Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

i'll admit say that a lot of that shit is pretty embarrassing -- especially the water fluoridation crap, yeesh -- but i don't really buy that it'd be a big deal in an election. it would be a part of a larger narrative of him being a crazy lefty, sure, but i don't think this kind of stuff would really move the needle much by itself

except for the new jersey generals xp

As I mentioned elsewhere in one of these threads, the 30 For 30 documentary about the USFL and Trump buying the Generals and ultimately destroying the league should be required viewing for anyone considering voting for him.

I really can't imagine 40-year-old essays (or 20-year old essays, or...essays in general) being a thing anyone cares about but who knows

bernie wrote all that stuff so long ago that i think he could plausibly dismiss it as silly stuff he thought when he was younger -- and most of it probably is.

kind of wondering why trump is so pleased with himself for calling ted cruz "lyin' ted".. okay stopped wondering a few seconds later when i realized the answer is that trump isn't very bright..
cruz doesn't strike me as particularly a liar? his creepiness and horrendous policy ideas are right there out in the open?

xpost the other stuff is way weirder than the water fluoridation! maybe since i've been exposed to a fair amount of new age garbage (i go to a lot of yoga classes), i find it v maddening when people don't believe in science

man i hate to say it, but if hillary wrote even one of those the internet would go completely batshit

having worked in the health care field in VT for a couple of years i definitely know bernie (like most vermonters) to be generally sympathetic to alternative medicine. and as someone relatively hostile to that field it's not something i'm particularly happy about, but the policy effects are relatively minor

Trump's "Lyin' Ted" thing comes from Cruz's campaign calls during the Iowa caucuses claiming that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race.

bernie's quackery from 40 years ago >> hillary's super-predator rhetoric from 20 years ago

tbh i was chill about alternative medicine nonsense too until i heard from totally well-educated, upper middle class friends that some of their totally well-educated, upper middle class friends were not vaccinating their children.

well that and yoga teachers saying stuff like recovering from postpartum depression and similar maladies was about choosing to be happy, and other yoga teachers advocating for homeopathic remedies for actual injuries, and such.

basically sometimes i think it can be dangerous

yeah i just rolled my eyes at the fluoridation thing in particular because it's such a typical lefty science denier thing, and such a dumb thing to be against. tho given bernie's good-government views i'd be shocked if he still held those views xxp

"super-predator rhetoric" ie one comment she made one time, back when the crime bill in question had near universal support?
or did she give a speaking tour about super predators that i missed, i'm open to new info

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2016/04/wisconsin_primary_live_updates_1.html

"We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal," he told a radio interviewer on Monday. And he will send Trump supporters to those rooms.

motherfucker it isn't a steal it's the goddamn rules the Republicans agreed on during the 2012 RNC (that will likely change again), ffs you don't own shit. you don't like it, form your own damn party.

cruz doesn't strike me as particularly a liar?

he is a horrible, well-practiced liar and prevaricator.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/01/ted_cruz_may_be_the_most_gifted_liar_ever_to_run_for_president.html

having worked in the health care field in VT for a couple of years i definitely know bernie (like most vermonters) to be generally sympathetic to alternative medicine. and as someone relatively hostile to that field it's not something i'm particularly happy about, but the policy effects are relatively minor

― k3vin k., Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:03 PM (5 minutes ago)

i should clarify that i mean that policy effects visavis alternative medicine BERNIE has been involved with are relatively minor -- things like expanding access to acupuncture at the VA and stuff. not that anti-science policies in general are harmless

when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has 'taught' her and accepts her boyfriend's love

28-year old Bernie comes across as a tad bit sad here

kind of wondering why trump is so pleased with himself for calling ted cruz "lyin' ted".. okay stopped wondering a few seconds later when i realized the answer is that trump isn't very bright..

I think it's partly because when he flings shit it often sticks. He could just as easily have said "Oily Ted" or "Loser Ted" or "Flip-Floppin' Ted," "Small-Dicked Ted," "Canadian Ted," or whatever. Whether it fits Cruz particularly doesn't matter. The point is that it gets remembered and repeated.

Someone arbitrarily gave me a nickname in high school - it wasn't insulting or demeaning, just an arbitrary bit of goofiness - and the ONE person from my high school who went to my college happened to be one of the people who knew about it. Hence it lived for years longer than it should have, just because sometimes nicknames are viral like that.

looks like bernie is gonna rack up a 13ish point win tonight

xxxpost there are moments where I hear Trumpers rattling on about Cruz's infidelities and I have to remind them of their own candidate's fling with Marla Maples when I realize "Goddammit you cumstains, you're actually making me defend Ted Cruz right now" (insofar as "ad hominem tu quoque counts as a 'defense' I guess)

xpost acupuncture is cool though. some of the stuff i support, don't get me wrong. would totally try acupuncture if i had a need, i've heard good things.

do a lot of people have a knee-jerk tendency to defend cruz against accusations of infidelity because it's way more upsetting to believe them. i don't mean politically i mean like ew gross no way

"super-predator rhetoric" ie one comment she made one time, back when the crime bill in question had near universal support?
or did she give a speaking tour about super predators that i missed, i'm open to new info

― arts and crafts THIS GUY (daria-g), Wednesday, April 6, 2016 3:09 AM (4 minutes ago)

did bernie sanders give a speaking tour about alternative medicine and water fluoridation? as opposed to making some questionable statements back in the late 60s/early 70s when that nonsense was everywhere

Sanders’s indulging of the anti-science/anti-GMO crowd (or the extent to which he’s part of that crowd) is the principal thing that gives me pause about his candidacy. franklym it’s a rank embarrassment.

oh no another DISASTROUS WIN for Bernie

lol you guys always throwin the dirt on

btw W is smarter than most of us

also i think i made it to p 150 of Piketty (the graphs helped)

"you guys" - this phrase does a /lot/ of work in your posts

i voted for bernie btw

tbh i was chill about alternative medicine nonsense too until i heard from totally well-educated, upper middle class friends that some of their totally well-educated, upper middle class friends were not vaccinating their children.

well that and yoga teachers saying stuff like recovering from postpartum depression and similar maladies was about choosing to be happy, and other yoga teachers advocating for homeopathic remedies for actual injuries, and such.

basically sometimes i think it can be dangerous

― arts and crafts THIS GUY (daria-g), Tuesday, April 5, 2016 10:07 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bernie's talking point about GMO-labeling is probably the biggest disappointment for me on a policy level, but it's really not a big deal to me (especially since I don't ultimately give a fuck if my corn has a meaningless GMO label). I haven't seen any evidence that he's currently deeper into the shit than that (anti-vax, anti-fluoridation, etc.). He was a hippie when he was young, Clinton wasn't. There's not really an analogous thing in Clinton's past. But I don't quite think you can compare views she expressed while first lady to views he expressed as a young radical.

bernie is def not in the anti-vaccine crowd

oh shit all these "trump campaign losing momentum, in disarray" stories are just preparation for the "trump campaign amazing comeback, genius" stories to come when the primaries move to new york and new jersey and etc and he wins the states he's expected to win

no, he's definitely not an anti-vaxxer!

the problem with the "GMO labeling" movement is that it lends pointless credibility to a bunch of anti-science paranoia, which in turn lends credibility-by-association to a bunch of other crackpot ideas shared by many of the same folks. (which my partner and i refer to as "stuff that people write about in the local grocery co-up newsletter.")

xpost

Jeez. Try to imagine the worst possible outcome from a can of garbanzos having the phrase "Contains genetically modified ingredients" written on it. It boggles the imagination. Civilization might crumble. Or perhaps people would just largely choose to eat the same sort of food they ate before genetic modification was possible on an industrial scale. Or maybe they'd choose to eat the GMO garbanzos. Hard to say which outcome is scarier because frankly, neither one scares me at all.

i'll have you know that one of the most respected political minds in this country, Bill Maher, is an anti-vaxxer!

(btw that same co-op newsletter once published a "vaccines might cause autism" piece which got a round of angry letters from doctors who are co-op members. sadly the co-op responded with a bullshit "we are an open forum, we present all sides of issues of concern to our members" hand-waving motion. if i had my druthers i'd have given up my membership then and there. but they have a really tasty hot bar.)

I voted against the GMO labeling initiative in WA a couple years ago because of its origin in anti-science hippieism, can't abide that shit.

(the anti-science stuff is a good reminder that political identification is largely a matter of tribalism and that "liberals" are just as dumb as anyone else)

do a lot of people have a knee-jerk tendency to defend cruz against accusations of infidelity because it's way more upsetting to believe them. i don't mean politically i mean like ew gross no way

srsly I have no desire to imagine Cruz thrusting his filibuster-stick inside anybody

I have a lot of the anti-GMO crew as friends. they also say things like 'BEWARE ASPARTAME POISONING' like it's a real thing

"i'm ted cruz, and i endorsed this quickie"

lol

toxins you guys, don't forget you need to detox to get rid of toxins

"GMO" I'm most cases means that the food was covered in RoundUp, which is something that I'd like to know about. Plus, making it illegal for companies to VOLUNTARILY label their food smacks of big brother to me.

er, the pro-labeling crowd wants to make it /mandatory/ to label GMO food as such (with the obvious implication that we should be concerned about it)

i'm not opposed to companies voluntarily labeling it! and neither are most of us, i assume.

just like companies are free to label their off-brand pickles as "gluten-free" (LOL)

The idea that somehow the entire nation would start reading the fine print on every bit of packaged or processed food they buy, become hysterical at the idea of eating GMO food, then destroy several decades of scientific research in a sort of 'village mob destroys Frankenstein's castle' moment is in itself verging on hysteria.

I would estimate that maybe 15% of US consumers at most give a shit about GMO one way or the other. Including those in favor. The anti-labeling position seems as emotion-laden as the anti-GMO position to me. It will not make any appreciable difference if labeling is required. Not enough people would reject GMO products to do more than shave some profits off the balance sheets of some food conglomerates. Boo fucking hoo.

the vote in Washington didn't make it illegal for voluntarily labeling, it made it illegal to mandate it:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/06/washington-state-voters-reject-gmo-labeing/3450705/

xpost and amateurist just said that oops

(the anti-science stuff is a good reminder that political identification is largely a matter of tribalism and that "liberals" are just as dumb as anyone else)

Yeah, that's the real trick. People start going against what we shorthandedly call science when shit starts going against very closely held beliefs that tie into identity. Hell, Mike McRae wrote great book about it.

Also, intelligence is no complete defense against believing dumb shit, due to how we form beliefs(hint: it ain't rationally).

there are also plenty of librulls that are all like "burger flippers don't *really* deserve 15/hour, man" too

My bad. In any case, the super-condescending "just trust us" attitude around GMOs I get from my scientist friends seems ignorant of the rich history of unintended consequences that have accompanied virtually every scientific advancement.