Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Republican Interlude

Alas, I am not overseas with some stud right now, but here is the story of the Republican with whom I had my first date between the second and third dates with the Musician. Damn, I was hot that week...

I had been talking with the Republican for a week or so before my second Musician date, which was on a Tuesday. I had my Republican date on a Thursday. Alas, I knew it was a love that would not last because not only was he a Republican but he was a hard-core, far-right leaning Republican who is on the Republican Town Committee in our city. (Yes, in Connecticut, it's always called the Town Committee, even in the cities. Don't ask me why...) It's like the Jets and the Sharks; I knew one day we'd be hissing at each other with our respective gangs around us in the middle of Capitol Avenue.

Still, he was pretty funny and a lot older than me, something that was appealing to me at the moment after Crazy Andy's antics. I figured maybe older guys wouldn't jump off the roof because their bones are more brittle, you see, and they'd be more afraid of breaking something. He called me Carville and he was Matalin, and we had great fun prodding each other like that. So we met for dinner and had a great time. Turns out we had a lot in common, grew up in adjacent towns, etc., so there was good conversation. He walked me to my car and kissed me goodnight, and there was chemistry.

We talked online a few more times after that until the fateful night. I knew it would happen one day. It was just after Bush vetoed SChip (health care subsidies for kids) and we got into it. He insisted that everyone should just pay the doctors themselves and then prices would naturally go down by market demands, and I insisted that many Americans (particularly those who are not affluent) wouldn't be able to afford that and that as it is, they can't even afford the insurance without employer subsidies. He basically figured that if he and his parents did it, everyone else can, which gets to the crux of my problem with most Republicans, and I kept warning him that if he wanted a second date, he should just back off this talk right now and agree to disagree, but he wouldn't listen.

The crux of it is that many Republicans, including this one, feel that every man should be for himself no matter what, and that the only reason some people can't make it on their own right now is because they don't have to. Even considering all that is true (which I don't), should the children of people who don't have the money for health care suffer because of the parents they were born to? I say no, he said yes.

I never talked to him again.

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