Tea Party Protesters Berate Apparent Parkinson's Victim (VIDEO)

Tea Party protesters campaigning against health care reform on Tuesday berated and mocked a pro-reform advocate whose sign indicates that he has Parkinson's disease.

"Got Parkinson's? I do and you might. Thanks for your help," the older man's sign reads. He wandered over toward the anti-reform teabaggers protesting outside the district office of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio). The Tea Party's responses, captured on video by the Columbus Dispatch, were unflinchingly callous and cruel.

"If you're looking for a handout, you're in the wrong part of town. Nothing for free. You have to work for everything you get," one teabagger chided, bending over to get in the face of the seated older man. The next Tea Partier dropped a dollar in his face, saying, "Start a pot, I'll pay for you. I'll decide when to give you money," in a mocking tone of voice. After some grumbling about "Communism," an offscreen teabagger yelled, "No more handouts!"

This was not the only Tea Party protest where opponents of health care reform forced comparisons to Communism or sounded like lunatics, but the Dispatch video lays bare a primary argument of the Tea Party protesters: America's 45 million uninsured aren't their problem. And they will tell a Parkinson's sufferer just that, with contempt, to his face.

WATCH:

Comments

[LiberalTreeHugger]

01:38 PM on 04/13/2010

GIve us your starving huddled masses.. but just make sure they stay poor.

[Nettrice]

11:04 AM on 03/23/2010

Embarrassing!

[HidingintheDeepSouth]

06:34 PM on 03/21/2010

We are a nation of people who prefer to point fingers at people who have less and say" see those folks? They are lazy, bad, stupid or sinful. They don't deserve what I have earned with my hard work, goodness, intelligence or righteousness." We are still stuck in a Malthusian nightmare, despite the reality that our fortunes are connected to one another.

[MaKo sagt hi]

08:18 AM on 03/21/2010

Another thing that is sickening about this is the man with the baby carrier right next to those Parkinson's hecklers. You might think that a person with a small baby might understand something about the need to care for the 'least of these.'*
(*Which is also a lesson one might be tempted to assume Tea Partiers are familiar with.)

[mainemomma]

08:47 AM on 03/21/2010

This made me ill to watch it. No one stepped in to stop the harassment of a disabled man. That could have been frightening. But not one of the 'baggers stepped in and said 'enough'. Speaks volumes.

[respected]

10:01 AM on 03/21/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZBk267cxY

[CDWoods]

07:23 AM on 03/21/2010

"America's 45 million uninsured aren't their problem"

Well, they got that much right. These people have a far, far bigger problem than this.

[daikon86]

07:11 AM on 03/21/2010

they claim to love America, yet hate Americans

[JohnSawyer]

02:32 AM on 03/21/2010

Odd that the people who least believe Darwin's theory of evolution, most believe in its unintended, ugly misinterpretation, social Darwinism, which Darwin himself was vehemently opposed to. Maybe that's part of the reason the educationally challenged are so in favor of it.

[ilse]

02:07 AM on 03/21/2010

The tea party patriots are dirt. What really sickens me is when they talk about praying to god about not letting the health care bill pass. God would never welcome you people into his kingdom. If god could talk to them, he would tell them they need to show compassion for others. This past week, they have shown how vulgar and vicious they really are. Calling someone the N word, another the F word and they spit on another. Also let's not forget what they did to this man with parkinsons illness. God is not on your side. You are the party of hate and racism.

[drewtom]

11:31 PM on 03/20/2010

We need to support candidates who oppose these maniacs, challenge there candidates and demand the rethugnicans denounce these fools. If they don't start protesting the members who are supported by these racist fools. Our country is great because we are charitable to the people who need help...not because of these hateful fools.

[SuiginTou7]

11:21 PM on 03/20/2010

If the founding father these cowards worship couldn't, could see them now, they would be ashamed of them...

[bcarb]

12:05 AM on 03/21/2010

As would their other father, Jesus Christ.

[alittlecynical]

10:57 PM on 03/20/2010

Pigs all pigs.

[Mareng]

10:04 PM on 03/20/2010

Being from a country with a social medical system I fully understand the downsides of hat system but the teabag party have stoked this to such a furor that any right thinking person would just consider them a bunch of ill educated crackerheads with not much worth listening to.

IMO this is just a case of the big insurance companies using their considerable political leverage to influence the situation to their ends and maximize shareholder return – its cheaper to let the patient die after all.

All power to Barak I hope the bill sails though! The 45 million uninsured will have some cove and the specter of the insurance companies cutting cover or denying cover on existing complaints will be put to an end. Is the teabag group so shallow and easily led & manipulated by the likes of Palin not to see this?

[mistajefferson]

09:08 PM on 03/20/2010

Here's some help for Tea Baggers to make their protest posters! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZBk267cxY

[helgathewitch]

07:30 PM on 03/20/2010

Someone please identify these low lifes and publish pictures and names in the paper and on the internet.Expose them please

[Joey Y]

09:40 PM on 03/20/2010

AGREED 100%. I personally would like to know WHO these two men are.

[JohnSawyer]

02:34 AM on 03/21/2010

They're not men.

[knodd]

06:09 AM on 03/21/2010

One of the screaming men wore a pin for Americans for Prosperity

[HidingintheDeepSouth]

06:43 PM on 03/21/2010

This is a brilliant idea. I think that if we advertise what businesses these folks run and work at we could let them know that they are actually dependent upon us for their survival too!

[eudaimoniac]

11:38 AM on 03/23/2010

practical ethics. i love it!

[helgathewitch]

07:28 PM on 03/20/2010

And so, how many jobs are out there for people in a wheelchair who suffer from Parkinson's?

[bcarb]

12:13 AM on 03/21/2010

Everything they said was ridiculous, especially the comment about getting a job. Parkinson’s is an extremely debilitating illness. My heart just went out to him.