How to date a liberal chick

[archerships]

"I was dating a rabid leftist and borderline feminist. She wasn't what I would call a "hard core" leftist or feminist because she just regurgitated the crap she got in college (then again, how does this materially differ from you average leftist anyway?). So when she would say something that would display her ignorance and brainwashing I would say,

"You want to make a bet?"

One time she said we didn't spend enough on health care. Remembering a chart I had recently seen, I then said the US government, on average spends just as much per person on public health care than your average socialist European country.

She didn't believe me.

So I said, "well, care to make it interesting?"

Her ego, belief and entire world view system was now being challenged, naturally she said, "sure" no doubt fully expecting me to be wrong.

"OK, if I'm right you have to wear a naughty stewardess outfit and serve me dinner for an evening."

Read the rest here.

Via Jacqueline Passey.

What other surefire bets would work? What bets would work on a conservative?

Comments

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Interesting that it should come via a blogger who places a high estimate on her value as a potential partner, largely due to her political beliefs. I wonder if this will prompt a reassessment?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on how strongly most liberal chicks hold their beliefs. If held strongly, I don't think you should expect that your partner's beliefs will change significantly due to discussions with you. As our discussions of immigration attest, changing a strongly held belief is quite difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, if most liberal women hold their beliefs weakly, picked up mostly from the zeitgeist of their college experience, and not a deep part of their identity, then I think you have some chance of changing their ideology. Personally, I've had little success changing anyone's mind (male or female), so I don't think the libertarian premium is going to go away any time soon.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

I changed my mind on immigration. I used to be a classic open-borders libertarian, but hundreds of thousands of waving Mexican flags and 100 mph on the freeway at rush hour made me reevaluate my position. Ideas based on vague ideology—liberal or libertarian—are relatively easy to change if you can confront them with stark, physical reality. Which is exactly what this guy's advocating. Using wagers to attach ideology to palpable consequences. It's brilliant. And I know it works from personal experience.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

You're quite confident in your beliefs regarding immigration, it's true. So what wagers would you make?

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

To change a girl's mind? It depends on what she asserts about immigrants. If she said "Immigrants are just here to work hard", I'd probably make a wager based on a % of illegals in the arrest population for violent crime/% of illegals in the population vs. % of legals in the arrest population vs. % of legals in the population. This is tough though, because as I've found when I started to investigate the specifics, a lot of the numbers are either deliberately misrepresented (eg. massive understatement of the number of illegals in the population, which results in sudden "corrections" of population estimates like we had last year) or not gathered in the first place simply because it would embarrass the powers that be.

On that particular issue, a ride-along with the cops or emergency rooms in South Phoenix would be more informative. But try getting a girl to do that. An easier, more illustrative example is the gumball video I posted a while back.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, you'd have to establish mutually agreeable data sources, and agree on the kinds of data that's definitive before making the bet.

At a minimum, you will see if you're even using the same yardsticks when making your beliefs. I've often found that isn't possible.

[timtad.livejournal.com]

How to trap a conservative: Bet all republicans are pro gun. Who signed AWB?

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

So, does it mean I'm going to Hell because I received sexual favors as a result of winning a bet about there being two versions of the Creation story in genesis?

Or the fact that another bet with the same woman resulted in some rather kinky activity after I won the bet that Jeremiah was a book of the Bible?

Actually, bets about Bible verses work really well. It's amazing how many people think the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is in the Bible.

Then there was the time I won a bet with an entire religion class when I claimed I could find two explicit and undeniable references to seminal emissions in the Bible.

[timtad.livejournal.com]

Onan spilling his seed and what other one?

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

GWT Translation:
Ezekiel 23:20 She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose semen was like that of horses.

Most other translations replace "Genitals" with "Flesh". It's also common to see the word "Emissions" used in place of "Semen."

I followed up by reading the passage (Numbers I think?) about the Concubine who was raped to death, and her body cut into pieces and chunks sent to each tribe of Israel. The resulting bloodbath nearly erased the tribe of Benjamin from existence.

[astroprisoner.livejournal.com]

What bets would work on a conservative?

I read this a little differently than timtad, I thought you were looking for an equivalent of the "dress naughty and serve dinner" part of the wager.

In which case I would recommend that you bet the conservative to either write a check to the ACLU, or agree to do a certain number of hours of work as a volunteer in the local ACLU office.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

The chart shows we spend about the same on public and private healthcare

[fishsupreme]

Well, we sort of do have socialized healthcare for what we're paying now.

If you show up at the emergency room with a serious injury or illness, they'll treat you, regardless of if you can pay. The hospitals eat the cost for people who don't pay (though they first try to squeeze blood from a stone with collection agencies.) People who are too poor to afford health insurance are covered by Medicaid, which of course does not get you the best healthcare, but it does get you something (if you have a life-threatening medical problem, it will be addressed regardless of your ability to pay.) The elderly have what basically amounts to full-on socialized medicine through Medicare. So we have a socialized medicine system that covers everyone... except people who can afford health insurance (by which I don't mean "people who can afford health insurance with no impact on their lifestyle and without spending a significant portion of their income.")

The difference is that in a company with truly socialized medicine, instead of the poor getting mediocre care while everyone else gets excellent care, everybody gets mediocre care except those who are rich enough to opt out of the system altogether and fly to other countries when they need healthcare.

Also, money spent by socialized medicine will never be spent anywhere near as efficiently as by the market; government waste takes a large chunk, and moral hazard and allocation error takes an even bigger chunk (single-payer systems devastate competition; so does indemnity insurance, just not as much.) For example, the United States spends three times as much money on anti-poverty programs per year than the number of poor families times the average poverty level (the distance below the poverty line of the average poor family.) In other words, they could write a check to all poor families that would, by the government's own definition of poverty, eliminate poverty entirely for 1/3 of the cost of their "anti-poverty" programs that fail to eliminate poverty. This is the same government that wants to run our healthcare system.

[knova.livejournal.com]

That's amazing about what we spend on anti-poverty programs. Where did you find that?