message? Too much taxes? I didn’t see many bank executives and Wall Street types out on the streets. And coming on the heels of the biggest tax cut in American history, almost entirely directed at the middle class, this message didn’t have much salience. Furthermore, the theme of these protests “taxation without representation”, was pretty silly considering that these people did have representation. It’s just that they lost the elections, which sort of happens in a democracy. “Representation” doesn’t mean you always get your way, it means that you have a vote. So it was an indefensible frame to base the protests around.