Last night I hung out with Damien and some of his friends. Among them was a girl named Courtney (I think). She was a medical school student from Tampa and seemed nice enough. Somewhere in the middle of dinner she started talking politics and about how bad Obama has been. "Why," I asked her, "has Obama been so bad? He sure isn't perfect, but he passed financial reform, health care reform..." That's when the lights and buzzers went off, I said the magic words. She started tearing into health care reform, talking about how insurance companies are increasing their premiums and hospitals will cherry-pick patients. Honestly, I do not have the requisite knowledge to debate her on this, and I do not know the finer points of health care reform. I do, however, know that insurance companies and hospitals acting against patient interests is nothing new nor is it the fault of the Obama administration. I also know that when she told me "Every doctor in Florida thinks it is terrible," she is probably incorrect. Doctors cannot agree whether its a virus or food poisoning, so it would be miraculous to get every doctor in the very populous state of Florida to agree on a political opinion. Alright, she doesn't like health care reform. We'll see if it works or not, I guess.
Then she got worse.
This girl said she does not understand why anyone votes on social issues ("I mean, I love gay people, but it just isn't that important"). When pushed a bit on it, she responded that politicians don't make decisions on social issues, it's all the judicial system. "What about that Civil Rights Act? That was legislative. And DOMA?" I asked her. She had no response. I wonder why she did not have a proper retort? Could it be that she is entirely incorrect, does not know history, and has no idea about how American government works? Yes, many decisions on "social issues" come from the courts (Prop 8 ruling, just to think of one off the front page). But legislators and even executives have a huge impact and are constitutionally empowered to act on the issues. Also, to say that social issues do not matter sounds pretty flimsy coming from a privileged, white, Christian medical school student.
Another bright spot of the conversation was her statement, "I don't understand why so many Jews vote Democrat. It isn't in their interest." When asked to clarify she advanced the position that Jews are well-off to rich. It would be wholly unnecessary to dismantle her statements premise by premise. They are ignorant, incorrect, and borderline offensive, to be generous. In the midst of this discussion (which, by the way, included four or five people, not only Courtney and me), Damien's friend Sam tried to mention that many Jews have altruistic instincts because Jews have themselves been the victims of poor circumstances on a few occasions. Courtney's eyes glazed over and she simply could not understand the idea that someone could not always act in their own economic interest.
Other topics of conversation which betrayed her ignorance included why rebuilding is necessary and we can't just up and leave Afghanistan at the drop of a hat, why President Obama did not create the federal deficit, and why we live in a welfare state (because there are...welfare programs?). A lot went on in a short period of time. I laughed; I cried; I stopped talking and let other people handle it.
Then we went to a party thrown by some law school people. A house-warming party of sorts. It did get very warm in the house, perhaps due to the heat given off by the 200 or so people inside. It was every frat party I ever went to in college, but 80s-themed despite not playing 80s music. Not my favorite. Maybe 80s music would have helped. The big difference between this and a frat party was that when the cops came I was not worried in the slightest. We had 200 law students there, surely someone would be able to talk the police into leaving us alone. As it turns out, that was my friend Pat, who did so in a belly shirt and green spandex shorts.
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