Anti-Health Care Reform Rally Fizzles; Unruh Explodes in Hyperbole

Tea Party organizers said they expected almost 10,000 people at their rally against health care reform yesterday. Crowd estimates:

• KELO: "more than 1,000"
• that Sioux Falls paper: "...325 people in the grandstand for the midafternoon speeches, though organizer Dr. Allen Unruh later estimated 500 to 700 people attended at least some of the four-hour rally. Either way, the turnout was a fraction of the 4,000 at Covell Lake on April 15 to re-enact the Boston Tea Party...."
• [Update 09:45 CDT] Michael Woodring: 500–1000
  

Tea Party organizers are apparently as adept at arithmetic and prediction as they are at grasping politics. Bored chirpractor and organizer Allen Unruh offers this hyperbole:

Nothing threatens our freedom more than the government taking over health care because it will never be reversed [quoted by Erica Johnson, "Health Care Rally Against Reform," KELOLand.com, 2009.07.02].

"Government taking over health care"—Allen, what do you call a law whereby the state forces doctors to say certain things to their patients? Haven't you and your wife Leslee been advocating government control of women's health care for years? Didn't your wife gladly accept taxpayer funding of her women's "health care" facility? (Oh, wait: Washington is reversing that.)

But here's my list of things that threaten our freedom more than taxpayer-funded health insurance (which is what we're really talking about, not government "taking over"):

1. Al-Qaeda
2. the PATRIOT Act
3. warrantless wiretaps
4. decline of investigative journalism
5. abortion bans
6. medical bankruptcy
7. health insurance tied to employment
8. addiction to fossil fuels
9. global warming
10. cranks who bleat "Socialism!" and delude themselves into thinking they are fighting the Revolutionary War and the Cold War all at once while ignoring the need to come up with practical solutions for real problems

The only good thing about these Tea Parties is that they make for easy blogging. Keep pouring those fish in the barrel, Allen; I'll keep shooting.