With the support and encouragement of the Republican leadership, one of America’s most despicable political thugs, Dick Armey, a corporate lobbyist funded by the "health" industry, is organizing mobs to disrupt, harass and intimidate every public event organized to discuss the health care reform effort.

It’s not just Dick Armey. The entire Republican leadership has been fanning the flames with persistent lies claiming the Democrats want to force euthanasia on old people, abortions on the unwilling and have Obamacrats tell your doctor how or whether to treat you. We’ve seen months of pernicious lies, and they’re having the predictable effect in scaring the elderly and inciting the gullible to vent their anger at anyone they can associate with Obama or health reform.

But instead of condemning such reprehensible behavior, the media writes absurd stories about the resurgence of the party, it’s prospects for 2010-12 and who the next leader will be. But we already know: the leaders of the Republican Party are liars who think it’s fine to organize thugs to disrupt town halls and stifle discussion.

Armey’s Republican endorsed effort is profoundly anti-democratic. It is nothing less than an assault on the country’s ability to talk about public issues. It seeks to prevent public officials from speaking to or hearing from affected citizens.

The organizers and their corporate sponsors are not interested in public dialogue or debate. Their purpose is to intimidate and threaten reform proponents, to silence them and prevent their views being heard.

The First Amendment protects even the most objectionable speech. Even speech whose content you hate. But this will quickly move beyond speech. It is sheer thuggery, driven by anger and induced by lies. And because the Republicans are inciting the most gullible and desperately fearful, it will get worse unless the Party’s leaders, organizers and their corporate sponsors are shamed into stepping back from the abyss.

The restraints that separate where we are from organized violence are always fragile, based as much on a commonly shared sense of fairness as on civil enforcement. That shared notion has been severely damaged in recent years. Once it’s gone, it’s a small step for angry people to cross the line from vigorous, constitutionally protected demonstrations to illegal and violent behavior.

What we’re seeing now is barely one step short of angry brown shirt mobs physically threatening and beating people. Can anyone draw a credible moral distinction between the inciters then and those now?

This is the next step in a series of dangerous moments, and not just for health reform. Every policy issue can be recast as a potential battlefield, because the instigators are telling their pitiful followers the big lie that their way of life, and even their lives are threatened; they’re being told their nation is being stolen.

If the media do not recognize the danger and condemn what’s happening in the strongest possible terms, it will get worse. As much as anyone, it is in their interest to reassert the shared interest in fair debate. They should refuse to give the goons, their apologists and funders a forum to stoke violence and not allow themselves to be used to condone or encourage such mob behavior.

We have approached this cliff several times in the last year, and each time it has been stirred up by the same extreme radical wing of the conservative movement. That movement no longer understands or accepts democratic principles or consequences. And each time it becomes more angry and more likely to devolve into violence. The only change is the source of corporate funding, depending on which interests are willing to manipulate the mob.

Tuesday a.m. update: dKos diary on how another event was handled well.

More reactions from:
Digby, behind the parties
ThinkProgress, Durbin responds to tactics; Angry right harrasses Doggett
KathyinBlackburg, Blue Commonwealth, For Dick Armey, when all else fails, hire a mob
Mahablog, Astroturf mods disrupt town hall meetings
Brian Beutler/TPM, Inside the Anti-health reform organizing campaign
Glenn Smith/FDL, Background on Rick Scott