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> Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or onlin

> Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water and genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy. To this day you'll find most well off (and extreme) democrats avoiding GMO foods, protesting vaccines as well as avoiding fluoride in water. I don't think that's a republican issue. Especially in portland that consistently votes democratic but also NO to GMO, Flouride and Vaccines. Reading that middle sentence maybe it's a little unclear if they are tying that to conservatism, but it's definitely surrounded by it.

leereeves 7y ago
> To this day you'll find most well off (and extreme) democrats avoiding GMO foods, protesting vaccines as well as avoiding fluoride in water. I don't think that's a republican issue. Especially in portland that consistently votes democratic but also NO to GMO, Flouride and Vaccines. I found that claim surprising so I did a quick "fact check". About fluoride: true. "For the fourth time since 1956, Portland voters reject fluoridation" https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluoride_for_the_four.html https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluorid... About GMO: mixed. "Sixty-two percent of voters in Portland's Multnomah County supported " a measure to label (but not ban) GMOs, that was defeated statewide. https://www.agweb.com/article/oregon-voters-reject-gmo-labeling-on-foods-associated-press https://www.agweb.com/article/oregon-voters-reject-gmo-label... About vaccines: uncertain. I wasn't able to find evidence of this.
davidw 7y ago
I'm supposed to be avoiding politics here, but: I thought vaccines were kind of a 'fringes of both sides' issue until our Republican rep here in Bend, Oregon got the rug pulled out from under her by her own party: https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosting-bill-passes-oregon-house.html https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosti... I was surprised, I didn't think it'd go down that way. The sheer vitriol that our rep gets on her social media because of that one thing is quite something to behold.
- mnemonicsloth 7y ago
  The unifying thread for anti-vaxxers is a fear of authority. You can find that anywhere. Left, right and center.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Yep. I did not expect the voting to be so partisan, though.
    - mnemonicsloth 7y ago
      A lot of people believe their side is smarter. Try to prove them wrong and they'll take it as a personal attack etc etc see the original article
      - davidw 7y ago
        Well that's not what I'm saying: I thought that it would be more centrists of all stripes vs fringes on both sides. I did not think it was a 'sides' issue.
Sarcasmatic 7y ago
Vaccine "skepticism" used to be more prevalent among the (mostly left) urban health freaks. But that is changing rather rapidly, see for example https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/27/anti-vaccine-republican-mainstream-1344955 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/27/anti-vaccine-repub.... This might be a good example actually of people self-sorting into one of the two tribes. And Republicans (not conservatives) have conquered the science-is-bad spectrum so thoroughly they don't need to fear competition in the foreseeable future.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  It doesn't make much sense to use "left" and "right" to describe quite a bit of US politics, but even more so out west, where strange combinations of political outlook and motivation are easy to find.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    It's not just the US. Where I live (Northern Rivers, Australia), large numbers of people in the hippy areas would situate themselves politically as ultra-left and/or deep green. So highly anti-capitalist, anti-racist etc. They'll attack the right for its hostility to science when it comes to climate change, yet ignore any science relating to GMOs, nuclear power, vaccines, chemtrails, 4/5g ("Death Rays!" say the local signs). They're very pro-welfare so kind of Statist, yet left-anarchist on drugs, attitude to cops, etc. People are a mixed bag, and becoming more so (I think). Longstanding political maps are being redrawn almost everywhere it seems.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    When looking at specific claimed values, outside of a specific core, not so much. When looking at general orientation, particularly in terms of concentration vs. extension of establishment power, there are trends peresistent across millennia. This passage from the opening of A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, sticks with me: It was the agrarian problem that sparked off the violence that was ultimately to destroy the Republic. Tiberius Gracchus' bill [Lex Sempronia Agraria, Ed], enacted in 133 B.C. for distributing the public land, after leaving a generous allowance to the occupiers, in small lots to poor citizens, excited such furious resistance among the senatorial landowners that a group of them lynched Gracchus. This was the first in a series of violent clashes between two groups who called themselves the optimates and the populares. The nucleus of the optimates was the small clique of nobles (men whose fathers, grandfathers, or more remote ancesters had been consuls) who more or less monopolized the highest offices and dominated the Senate, but they had wide support among the propertied class, even, as Cicero says, propserous freedman; otherwise they could not have maintained their unbroken hold on the higher magistracies. They were conservatives, who regarded the rights of property as sacred, and therefore resisted bitterly any attempts to redistribute land or cancel debt. They were upholders of the constitution and of religion, which could be used to block any revolutionary legislation. Though at times they had to yield to popular pressure, they always remained the government. The populares were a much less well defined group. Their leaders were individual politicians or very small groups of politicians, who at intervals attempted to legislate in the interests of the people, by which they meant the common people.... https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jones_augustus_the_breakdown_of_the_republic/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jon...
makomk 7y ago
"Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview." Fact checkers and journalists are human, and it's not hard to guess at the worldview held by the author of this article.
0xff00ffee 7y ago
Portlander here. Sometimes it's hard being a liberal when you have to deal with the fluoride idiots or the "EM radiation causes autism" ... not just from the lesser-intelligent, but from intelligent-yet-highly-misinformed people (e.g., I know severeal doctors who believe Wi-Fi routers might be dangerous and are worried about 5G deployment... yes, I said DOCTORS ... show me some double-blind studies, people). Every group has their wingnuts, but I'm sure as heck am glad my liberal wingnuts aren't calling for the extermination of nonwhite/nonchristian/nonheteronormitive people. So I got that going for my side. Yay? Feh.
- leereeves 7y ago
  There are no double-blind studies of the effect cell phones on cancer. That would be impossible - how would you create a control group that thought they were using cell phones but actually weren't? And even if you could magically solve that problem, who would pay to run such a study on thousands of people for years? And Democrats have their own bigots. They're probably worse than Republicans on appearance discrimination (the entertainment industry in particular, and every Democrat who's ever made jokes about Trump's skin or hair), and minority conservatives are subjected to the most vile racist attacks. But even if you limit the discussion narrowly, there have been plenty of calls to violence from prominent Democrats, like: Lea DeLaria: "pick up a baseball bat and take out every f--king republican and independent I see" Mike Malloy: "But, you know, the NRA members are the current incarnation of the brownshirts... I look forward to ... the Night of the Long Knives when [they are] slaughtered and dumped in the nearest ditches". Allan Brauer, the communications chair of the Democratic Party of Sacramento County: "May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases." Michael Feingold: "I personally think [Republicans] should be exterminated before they cause any more harm." But things like that aren't widely reported in Democratic media, because the media (left and right) likes to do the job of filtering facts that don't fit the audience's worldview for them.
  - 0xff00ffee 7y ago
    Go back to 4chan.

leereeves 7y ago

> To this day you'll find most well off (and extreme) democrats avoiding GMO foods, protesting vaccines as well as avoiding fluoride in water. I don't think that's a republican issue. Especially in portland that consistently votes democratic but also NO to GMO, Flouride and Vaccines. I found that claim surprising so I did a quick "fact check". About fluoride: true. "For the fourth time since 1956, Portland voters reject fluoridation" https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluoride_for_the_four.html https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2013/05/portland_fluorid... About GMO: mixed. "Sixty-two percent of voters in Portland's Multnomah County supported " a measure to label (but not ban) GMOs, that was defeated statewide. https://www.agweb.com/article/oregon-voters-reject-gmo-labeling-on-foods-associated-press https://www.agweb.com/article/oregon-voters-reject-gmo-label... About vaccines: uncertain. I wasn't able to find evidence of this.

davidw 7y ago

I'm supposed to be avoiding politics here, but: I thought vaccines were kind of a 'fringes of both sides' issue until our Republican rep here in Bend, Oregon got the rug pulled out from under her by her own party: https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosting-bill-passes-oregon-house.html https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/05/vaccination-boosti... I was surprised, I didn't think it'd go down that way. The sheer vitriol that our rep gets on her social media because of that one thing is quite something to behold.

mnemonicsloth 7y ago
The unifying thread for anti-vaxxers is a fear of authority. You can find that anywhere. Left, right and center.
- davidw 7y ago
  Yep. I did not expect the voting to be so partisan, though.
  - mnemonicsloth 7y ago
    A lot of people believe their side is smarter. Try to prove them wrong and they'll take it as a personal attack etc etc see the original article
    - davidw 7y ago
      Well that's not what I'm saying: I thought that it would be more centrists of all stripes vs fringes on both sides. I did not think it was a 'sides' issue.

Sarcasmatic 7y ago

Vaccine "skepticism" used to be more prevalent among the (mostly left) urban health freaks. But that is changing rather rapidly, see for example https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/27/anti-vaccine-republican-mainstream-1344955 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/27/anti-vaccine-repub.... This might be a good example actually of people self-sorting into one of the two tribes. And Republicans (not conservatives) have conquered the science-is-bad spectrum so thoroughly they don't need to fear competition in the foreseeable future.

PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
It doesn't make much sense to use "left" and "right" to describe quite a bit of US politics, but even more so out west, where strange combinations of political outlook and motivation are easy to find.
- crispinb 7y ago
  It's not just the US. Where I live (Northern Rivers, Australia), large numbers of people in the hippy areas would situate themselves politically as ultra-left and/or deep green. So highly anti-capitalist, anti-racist etc. They'll attack the right for its hostility to science when it comes to climate change, yet ignore any science relating to GMOs, nuclear power, vaccines, chemtrails, 4/5g ("Death Rays!" say the local signs). They're very pro-welfare so kind of Statist, yet left-anarchist on drugs, attitude to cops, etc. People are a mixed bag, and becoming more so (I think). Longstanding political maps are being redrawn almost everywhere it seems.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  When looking at specific claimed values, outside of a specific core, not so much. When looking at general orientation, particularly in terms of concentration vs. extension of establishment power, there are trends peresistent across millennia. This passage from the opening of A.H.M. Jones, Augustus, sticks with me: It was the agrarian problem that sparked off the violence that was ultimately to destroy the Republic. Tiberius Gracchus' bill [Lex Sempronia Agraria, Ed], enacted in 133 B.C. for distributing the public land, after leaving a generous allowance to the occupiers, in small lots to poor citizens, excited such furious resistance among the senatorial landowners that a group of them lynched Gracchus. This was the first in a series of violent clashes between two groups who called themselves the optimates and the populares. The nucleus of the optimates was the small clique of nobles (men whose fathers, grandfathers, or more remote ancesters had been consuls) who more or less monopolized the highest offices and dominated the Senate, but they had wide support among the propertied class, even, as Cicero says, propserous freedman; otherwise they could not have maintained their unbroken hold on the higher magistracies. They were conservatives, who regarded the rights of property as sacred, and therefore resisted bitterly any attempts to redistribute land or cancel debt. They were upholders of the constitution and of religion, which could be used to block any revolutionary legislation. Though at times they had to yield to popular pressure, they always remained the government. The populares were a much less well defined group. Their leaders were individual politicians or very small groups of politicians, who at intervals attempted to legislate in the interests of the people, by which they meant the common people.... https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jones_augustus_the_breakdown_of_the_republic/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jon...

makomk 7y ago

"Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview." Fact checkers and journalists are human, and it's not hard to guess at the worldview held by the author of this article.

0xff00ffee 7y ago

Portlander here. Sometimes it's hard being a liberal when you have to deal with the fluoride idiots or the "EM radiation causes autism" ... not just from the lesser-intelligent, but from intelligent-yet-highly-misinformed people (e.g., I know severeal doctors who believe Wi-Fi routers might be dangerous and are worried about 5G deployment... yes, I said DOCTORS ... show me some double-blind studies, people). Every group has their wingnuts, but I'm sure as heck am glad my liberal wingnuts aren't calling for the extermination of nonwhite/nonchristian/nonheteronormitive people. So I got that going for my side. Yay? Feh.

leereeves 7y ago
There are no double-blind studies of the effect cell phones on cancer. That would be impossible - how would you create a control group that thought they were using cell phones but actually weren't? And even if you could magically solve that problem, who would pay to run such a study on thousands of people for years? And Democrats have their own bigots. They're probably worse than Republicans on appearance discrimination (the entertainment industry in particular, and every Democrat who's ever made jokes about Trump's skin or hair), and minority conservatives are subjected to the most vile racist attacks. But even if you limit the discussion narrowly, there have been plenty of calls to violence from prominent Democrats, like: Lea DeLaria: "pick up a baseball bat and take out every f--king republican and independent I see" Mike Malloy: "But, you know, the NRA members are the current incarnation of the brownshirts... I look forward to ... the Night of the Long Knives when [they are] slaughtered and dumped in the nearest ditches". Allan Brauer, the communications chair of the Democratic Party of Sacramento County: "May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases." Michael Feingold: "I personally think [Republicans] should be exterminated before they cause any more harm." But things like that aren't widely reported in Democratic media, because the media (left and right) likes to do the job of filtering facts that don't fit the audience's worldview for them.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  Go back to 4chan.