The incident happened during a town meeting held by SC Representative Bob Inglis. An irate citizen shouted out, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." When the Congressman tried to explain that Medicare was already a government health care program, the man wouldn't listen.

There are lots of really mad people out there, and they are letting their congressional body know about it during this August recess. There is some confusion about why the constituents are so mad.

No one is mad about the inefficiency and bureaucracy in private insurance companies; they are mad because they think illegal aliens are going to be covered. The cost of American health care is the highest in the world, and the infant mortality rate is below Cuba, but people are mad because Obama has a secret plan to establish death squads. Amazing.

The chairman of Cigna made $29 million last year, but citizens worry about the government getting involved in health insurance. One third of us already get our health insurance from the government. How bad can it be?

In the last eight years, we have seen our country invade a foreign state for no good reason, torture prisoners, and spy on American citizens. The greatest threat to the Constitution was the Patriot Act, but no one complained. Now people think the current president can and will single handedly turn America into a socialist state.

Politicians have pitted citizens against each other since the days of ancient Greece. Richard Nixon turned that tactic into standard operating procedure for both parties by pitting older conservative people against the young, poor, and minorities who were rebelling against the establishment during the late 60s.

Today, we have extreme voices on both sides of the fence scaring the bejeesus out of everyone in sight. Politicians are more interested in keeping their respective party in power than what is good for the folks who vote for them. The idea of being honest is as foreign as the oil we use.

Recent news broadcasts feature people who live in the same community

and probably agree on a majority of issues screaming

at each other. We have become a divided nation. No one wants to listen, but everyone wants to be heard.

Neighbors who have much in common are fighting each other because a politician or television clown scared them. The internet gives each of us the ability to fact check everything anyone says yet we will accept anything that corresponds with our existing beliefs and discount what doesn't.

Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann spew political information; most of it incorrect. Those who accept either side without question are not only being intellectually lazy, they are shirking personal responsibility as a citizen.

One of the more compelling pictures from the protests last week showed a man with a nine millimeter strapped to his thigh, holding a sign quoting Thomas Jefferson; "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The man was wrong about both the tyrant and the patriot.

A more appropriate quote from our third president for today might be; "Information is the currency of democracy." But that is expecting too much.