They Must Think the Average IQ is About 3

I participated in what I think was a push poll last week, and it was fun but ultimately pointless. A push poll phrases questions in such a fashion that they are meant to skew opinion. For example, the chestnut goes, "When did Tom stop beating his wife?" Just asking this question would lead to doubts about Tom's character.

So, the pollster told me they were interested in developing new state health laws, asked if I would take a poll, and then asked me if I thought women should be guaranteed the *same* coverage as men for insurance. I asked if women now had less coverage than men, or if there was a problem with this. Guy said he didn't know, so I declined to answer. Then he asked me if I thought more clinics should be available in neighborhoods to deliver safer health care. I mentioned that I thought this was a leading question; he protested. I asked what services would be covered in the clinic? He said there was no more info. I then said Planned Parenthood called itself a full service health clinic, but if a woman needed a mammogram she was turfed out; PP only did abortions. So the definition is important.

He didn't know what a *clinic* was, so I declined to answer. It went on like this for a few more questions, with lots of code words and skewed phrasing that would support legal coercion for certain products and services. I'm just waiting for the poll results to be released in a few weeks, saying that so-and-so high percentage of people are SCREAMING for better health care for women, especially for reproductive rights. I'm not getting a certain party's emphasis on reproductive rights anyway. Cannot any woman go to multiple doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals, or wherever, and receive a prescription for birth control pills? Cannot any woman simply walk into any corner drugstore to purchase condoms? Are these items not perfectly legal, safe, effective,widely available, and cheap? Did I miss the embargo? Oh wait, I forgot, we want OTHER people to pay for what WE want, even if the "other people" don't particularly care to support what you want. Whatever happened to freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience?

The bottom line is that I don't believe the government should regulate private industry, and especially health care. Call me old-fashioned, but it seems that whenever the government gets involved in things beyond building roads (if you can overlook those "shovel-ready jobs") or dealing with infrastructural governance, it gets into trouble.

The pollster and I had a pleasant conversation, but I don't think I made him too happy.

I just CANNOT WAIT to vote on November 6th. I cannot wait. I am counting the hours.

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Quick note: on a somewhat related note, take a look at this email (above) that I got last week. I'm tired of everyone thinking I'm an idiot.