So, I just got a call from the District of Columbia, shown on my Caller ID as being from 202-629-9767. I suspected it was a robo-call, but I took it, because it was either that or read more of my extremely irritating economics textbook.
The recorded message was something along the lines of "This is Mike Huckabee, and I'm calling to ask you to help repeal ObamaCare" and then some hogwash about the failed Blunt amendment yesterday, and how we must all mobilize to speak with our Senators to protect religious freedom.
Well.
I was given the option to remove my number from the list or to press 1 to donate to the campaign. I never remove my number, because I figure the more time of theirs I can waste, the less money they'll make (my own little economics lesson). And since I'm not employed right now due to their ridiculous hero, Milton Friedman and his whole gang of merry prankster cronies, I figure it's the least I can do.
So I pressed 1. I always press 1. Sometimes I pretend to be an old person who is having problems with the credit card number (soon to be no longer a pretense, perhaps), sometimes I just harangue the person, asking him if his mom would be proud of him for ripping off old people, and suggesting he look for a job he doesn't have to be ashamed of (I only do that to the most egregious callers, like "Rachel" from "card services").
But this time I was planning to offer to donate 7 cents. I was wondering if I could make them waste the postage. And the message said that you could get a free book from Mike Huckabee. I thought it would be amusing to find out how little I could donate to get the book.
But all did not go according to plan. First of all, the young lady asked me how I felt about my religious freedom being impinged by ObamaCare. I answered honestly, and said that the whole Blunt amendment was an attack on the very foundations of employer-provided healthcare.
I asked her if she realized that, under the extreme overreach of the Blunt amendment, employers wouldn't be able to withhold just access to contraception from their employees, but any health care to which they had any religious or moral objection.
I asked her if she knew about Christian Scientists, who thought all health problems can be cured by praying the sickness away. Did she realize that almost certainly any employer who was a Christian Scientist would be able to offer insurance that covered only prayer (and what employer wouldn't want to offer that certainly vastly cheaper form of insurance...think of the...er...co-pray).
"And," I said "It is conceivable that if an employer doesn't think that women should be single mothers, that employer could refuse to provide insurance to a female employee's children, if she were a single mother. Don't you think that many employers, in the interest of saving money, would suddenly find all sorts of expensive illnesses morally objectionable"
She was strangely quiet.
"Are you a mom?" I asked.
"Yes" she said.
"Are you a single mom?" I asked.
"Yes" she said.
"That was a really bad amendment. You should maybe do some more research on exactly what it did" I said.
"Thank you for the information" she said, and she hung up.