Ink Tea Stone Leaf

Idly formulated and illustrative of nothing.

Healthcare

Eliza: When I'm talking about universal healthcare, I mean that every one should have access to the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay.
Sam: That sounds nice, but what about the people who don't deserve it?
Eliza: I don't think "deserving" enters into it. Why waste time sorting out who deserves to be healthy and who doesn't, when we could just say that everybody does?
Sam: But you support trans rights. What about folks who think it's appropriate to bully and humiliate children into conforming to gendered expectations?
Eliza: Well I don't think they should be allowed around children, but that doesn't mean they deserve to die of cancer when there are effective treatments available.
Pat: The hell I don't! Nobody deserves anything they didn't scratch from the bare earth with their own fingernails!
Eliza: Are you confessing to something?
Pat: Nothing at all, except to knowing what a penis is. Do you?
Eliza: I also know what a penis is.
Pat: I'll bet you do, "Eliza." I'm only calling you that because I don't know your real name, by the way.
Eliza: It is one hundred percent my real name.
Sam: It is, I've known her since third grade.
Pat: They're getting them younger and younger all the time. But I'll be damned if the dollars I dug up from the literal soil with my actual fingernails will go toward a bunch of quack surgeries for people who don't know what penises are.
Sam: Still thinking everybody deserves healthcare?
Eliza: Nothing I've heard has actually addressed the substance of my position at all, but I will admit that I am marginally less enthusiastic about universal healthcare, and life in general, than I was two minutes ago.
Pat: I could not have asked for a more productive discussion, as I have achieved everything I wanted.
Sam: There is something oddly compelling about your disposition, Pat.
Pat: I don't know what that means, but if you touch my Medicaid I will shoot you in the penis.

Immigration

Pat: I can't think of a single reason a person would want to move to another country except to commit crimes they couldn't get away with at home.
Eliza: That raises a lot of interesting questions that I don't believe you are prepared to answer.
Pat: I am very prepared to answer them, as long as you promise to be so offended that you cry.
Eliza: I'll pass, but I think it's worth pointing out that we wouldn't give out green cards if people were only going to commit crimes with them.
Pat: Which is precisely why we need to hand out fewer green cards.
Sam: You do see a lot of foreign criminals on the news nowadays.
Pat: I don't watch the news, but I saw a video yesterday with a guy who had the scariest accent you ever heard. It was eight seconds long.
Eliza: Was it like a Dracula accent?
Pat: I think it was Farsi.
Eliza: That's surprisingly precise.
Pat: Back in high school I knew a Farsi kid who used to sell ecstasy to me and my cousin.
Sam: I hate to say it, but that's another data point in Pat's favor.
Eliza: OK, but what about Gordon?
Pat: What about Gordon?
Eliza: You're good friends.
Pat: We're buds.
Eliza: He lost the accent a long time ago, but he moved here from England when he was six. He's got a green card and everything.
Pat: That's alright though. You'd never know it by looking at him.
Sam: I think some of the implications of that observation make me feel a little uncomfortable.
Eliza: I feel like I need a shower. 
Pat: Enough about your feelings, there's a video here of an immigrant stalking a helpless white woman.
Eliza: That is literally Bela Lugosi in Dracula.

Freedom of Speech

Sam: I am deeply concerned about the tone of today’s political discourse.
Eliza: The tone is a consequence of the circumstances. You should be more concerned about the targeted actions taken against the government’s political enemies.
Sam: That makes a certain amount of sense, but in my heart of hearts I’m afraid that I’m more concerned about the tone.
Pat: The tone wouldn’t be a problem if we all accepted freedom of speech and stopped disagreeing with each other.
Sam: I’m not sure I follow you.
Pat: That’s because you’re a socialist. You see, in this country we all have the right to say the same things.
Sam: What kind of things can we say?
Pat: Oh, all kinds of things. We can all say “the homeless should be given mandatory lethal injections.” That’s one of my favorites.
Sam: Actually, I’m not sure I’d like to say that.
Pat: And that’s totally fine. You also have the right to applaud, or nod along silently, while I say it. Those are your choices when you have freedom of speech.
Sam: Well, that’s a relief.
Pat: You can also say “there are too many holidays for black people,” or “marriage is only between one man and one adolescent girl,” or “the Bible says that this is a Christian nation.”
Sam: You know, if you gave me a list of acceptable opinions, I’ll bet I could find something that I’d like to say.
Pat: I would love to, but seeing as you’re a woman, you’d probably be better off just repeating whatever your husband says. I’ll make sure he gets the list.
Sam: But I’m not married.
Pat: Well you had better get on that then. There’s a severe shortage of white babies in this country.
Sam: Eliza, do you know any men who might be interested? You’ve been awfully quiet.
Eliza: Pat has been pointing a gun at my face since he walked in the room.
Sam: I wish you two would stop being so antagonistic all the time.
Pat: The Supreme Court has ruled that a gunshot is protected speech. I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.
Sam: I can’t help but commend you for doing your own research and practicing politics the right way.

Elections

Eliza: The next election cycle might be our last chance to save our democracy from irreparable harm.
Sam: You’ll be happy to know that next year I am seriously considering voting against the people who have instituted all these authoritarian policies this year.
Eliza: I’m delighted. I just wish you had considered voting against them when they promised to institute these policies last year.
Sam: I did, but the thing is, I wanted them to do it a little bit. I wanted them to do a common-sense amount of it, and then stop before crossing the line.
Eliza: What is a common-sense amount of authoritarianism?
Sam: I am not a political scientist, Eliza. I just like pageantry. I like uniforms and flags and sousaphones. I don’t like being talked down to by people who expect me to just know what the right amount of authoritarianism is.
Eliza: Maybe I should stop talking, because anything I say is just going to undermine all this progress you’ve made.
Sam: You should be happy I voted at all last year. We can’t have democracy if people like me don’t vote.
Eliza: That is true, as far as it goes.
Sam: It’s extremely frustrating when these politicians do all the terrible things that they say they are going to do, instead of doing what we voted for them to do.
Eliza: Perhaps the problem is how the candidates are selected.
Sam: There ought to be one person who picks all the candidates and then tells me which one to vote for.
Eliza: Why don’t they just cast your vote for you then?
Sam: Wouldn’t that be better than asking me to decide every two years?
Eliza: You can’t know how much I would like to answer “yes.”