Argument With Dad
My dad has listened to conservative talk radio for as long as I have known such a thing existed. I have always found this obnoxious, but as I've become more politically aware, it's become something of an issue of contention between us. He sends me links from crazy people like Maureen Dowd and G. Gordon Liddy (who, to be fair, is more of a Barry Goldwater conservative, which means he's at least a little bit reasonable) and, while he acknowledges that I know a lot and I'm very smart when I respond, he never gives even a little bit of ground. These people are right and, for someone who's so smart, I sure am wrong about a lot.
OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Still, Saturday I was over at his place working and, despite my annoyance with his host du jour, Mancow (of all people!), he was streaming recent installments of Mancow's show the entire time I was there. I was content to watch Battlestar Galactica and ignore it through that, but then he advised that I listen to another guy named Mark Levin, a former lawyer who is now a conservative talk show host.
Levin was talking about frivolous lawsuits and brought up the woman who won 2.5 million dollars from McDonald's when she burned herself on some of their coffee. This case is the poster child for frivolous lawsuits. Not too long ago, I heard mention of it and it set off my bullshit filter, so I looked it up. As usual, my bullshit filter was dead on. The case was about a 76-year-old woman who, while trying to put cream and sugar into her coffee from a drive-thru, spilled an entire cup of coffee on her lap and received third-degree burns over 6 percent of her body and needed reconstructive surgery on her legs, ass and groin.
So I groused. Mark Levin is a lawyer, he should know better than to call that case frivolous, unless of course he doesn't know the details of it, in which case, he's just an idiot repeating conservative cliches. This started an argument between my dad and me, specifically over whether it was frivolous to bring the case to court -- verdict notwithstanding. My dad, who I have always respected as being considerably smarter than me, decided that the best way to end this argument was to say over and over, a little louder each time until we were both yelling at each other, "What did the label on the cup say?" He refused to entertain that the word "hot" might not tell a person of common sense that a trip to the hospital might be in order if their skin comes in contact with the tasty beverage held within. He kept saying "I like it that hot, because otherwise it's always cold when I finish," as though that warrants something.
It was frustrating and, he being family, I found myself enmeshed in a screaming match with my dad, trying to get him to budge just a fraction of an inch on his position. When he called me yesterday, he tried to pick the argument back up, but I remained calm and finally got him to explain himself a little clearer. At the end of the discussion (it remained a discussion this time), I explained to him that the difference between he, a layperson, calling a civil lawsuit "frivolous" and a trained lawyer using the same term mean two different things. My dad thinks that it was a silly case to have to bring before the court, because McDonald's should have offered to pay her medical bills (which they didn't, of course. I couldn't get Dad the rest of the way, where, if a major corporation should pay your medical bills but won't, the only sensible thing to do is bring them to court -- he kept insisting that the woman should have found another way to get herself taken care of, like defrauding a hospital (!) or using her own health insurance (because 70-somethings in the '90s had such great insurance)). Mark Levin thinks the case is, according to law.com's Legal Dictionary, "clearly intended merely to harass, delay or embarrass the opposition." Knowing the details of the case make him wrong on such a level that it was especially easy to get me riled up on the issue -- she didn't deserve 2.5 million dollars for it, nor was she asking for it. She wanted a little over $100,000 to cover her medical bills; the jury decided that a day's worth of coffee sales nation-wide would be a way to punish the company for its callousness.
Dad and I are done with the argument at his ridiculous semantically semi-sound position, but I just can't help but wonder: is this really the same man who pushed me to get a solid education and encouraged me to my current state of intellectual curiosity? What happened that I don't know about?
OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Still, Saturday I was over at his place working and, despite my annoyance with his host du jour, Mancow (of all people!), he was streaming recent installments of Mancow's show the entire time I was there. I was content to watch Battlestar Galactica and ignore it through that, but then he advised that I listen to another guy named Mark Levin, a former lawyer who is now a conservative talk show host.
Levin was talking about frivolous lawsuits and brought up the woman who won 2.5 million dollars from McDonald's when she burned herself on some of their coffee. This case is the poster child for frivolous lawsuits. Not too long ago, I heard mention of it and it set off my bullshit filter, so I looked it up. As usual, my bullshit filter was dead on. The case was about a 76-year-old woman who, while trying to put cream and sugar into her coffee from a drive-thru, spilled an entire cup of coffee on her lap and received third-degree burns over 6 percent of her body and needed reconstructive surgery on her legs, ass and groin.
So I groused. Mark Levin is a lawyer, he should know better than to call that case frivolous, unless of course he doesn't know the details of it, in which case, he's just an idiot repeating conservative cliches. This started an argument between my dad and me, specifically over whether it was frivolous to bring the case to court -- verdict notwithstanding. My dad, who I have always respected as being considerably smarter than me, decided that the best way to end this argument was to say over and over, a little louder each time until we were both yelling at each other, "What did the label on the cup say?" He refused to entertain that the word "hot" might not tell a person of common sense that a trip to the hospital might be in order if their skin comes in contact with the tasty beverage held within. He kept saying "I like it that hot, because otherwise it's always cold when I finish," as though that warrants something.
It was frustrating and, he being family, I found myself enmeshed in a screaming match with my dad, trying to get him to budge just a fraction of an inch on his position. When he called me yesterday, he tried to pick the argument back up, but I remained calm and finally got him to explain himself a little clearer. At the end of the discussion (it remained a discussion this time), I explained to him that the difference between he, a layperson, calling a civil lawsuit "frivolous" and a trained lawyer using the same term mean two different things. My dad thinks that it was a silly case to have to bring before the court, because McDonald's should have offered to pay her medical bills (which they didn't, of course. I couldn't get Dad the rest of the way, where, if a major corporation should pay your medical bills but won't, the only sensible thing to do is bring them to court -- he kept insisting that the woman should have found another way to get herself taken care of, like defrauding a hospital (!) or using her own health insurance (because 70-somethings in the '90s had such great insurance)). Mark Levin thinks the case is, according to law.com's Legal Dictionary, "clearly intended merely to harass, delay or embarrass the opposition." Knowing the details of the case make him wrong on such a level that it was especially easy to get me riled up on the issue -- she didn't deserve 2.5 million dollars for it, nor was she asking for it. She wanted a little over $100,000 to cover her medical bills; the jury decided that a day's worth of coffee sales nation-wide would be a way to punish the company for its callousness.
Dad and I are done with the argument at his ridiculous semantically semi-sound position, but I just can't help but wonder: is this really the same man who pushed me to get a solid education and encouraged me to my current state of intellectual curiosity? What happened that I don't know about?