I went in to get my teeth cleaned this morning, and my hygienist told me a story. <\/p>\n
She was cleaning some lawyer’s teeth, and one of the dentists was in the next booth over, talking about politics from a conservative point of view. The lawyer was incensed. He asked, “Who is that? I don’t ever want him working on me.” <\/p>\n
A few things come to mind here. <\/p>\n
First, how would the lawyer feel if people declined his legal services because they didn’t agree with his politics? Wouldn’t the lawyer insist that he was able to represent his clients — guilty or innocent, conservative or liberal, young or old, etc. — irrespective of his political beliefs? And if a lawyer can claim such a thing, can’t a dentist claim it with even greater justice? After all, the law is political. Teeth are not. <\/p>\n
Second, how did we get to such a place? How did so many people become so intolerant? <\/p>\n
Generally speaking, when I go to someone to get a service, my concern is that they’re good at what they do — that the mechanic is a good mechanic, the dentist is a good dentist, and the tailor is a good tailor. I don’t care what they believe about the Green New Deal. <\/p>\n
I don’t know the political views of my dermatologist, and I don’t care. I suppose there are limits to that. If I knew he was a Nazi, I might decline to give him my business. <\/p>\n
Is that why we’re in this crazy place? People have been hurling around wild accusations based on the slightest departure from orthodoxy. (“You’re literally Hitler!”) <\/p>\n
Do people actually believe that nonsense? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went in to get my teeth cleaned this morning, and my hygienist told me a story. She was cleaning some lawyer’s teeth, and one of the dentists was in the next booth over, talking about politics from a conservative point of view. The lawyer was incensed. He asked, “Who is that? I don’t ever … Continue reading “The political views of your dentist”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}