Blogwars, GO!

I really hate it when I’m on the phone with someone and they go off on some ridiculous tirade against some perceived injustice by the world at large – usually an injustice caused by being offended at how people are running their own lives – a “railroad” argument as I like to call them, when someone is so wound up they start ranting and no one can get a word in at all because the person arguing doesn’t even take a breath and all you want to do is derail their whole discussion because they are just going off on you at this point but unfortunately for you and anyone else stuck listening to them they are convinced that they are passing along some enlightening wisdom to you and they really need to express their opinion and anyway your opinion does not really matter since you’re just peripherally involved in this conversation and not a participant in the actual debate at hand because there really IS no debate and you’re just here to listen to this person lecture and not disagree with them at all and just smile and nod OK?  (take a breath now)

The most asinine argument I have never had with someone recently was about the following: “America is a consumer culture to the point of ridiculousness.”  Now initially I would agree with this statement, but the person making the argument went on to lambast the following “over-consumers:”

1. Anyone who buys a book instead of using the library.  Specific example cited from that twatty book “Twilight” where the main character researches something on Google and then goes to the bookstore to buy a book instead of going to the library. GASP!  How dare she! Doesn’t she know she could easily and for free do all this research at the library?! This is the railroader’s primary example of our over-consuming culture.

Citing an example from “Twilight,” now really.  I roll my eyes at ANYONE who cites “Twilight” as an indication of current societal trends, unless they are lamenting the apparent lack of literary culture required for such a piece of tripe to make it to bestseller status.  Is there anyone who read that book who would argue with me that it’s nothing more than teeny-bopper masturbation manual with no redeeming qualities AT ALL??

2. Anyone who BUYS A DVD.  Why do you need to buy a DVD?  “Unless it’s your favorite and you’re going to watch it over and over,” she quickly goes on to exempt, seeing as I’ve seen her DVD collection and she owns the complete series of “Lost,” among others. Well, I manage to get a little explanation in here while she takes a breath, sometimes it is just better to buy.  Both my parents and myself are horrible about remembering to return movies, and always end up with late fees more expensive than had we just bought the movie to begin with. So we usually buy a movie if we have a pretty good idea that we are going to enjoy it, and then we can lend it around to folks.  If we don’t end up liking the movie, we can just donate it to Goodwill. Her response?   “Well that’s just stupid, how hard is it to return a movie, that’s just a basic life skill, and you can get them free at the library, anyway.“
   

I apparently lack basic life skills, because I can never remember to return movies on time. As such, I am contributing to our bloated consumer culture, putting independent bookstores out of business, or maybe it is libraries I am offending, I’m not quite sure.

Example #2: “Americans are entitled.” Well now there is one argument I would NEVER want to argue with, right?  WRONG. Her examples for “entitlement” include the following:

1. People who expect their health insurance to pay for any “non-emergent care.”  She supports this by citing her elective surgery that was eligible for partial coverage by insurance, but paid for out of pocket (really because she didn’t want that surgery on her “health insurance history file,” and not out of any sense of duty to not “abuse the system” in my humble opinion).  She goes on to complain about how “the few” (meaning herself) pay for “the many” (meaning me) and it’s not fair.  SHE doesn’t have any chronic illness, yet HER premiums go to pay for MY care.

I would like to point out that from what I understand the point of insurance is the following:

“…the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed small loss to prevent a large, possibly devastating loss…”

So she is guaranteed small loss, in order to later prevent a larger loss.  She interprets this in a very narrow way, claiming that insurance should only cover emergency situations (“catastrophes”), and that we should just pay out of pocket for routine medical care.  In her mind, this would “significantly lower premiums and the cost of health care in general.”  Fuck the huge percent of our population who cannot even afford premiums, let alone out of pocket medical expenses, because they’re just another example of “entitled Americans who abuse the system.”¹

2. People who expect their health insurance to pay for any PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE.  I made the mistake of saying “I hear that some insurance companies will pay for gym memberships since it’s preventative care, so I’m going to submit my Pilates lessons and see if I can get any of that money back,” which started a rant very similar to the previous one, but directed venomously at me in particular and at “insurance scammers” in general.

I’m sorry, but I think that PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE is something that is very much undervalued in our culture, because people would rather put a band on a cut then spend the time training someone to avoid getting the cut.  Honestly I think Pilates and AIS should be covered by insurance because it has significantly lowered the frequency of my visits to the doctor and chiropractor for miscellaneous back issues, and essentially works as physical therapy.  I in no way support insurance fraud, but no matter how I tried to explain that, by the fact that I would DARE to submit a “NON-MEDICAL” claim to my health insurance company means I’m “abusing the system and ruining it for the rest” of the world.

Anyway, </therapeutic rant>.

¹ I should note that I think there are tons of people who – as a result of not having a job that provides them with health insurance – completely abuse Medicair/etc. I’m not talking about them right now.  If I think about them, I will get sad that we do not have an economically conservative – yet – socially liberal political party in this country.