Health care professionals accost patients about politics

As an example of how divided our society has become, take my experience yesterday. I went to the eye clinic at the big university medical center to see about getting contact lenses. The optometrist I saw asked me if I had seen the news that day, and when I replied that I hadn't, he told me there had been panicked selling on the stock market. He then proceeded to denounce the House Republicans for killing the bailout bill. I said I don't know, maybe we should just let the chips fall where they may, force the banks to face the consequences of their mistakes. He said that wasn't an option, we can't have the system crash, institutions like the medical center itself depend on being able to take out short-term overnight loans and we'd go out of business if these banks did.

Is it just me, or does this come too close to starting a political argument in a setting where it shouldn't be considered appropriate? I'm sure political disagreements are as old as civilization itself, but I don't have the impression that people did things like this 50 years ago. But as our society has become more and more liberal, the left has felt more and more empowered to drive non-liberal beliefs out of the realm of respectability. I'm reminded of my former co-worker who thought everyone who owned guns or went to church lived in Kentucky, and my classmates who often make much more explicitly liberal statements in public in a way that indicates they assume everyone present agrees with them. We are witnessing the "I don't know how Nixon won; no one I know voted for him" effect writ large.

Low activity

As a cynic may have predicted would happen, my posting has dropped off as medical school has once again become more intense. I won't deny that I've been busy with schoolwork, but I must admit I also haven't been motivated to post much lately because of low morale. As the fervor of our nation's political debate has increased with the impending presidential election, I've been feeling more and more like the left has irrevocably won. If Barack Obama wins, he gets a Democratic Congress to do his bidding, plus the black "community" will be empowered like never before, and any failures and setbacks the nation experiences during his term will be blamed on racism. If McCain wins, the left will go absolutely apoplectic, foaming at the mouth with rabid denunciations of America as a thoroughly racist country, and mounting who-knows-what all-new full-scale assault on American society to purge it of its bigotry and discrimination. We truly are screwed in '08.