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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination signals a new era of anti-intellectualism in American politics

theconversation.com Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination signals a new era of anti-intellectualism in American politics

Attacks on scientific expertise have been increasing, especially in politics. Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is among the more prominent people who have done that.

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Despite his takes on vaccines, he’s the one cabinet pick I like. He is focused on the toxic food environment Americans live in and don’t seem to want to acknowledge. I feel like I took crazy pills yesterday when NYT put out an article implying that weight loss had nothing to do with calories. It’s amazing all the mental gymnastics some people will do just to not be a little hungry for a while.
- The problem is that his takes on vaccines actively disqualify him. They could've found any number of other people who could've promoted those types of healthy lifestyle without vaccine hangup.
  Oh and the ADHD labor camps. More people should be talking about those.
- Only he changes his beliefs and opinions depending on who’s dick he’s sucking.
  
  I agree on that. Very bad look when he was pushed on his past statements and his answer was “P-P-President Trump”. Looked kinda pathetic to me. But I’m taking the bad with the good. I’m hoping parents will do the right thing and vaccinate their kids and that he will focus on improving the food supply in the US and tightening regulations for ultra processed “food”.
- He wants to take away my medicine and send me to a labor camp. He's the least acceptable out of the entire clown show Trump nominated.
  
  Sure he does. Proof?
  
  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/rfk-jr-wants-to-send-people-on-antidepressants-to-government-wellness-farms/
  
  You exaggerated quite a bit. Wow. Are you addicted to your "medicine"?
  
  According to people like RFK, I am. And what's with the scare quotes? It's medicine, not "medicine".
  
  According to that article, RFK suggested creating a place where people can clear their mind and free themselves from addictions and dependencies, through activities and exercise to improve health and clarity.
  Doesn't sound like a labor camp. Michelle Obama tried doing something similar but everyone ignored it anyway. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to, where she has several kids TV stations blacked out in order to coerce kids to go outside and exercise.
  If RFK made that voluntary, it may seem beneficial. If he even goes through with it, because that article is from July 2024, when he was still a presidential candidate.
  
  It would be insensitive to refer to a camp where people perform labor as a "labor camp", right?
  
  It says in the article that addicts and individuals can attend these "wellness farms" for free to grow their own food and exercise to get healthy.
  
  What he wants and what he can do are very different things. And no, the worse is Hegseth and that cannot be argued. The US health system needs to be burnt down to the ground, I do not think RFK will do that but I welcome anyone who will try.
  
  Whatever replaces this shit show of a healthcare system is not going to be an improvement.
  For that matter, what happens when the collapse takes place? Everyone suddenly gets free healthcare? Or does nobody get reliable healthcare until the new system is in place? I hate this fucking system but i fail to see how trump and his cronies will do anything but line their pockets playing favorites for the billionaires that own the industry, leaving us somehow even worse off
  
  When the collapse happens the collapse happens. Millions will suffer but the slate will be clean for the next generation. That’s just how human history goes man, but it gets a little better every time we do this so theres’ progress!
  
  JFC I don't know which is dumber between unironically believing in accelerationism or stanning RFK. That is fundamentally not how the world works. What's actually going to happen is that we'll continue living in the shitty system we have now except with more diseases, less access to healthcare, and more quack medicine in its place.
  
  it gets a little better every time we do this so theres’ progress!
  Or...and stick with me here...we progress without burning everything to the ground. How the hell are we "progressing" if we repeat the same shit ad infinitum?
  I think step one for that would be to "stop advocating that we burn everything to the ground".
  
  If a pilot openly admits wanting to crash a plane into the ground but safety systems would prevent him from doing it, I don't want them anywhere near a cockpit.
- He says that. And then he wants to remove fluoride from drinking water. This dude wouldn't know toxic food if he ate a month old sandwich.
  
  Fluoride is worth questioning though, we don’t really know for sure whether it is harmful or not and science is increasingly proving that the risks are very real and maybe not worth the benefits. We don’t know for sure yet, but I think it should be left up to the communities to decide AFTER they’ve been given the chance to review all the current studies on the subject. It needs to be an informed decision.
  
  No we do know. Fluoride isn't harmful in the amounts we have in our water. It requires orders of magnitude more presence to be harmful. This is the exact anti science bullshit take that RFK is famous for so it's no wonder you like him. And if you don't like Fluoride, wait until you hear about iron, zinc, and magnesium. I mean magnesium is a straight up fire hazard, it'll even burn underwater.
  
  There’s a lot of assumptions there and you know it.
  We are assuming that it is being administered and tested for appropriately and regularly, which may not be true in many cases. We’re assuming that the food we consume is made with low fluoride water which may not always be true, as they could be made in a place where there’s high levels of fluoride in the water. When you account for all things they may well be overconsumption of fluoride happening. Toothpaste with fluoride is the norm already why should it be in the water at this point anyways?
  Anyways, read again: I never said that it is dangerous, I said there’s concern that it may be, which is the case because there are still studies coming out and being made. Including a meta study that indeed concluded that there is an inverse relation between fluoride and IQ. I’m not talking about RFK or some tiktoker, there are actual scientists that still question and research this. Science is not this static thing where we say “oh we know that already” and move on, otherwise we would still believe the earth is flat, that the earth is at the center of the galaxy and that bloodletting is actually a good cure for a cold. Science requires that the established be questioned over and over again for us to get closer to the full truth of every single thing. Doing the opposite of that is the real anti-science. In the case of fluoride we are still not fully sure, and that’s a fact. Or perhaps I should be more clear, we are not sure that the current levels may be the safe ones.
  The final and most egregious thing is that you ignored my conclusion, that this should be decided at the local level. You act like this would cause the end of the world, but there are many countries in Europe that don’t put fluoride in their water, most of them the countries that I consider being the most concerned with their populations health and well being. Finland for example doesn’t do it because people don’t want to, but it’s allowed if they wanted to. That is the way to deal with this.
  And whataboutisms are not arguments, especially bad faith ones. I’m not saying for example, that we should remove naturally occurring fluoride from the water. Holy hell I’ve never even stated that I’m against fluoridation of water, because I’m not. I’m just saying, we still don’t truly know if we have it right without reasonable doubt and therefore this should be decided at the local level.
  
  Our food could be made in a radioactive hellhole for all we know. That's why we have the FDA. These "what if" questions don't serve any purpose except to fear monger about fluoride. And not everyone can buy or use toothpaste regularly. It's a low cost preventative healthcare measure that works.
  
  I find your way of thinking troubling, it assumes that people are not capable of understanding nuanced information and that only academics in ivory towers are qualified to understand it, which is false in most cases. From my point of view that line of thinking is what has wrought the crisis of misinformation and mistrust.
  If I were to take your side I would have to believe that people need babysitting and then I would also argue that those kid of people should not be allowed to participate in democratic society. I refuse to give in to that line of thinking.
  There are some people that can’t afford X thing is so tired man, it represents such a tiny part of the population who could also reach out to other resources to get what they need. That’s really not a serious argument. Again the best European countries do not fluoride their water, and these are countries that very often if not always do what’s best for the population.
  Let the people decide if they want fluoride or not. More choice is better than no choice.
  
  Most of Europe has fluoridated water. And I'm sorry you don't care about poor people, that says more about you than the country though. There are things we do because they are unmitigated positives. There is no conversation to be had here. It isn't a matter of ivory tower academics versus the common man. It's science. It's well proven science. These arguments you're using are the ones used to make people question actual science. If you want to be respected in academic circles then take the time to find something not well proven and work on it. It's that simple. They aren't going to ask for your degree if your work is good.
  
  That’s patently false. Most of Europe does not have fluoridated water. I hate posting Wikipedia links so I won’t but only around 13 million Europeans have fluoridated water. What they do is put it in the salt, which I think is way better because anyone can choose to buy salt with or without fluoride.
  I never said I dont care about poor people, I said that people who are so poor they cannot afford toothpaste are extremely rare in the US and there are many organizations that would be willing to help them when they exist. In fact I doubt someone that poor would have access to potable water anyways. It’s frankly an argument that people resort to when they don’t have one but still want to defend government imposition.
  I’m not saying that you should question it because I question it. I’m saying you should question it because science still questions it, and studies are still being made. You’re basically dismissing every argument I’ve given you by simply brushing them away with strawmans instead of engaging with them. You still have not even explained why you are so opposed to the idea of people democratically choosing whether a chemical gets added to their drinking water or not. But whatever, I won’t continue to argue with you, you’re clearly entrenched in your side of the argument despite backing it up with 0 facts.
  
  Because it's already chosen democratically. And you don't want to post the wiki because it has the fluoridated water map.
  And yeah I get it, you think poor people should just fuck off and die.
  
  You’re right it is chosen democratically at least in some counties. I was not aware of that because there’s also often state legislatures that impose it. My bad.
  And I do not post Wikipedia because I do not think it is a serious source of information in which to base an argument , but sure I’ll post it because it still doesn’t show that the majority of Europe has fluoridated water.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_by_country
  Look at that, only 1% to 20% of the population has access to fluoride in the water supply according to that map.
  You know damn well I never said anything like that about poor people but you’re just a bad faith arguer. Have a good one.
- Nothing is worth vaccines. Vaccines are like, all we have.

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