And despite our difference in politics, I totally agree with the sentiment he expressed in the video you linked. There are people who just shouldn't vote (generally the ones who are influenced by the incessant ads that metastasize across media during election season).
On a related tangent, I am curious of your (and anyone in the greater RAFO community) opinion on the coalition of people Trump has brought under his campaign. I am referring to, of course, the disenfranchised Democrats RFK and Tulsi Gabbard. To me, it is an admission of the broken healthcare and foreign policy systems and a signal that there will be an attempt to fix said systems. But I am an odd duck, and would like to see what others feel on the matter.
I do not have much to say about RFK, but let’s zoom out and make it personal
• he is a former drug addict who used needles due to Heroin
• In the last year in court documents and also an interview he says he previous had Hep C and stuff about a worm around his brain. But let’s focus on the Hep C. Note this stuff is not new but only recently public. He testified about this stuff when he was getting divorced from his wife in 2012. Note until 2024 all of this has been rumor and stuff in books but since he ran for president third parties such as the NYT has seen the court documents and confirmed them.
• RFK’s drug addiction was age 28 / 29 / 30 even though he has been using drugs since age 15 after his dad was murdered in the previous year. The stuff that was happening in 1982, 83, 84 was he was given an attorney job as assistant DA before he passed the bar and after he did not pass the bar he resigned and was stressed out. He was arrested for Heroin use and so on and so on got clean, did probation, etc, etc.
Getting there
He supposedly contracted Hep C during that time. Here is the key fact. Hep C was not located till 1988 and 1989 where we created a test that could detect it, but we did not see the virus under the equivalent of a microscope till 2005.
Let alone treatment for Hep C, which we now have treatment for that fixes 95% of cases but costs tens of thousands of dollars.
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I can not stand RFK JR but I can sympathize with his story of dealing with a medical system that does not know how to treat many conditions especially the cases where you lack the name of what you have. Yet can be overconfident to the point of hubris for some other conditions. This is splitting w/ absolute certainity and absolute ignorance, two extremes, and leads people to do conspiracy theories naturally as cope.
And that is happening right now with political parties where people say all is well even when it is not. Literally if you look at the pseudo science of opinion polls, ever since February 2024 there has been a lower response rate for polls with the number of people identifying as Democrats when given three choices of Ds, Rs, Is. We have literally no clue why this occurred, it will always be multi-casual, multiple reasons. One piece of evidence that fits the data is Ezra Klein wrote his Op Ed and the follow up ones, followed by cable news, that Biden should drop out.
And I am all for Biden dropping out, my cards on the table. And I can not stand Harris, and I have rage for Trump, and my opinions on dozen of political issues I can be slow calm and methodical explaining them. Yet my anger and rage at this FARCE of the system is also there and it is frustrating to be calm and collected instead of just giving the middle finger or some other simpler form.
Well some people when you attack their leader they identify with, even if every attack lands, especially if every attack lands. Well they would want to stop talk to you. Why would I want to answer the phone and waste 20 minutes of my life doing a survey. Sounds like the opposite of a good time.
( and fuck the democrats, and fuck the republicans. Voted today, but BAH HUMBUG these parties deserve each other , lying not honest pieces of trash )
