Is that your answer to the question?Originally Posted by nsacpi
If you were to give them some sort of grade as to being both incredibly evil and a threat to world peace I'd be very interested to see how closely you put them together.
Is that your answer to the question?
If you were to give them some sort of grade as to being both incredibly evil and a threat to world peace I'd be very interested to see how closely you put them together.
Natural Immunity Croc
Yeah. Putin is a genius. A defender of western civilization against both the Cosmopolitans of Davos and the Woke Mob.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
I agree with thethe probably 65% of the time.
Tapate and jaw 75%
Aces 85%
Unlike leftists we are not a.monolith. but do have a lot of common ground on the big things
Oooh the lecturer got triggered.
Quiet down old man. Eat some soup and refresh your WAPO op-eds
Yep. Look at how many times you and I have gotten into it. Every person right of center here is his own person.
Indeed... And the leftists are in lockstep on literally everything because they are programmed to buy into the whatever the media narrative is that day
He used to mostly just troll, but now just posts angry all the time.
I figured time out playing bingo with the boys would have been relaxing.
Last edited by Tapate50; 03-09-2022 at 09:54 AM.
Ivermectin Man
Honestly, it would be a lot easier to be liberal these days. None here seem to be able to answer questions or support positions beyond the explanation its "not trump" or "not maga" .
Ivermectin Man
Leftists are a monolith? Ha. This is such an ignorant take. Just from a historical perspective you had these fragmentations of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Not to mention the Trotskyites and Left Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Some went so far as to assassinate each other.
And this continues today. Having spent a little time in Berkeley, I have to say the proliferation of leftist splinter groups with peculiar beliefs and agendas has never been greater.
I also hate to bring this to attention of y'all. But anti-vaxxism has pretty deep roots in leftist circles. Welcome to ze club.
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-09-2022 at 09:59 AM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
He really really needs a win on something.
Conspiracy theorists who discount the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and other public-health mandates are often portrayed in the media as right-wing. That’s for good reason: a not-insignificant number of the most vocal conspiracists tie their ideology firmly to President Donald Trump and the right-wing MAGA movement he inspired. Videos of angry red-state demonstrators pushing back against school boards and other local authorities in public hearings, and repeating outlandish, baseless misinformation, have made the rounds in traditional media.
But in the hills of western Massachusetts and in neighboring regions of upstate New York, a traditionally left-leaning area, these theories also hold purchase. I grew up in the region and started my journalistic career there. I’ve been arguing with residents, many of whom are close friends, about vaccines for more than a decade. But despite my efforts, and the efforts of many others, a stubborn resistance to reality has set in here, and only deepened since the pandemic began. Late last month, Do We Need This?, a group of anti-vaxxers and vaccine-mandate opponents, held a “festival” in the region to raise money for their cause, suggesting a $20 donation for entry. They shared the proceeds with other national vaccine-skeptic groups, including NY Stands Up!, the Informed Consent Action Network, and Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense.
Anti-vaxxers in the Taconics-Berkshires region include local organic farmers, members of homeschooling and alternative-education communities, anti-war hippies, and the occasional alt-right conspiracist. The anti-vax faction here has its roots in the left-libertarian politics of the Back to the Land movement, which flooded the area with the disaffected urban upper-middle class in the 1970s and ’80s. That influx of hippies and students, most of whom came from New York City, brought with it a political belief in naturopathy and a mistrust of institutional authority.
Today, these crunchy anti-vaxxers are coalescing into a loose political group that is targeting COVID health measures and restrictions as indicative of governmental overreach and medical tyranny. They’re also, predictably, falling down far-right rabbit holes. For more science-minded people who have roots in the region, seeing old friends turn to outlandish, anti-science conspiracy theories can be disheartening, Melissa Pourpak, who grew up in the area and has a doctorate in genetics and molecular biology, told me. “It is shocking and saddening to me that such illogical statements are often heard in a place that used to be known for being a whole lot smarter than that,” Pourpak said. “Did all the progressives leave?”
The progressives didn’t all leave, of course. But some have found themselves drawn to ideas that the national media tend to associate with conservatives. Enid Futterman, a local journalist and Bernie Sanders supporter whom I know through Facebook, is one example. She told me she finds the idea that COVID is caused by 5G cellphone towers more believable than person-to-person transmission. “I’ve read both sides, and that’s what makes sense,” Futterman said. “I’m not saying I’m right; I’m just saying that’s what makes sense to me.”
I’ve cut off contact with several other people from the area, with whom I once spoke at least semi-regularly, because of their views on vaccines. One former friend, who now lives in California, fully embraced the anti-vax narrative more than a year ago, after more than a decade of falling for ever more unbelievable, thinly sourced conspiracy theories. Today he posts on social media incessantly about “studies,” never peer-reviewed, that he contends prove his conspiracist beliefs correct. Other people I grew up with have drifted to the far-right, with anti-vax rhetoric a common thread to their ravings. Even one of my oldest friends is anti-vax, reasoning that the antibodies he got from contracting COVID-19 earlier this year will protect him better than a vaccine (I haven’t cut off contact with him).
It would, however, be a mistake to assume that anti-vaccine sentiment is now a left-wing idea. A mistrust of governmental authority mixed with a series of decades-old conspiracy theories about the dangers of modern society produced the core of the modern anti-vaccination movement, Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told me. But perhaps the wider ideological appeal of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories shouldn’t come entirely as a surprise. Traditional left-wing concerns about corporate influence mesh well with anti-vax fears that the pharmaceutical industry pushed federal regulatory agencies to sign off on the COVID-19 vaccines before they were truly ready. Skepticism about the safety of genetically modified food can easily blend into worries about mRNA vaccines. And an affinity for naturopathy and organic produce isn’t too far removed from rejecting the industrialization of modern medicine in the form of a shot.
As opposition to vaccines becomes a more partisan issue, however, progressives who are vaccine-hesitant will face a decision. Do they remain on the left, even as the politics around the conspiracy theories they embrace lead them out of their ideological comfort zones? Or do they dispense with progressivism in favor of a view of the world that holds that public health is subordinate to personal choice? In the hills where I grew up, those caught in the middle are trying to avoid confronting the contradictions.
Futterman told me she sees no contradiction between her views on vaccines and public health and her lefty Democrat political positions, citing the “open-minded” approach of liberalism. When I asked her whether her politics could survive her rejection of vaccines—which a majority of progressive politicians and leaders have been vocally in favor of—she said that pigeonholing her ideology was an error.
“I don’t like those labels,” Futterman said. “I do support Bernie Sanders.” She didn’t see “any disconnect between” her support for progressive values and her embrace of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, she added. “I do see a disconnect between me and a lot of Democrats, which is sort of shocking, but true.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...do-now/620092/
Last edited by nsacpi; 03-09-2022 at 10:06 AM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Yes. A Kennedy is a leading anti-vaxxer.
Of course the left also has a tradition that deeply rejects science. The whole movement against GMO food comes the left. They were convinced a long time ago that GMO food would make them grow an elbow in their foreheads.
The right is only just now catching up to this ****. But they are making up for being late to the party.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Forcing a healthy young person to take a "vaccine" that neither stops them from contracting nor spreading the virus is not following science.
It is running away from it.
A friendly reminder that more people died of the virus after vaccines distributed than before
Wearing a face diaper to stop a respitroy virus is not following science... It is running away from it
Encouraging people to stay home and close gyms to combat a virus that kills fat people is not following science. It is running away from it
It's a big bad complicated world out there. So I can see some appeal to trying to categorize groups of people as some sort of political monolith. It's a tidy worldview that doesn't survive scrutiny.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
True. I'm so happy to see this folk libertarian movement speak out against the varicella vaccine. About time.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
your greatest post ever
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
We can think on the country's biggest issues over the years.
Russia collusion, COVID, BLM, Vax mandates, Ukraine, spending, etc.
Where do you, zito, sav, Goldy, 57 et al diverge?
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