Hottest Parties of Summer 2009? Health Care Rallies, Of Course!

Forget the Hamptons! (No, seriously, forget the Hamptons.) The hottest
parties of the summer have been the increasingly crazy health care
rallies. They started off innocently enough--anti-reform protesters
carrying loaded guns and Nazi signs--but now, like all good parties,
things have gotten weird.

Wednesday night, at a pro-health care vigil in Thousand Oaks, California,
a 65-year old man harassing the protesters got his pinkie finger bitten
off. The whole drama ensued after William Rice, yelling from a crowd of
about two dozen anti-reform protesters gathered to antagonize the MoveOn.org rally of about a hundred people, reportedly kept harassing a woman from Code Pink.

When
one of her fellow pro-reform protesters, a man, went into the crowd of
anti-reformers to make the harasser stop, a scuffle broke out. Rice
threw the first two blows and got his pinkie chomped off. Live by the
sword, lose your pinkie. Oh dear. We have weeks, potentially months
before Congress votes on the health care reform proposal--how many more
of these vigils, rallies, and town halls will lead to violence? Will we
need vigils for the vigils that turn violent? It is frightening to
think how much longer we have to go and how the stupidity and violence
will only escalate.

Walletpop.com went into a health care
rally in New York's Times Square, looking for a loaded gun--just
kidding--dialogue! Good old fashioned dialogue! Can it exist at a
health care rally? Watch our video, Health Care Hotness, to find out.