Moxie

Man, it's been a long time since I've been inspired to write. I can't explain it. On a side note, my good blog friend Jessica has also been on hiatus for a long time. Maybe there's something going around...

So anyway, tonight I went to my regular Tuesday class, Health Care Policy. Nothing notable about the class really (aside from my near-perfect score on an Op-Ed piece I had to write with absolutely no confidence, thank you very much). Until tonight anyway.

We were discussing possible topics for our next assignment, and the professor (a PhD in political science) suggested, "How about people hiding their assets in order to qualify for Medicare when they retire?" And in a bizarre reaction from a speak-her-mind type of girl, my classmate says, "That's what I'm gonna do."

I've never seen a student actually get the professor to drop her jaw like that. Literally. For about ten seconds. It was really funny. But then the girl kept going. She starts saying things like, "Why should people work hard their whole lives, only to have all their money sucked away by health care when they're older?" After the professor got over her speechlessness, she started going at it with this girl. They were literally yelling back and forth, with the class just sort of watching it all happen. This girl wouldn't back down, and the professor just didn't know how to explain to her all the ways that her opinion is morally flawed. Her main argument was, "Why should my kids pay for your medical care when you're older when you've got a second home worth $350K??" And the girl didn't care at all, was totally unconcerned that she was seriously pissing the professor off. It was awesome. In a strange sort of way. Finally they stopped arguing and I don't think the professor looked in her direction again for the rest of the class.

After all the discussion we've had about how the country is running out of money for Medicare, especially with the baby boomers retiring, I was pretty amazed at this girl's moxie. Even though her argument was completely based on bad ethics, I was still sort of impressed. But I still had to go up to her after class and get in on that argument a little. I couldn't help it. Typical of my slippery-slope debate style, I said, "Okay, what about someone who's never worked a day in their life? Should they be able to hide all their inherited assets and live off of the government?"

"No, they shouldn't."

"Okay, what about a millionaire? Should they be able to?"

"I don't know, all I'm saying is that I don't have a problem working the system. I don't have to have the same opinion as her, and I'm not going to pretend like I do."

That's it really. It all faded after that and we all left. But I'm pretty sure every student there was talking about it on their way to their cars.

It probably doesn't sound very exciting to anyone who wasn't there, or maybe to anyone that has a life... but it was pretty cool!