A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 571 of 725
Follow the science, blindly, like a lemming, right over the cliff...
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Follow the science, blindly, like a lemming, right over the cliff...
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
Fake science. Lemmings didn't jump, they were pushed
https://gizmodo.com/lemmings-dont-commit-mass-suicide-disney-pushed-th
em-o-1614038696
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Snake Oil Theory of the Modern Right
There is an economic element to political extremism, just not what you’d think. Right-wing extremists, and to some extent even more mainstream conservative media, rely on financial support from companies selling nutritional supplements and miracle cures — and that financial support is arguably a significant factor pushing the right to become more extreme. Indeed, right-wing extremism isn’t just an ideological movement that happens to get a lot of money from sellers of snake oil; some of its extremism can probably be seen not as a reflection of deep conviction, but as a way of promoting snake oil.
Consider where we are right now in the fight against Covid-19. A few months ago it seemed likely that the development of effective vaccines would soon bring the pandemic to an end. Instead, it goes on, with hospitalizations closing in on their peak from last winter. This is partly due to the emergence of the highly contagious Delta variant, but it also crucially reflects the refusal of many Americans to take the vaccines.
And much of this refusal is political. True, many people who are refusing to get vaccinated aren’t Trumpists, but there’s a strong negative correlation between Donald Trump’s share of a county’s vote and vaccinations. As of July, 86 percent of self-identified Democrats said they had had a vaccine shot, but only 54 percent of Republicans did.
But vaccine refusers aren’t just rejecting lifesaving vaccines, they’re also turning to life-threatening alternatives. We’re seeing a surge in sales of — and poisoning by — ivermectin, which is usually used to deworm livestock but has recently been touted on social media and Fox News as a Covid cure.
OK, I didn’t see that coming. But I should have. As the historian Rick Perlstein has pointed out, there’s a long association between peddlers of quack medicine and of right-wing extremism. They cater to more or less the same audience.
That is, Americans willing to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Italian satellites were used to switch votes to Joe Biden are also the kind of people willing to believe that medical elites are lying to them and that they can solve their health problems by ignoring professional advice and buying patent medicines instead.
Once you’re sensitized to the link between snake oil and right-wing politics, you realize that it’s pervasive.
This is clearly true in the right’s fever swamps. Alex Jones of Infowars has built a following by pushing conspiracy theories, but he makes money by selling nutritional supplements.
It’s also true, however, for more mainstream, establishment parts of the right. For example, Ben Shapiro, considered an intellectual on the right, hawks supplements.
Look at who advertises on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. After Fox itself, the top advertisers are My Pillow, then three supplement companies.
Snake oil peddlers, clearly, find consumers of right-wing news and punditry a valuable market for their wares. So it shouldn’t be surprising to find many right-leaning Americans ready to see vaccination as a liberal plot and turn to dubious alternatives — although, again, I didn’t see livestock dewormer coming.
The interesting question, however, is to what extent the connection between right-wing politics and snake oil marketing has shaped the political landscape.
Put it this way: There are big financial rewards to extremism, because extreme politics sells patent medicine, and patent medicine is highly profitable. (In 2014 Alex Jones’s operations were bringing in more than $20 million a year in revenue, mainly from supplement sales.) Do these financial rewards induce pundits to be more extreme? It would be surprising if they didn’t — as conservative economists say, incentives matter.
The extremism of media figures radicalizes their audience, giving politicians an incentive to become more extreme.
So you can see how vaccination became such a flash point. Getting shots in arms is a priority for a Democratic president, which a
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Buying of the American Mind
https://web.archive.org/web/20210831171059/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/08/31/opinion/government-corruption.html
Today’s column was inspired by the latest twist in our still shambolic response to Covid — the continuing refusal of many Americans to get vaccinated and the insistence of some of them on swallowing horse paste instead. I tried to link this horrifying, if comic, development to the long relationship between right-wing extremism and patent medicine. But I didn’t have space to put this in the broader context of how money influences politics and policy.
The simple fact is that none of us are saints. Even those who claim to be working for the common good can be and often are influenced by the prospect of personal reward. As conservative economists like to say, incentives matter.
Indeed, it’s usually conservative economists who make this point most strongly. Half a century ago George Stigler of the University of Chicago published a hugely influential paper titled “The theory of economic regulation,” which argued that government regulators — like the boards setting rules for electricity generation and pricing — weren’t like the wise, selfless guardians of Plato’s “Republic”; they were human and hence subject to influence, which in practice meant that regulators were often captured by the very industries they were supposed to regulate.
It was a good point, if perhaps too extreme — regulators may not be saints, but they aren’t always purely creatures of self-interest either. But it was too narrowly applied. Stigler’s followers have used his logic to make the case against regulation, arguing that regulators will be corrupted by special interests. But why restrict that insight to government officials? In particular, why not apply it to their own political movement?
After all, surely the same logic that applies to regulators also applies to politicians and pundits, including those on the right who denounce regulation. And for that matter, it applies to intellectuals too, especially in those situations where the possible rewards for expressing the “right” opinions go beyond prestige and promotion into the realm of cold, hard cash.
And as far back as I can remember, the world of conservative opinion and thought has in fact consisted largely of bought men and women. (I’ll talk about liberals in a minute.)
I don’t think it was always thus. I’m not a huge fan of Milton Friedman’s legacy, but I do believe that he — and for that matter, Stigler — said what they did out of genuine, unforced conviction. Things have, however, changed since their heyday. In fact, they’ve changed twice.
First came the rise of “movement conservatism” — a highly organized set of interlocking institutions, all backed by billionaires and big corporations, of which the Republican Party was only one piece. There were also media organizations, especially Fox, think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and more. By the Aughts (we never did come up with a better name for this century’s first decade) these institutions had created a safe space, a guarantee of a stable and fairly lucrative career, for people willing to say the right things — tax cuts good, regulation bad — and not rock the boat.
I never thought I’d be nostalgic for the era when big money ruled the right. But traditional corporate influence looks benign compared with where we are now. At this point, to be a conservative in good standing you have to pledge allegiance to blatant lies — Democrats are Marxists, the election was stolen, basic public health measures are sinister assaults on freedom.
Why are so many people who have to know better willing to go along with these lies? Again, self-interest — partly ambition, and yes, partly financial reward. Obviously the snake-oil industry doesn’t have anything like the resources of more respectable Republican-leaning industries like fossil fuels or tobacco. But it offers more opportunities for personal enrichment: Ben Shapiro is presumably well paid for hawking “superfoods” in a way he could
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
No snake oil. No horse paste.
I don't even take Tylenol when I have a headache. I'm not getting your fuckin' vaccine, chump.
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The five most conservative Republican-appointed justices refused to block Texas’ abortion ban.
The only Republican dissenting was Chief Justice Roberts.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf
Roberts’ dissent called Texas’ law not just “unusual” but “unprecedented” in its effort to delegate enforcement of an abortion ban “to the populace at large.” He would halt the law “so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/supreme-court-overturn-roe
-wade-texas.html
https://jabberwocking.com/supreme-court-gives-the-green-light-to-texas
-anti-abortion-law/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
No it didn't.
You are still free to murder your babies.
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law. On the other hand, the Supreme Court wrote about Roe v Wade:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
No it didn't.
You are still free to murder your babies.
Quote:The Roe is Roe v Wade.
JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours' thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas's patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions. The Court thus rewards Texas's scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State's behalf. As of last night, and because of this Court's ruling, Texas law prohibits abortions for the vast majority of women who seek them—in clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
No it didn't.
You are still free to murder your babies.
I know it's still very early in the day, but that's going to easily be the stupidest thing I read today.
Also... archived.
Quote:
On the other hand, the Supreme Court wrote about Roe v Wade:Quote:The Roe is Roe v Wade.
JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours' thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas's patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions. The Court thus rewards Texas's scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State's behalf. As of last night, and because of this Court's ruling, Texas law prohibits abortions for the vast majority of women who seek them—in clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf
Correction: The Liberal Plants in the Supreme court said that.
There was not a ruling at all about the constitutionality of the original decision, and it doesn't bar anyone from coming back with a new case after they've figured it out.
When the Supreme Court hears about Mississippi's law banning abortions after 15 weeks, it will shut that one down.
Not a prediction. That's a fact, Jack.
Roe v Wade isn't going anywhere, and isn't under threat. This is just Lefty Shill Media spin to try to get the worst President* in our lifetime to make our country even worse by starting the precedent of the Supreme Court being packed with 4 more justices every time a new President is elected.
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
No it didn't.
You are still free to murder your babies.
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law.
Quote:I'm sure you fail, absolutely FAIL, to understand why Republican Supreme Court justices don't need Secret Service protection 24/7. It is not because there is a law. It is because most people have enough self-control to not murder justices and the ones lacking self-control don't know anything about Roe v Wade, ones like 6ixStringJack. Many decades ago, in Sam Rayburn High School, I read Supreme Court decisions. It turns out that those make remarkably clear which Justices know what they writing about and which Justices were selected because their political party can call them on the phone and tell them which way to vote, but the political party doesn't dictate over the phone what phony legal reasoning to justify following the party line. 6ix, you are terrible at understanding, which would explain your long-term struggle to stay in the middle class.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I know it's still very early in the day, but that's going to easily be the stupidest thing I read today.
Also... archived.
The Republican Party should hire a first class legal firm to write the Supreme Court decisions for Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas and send it to them in an email. The stuff those four sign as their own work is stupid unless their law clerks draft it for them.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME