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You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

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Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#21

Post by gjsman-1000 »

baggachipz wrote: post #15
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we get past the stupid tendency to just slap “nutter” or other epithets on perspectives we don’t agree with? If I had a nickel for every time someone around me said something “nutter” that later turned out to have something to it… I’d have a lot of nickels. Imagine if just 3 years ago I said anything of the following. “Nutter!” - Russia will invade Ukraine. Sanctions and stupidity be darned. - Silicon Valley Bank…

The guy's based his platform on Covid vaccine pseudo-science. He claims conspiracy bullshit by "big pharma" and that the vaccine isn't safe despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He's a nutter.

Yes. However, I’m not stupid either because science does change. There was “overwhelming evidence” that Thalidomide was safe around pregnant mothers; and only just now are we realizing that the “overwhelming evidence” that it’s completely safe to use antibiotics for everything with reckless abandon wasn’t the full story.

Imagine if we had found the people who had found the truth “nutters” in these and other cases. I’d prefer “extreme disagreement” over that.

Ultimately, it comes down to humility over the claim “we’ve got it right this time, for sure, and you can’t question it now!” There are no shortage of scientist quotes saying that in the 90s. And 80s. And 70s. And 60s. And 50s. And 1850s. And 1840s. And 1740s. And so on.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#23

Post by cat_plus_plus »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #4
keepamovin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say he's a nutter?

Presumably the vaccine stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.#Anti-vac...

Well, RFK has his nutcasery, Republican and Democratic candidates have their own nutcasery (elections, 50 genders and so on). 2020 elections still managed to give us a president who may be a bit senile but is not super deranged. Provide protection to all viable candidates, hopefully citizens will do the right thing again.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#24

Post by concinds »

throwaway776291 wrote: post #17

[dead]

(edited before seeing the reply below)

The author of that ridiculous Mastodon post is overcompensating for his history of calling Muslims "vermin" and other assorted hate speech, to the point where he was cited in Anders Breivik's manifesto. Extremely bad faith.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#25

Post by bena »

tomohawk wrote: post #2

This guy's a nutter, but he has a point. His polling numbers make him a contender. Not providing protection is ridiculous.

This is one of those things that's true but not necessarily applicable.

One could also say that you can't have a functioning democracy when elections aren't secure. And yes, that's technically true, but the implication hidden in that statement is that elections aren't safe.

RFKJr is trying to imply he is not safe without directly saying so.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#26

Post by throwaway776291 »

concinds wrote: post #24
throwaway776291 wrote: post #17

[dead]

(edited before seeing the reply below) The author of that ridiculous Mastodon post is overcompensating for his history of calling Muslims "vermin" and other assorted hate speech, to the point where he was cited in Anders Breivik's manifesto. Extremely bad faith.

There's basically no doubt about the reference RFK jr was making. The only question is whether one is the target audience of the reference.

Matt Tait (pwnallthethings) did an analysis of it and those numbers appear nowhere in the law governing candidate protection nor were they even close to correct regarding his request for protection. They were a dog whistle and nothing more.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#28

Post by krapp »

bandyaboot wrote: post #27
krapp wrote: post #22

The Second Amendment disagrees.

What does this even mean?

The purpose of the Second Amendment (as currently interpreted by SCOTUS and much of American culture) is to ensure the presence of a well-armed populace willing and capable of committing violence against the government if need be - this threat of populist violence is a necessity for a free state. Therefore, any state in which politicians are entirely safe cannot be considered free.

And honestly, if I'm forced to put up with gun crime, school shootings and spree killers just in case we need to do a French revolution then politicians should have to put up with patriots who want to feed the tree of liberty with their blood. That's the society Americans apparently want, so it's only fair.

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#29

Post by Ajay-p »

krapp wrote: post #28
bandyaboot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this even mean?

The purpose of the Second Amendment (as currently interpreted by SCOTUS and much of American culture) is to ensure the presence of a well-armed populace willing and capable of committing violence against the government if need be - this threat of populist violence is a necessity for a free state. Therefore, any state in which politicians are entirely safe cannot be considered free. And honestly, if I'm forced to put…

This may not be appropriate in polite company but my neighbor told me that "The second amendment is there in case the first does not work out"

Re: You can't have a functioning democracy when candidates aren't safe

#30

Post by krapp »

andsoitis wrote: post #12
vidarh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has continued pushing long disproven stuff like the MMR autism link. That alone is sufficient to consider him a nutter. And given the size of his platform he is a wildly dangerous one causing immense harm.

> That alone is sufficient to consider him a nutter. This feels like an extreme position to me. Just because you have one or 10 nutty beliefs, that doesn’t make you a nutter. I don’t know where the threshold lie, but as an example, didn’t Newton believe in alchemy?

Newton believed in alchemy during a time when the metaphysical assumptions behind alchemy were considered reasonable and axiomatic by everyone - the concept of a natural world being separate from a supernatural world simply did not exist.

That's a lot less nutty, relatively speaking, than believing in something like adrenochrome harvesting or Jewish space lasers or flat earth or reptilians today. Or even alchemy.

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